Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Tuesday, June 05, 2007 12:35:19 PM
The Boomers are retiring, and here enters Generation Whine, the GrabbyBabies reared by helicopter parents who countered all efforts to discipline them by sending lawyers to scold that "It's not her fault!" Consequently, when they misbehave and end up in serious trouble, they have no idea how it happened, since nothing has ever been their fault.
Saturday at the park I saw a future leader of Canada screaming and flailing in his stroller. The instant Mommy set him down on the grass, he ran right straight into the street. Fortunately the cars passing by were only going 20 mph but if Mommy hadn't had an all star sprint and tackle born, one suspects, of experience, Little Precious would now be a grease spot on the park road and Mommy would be shrieking that cars should be banned from the park. Because of course it was not his fault that he was run over just because he wanted to play on a highway!
Later in the afternoon as I rode on the train, a Mommy read a story to her little boy, aged about seven, who sat beside her and kicked me. Every time Junior swung his foot, MOMMY said automatically, "Sorry." Finally I engaged Junior with eye contact and said "Please quit kicking me. Please." Then Mommy changed seats with Junior -- without speaking to him about his behaviour of course -- and continued to read.
You are expecting these "liberated" brats to take responsibility when from infancy they have been schooled by everyone around them to believe wholeheartedly that absolutely nothing that goes wrong anywhere is their fault?
Coupled with P.J.O'Rourke's "Toddler Liberation" (the freedom to pull down your pants in public and shove everything you can pick up into your mouth) this helicopter parenting-by-lawyer has made the world in which we live today and in which you (not us Boomers) will have to work.
Hope you enjoy things when we retire and your whole world is made up of text speak, vulgarity and people who take no responsibility for anything. Talk about reaping the whirwind! |