<p>This just in: “Youth are Callow”. I’m going to file this next to “Pain Hurts” and “Sex is Gross if You Do it Right”.</p>
<p>
Okay, I’m a snob with respect to many aspects of popular culture; however, it’s impossible not to pick up a fair amount about the show by cultural osmosis, even if one doesn’t watch much TV period. But Idol, along with Jerry Springer and the “survivor” shows, indicates the existence of a vast number of people for whom the line between reality and fantasy is blurred to oblivion, who have little ability to be “self-contained,” and have little expectation of either privacy or individual dignity. I’ve been wondering what the next generation of parenting will be like; people have been saying that things are going to hell in a handbasket for at least 2500 years, so perhaps I shouldn’t worry too much.</p>
<p>Collectively, there is a lot of lip service paid to how important children are, that they’re our future, blah blah blah. But episodes of helicopter parenting aside, there seems to be relatively little thoughtful time given to parenting. Lots of eminently forgettable magazine articles, fads in parenting style coming one upon another in succession, etc., but most people just stumbling through, either following how they were parented–but not quite as well, kinda like what happens when you photocopy a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy–or in knee-jerk reaction <em>against</em> how they were parented.</p>
<p>A rambling mull.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that I disagree with you, TheDad, that many parents are just stumbling their way through parenthood, but I do think that there are some parents (like my own!) who have gotten it right, more or less. I don’t think that you can learn how to parent from a book or magazine–as we all probably know, those articles are often laughably vague/basic/over-generalized–and I don’t think that there is one right way to parent. I am a good example of this, I think–an admittedly odd child (odd person!), a loner who could have easily been stifled by “Parenting Magazine X”'s parenting suggestions. I think that a lot of people would be alarmed by the way my parents raised me (involved in few activities, not pushing me to make friends or be more outgoing, treating me w/o kid gloves, etc.). My parents certainly didn’t raise me the same as any old average child, but that didn’t make me narcissistic, because they never claimed that I was special or better because I was/am a loner. They just didn’t try to pigeonhole me into being something else. </p>
<p>They also never raised me to equate success in life with material or other tangible signs of success. As a family, we pretty much believe that success in life is happiness–we think that once you have enough money to live comfortably (as in, not living paycheck to paycheck, having a steady place to live, etc.–NOT 5 cars and 3 houses and 500 pairs of shoes comfortably), you have enough money to be able to be happy. More money won’t definitely bring you more real happiness, after this point. And people who feel like they NEED fame…are quite worrisome, in my book.</p>
<p>As for this everyone’s a winner/high self-esteem stuff, I think that just having sarcastic and cynical parents keeps that at bay. My parents (especially my father, who I take after in almost every way) are never willing to sugarcoat life. Of course they spoke to me as a 5 year old differently than they speak to me now, but I was never young enough for them to concoct a fantasy land of happiness and sugarplums and perfection. I think that this can also depend on the child’s personality. I have always had such an outsider mentality (again, a born loner (hate that word, by the way–reminds me of serial killers and such. I swear I’m sane!)), that I never ever bought into that sort of stuff when they tried to feed it to us at school. The concept of high self-esteem always reminds me of my least favorite word–“deserve”. The kind of high self-esteem that they teach in schools and that we are talking about here is the kind that makes people believe that they deserve the best in life, just because they’re them. I plain don’t believe in “deserving” something–good or bad things don’t happen because you “deserve” good or bad things, they just happen. </p>
<p>I think that there <em>is</em> healthy narcissism/self-centeredness/belief in oneself. Some people ARE smart, ARE talented, ARE exceptionally hard-working. But there is a difference between knowing that you have something good to offer the world and that you can make a good life for yourself and believing that you are the next prince/princess of society at large.</p>
<p>I’m with berurah on this one. Self-centeredness is not narcissism. Narcissism is a painful condition for the narcissist. Narcissus’ tragedy is that he is doomed to gaze at his reflection forever because it is the reflection that is real to him.</p>
<p>I have grave doubt about this index, and I have grave doubts about the so-called measurements of self-esteem. I believe that the items are pejoratively biased.</p>
<p>Sorry. I’m being nit-picky in a way. But in a another way, I’m not. We’ll never understand each other very well until we begin to understand the pain of conditions like narcissism. Or the fact that arrogance is a defense mechanism. Or the fact that true self-esteem is different from bravado.</p>
<p>Roger. Over and out.</p>
<p>Oh well, it’s better kids are arrogant than self defeatists. Also, this “study” seems to be pretty vague. Phrasing questions such as “Do you think you can change the world” and having a kid answer “yes” is not necessarily a bad thing, it shows some level of ambition. I think we all need(and certainly kids in some areas) some type of motivation to continue working and be productive workers in society. Could this type of attitude cause some kids to be lazy and expect things to be handed to them? Sure. But soon enough they will come back down to earth if they retain an “ordinary” or perhaps an inherently inferior lifestyle. I think this is what you all refer to when you claim they will all “grow up”. I also agree with the previous post that questioned if this increase in self confidence is because of the paralleled increase in individualism in women. If this is the case, then who the hell cares about destroying the patriarchal relationship ingrained in our society? </p>
<p>I think it would be better to do a study on how colleges waste tuition dollars by completing flawed studies on already understood concepts in human psychology.</p>
<p>This is BS.
This study was conducted while researchers had already come to a foregone conclusion. Twenge is already known known for his criticisms of modern youth and thus, he does not present a factual neutral study but rather “research” data, with misleading questions that he uses to aggressively support his ideals. He completely rejects any positive aspects of today’s youth, most importantly volunteering, which he asserts is merely a “high school requirement”. Even the evaluation itself, the so called “Narcissistic Personality Inventory”, is a bias in its own right. It does not account for the changing ideals of the times and stresses that the concept of individual rights and self reliance is rather a burden to society. The world is a different place since the 80’s and most people tend to think in too short terms of time to account for change. The problem is also that too many people place the absolute marker of comparison with the era of the children’s parents, and the fact that they pine for the anachronisms of the past’s outdated ideals. </p>
<p>Given the famously renowned U.S./world political climate today, I don’t think it’s a surprise when a 18 year old feels like he or she could do a better job.</p>
<p>
I know this isn’t directly related to the original topic, but YES. I agree completely.</p>
<p>I remember some sort of advertisement/self esteem program in my area–</p>
<p>It went something like “If you work hard, and try hard, and practice, you can be just like ___________(insert major league baseball player here)”</p>
<p>My kids were middle-schoolers when they saw this, and I pointed out to them that this was nonsense. Sure, hard work and practice are important, but so is inborn talent. I HATE that kind of mindless encouragement. I think it sets the naive up for a horrible disappointment later.</p>
<p>And I, at 48 am not going to be a rocket scientist or the winner of the Boston Marathon, no matter how hard I work or try.</p>
<p>I was brought up to believe that success meant having a stable family, paying your bills, and cutting the grass. I have a good friend who (also at 48) was told by her parents that she was destined “for great things”. She still doesn’t know what hit her, as her stable, middle-class life is not what was promised.</p>
<p>Wow, a lot of excellent and thoughtful commentary!</p>
<p>Do I detect an unusual amount of articulation and eloquence in this thread? Is it perhaps because nothing is so close to our hearts as the subject of our own selves? Interesting… could that be where our true talents lie?</p>
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<p>I doubt that any college tution dollars were spent on this study. Colleges in general, and cal states in particular, provide very little if any internal money to fund research. They can’t afford it. Research like this is almost always funded by outside grants, usually from the federal government or some foundation. And in cases where government money is used, the proposed research must be approved by a peer review panel that reviews it for scholarly merit before it will be funded.</p>
<p>“But that survey also showed that current freshmen are much more interested in financial success and less in “a meaningful philosophy of life” than students were in the 1970s.”</p>
<p>I think part of that is also that more people are going to college, and getting a degree is more important for the workplace now than it was in the 70s. Good, stable union jobs that people can take without a college degree are slowly disappearing, and as a result more people go to college simply so they can have more money later on. In earlier years, college was a privilege more reserved for those who already had money, and thus perhaps did not have to be so worried about being able to get it.</p>
<p>On a somewhat related topic, I saw an incident on the subway yesterday that made me wonder about some of my generation’s parents as much as us:</p>
<p>6/7 yo kid: “Mom, I don’t feel well.”
Mom: “Now hold on…that’s a complaint. Remember, before you complain, you have to give me a compliment.”
Kid: <em>something unintelligible</em>
Mom: “No, no, no. That’s an old compliment. That’s not good enough. New complaint, new compliment.”
<em>Kid throws up</em></p>
<p>Thankfully, my parents are never like this, but many of my friends seem to have turned out okay in spite of, not because of, parents like these.</p>
<p>krbanks:</p>
<p>Bizarre story. Bizarre parent.</p>
<p>
It’s so ironic that you mention this. I just had an argument (a friendly one) with my roommates the other day arguing in favor of your point but they sincerely believe that anyone can get a dream job like being a professional athlete if they just work hard enough. They said this applied to anything with the exception of “singing talent.” It was one of the most silly things I’ve heard in awhile…</p>
<p>There was a thread on here some time ago which said that the REAL talent from which other talents grow is the talent for constructive practice. Not just repetition, but ability to correct errors, be “coachable”, and enjoy practice. </p>
<p>As I have watched my sons and their peers grow up, it has been a rare and mature child who got the early jump on his peers, particularly in athletics, with this attribute. My kids certainly never had the attention span.</p>
<p>And even these, if they’re going to max out at 5’ 8", or don’t have the inborn talent, are limited by their genetics.</p>
<p>By and large, the peer parents I have met all over the world have been decent good-hearted folks who have done a fairly good job at parenting their broods. I can think of a handful who are certifiable.</p>
<p>I don’t idealize the 60s and 70s. My dad travelled four nights a week and he worked every Saturday–as did most of the dads on our block. The hands-off style of that generation of parents led to tons of independence–but it also was inadequate for the influx of drugs and early sex. So says me.</p>
<p>I agree with Doris Lessing. Our parents were scarred by the depression and WWII and their minds weren’t truly focused on the job of child-rearing. She thinks the boomers have been better parents and I agree with her.</p>
<p>weren’t boomers considered narcissistic as well…</p>
<p>I don’t have a ton of boomer friends who are narcissistic, who cannot stop reflecting on their own image. Hardly any, in fact. Maybe I know a bunch of givers and does? Who knows.</p>
<p>I do have a ton of boomer friends who are consumed by affluenza and material things. That seems to be an American and/or Paper Tiger thing.</p>
<p>Our parents were scarred by the depression and WWII and their minds weren’t truly focused on the job of child-rearing. She thinks the boomers have been better parents and I agree with her.</p>
<p>I find this comment really interesting. My parents were depression babies and lived through the hardships of WWII and I agree that those circumstances left a stamp on their psyches for life. However, I believe that the values that they held and transmitted to their children were positive ones. Hard work was the first value, integrity (there’s no such thing as a free lunch") perseverance, complete support and love of family.
That generation valued accountability, manners, and many kinds of respect. I don’t think that they were not focused on child rearing. I think they were very focused on their children, providing for them, guiding them, loving and educating them, to the best of their ability. I also think there was a much stronger deliniation between adult lives and children’s lives, with neither having the expectation that those lives would intersect in as many ways as seems to be de rigeur today.
The idea that our parents could call us up on a phone at any time and inquire about our activities or plans would have been anathema to us.</p>
<p>There was an interesting response to this article today in the Daily Trojan, USC’s student newspaper. Here are a few bits of it:</p>
<p>"Twenge also authored “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before.” This seems to call into question the integrity of the survey. If she is so invested in the decay of our youth to write a book about it, it’s easy to see how she might misconstrue an assertion of confidence (“I think I am a special person”) to actually be an indication of vanity.</p>
<p>And while most college students probably don’t believe they could improve the quality of the world by ruling it themselves, it’s important to take into consideration the cultural context in which the question was asked. There are probably plenty of students with enough pessimism about the Bush administration to feel that, at least, they couldn’t make the world a worse place by ruling it. And that’s not narcissism - it’s true."</p>
<p>“They thought our parents in their 1960s glory were too rebellious, our grandparents with their contraceptives too wanton and our great-grand parents with their flapper dresses and booze too promiscuous.”</p>
<p>Here’s the link: <a href=“http://media.www.dailytrojan.com/media/storage/paper679/news/2007/03/01/Opinion/You-Probably.Think.This.Article.Is.About.You-2750727.shtml[/url]”>http://media.www.dailytrojan.com/media/storage/paper679/news/2007/03/01/Opinion/You-Probably.Think.This.Article.Is.About.You-2750727.shtml</a></p>
<p>I heard an interview with Twenge yesterday on NPR. She struck me as angry and bitter, and I found myself wondering why she was so negative.</p>
<p>I also found myself wondering if the reason so many more of today’s students think they would do a better job if they were running the world (a sentiment that both my children have) is because they see such a terrible job being done by those in power. It’s hard not to think you could do a better job in Iraq when 75% of our population thinks Bush isn’t doing that well. (I see the same sentiment in Nikara’s post.)</p>
<p>However, I do think that meaningless compliments and overly generous grading systems undermine the value of real learning and real achievements.</p>