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[Mikro]

Reflections for the Day:

We wonder why kids today feel entitled? Why have they come to expect convenience and fulfillment?

We programmed them this way with the idea we would make there lives better than our own. We harbored good intentions for our children at the expense of not perceiving the unknown outcome later.

We older generations have lived through wars, protests, recessions, revolutions, communism, socialism, the expansion of industrial, as well as electronic marvels. We have lived through the ups and the downs of each of these, all while understanding the effect they had on our own level of comfort or discomfort.

The kids today have not, therefore they have no history or point of origin to reflect on for comparison.

Think about how we had radio, black and white TV. Then came color TV, we played outside as kids.The advancements in the years to follow have been extraordinary. We all had dreams that were fostered by our parents trying to make it better than before.

So we now wonder where all of the things going on in our parts of the world are coming from? We made it folks, it boils down to our own vanity. Somewhere we missed the boat and fostered the belief that life is easy to our children. Even our parents tried to shelter us from the harsh realities of the time, all while making us feel better that our lives were better than there own.

We all know better now, life is hard.

This new culture is a result of our own doings in some manner. The genie is out of the bottle now and I am not sure we can get it back?

My apologies to everyone as I am not trying to make this political, just looking at this from the outside looking in.

God Bless us all,
Sincerely,
MK

[ofelles]

Very well put.  I have perceived this for years.  Sad story.  I just hope they see the problem and adjust.

[Bentley]

I think we sometimes tend to lump all in when it is a minority that get the attention.  I remember a quote from a baseball player, it went something like...I remember when guys played the game for the sake of the game, it was not to see who could make the most money, the players today have become soft with that kind of thinking and the game has suffered for it...see who it was below.

Ty Cobb
1925

[Mikro]

I think we sometimes tend to lump all in when it is a minority that get the attention.  I remember a quote from a baseball player, it went something like...I remember when guys played the game for the sake of the game, it was not to see who could make the most money, the players today have become soft with that kind of thinking and the game has suffered for it...see who it was below.

Ty Cobb
1925

 I agree Bentley, When I look at what is going on it takes my mind to the the movie "The Replacements".

Very well put.  I have perceived this for years.  Sad story.  I just hope they see the problem and adjust.

Thank you, I also pray they see the light and adjust.


MK

[dk117]

I love a good millennial bashing and find great amusement in baby boomer jokes (I'm Gen X).  But allow me to be the contrarian.

A college grad from May 2020 (if they were able to finish) experienced the following (just from my top of head).

Soaring college cost and health costs
COVID-19
ongoing social injustice with riots and protests
Seemingly unending middle east conflicts
environmental catastrophes
dot com bust
Sept 11th
Housing bust in 2008 (and ironically now a housing market that they may never been able to enter as owners)
Stagnant wages

I'd stay the last 22 years have been quite a roller coaster.  If anything these kids have seen their parents go through a generation of uncertainty at every corner.    Anxiety is at an all time high across the board.

And on to your thoughts:
I coddle my teenage daughters and there's some truth to them being ... "soft."   There's increasing opinion and some data pointing to adulthood starting at 26 vs 18.   

[Bentley]

I guess it is all relative.  My dads adulthood stared at 10 when his father died, mine started at 46 when I got sober!

[Kristin Meredith]

dk -- I understand the point you are making, but frankly every generation has faced the same kind of issues and challenges which you outline, there is nothing unique in what kids raised in the last 20 years have faced.  I am a boomer, so older than you, so I am sure you don't have these experiences from the 60's and 70's, but your parents did:

The 60's

-- Vietnam War and watching it in living color every night in your living room (I remember coverage of the Tet Offensive very clearly)
-- 1968 DNC Convention and Chicago riots and 100 other riots all over country provoked by it
-- Assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evars, Malcom X, RFK
-- Peace marches and riots
-- Watt's riots
-- Rise of the Black Panthers, the Weathermen and other groups which sometimes promoted violence and bombings
-- Hong Kong Flu Pandemic

The 70's

-- Kent State shootings
-- 50% loss in stock market in 20 months
-- High unemployment, reaching double digits
-- High inflation, including interest rates of 20% which adversely affected consumers, especially their ability to buy cars and homes
-- Oil crisis and long lines and expensive prices for gas (sat in some of those lines)
-- Middle East conflicts
-- Love Canal and rise of environmental disasters and need for clean-up

I am not trying to make this a contest about "who faced more challenges growing up" -- because I know I lose that.  My parents had it a LOT, LOT worse in the 30's and 40's.  My point is that every decade has wars, crisis, financial problems, illnesses, violence, unrest, social injustice (Woodrow Wilson imprisoned and torture  suffragettes in Nov 1917 for daring to picket the White House for the right to vote)..  Every generation has grown up with those issues because we are humans and repeat them. 

To me, it is an issue of have we equipped our young people to now face and address those issues.  Sometimes I look at the 20 somethings of today and think we have, but increasingly I also believe that we have perhaps sheltered them just a tad too much (at least in the US) and I am afraid that cultures which have not sheltered their children as much -- and which have ambitions for a big role in the world -- will eat our youngsters alive in the next 20 years.

[Mikro]

dk -- I understand the point you are making, but frankly every generation has faced the same kind of issues and challenges which you outline, there is nothing unique in what kids raised in the last 20 years have faced.  I am a boomer, so older than you, so I am sure you don't have these experiences from the 60's and 70's, but your parents did:

>snip<

I am not trying to make this a contest about "who faced more challenges growing up" -- because I know I lose that.  My parents had it a LOT, LOT worse in the 30's and 40's.  My point is that every decade has wars, crisis, financial problems, illnesses, violence, unrest, social injustice (Woodrow Wilson imprisoned and torture  suffragettes in Nov 1917 for daring to picket the White House for the right to vote)..  Every generation has grown up with those issues because we are humans and repeat them. 

To me, it is an issue of have we equipped our young people to now face and address those issues.  Sometimes I look at the 20 somethings of today and think we have, but increasingly I also believe that we have perhaps sheltered them just a tad too much (at least in the US) and I am afraid that cultures which have not sheltered their children as much -- and which have ambitions for a big role in the world -- will eat our youngsters alive in the next 20 years.

Thank you Kristin,
I was going to point out the same as you. I am not diminishing anything Dk has said as he has very valid points.

@Kristin: you left out the 50s and the 80s problems we faced as well. I won't even go into those. LOL

My point was, we have all been guilty of sheltering our youth from some of life's harsh realities. By not having that information, they, as well as ourselves in our youth, do not or did not have the comparisons. Therefore we as a species continue to make the same mistakes.  Our culture continues to somehow forget the past and move forward in a way that is counter productive. It appears that each new generation in someways compounds the issues with blame on the previous generation without a true understanding of the past itself in it's entirety.

My children all have differing opinions as well. They are each 8 years apart in age. My oldest will be 53 in 2 weeks, my son 46 tomorrow and my youngest will be 38 in April next year.

My grand children range from 14 to 16 years of age, They have no clue? There lives revolve around there phones, tiktoc and other unknown social media traps. They are entranced to hear the stories from there Grand parents past. It was at one of those times I truly realized the problem. At least in my world?
   
Well. again my apologies as this was not meant to be a political debate. Just an observation of the perceived issues that we all have endured over one's lifespan.
Peace to you all.
Mike

[ofelles]

I have to remind myself often, that every generation says the same thing about the next one. "Oh my God, look at them, there is no hope".
Then I remember my hair half way down my back, bell bottoms with a headband and peace symbols.  To say nothing of the chemicals, pills and alcohol consumed in massive quantities. 
And yes Bentley, the delayed adulthood

In that sense I hope history just repeats itself because things have worked out each time.

[lil moose]

I have to remind myself often, that every generation says the same thing about the next one. "Oh my God, look at them, there is no hope".
Then I remember my hair half way down my back, bell bottoms with a headband and peace symbols.  To say nothing of the chemicals, pills and alcohol consumed in massive quantities. 
And yes Bentley, the delayed adulthood

In that sense I hope history just repeats itself because things have worked out each time.

It has BUT, there is a slow decline each time and this time around I'm betting it goes further then most.

Like you I remember being young and dumb about life and wondering how or why I should act like an adult but I did and thankful to be still here

But kids and young adults are (sorry if it offends) leaning to far left for it to right itself to center

Ill sit down now

[Hank D Thoreau]

The world is changing at an accelerated pace. The newer generations have learned to thrive in at this pace, while the older generations lament that it is not like the good old days. The amusing thing is that our parents said the same things about our generation as we are saying about the younger ones today. Let's not forgot what our generation was really like when we were young.

[Kristin Meredith]

"The world is changing at an accelerated pace."  I see this statement and really wonder how accelerated we have been in the last 50 to 60 years.

My grandmother was born in 1890 and died in 1967.  In her life time, she went from walking, using a horse and buggy on dirt roads, and some train travel to cars going 70 mph on superhighways and traveling by commercial airliners to major airports.  From the tallest building being a 12 story office building in Kansas City to the 102 story Empire State Building.  She, as a young teenager, read about the Wright Brothers taking their first flight and then lived to see men be shot into space and orbit the earth. She saw the rise of atomic and nuclear weapons and the development and use of telephones, computers, radios and TV. She saw unbelievable advances in medicine including the discovery of penicillin and advances in childbirth that saved hundreds of thousands of women's lives -- not to mention the develop of contraceptives -- and incredible advancements in medicine and medical care (unfortunately brought on by all the wars she lived through including the Rough Riders with Teddy Roosevelt on horseback through napalm in Vietnam).  I truly don't believe I have seen the same scale of advancement and change in my lifetime that she saw in hers.

[Bentley]

A Facebook friend posted this, I see no source to give credit to so I apologize to the author.  I have also redacted it!

Imagine you were born in 1900.  When you're 14, World War I begins and ends when you're 18 with 22 million dead.
Soon after a global pandemic, the Spanish Flu, appears, killing 50 million people. And you're alive and 20 years old.

When you're 29 you survive the global economic crisis that started with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, causing inflation, unemployment and famine.
When you're 33 years old the nazis come to power.
When you're 39, World War II begins and ends when you're 45 years old with a 60 million dead. In the Holocaust 6 million Jews die.
When you're 52, the Korean War begins.
When you're 64, the Vietnam War begins and ends when you're 75.

A child born in 1985 thinks his grandparents have no idea how difficult life is, but they have survived several wars and catastrophes.

Today we have all the comforts in a new world, amid a new pandemic. But humanity survived those circumstances and never lost their joy of living.
A small change in our perspective can generate miracles. We should be thankful that we are alive. We should do everything we need to do to protect and help each other.

[Mikro]

A Facebook friend posted this, I see no source to give credit to so I apologize to the author.  I have also redacted it!

Imagine you were born in 1900.  When you're 14, World War I begins and ends when you're 18 with 22 million dead.
Soon after a global pandemic, the Spanish Flu, appears, killing 50 million people. And you're alive and 20 years old.

When you're 29 you survive the global economic crisis that started with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, causing inflation, unemployment and famine.
When you're 33 years old the nazis come to power.
When you're 39, World War II begins and ends when you're 45 years old with a 60 million dead. In the Holocaust 6 million Jews die.
When you're 52, the Korean War begins.
When you're 64, the Vietnam War begins and ends when you're 75.

A child born in 1985 thinks his grandparents have no idea how difficult life is, but they have survived several wars and catastrophes.

Today we have all the comforts in a new world, amid a new pandemic. But humanity survived those circumstances and never lost their joy of living.
A small change in our perspective can generate miracles. We should be thankful that we are alive. We should do everything we need to do to protect and help each other.

 

[ofelles]

Thank you Bentley so true.