Today's Youth

WTF is up with today's youth?

Tuesday evening, we were back to playing H2 THC as a team. I think, that there was maybe one game, where we were winning, in which the other did not quit on us. One of the games, was Midship CTF. We capped the first flag, and the other team immediately quit.

Are we, as a nation, fostering a generation of quitters? That's what it feels like to me. Granted, this is a video game, but I wonder how these kids react to similar situations in real life.

When I was a kid, it was drilled into me by my father and mother, to never quit. Never. I was not allowed to quit a job, unless I had another one already in place. If I started something in school, I had to finish the entire season, or length that it required. Football, wrestling, track, chior, show chior, musicals, you name it. I could not quit. Never.

Are we not giving our children the tools they need to prosper as adults?

Thinking of this reminds me of my brother-in-law. He's different now, but when he first went to college, he expected his parents to help him out financially. He didn't ask. He expected. He felt his parents owed it to him.

Where does someone develop that thinking? Parents? Society? Peers?

When I got my first driver's license, my parents gave me a car to drive. Wait. "Gave" isn't the right word. "Loaned" is more accurate. I was told that they were letting me drive the vehicle, but it wasn't mine to keep. They also gave me $5 a week for gas. That was enough to cover going to school and back for that week. If I wanted to go anywhere else, I had to pay for it.

Are we just spoiling kids today? Are we enabling them too much?

I see kids today, and I see them wearing Abercrombie, and Aeropostle, and listening to their iPods and driving nice new cars. I see that and think, "Gee, I never had any of that when I was a kid."

If I wanted to wear "Guess", "Pepe" or "Z-Cavariccis", my mother would pay what she would have paid if she was buying "Lee" jeans, and I had to pay the difference. Somehow, I don't think kids today have to do this.

Gillian Anderson

View Image