<p>[Book:</a> College kids today are coddled, entitled - Chicago Sun-Times](<a href=“http://www.suntimes.com/14613764-418/book-college-kids-today-are-coddled-entitled.html]Book:”>http://www.suntimes.com/14613764-418/book-college-kids-today-are-coddled-entitled.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Truer words …</p>
<p>Oh for the love of pete. Sounds like sour grapes to me.</p>
<p>Maybe the book this article mentions does a better job of it, but the article itself gives no proof of the assertion. This sentence is the only “evidence,” and it’s a quote by the author.</p>
<p>Well one good thing (always looking on the bright side…), the book doesn’t reference Pascarella and Terenzini in their reference list. 
[Generation</a> on a Tightrope: A Portrait of Today’s College Student (Coursesmart): Arthur Levine,Diane R. Dean: 9780470376294: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Generation-Tightrope-Portrait-College-CourseSmart/dp/0470376295]Generation”>http://www.amazon.com/Generation-Tightrope-Portrait-College-CourseSmart/dp/0470376295)</p>
<p>Every generation has thought the younger generation beneath them was “coddled.” It was true thousands of years ago in the writings of Greek philosophers, and it’s true now. Yawn.</p>
<p>And on the flip side, some people claim we’re one of the most innovative generations. We’ll see.</p>
<p>D1’s boyfriend has a day job at a consulting firm, after work he goes to his night job as a waiter so he could pay off his student loans faster. D1 is working 14-16 hours a day and most weekends. Almost all of D1’s friends are working just as hard. I am not sure how coddled they are. </p>
<p>Each generation faces its own challenges. The best way of creating animosity between one generation to another is by name calling, and it is not very constructive. It certainly is not the kind of relationship I would like to have with my kids.</p>
<p>Very good points, PG, OF and Romani. They appropriately mention the increased ease of contact/connectivity with the increased contact between parent and child. Is this coddling? Not in my book. </p>
<p>Oh, another view of the bright side, they have Rowland’s Harry Potter in their reference list.</p>
<p>This was kind of a dumb article (perhaps the book is better) but I think there are some salient points…</p>
<p>Yes, kids today are generally in better contact with their parents–but I would argue that that is a combination of coddling and technology, in most cases. Because we have been accustomed to checking in more often with our kids, such communication is easier to maintain when they leave for college.</p>
<p>Yes, it is true that parents intervene in their kids’ lives more than those of previous generations–just ask any college professor who hears from PARENTS on a regular basis. (Come on–did any of our parents have any contact with our universities at all, other than to pay tuition and show up for family weekend?)</p>
<p>I could give numerous examples of parents in my area who have bailed their kids out of situations (“made them go away”) rather than having them face consequences for their actions–even when the kids are in college. And it only takes a few minutes on this site to come up with an abundance of posts from petulant kids who are dissatisfied with their dorms (“and my parents pay full price, so why should I suffer!”), angry that their roommates are not bringing as much stuff for the room, upset that their roommates haven’t emailed them back immediately (“she must not be as excited about college as I am…it’s been 24 hours…I want to switch roommates!”) and so on.</p>
<p>As someone who is surrounded by members of this generation at work, I can say without question that there are some very, very entitled young people out there…but there are also many with the same independence, humility and work ethic that we’d like to believe was more present in our generation.</p>
<p>If nothing else, we’re a generation of contradictions. We were raised with participation trophies but cut throat competition to get into top schools. We were raised in a time where everything was at our fingertips but also during the recession when the economy crumbled around us and many lost everything. </p>
<p>Also, my generation barely remembers a time we weren’t at war. We’ve had the dc sniper, 9/11, mass shootings, school bombings, anthrax, rise in extremism, the list goes on and we’re young. No wonder parents coddled their kids- we’re really a generation raised in a time of fear.</p>
<p>It occurs to me that a book won’t wind up on the remaindered table at Barnes and Noble if it makes the claim that today’s college kids are coddled and entitled. For whatever sad reason, people want to believe this, and they like to see things they want to believe on a printed page.</p>
<p>Sorry, but my kids are neither coddled nor entitled. They’re rather terrific, thanks much, as is most of their generation. Lots of grousing went on when it was time for the Greatest Generation to hand the keys over to the boomers too, if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>@romani: Interesting. Although every generation has dealt with its own fears. And I’m not sure being “at war” feels the same today as it did during some of the earlier wars.</p>
<p>Sally, perhaps. Maybe it hits those of us who’ve lost someone a lot harder. I personally don’t know anyone who doesn’t know someone who has fought or died overseas.</p>
<p>I agree with frazzled. Who would buy a book about terrific, well-adjusted chidlren? Every generation seems to think that THEIRS is the last hard-working, self-sacrificing, I-pulled-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps group of adults.</p>
<p>Funny. In MY workplace, I see a lot of coddled, entitled baby boomers and Gen Xers: gotta have the newest car, newest electronic toy, biggest TV, and most fabulous kitchen. (And Katie bar the door when it’s time to send Johnny to college and the money isn’t there.)</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s an age or generational limit on feelings of entitlement.</p>
<p>While our generation grew up with the Vietnam war in our living room, the immediacy of world events is on our phones or computer screens the minute it occurs. And as for college communication, I for one am glad that schools are providing safety/crime data. Assaults used to be hard to know about in our day.</p>
<p>Romanigypsyeyes: I too graduated during a recession (1981), terrorism was relatively new although Iran had just taken Americans hostage. We were supposed to be comforted by MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) as neither the US or the USSR would be crazy enough to start a nuclear war although we did have the doomsday clock which was always like seconds to midnight (total nuclear war). In the early 1980’s no one ever imagined a world without the Berlin wall. We were going to enter a new Ice Age, and the population would reach 10 B by 2000 and there would be mass starvation. Mortgage rates were 18% and the economic term of the day was “Stagflation”, inflation with no growth. The good old days. However, we were told by the Vietnam, Korean and WW2 vets that we had it easy and we were spoiled. Now I guess it’s our turn to say how easy our kids have while we believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Good luck, get us out of this mess, and go create a new (mess) one for your children! :)</p>
<p>
Absolutely, scout59. I work with seniors, most of whom are bona fide members of the Greatest Generation (though an increasing number are boomers - scary). Every day we roll our eyes about some of the octogenarians who could define “entitled.”</p>
<p>Does human nature change? I don’t think it does - or if it does, it evolves, it doesn’t change between generations. We’ve all heard the anecdotes, but I’m not buying that there’s been a deluge of parents besieging colleges and employers over the past 5 years until I see a better article than the one linked in the first post.</p>
<p>Lvv, jym has a point too. While that was the world you grew up in, imagine it amplified by 24 hour news, internet, internet phones, etc. It’s constantly, constantly there.</p>
<p>@romani: I am sorry the wars have touched you personally. I haven’t known anyone who has fought in any of the recent ones, but two of my son’s friends just enlisted in the Army. I feel for their families.</p>
<p>@scout: good point. Many of our parents didn’t even have credit cards, let alone use them or max them out. If you couldn’t afford something, you didn’t buy it.</p>
<p>@jym: also appreciate crime/safety data and emergency alerts that can notify people in an instant about a threat. It’s also great that we have so many “citizen journalists” who can document things with their smartphones, although of course that ability gets misused too.</p>
<p>“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”</p>
<p>~Socrates (469 BC-399 BC)</p>