Our coddled, entitled children

kluge
Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:30:54 +0000

The article (and, I suspect, the book) is a mishmash of anecdotes revolving generally around the topic that parents tend to be more directly involved in their kids’ lives nowadays than was the case in the 60’s and 70’s. (I don’t know what the general nature of parent-child relationships might have been in earlier eras; I suspect reporting of accurate information on that subject may not be entirely objective and accurate.) The introductory statement:

They think, as individuals, they are destined for greatness but that America is headed toward disaster

could have been (and probably was) uttered frequently about my generation 40 years ago.

This part may be different:

More than half of them call their parents heroes and about 40 percent communicate with them daily.

Daily communication just wasn’t as universal back in the day; between Twitter, Facebook, texting, etc. the current generation is simply in constant contact with everyone they know all the time. (I’d find it exhausting, but I’m a dinosaur.)

What I doubt is that “this” generation is actually really different in any meaningful way from any prior generation. Yes, things are different than the way they were when we were that age but the differences are superficial. The urge to pander to the old folks by derogating those differences as “coddling” or “a sense of entitlement” is understandable (and probably profitable) but seriously: is there any objective evidence that average young Americans actually have it easier than we did back in the day? Or is it just codgery stuff like “We didn’t have smart phones! No, by crackie! We had to put coins in a pay phone! These kids just don’t understand how easy they’ve got it!”

I still say that no generation had it easier, or complained more with less justification, than the baby boomers. Not everything was peachy, but the world (and the American economy) pretty much kissed our butts for decades, kowtowing to the influence of our collective buying power, and with the confluence of post-WWII economic boom and a lack of international competition pretty much all the Average American Joe had to do was not screw up too bad and everything would turn out OK. Talk about “entitlement!”

The margin for error is much, much smaller these days. I don’t see the coddling.