Stop spoiling your kids!
So on the same day that Britney Spears' teenage sister announces she's pregnant, the siblings' mother announces her Christian book on parenting is on hold. Sometimes, folks, a satirist's job is done for him. This is perfect. This is the most amazing illumination of several things - media obsession with all things pointless, the public's obsession with fake news (as opposed to real news) and the inability of today's parents to, well, parent.
Yeah, I said it! What? What?
I'm not a father but I'm one hell of an observer. There are some good parents out there, but most of them are raising their kids to believe they're the centre of the universe, which speaks volumes about how future generations will behave.
Don't believe me? Do you commandeer your host's television when you go visiting? Do you just have to change the channel to the Treehouse network when you and your kids walk into a home that isn't your own to keep your kid quiet?
That happened to me recently when some friends came over with their kids. I had a perfectly good ball game on while I was fixing lunch for everyone and then suddenly the shrill whine of the Backyardigans filled our usually childless living room. The mother explained, "They won't stay quiet otherwise."
"Dear god...you could say no," I thought to myself. But that's not going to happen. And that's the problem.
I'm getting older now so I risk sounding like a crotchety old man here. But if that were me at age seven and my mother took me to someone's house and I wanted to change the channel I'd have been told in no uncertain terms, "NO. It's not your house. You're about to have dinner here. You will have more respect than that or I will take you home. Now go read a book."
I can't tell you how much news programming and sporting events I sat through between the ages of four and 13 because I always forgot to bring a book. It's probably why I'm such a news junkie today.
My point is, kids don't seem to be hearing NO anymore and I think it's because of parental fear. Parents want to be their kids' friends, not the bad guy. Youth culture has invaded parenting, and made parents think they have to be popular, like those ultra-cool parents on shows like Hannah Montana. And something is very wrong when Billy Ray Cyrus fits that bill, but I digress.
Kids are more spoiled than ever and this spoiling of children is spawning a generation who can't take care of themselves.
For Christmas this year my friend's 10-yearold child got almost everything he wanted, plus things he didn't even think to ask for - game console, camera, a Bentley, an island in the Pacific, the world - and he still looked up and asked why he didn't get the one thing he asked for but didn't get.
I still shudder to think what would have happened to me if I had acted that way. My parents never hit me, but they would have been VERY tempted.
This spoiling of children is evidenced by the relatively new term, "Helicopter parent", referring to a parent that hovers over every aspect of their children's lives including choosing a university, negotiating a salary for that first job. This is where the parent directs their kids lives in ways that would have embarrassed the hell out of me.
These parents choose university courses and fill out forms for their children. They argue with professors when they don't agree with grades and they even attend university functions for their kids. And it goes even further than that. More and more corporate HR departments are reporting that parents are calling in to talk to supervisors when things aren't going well for the "child", who by now should be at least 20 years of age and fighting his own battles. It was reported recently that one Fortune 500 company received a phone call from an angry parent whose 23-year-old son had to be let go because of a poor performance review. The parent first became very angry, then tried to negotiate his son's return to the company.
A recent CBC documentary interviewed a 19-year-old university student who couldn't get out of bed in the morning for classes unless her mother woke her up by calling her cell phone. More students didn't feel like showing up for their orientation sessions in their universities so the parents went in their places. HR departments in the United States and the United Kingdom have started training their staff on how to deal with the parents and they've resigned themselves to the fact that employees right out of university and college these days "Now come with parents," according to The Guardian in London.
A friend at a Toronto firm who works in HR told me that in Canada the law says companies cannot share information about an employee with anyone other than that employee without permission. Maybe there's hope here.
Skipping orientation? No ability to make educational choices? Getting "daddy" to call when they get fired? I was fired from a job at a dry cleaners when I was 16 because there was a break-in and they thought I had something to do with it. My father was a police officer and I kept him from getting into it because I thought it would have been inappropriate. But this new generation actually wants their parents to fight their battles for them.
And that's because it's what they've gotten used to. They have a parent who won't cut the cord and stop protecting them, and the kids realize it's the best way to get what they want without actually having to work for it. It's not helping the kid, or "Kid-dult" as they've come be be called in various media sources. It's not protecting the educational investment. It's about not letting the child grow up.
So for the sake of future generations, GROW UP!
Paul Hutchings
17 January 2008