In this HuffPost piece “Are we Raising A Generation of Helpless Kids” Generation Y and iY are portrayed as helpless and entitled kids raised by helicopter parents who all started down this path thanks to poison tylenol in the early 80’s. Or so says Tim Elmore. The whole thing to me seemed rather base and something written to pander to the older Generation who always seems to blame the ones after it for the worlds ills. Has no one else noticed this?
I see a lot of blame going around and found it interesting that the goal of the project was to: “give them the tools they lack before they’ve gone through three marriages and several failed business ventures,” As if the generation before isn’t doing JUST that. I agree, we are failing kids, but they are modeling the selfishness “me me me me” they see in the older generations and a society that has created the 1% that tells everyone “if you just work harder or smarter….” meaning that failing to be 1% means your not working hard enough or smart enough and that is just ridiculous. Now I am not trying to blame older Generations for this issue, but unlike Tim Elmore, I am also not ignoring their part in this. It is a very complicated problem and I really dislike how the Growing Leaders program is trying to sum it up and add further shame to these generations. Notice how no responsibility is placed on corporations? Yet they give more money to politics than any other and our government helps shape the schools and our society right? No responsibility is placed on marketing or media either. No mention of laws that no longer allow parents to let their kids go out and play on their own. Having a child fall off the monkey bars and break a bone these days will get social services called and investigate why the parent was not better supervising. Growing Leaders seems to spend a lot of time blaming these generations and their parents without real research into the “why” and without knowing that, nothing will change and the “tools” they are giving these kids will be little more than bandaids.
Personally, I don’t want Corporate America trying to parent for me any more than they already do. I believe they helped create this issue and are not scrambling to correct it without claiming any of the responsibility.
Being a teacher for almost ten years the system has recently changed unfortunately not for the better. When people start being parents and not excepting us to parent and teach and yet we are held accountable for it …. Oh boy could I go on.
I can imagine that is not an easy spot to be in!