A Catered Generation?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Is any of this hovering benefiting the kids?</p>

<p>From Judith Warner in the NYT today:</p>

<p>Loosen the Apron Strings
By JUDITH WARNER</p>

<p>There was nothing less than rage in my good friend’s voice as she read me the line from the summer camp handbook for parents: “Children expect to hear from you daily.”</p>

<p>“What’s the point?” she fumed. “I thought the whole purpose of sleep-away camp was to build independence.”</p>

<p>Perhaps it was — once. But these days, that notion seems to be going the way of cliff diving and watermelon with spittable black seeds.</p>

<p>It’s been well-chronicled for a couple of years now that rough-it-out, independence-building nature camps — like the Episcopal Camp and Conference Center that I attended in the 1970’s — are on the decline, steadily losing market share to more cushy places with air-conditioners, computers and highly structured sports that provide more of the comforts, and stresses, of home.</p>

<p>and then this, from the Boston Globe this morning:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/07/20/a_catered_generation/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/07/20/a_catered_generation/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A catered generation?
July 20, 2006</p>

<p>AMERICA, take a good look at the freshman class hitting college campuses this fall. According to some who study generational cycles, what we are witnessing is the rise of the next Hero generation. An echo of their World War II-era grandparents, the so-called Millennials, born after 1981, are being hailed as the promise generation, history makers who will define the new century.</p>

<p>There’s just one problem: At the moment, this is a generation that lacks the common sense to stay off deadly train tracks or campus rivers when they’re icy. A generation that can’t seem to make decisions without texting home, and whose helicopter parents – so named for their hovering ways – have actually begun negotiating salaries with job recruiters on their kids’ behalf.</p>

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<p>" colleges are rolling out increasingly elaborate orientation programs. Having long taken for granted a basic set of life skills, schools are having to spell out such dos and don’ts as Boston University’s: Don’t try to cross the icy Charles River in winter."</p>

<p>I think it’s ridiculous that colleges now are requiring parents and students to attend orientation programs before college begins. To me it is sad that apparently parents haven’t been doing their jobs raising their kids to be college-ready, and colleges apparently are having to pick up the slack.</p>

<p>As for the icy Charles line: When I went to Harvard, I had a friend there who stupidly walked across the icy Charles to Boston. He was high and wanted to take a shortcut. Fortunately, he made it, but it does show that college kids have been doing stupid things for a long time.</p>

<p>" A University of South Carolina official tells of a mother asking that her photo appear on her child’s student ID card. ``Because anytime there is a problem, I’m going to be dealing with it."</p>

<p>Sounds like that mom needed more than orientation to teach her appropriate parenting skills.</p>

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<p>I was with Warner’s column for a bit, then it got dumber and dumber and full of wild, non-fact-based assumptions. As far as I can tell, she can’t keep from hovering over her kid, so she needs to send her away for a while. I myself never cared what order they read their books in or if they finished them or not. I liked the fact that their summers were almost entirely unstructured. She shows absolutely no proof that people are sending their kids away less because they can’t bear to part with them.</p>

<p>In the same edition of the Times, there’s another article about kids and sports camps, and how over-scheduled their summers are. One dad laments that his kid is skipping the family vacation to Italy to attend yet another sports camp.</p>

<p>Everyone finds their pet “trend” to sound the alarm on. Once you read enough of them, it’s hard to take them seriously.</p>

<p>And as far as kids now not having sense–um, kids have been killing themselves through stupid stunts since kids existed, unfortunately. the idea that this is new is fairly silly.</p>

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<p>garland, I’m with you. This sounds like just another “the younger generation is going to hell” piece that I’ve been reading since I was a kid, and that was a LONG time ago.</p>

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<p>I think my generation is definitely much more lazy, pampered, and complains more than the previous one.</p>

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<p>See, I didn’t think either the editorial or article was dumb or silly at all. I work with some college aged kids and I am amazed at the number who are still sending their papers home to be edited, or afraid to make the smallest decision by themselves. I do see parents who want to cushion their child’s discomfort, and wouldn’t send them to a sleepaway camp with old fashioned screened tents, where the bathroom was a spooky walk by flashlight away (I remember that scenario well). </p>

<p>Is this the norm nowadays? I don’t know, but I definitely think there is some truth, at least from what I have witnessed and experienced, which is different from generations past.</p>

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<p>Yes this generation expects to have their egos inflated unnecessarily, and also expects a ‘great job!’ for even the most stupid thing they can do.</p>

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<p>Maybe the whole Amber-alert climate we have raised our children in is part of it… we’re afraid to let them hang out there too far…? </p>

<p>I remember taking a public bus from Berkeley to San Jose to spend a three-day-weekend with a summer camp friend when I was eleven years old. I went to Europe when I was 14. When I went back east to college, I flew there by myself.</p>

<p>My parents were incredibly laissez faire (hippie style)-- and there were times that it really irked me-- but boy did they raise functional, independent kids!</p>

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<p>Allmusic–I’m sure that they exist, just as I’m sure that the over-scheduled kids exist, and the neglected by the busy parents kids exist, and the inner-directed kids exist, and the couch potato kids, exist, etc, etc, etc. They’re all pushed too hard; they’re all mindless and lazy. Ad nauseum. I think that every column I’ve ever read describes some kid I know, but overall, not one of them comes near to describing most of the kids, or families, I know. Once the generalizing starts, it’s like “attack of the trendoids” to me.</p>

<p>(for the record, I didn’t send my kids to camp, I pretty much left them to their own devices. But if I had, it would definitely be a screens, outhouse, woodsy kind of place.)</p>

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<p>I have been sending my kids to the same summer camp for the last 13 years (alas, it is only my youngest there now, and it is his last as a camper). It lasts a month, and they started going when they were 5 or 6. Many people have looked at me like I was crazy to be parted from my kids for so long at such young an age. But, my kids loved it and all attened until they aged out. When they were younger, I would write maybe twice a week, and that seemed to be enough. Now, I write once a week, and he is fine with that too. I absolutely believe that they gained an incredible amount of independence from their camp experience, and they made life long friends with the kids that they see once a year. The camp is very strict about contact with the kids. They are only allowed to call or accept a call if there is some kind of emergency. The camp teaches them many skills besides archery, rifelry, canoing, etc. it also teaches decision making skills, leadership, and manners. It is a good thing to let your kids find out that they don’t have to be with mommy all the time, and they can figure things out on their own.</p>

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<p>As for swimming in the Charles or walking across it in winter, heaven knows it’s been done for years. And the administrations of Boston and Cambridge colleges have been advising against it for years.</p>

<p>Have high school and college students ever had common sense? ;)</p>

<p>I’m of the considered opinion that my children–and my children’s friends–are far more sensible and have way more common sense than their mother and father, both of whom did some spectacularly stupid things in their green and salad days.</p>

<p>Is there any non-anecdotal evidence for the so-called rise in helicopter parents and catering to children beyond this kind of mindless “oh my god, I met a kid whose parents came to college with him and decorated his room” article? </p>

<p>I do think it’s possible that parents drive kids around more than they used to–but I think that reflects the decline of public transportation and the rise of suburbia. The trains that ran in Phila at 20-minute intervals all day when I was in high school now run less than once an hour, for example.</p>

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<p>D#1 is a rising HS Junior, away at a Leadership conference in LA (home is sunny Florida). She has been gone for three days and I have had all of one call and one text response that said “OK.” The call lasted 20 seconds tops–“I’m fine, the dorms are nice, got to go.” Guess she is doing fine. Guess that means I did OK.</p>

<p>D#2 is a rising HS freshman and is away at the the Everglades Youth Conservation Camp. There are 10 concrete block cabins (yes-there is air conditioning but none would be totally inhumane) and a large “mess hall.” And they spend 16-17 hours a day outdoors with the mosquitos, the palmettos, the pines and the water. She has been going for years, and this will be her last year as a camper, next year as Junior counselor. No calls allowed, no hair dryers allowed, no cell phones, no ipods, and certainly no computers. Her biggest problem is the “bring no makeup” rule. But she loves it and went for two weeks this year. She comes back with a real appreciation of how easy she has it. I think it keeps her grounded.</p>

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<p>

Oh I would love to be there!</p>

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<p>Saw the article in the Globe this morning. My S is at an overnight camp this summer as a counselor, has been attending since he was 7 (went for eight weeks and therefore has seniority within his “class”). He has his car with him, only a half hour or so from home. Called us Sunday because he had a flat tire and didn’t know if he had a spare or where it might be. Thought he would know that. And he is the one with the common sense skills. Hate to see what his brother is up to.</p>

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<p>I’m with Garland. A lot of these pieces say more about their authors than about actual social trends. </p>

<p>Now, I have not read about college students competing over how many goldfish they can swallow. Is it a trend? Is the world going to h… in a handbasket or what?</p>

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<p>Sadly, most of what you’re reading in those articles is true. I am a Millennial but am more independent than most of my friends, who want their parents’ approval for everything and can barely make a decision for themselves. I was curious and read a GREAT book on the topic, called Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. There’s also one called Millennials Go to College: Strategies for a New Generation on Campus that is more for colleges, to help them figure out how to deal with Millennials, but it was fascinating.</p>

<p>Our generation is definitely different than Boomers and Gen Xers (my mom is a Gen Xer but hates being called that, and then I read that Gen Xers hate being classified, and laughed my butt off). Most of us have been raised by helicopter parents who overschedule our days and micromanage everything we do, and who gave us praise when we were little for the dumbest things. We’ve also grown up with Columbine and WTC, so the world doesn’t seem as safe as home, where we’re taken care of.</p>

<p>I don’t fit the bill as much as my friends (can’t wait to leave home and go away to school, do my own thing!!), but it makes a lot of sense. You parents should read one of those books, and definitely go to the orientation programs. At JMU (James Madison), they pulled the parents into their own orientation and basically talked to them about cutting the strings a bit and giving the students more room to grow independently. We can’t do that if you hold on so tight. Not everyone does, but the stories in those books will make you think.</p>

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<p>Allmusic posts: “I do see parents who want to cushion their child’s discomfort, and wouldn’t send them to a sleepaway camp with old fashioned screened tents, where the bathroom was a spooky walk by flashlight away (I remember that scenario well). Is this the norm nowadays? I don’t know, but I definitely think there is some truth, at least from what I have witnessed and experienced, which is different from generations past.”</p>

<p>There is some truth to it. In fact, it describes me perfectly. I am one of those parents. I don’t do their school work or resolve any problems that they can resolve, but I can’t bear to be away from them and seeing them experience even the smallest level of discomfort makes me nuts. I am totally over-protective and I worry about everything. My only saving grace is that I generally don’t act on those feelings or if I can’t help myself, I’ll tell the two teenagers that I’m having anxiety about X and would they help me resolve that. My girls are remarkably self-reliant, on the ball and sensible (in spite of me). They both understand that I lost a sister in childhood (which is the cause of the anxiety) and are great about keeping me updated and reassuring me that they’re doing safe things. They choose to see my need to have frequent contact as just another way of being courteous to someone who needs that level of courtesy. I work very hard to show them how much I appreciate that and to make sure they know how much I trust and respect them, and I’m aware of the fact that my anxiety could impede their growth and work as hard as possible to not cross the line.</p>

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<p>A lot of people on this board seem to be clumping overprotective parents and the flaws of our generation with kids who get homesick (they also seem to be implying that liking to be in contact with one’s parents is a bad thing). From my personal experience, however, it seems as if most people from our generation love to be away from their parents. I personally have a problem with many posters implying that kids who like to write home every other day are spoiled and dependent. I am admittedly one of those kids. I am close to my family and (gasp) like hanging out with my mom. I have experienced homesickness in the past, at a language immersion camp, at a wilderness leadership camp, and at my very first sleepaway camp in elementary school. But does this mean that I’m not mature or independent? No way. I know many kids who would never in their wildest dreams live in the outdoors for two weeks without showers and exposed to the humidity of southern appalachia. </p>

<p>My point is that it is bad to generalize about people based on the need to write home, etc. I have been uncomfortable with my homesickness in each situation, but you know what? That doesn’t stop me from going and doing things that I want to try, despite my closeness to home. I am currently planning on going abroad for a year between HS and college. Will I be homesick? Yes. Will I feel the need to call or write home often? Yes, at least at the beginning. But I will get over my homesickness and experience personal growth, learn a new language, and gain independence. </p>

<p>Closeness to one’s family does not breed selfishness and laziness. That generalization is one I resent.</p>

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<p>I’ll bet that more kids are going to camp nowadays than a few decades ago when kids stayed home in the summer as did mom. Mom could thus hover to her heart’s content without newspaper columnists/pop psychologists writing about it. Now mom works year-around, so more kids go to camp, which leads to more homesickness and more writing/calling home.</p>

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<p>But that’s just it. The moms of past generations <em>didn’t</em> hover as much. I can look back at my own experience growing up, that of my friends, my DH, and none of us had hovering parents (and we did go to camp…rustic Y camp that would make most people squirm it was so primitive!). We made plenty of mistakes, did a lot of dumb things, but we didn’t have parents there protecting our every move.</p>

<p>I am much more protective than my own parents were, or others of that generation, because times have changed, but much less than much of what I witness personally or read about.</p>

<p>I think it is very interesting that people here on CC poopoo this phenomenon and act like it doesn’t exist, and that it is just a figment of modern pop psychologists’ collective imaginations. In my own pop psychologist world, this phenomenon is alive and well!</p>