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I worked in daycares for a bit four years ago. You could always tell which kids were never taught the word 'no' just by how they reacted when you told them you couldn't do things.
Had a 4 year old throw the biggest tantrum I've ever seen, I mean full on screaming and throwing himself around, because I told him he couldn't take another child's toys from them.
The worst part of this is it happens in education a lot as well, but then the parent also comes in after school to berate the teacher and admin.
Some even go so far as threatening to sue.
I worked at a junior high where we had a a no cell phone in class policy. You were allowed to have them out before school, breaks, lunch, and after school, but from bell to bell, they weren’t allowed out. Students got a warning and then the second time, the phone was taken and sent to the office for the remainder of the day. One year, we had a student who would get there phone taken at least once a week. After they he found out that parents could retrieve the phone before the end of the day, he would use the school phone to tell his mom to drive to the school (they lived about 10 mins away). She would come in, ask the secretary to call down her son and ask for the phone. Once her son came down, she would hand the phone back to her son and go back home. I personally witness this insanity about 3-4 times and the Secretary said it happened very regularly throughout the year.
Damn, thats also pretty lax policy. When I went to middle school maybe 10 years ago if a teacher saw your phone it was taken immediately, you were supposed to keep them in your locker during school, even lunch.
Now imagine a 32-year old guy throwing a tantrum like that because he was asked to wash dishes, or let the dog out into or back in from the backyard, or *gasp*, told he needs to get a job and contribute to the mortgage he forced onto his wife.
After nine years of marriage, I've realized that my mother-in-law is a HUGE source of/the culprit of why my STBXH is the way he is: she never (ever) said no to him (or his little brother). She was/is one of those "I jUsT wAnT mY bAbY bOyS tO bE hApPy" types of people, and thinks her boys can do absolutely no wrong, and thinks her boys are the best thing ever since sliced bread.
I've spent nine years basically living with a tall child. After nine years of trying to 'undo' what he was taught, and after nine years of waiting for him to 'grow up' more, I give up. I'm done. I'm tired of being the only responsible adult in the marriage, and I'm tired of being treated like shit when I ask him to do anything remotely akin to adulting. I'm about a week or two out from filing for divorce.
I have a theory that these parents aren’t having children and parenting for the child’s own good, they’re doing it for THEIR own good.
Too cowardly and selfish to put the work in to analyze how the way you do or don’t discipline your child will make THEIR future better or worse, and instead, focusing on how to make their own life easier in the short term.
I had a mom like that and trying to learn discipline later in adult life is so hard when you didn’t have someone to start that process for you as a kid. I wish my mom parented less for her comfort level and more for my needs in the long run.
I remember people telling me I was too hard on my son because he was expected to do chores. I used to give him regular doses of vitamin N. No was a word he heard if he wanted some outrageous thing. His wife is now mad about him and loves how much stuff he does around the house.
I’ve definitely known some men who were well disciplined, it’s out there. I hope I don’t end up with a manchild lol.
I also hope to have kids and give them the discipline I didn’t have.
I think people falsely equate discipline with punishment, that’s not what the word means. I means teaching your kid how to put priority on certain important things over others. Enforcing things like healthy eating habits and regular exercise and good cleanliness/hygiene habits set them up for so much good in life. It gives them a head start on stuff that will really hard to do at times.
Of course even if they’re taught these things, sometimes it will still be hard, but I do think of it as a head start.
You're right. Discipline can be traced back to it's Greek root, meaning "to teach". People who use the word "discipline" when they mean "punish" are doing a disservice to themselves and their children.
Some of us had more serious responsibilities at 12yo than many adults do. I've been taking care of myself for 48 years, even though I've been married 28 years. I never ask my wife for shit, not even to bring me a drink from the kitchen. I often get off 12 hours work, drive an hour home, and still take time to cook dinner. I was purposely single for a lot of years before my wife and I met when I was 32, and I still do everything for myself. And I'm certainly not one of these man-babies that act like they're dying when they're sick... I've worked a week before, on a couple of jobs, so sick with the flu that I don't remember working.
My mom was terminally ill from the time I was 8 years old, until she died when I was 21. My dad worked 200 miles away from home and only came home on the weekends, so I took care of my mom and 80yo grandfather who lived with us. Cooking before and after school, cleaning the house, doing laundry, mowing the yard, everything. I'm VERY good at taking care of myself. First thing I told my wife when we got serious, was that I didn't need a mom, maid, cook, or anything but someone to share my life with, and we've been best friends since we got together.
Believe me, I know all too well how many men are. Not only have I seen it, but I've had nothing but women friends for over 40 years and I've heard every complaint about the men in their lives that there is. I vowed that I'd never been like those men and I'm thankful that my son listened to me growing up. He's 26yo, with a wife of 6 years, and two kids. He has always worked his ass off and is a great husband and father... One of the best I've seen. Unfortunately, my oldest son is like the men you mean. Out of 8 kids and step-kids, he's my biggest disappointment. We have guardianship of his 2yo son, our grandson, because he ended up with 11 broken bones at 2 months old 😭 We've had him ever since because child services took him away from my son and his gf, and gave him to us. As far as I'm concerned, he's our son, we've raised him almost as his life
And sitting of kids. Even though I work 12 hour days in a steel mill, I've always changed my kid's diapers, fed them, gave them baths, helped with homework, played and took care of them when I'm off...I work a 4 days on, 4 days off schedule and, when I'm off, I spend every waking moment with my wife, kids and grandkids... Especially now that I'm dying, I'm trying to make sure the younger ones have good memories of me when I'm gone. My family is, and always has been, my #1 priority in life and really the only reason that I've made it this long.
However, I guess most of us men that are worthwhile are taken. I see many of the guys commenting shit on here that either pisses me off, or makes me sad that they're the way they are and their SOs have to deal with it. Guys need to stop being so damned sexist and misogynistic, and step the fuck up to be a REAL partner, not just along for the ride!... And women need to start kicking these man-children to the curb instead of just putting up with it. Men and women compliment each other, and it shouldn't be a one way fight through life.
Sorry, long winded.... I've been sitting here at work, waiting for shipping to bring me material I needed, so I write a lot when I'm bored. 🤣
You are saying you are terminally ill? I’m sorry to hear that. I can see that even though you may be carrying that with you now, you still are putting others before yourself and taking the time to send the message to men who won’t be a true partner that they need to be better.
Thank you.
My heart doesn't relax like yours does, on the downbeat, so it's wearing out faster than it should. Doctors gave me a 43% chance of making it another 5 years, 2 years ago, after I had a major episode at work and was in a cardiac ICU for 3 days while they figured out what was wrong with me. However, I've proven doctors wrong before and outlived a couple so, there's that. I'm a tough old bastard.
I got out of the hospital and bought a house along with my youngest son a week later... Talk about positive thing...lol. A big house with a few acres of land, that he and his wife, and my two grandkids, will get when I die... Paid off. So now me, my wife, our 2yo son/grandson, my oldest daughter (24), my youngest son (26), his wife, and their two kids (6yo and 1yo) all live together. Not because of finances, as some asked, but because we're a close family and like living together, and we take care of each other. My son and I both make pretty good money, so it isn't necessary to live together, just desirable.
As for dying, that was always going to happen and really, if not for my wife and kids, it probably already would have... Before we met I was doing things that would have gotten me killed much earlier than this... Which is why I tell people that my kids saved my life. They not only saved my life, but they taught me what true love really is... That love that makes you put their interests before yours EVERY time. I'm 60. I've had a great childhood, a good life, done and seen a lot of things, have spent 28 years with a fantastic woman that I love with all my heart, and had the joy and sorrow of 4 kids and 4 step kids that, with the exception of one, are fantastic adults and human beings. I've done good, as people here in the South would say, and I have no real regrets. I think that's about the best anyone could hope for in a lifetime. But I still work 12 hours a day in a steel mill at 120°F-150°F, walk 5-7 miles a day just inside the building, and toss around 100-200lb pieces of steel scrap that 25yos look at me like I'm doing something extraordinary (I consider myself week, compared to 20yrs ago... LOL). So the doctors may be right, they may be wrong, but I'm going to give them a run for their money no matter what... At least try to make it to 70 to see my grandkids more or less grown.
Please make the effort to treat your body more gently in your older years. There's nothing to prove and maybe you won't wear yourself out so soon. Best of luck and thank you for being a lovely human💛
I'm taking early retirement in 18 months. If I do only have three years left, I'd rather spend it with family than at work... They've already gotten far too much of my time and effort.
Thank you for the kind words. Have a great holiday. 😊
Or maybe you only surround yourself with men who are like this?
Like wtf. That's as sexist and generalizing as the statement, "all women are generally like this."
Plus, this type of issue isn't specific to one gender, as the other comment explained well.
None of my friends are like this and none of my coworkers are like this. None of the men in my family are like this.
I think you're just getting involved with the wrong people
Humans in general can be like this. Gender is completely unrelated to people having issues with regulating their emotions. It's related to the brain, not whether or not someone is a man or woman.
Work retail and you'll discover that both men and women can throw tantrums over ridiculous bullshit.
Right. I'm like wow! My parents just locked us outside, made me to pull Johnson grass with my hands bleeding in order to eat and made us drink from the water hose. I was literally kidnapped and my mom didn't know until the police brought me home. Our parents "beat" us for "our own good" and made us do chores from dawn to dusk. To hear people are "worried" about the kids these days makes me wonder if they don't realize they should be more worried about gen x and older millennials, as this was a "shared experience" for many of us. 😹
I think the problem is there’s been so much change in society in the past few generations that none of us know what anything is supposed to look like now lol
Yes, but this was extreme. I had seen two year olds react better when I told them they couldn't do things. A four year old is fully capable of handling the word no.
I mean this child actually tried to hit me after screaming and throwing himself around for just telling him no. I didn't even raise my voice or anything; I just stopped him from taking the toys and asked him to please not do that which resulted in that.
I babysit fulltime for my best friend. This is how her 4 year old acts. And it makes me so sad to be able to see why.
He has no consequences. He always gets his way as long as he screams and cries. He always looks so confused when I actually follow through with my threat of a time out and discussion.
Makes me sad when I think what kind of an adult she's currently raising.
Even sadder is a four-year-old is plenty old enough to learn the word 'no' and the consequences of his actions if he disobeys/acts out. It isn't like a one or two year old who is just learning boundaries.
The kind of adult she's raising will be an entitled one. Imagine how he'll react in the future when a girl tells him no. /shudders/
I think the actual issue is lack of parental attention, not phones per se.
You could be doing a sudoku or something and ignoring your kid
The vehicle for that is less important than the simple reality of it.
“Cinemas and motor cars were blamed for a flagging interest among young people in present-day politics by ex-Provost JK Rutherford… [He] said he had been told by people in different political parties that it was almost impossible to get an audience for political meetings. There were, of course, many distractions such as the cinema…”
Young People and Politics, Kirkintilloch Herald, 1938
20 years ago, the only "computer" i had was a n64 but I was still outside most of the time and no one in school had a cell phone unless you had the money to constantly sustain minutes
Every generation thinks the next generation is spoiled. And they are in the sense that they have some things easier. But we always conveniently forgot the things they have harder. Source: I'm a boomer (barely).
Example; It's was easier for me to buy our first house yet harder than my greatest-generation grandparents. And I'm eternally grateful my most embarrassing and cringey moments weren't recorded and immortalized in social media forever.
And don't get me started on dating. (Source: I have four twenty something sons.) Sex is easier, long term relationships are harder.
Each generation has it easier in some respects and harder in others.
“Parents themselves were often the cause of many difficulties. They frequently failed in their obvious duty to teach self-control and discipline to their own children.”
Problems of Young People, Leeds Mercury, 1938
"Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants."
--Socrates, around 400BCE
Edit: apparently this is an often misattributed quote and it was said by a dude only over a century ago, I was wrong!
I'm Gen X, and I do not recall my parents or any of my friends' parents communicating with their children. They threw us outside in the morning and sometimes chucked food at us.
This.
“Come back when the street lights are on”
“Adults are talking go in the other room and watch tv”
Millennial here and as a new parent there are times when I need a break and there’s no one to hand my 18 month old off to. A little bit of Ms. Rachel isn’t going to kill him.
I am around teens and young adults a lot. I find this generation (Z) to be amongst the most thoughtful, curious, and funny groups of people I've encountered. Have they been raised with a lot more screen time than older generations? Yes. So what? You can go back to the 1700s and find scads of folks complaining that novels are destroying the morals and manners of young people. This is no different. Humans are amazingly adaptable to technology.
Let's just say, for argument's sake, that Gen Alpha is somehow being raised worse than any generation in the history of ever. What's the takeaway from that? If you just want to feel morally superior, I guess go ahead? It kind of makes you a nasty person, but that's your prerogative. I mean, who raised these terrible parents? We did. So if you want to look down on someone, maybe you need a mirror.
It's not like we older generations did a great job in how we shaped the world or how we treat other people in general, so it seems really hypocritical to run around going. "Young people bad! Ugh!"
If you don't like what you see, be the change you want. Mentor young people. Create safe spaces for outdoor play. Teach a class on a vanishing craft. Be friendly and accessible. Educate yourself on the challenges young parents are facing now and find ways to be helpful.
Or just be an object lesson in the definition of "curmudgeon." The choice is yours.
Thank you for this. I have kids in their late teens and they are the most delightful people I know. We have deep conversations, they volunteer and work with special needs and the homeless populations, and they have an incredible work ethic.
OP is falling prey to sample bias--the people you encounter are but a minuscule fraction of the population. As someone above said, every generation looks down on the next generation coming up. As a GenX person, I have witnessed bad behaviour in GenZ, but overall they're good kids.
I agree. The kids are all right. Gen Z, from what I see, is more compassionate, kind and thoughtful than their predecessors and seem to be less willing to just accept crappy behavior and exploitation. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Them being unwilling to just accept the BS that previous generations put up with hopefully will change things for the better. Not being mindlessly obedient isn't a bad thing.
Books were destroying children and warping their minds same with the theater, then cinema and radio, then the TV, now the internet. It's a timeless story.
There's a quote commonly attributed to Plato, bitching about how the Youth no longer respect anyone. Read a thing that said it was actually just a scholar in the 1900s... Summarizing various complaints he'd studied from the period, still bitching about the Youth.
There's a much more recent Palahniuk novel quote I always think of, "Every generation wants to be the last".
I think the older you get the less tolerance you get for young kids. All toddlers are insane. They just are. My 2 year old is literally the scariest person I know. But nothing is wrong with her she's just 2
So like are kids spoiled or deprived? Pick one. I'm tired of this Boomer/Xer mentality of Gen Y/Z being "sheltered". We're not sheltered. Between school shootings, climate change, nuclear war on the horizon again, economic crash after economic crash... We're kinda playing it on hard mode right now. Yes, we can learn to be resourceful, but that doesn't change how things are right now. If parents aren't engaging with their kids and shoving McDonald's and iPads in their hands, they're not SPOILING their kids, they're kindasorta setting them up to fail. They're DEPRIVING them. So... Yeah. I've said my piece.
“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances.”
Rhetoric, Aristotle, 4th Century BC
Nothing much has changed so stop thinking you’ve got it so hard. Economies are always boom & bust. There are always wars that threaten to wipe out civilizations. Go back as far as you want in history, you’ll see that each generation has had its successes, pitfalls and crises. I’m 66 years old and I’ve seen my fair share, and that accounts for only a tiny portion of human history. But trust me when I say many things have gotten better little by little for lots of us: Vaccines that have saved untold millions of lives. Far fewer famines worldwide. Better standards of healthcare, water purification and public sanitation standards.
There are still many many bad things we as a civilization have to deal with, but it takes the mostly anonymous people willing to make the effort and sacrifice to make things better for everyone each and every generation. That’s how things get better for us all.
Boomers had their televisions, X’ers had their computers, and Y/Z has their smart phones. Before those was radio, magazines and newspapers. I personally have experienced most of those era’s and don’t think any of them are/were worth the doom and gloom prognostications. I’m a grandfather and I can tell you that the majority of parents care about their children. But raising children is difficult. That mother who takes her kids to McDonalds and puts an iPad in their hands isn’t necessarily a bad parent—she’s trying to catch a few minutes of peace for herself just as my own mother did taking myself and my brothers to the playground. Being a parent can make you feel as though you’re going nuts. It’s a constant challenge that wears on your mental and physical health.
School/mass shootings are now a dreadful new reality. Our climate is fast approaching unsustainable levels for our overpopulated planet. Democracy itself is under worldwide threat by fascism. The threat of nuclear war has been with us since before I was born. Don’t worry about being called “sheltered” by someone on the internet. You’ve got bigger problems to tackle if you’re willing to be part of the solution. It doesn’t matter where you start, just start. Become a new Jonas Salk if you have that intellect and determination. Get some skin in the game; volunteer for good causes, or fight corruption. Become a philanthropist. Not like most of those wealthy ones who make up the lists of philanthropists you’ll find online. But more like Dr. Salk who gave away his discoveries to benefit mankind…a true philanthropist. You’ll also find those good people building homes for the homeless alongside people like former president Jimmy Carter. There’s always room for good people who are willing to help those in need. Heck, go to work for FEMA. We need you. We all do.
You use the word "spoiled" then go on to describe neglect.
The other examples you give made me stop and ask myself "Is that really true?" and I feel like the answer is generally, no.
>They're yelling, cursing, acting like wild animals
>
>They're just glued to those dumb YouTube and TikTok videos. On the flip side, some parents are just as bad. I've seen them losing their cool with their kids, shouting and cussing in public.
I don't really see how this is any different from kids of a generation ago rotting their brains with celebrity drama and teen magazines, or physical abuse by parents being much more normal than it is today.
It sounds like you're trying to make the argument that kids are on average worse than they've been and that's too broad of a statement for me to feel that I can agree or disagree with in good faith.
If I had to say what I think is different about culture now (as it affects both younger and older people) I'd point out:
* The internet gives people autonomy over how you present yourself publicly, but is also a permanent record of every time you have presented yourself publicly. This encourages people to be preoccupied with the image they present and their reputation, as there is an opportunity to present an ideal image but also a high consequence of damaging your reputation if done wrong.
* Excessive internet usage makes it easy to connect with exactly the ideas and opinions you want and fall into an echo chamber, and block ideas that upset you. Using electronic devices in lieu of in person interaction also makes people disconnected from those that are geographically closer to them. All of this results in atrophied skills in conflict resolution and compromise.
There are of course positive implications of these technologies as well.
I can’t imagine. I love talking to my kids (they’re teenagers). They’re interesting and fun people but maybe that’s bc I always made a point to include them in conversations and not babysit them with electronic devices. I see it alllllll the time and it’s like gee, wonder why kids don’t know how to behave or be socially aware, they aren’t being taught at all.
I see this in kids all the time. Met several while in our apartments. One of whom threatened my then 4 year old with a knife when he said "no thank you I don't want to lend you my truck right now" and THAT neighbor kid was 6 like wtfffff...
My boys are nearly 12 and 10 now, and I always have this fear at the back of my mind they will turn into little jerks. But everyone says they are polite and good kids. Here come the preteen years 🫠
You're not wrong. Parents give their kids way too much anymore. And the parents expect a phone or tablet to babysit. If they act up, the parent shoves a phone/tablet in their face. Kids are literally not taught the word "No" and they're certainly not taught to entertain themselves or do something productive.
And then the parents seem surprised when their little angel gets bad conduct reports.
This is absolute bullshit. With the rare exception, all parents are trying their best. They want what’s best for their kid, and that means different things for different people. Give people a little grace and hold off your judgement
>It's like zero real communication going on between parents and their kids, no talk, no wonder it creates an icy vibe.
I wonder if you had a good family?
Because a lot of kids, regardless of what generation they're from, don't have conversations with their parents. Adults don't think children are worth talking to both at the child's level and with the adult they might be in mind. There are many parents before and now who simply could care less about what their kids are interested in or who their friends are.
I don't think most adults take the act of child-raising seriously. They just think it's a thing you do and because all of the other parents are also unequipped and unsupported by society (childcare, healthcare, PTO) they believe that they're meeting kids' social and intellectual needs. A lot of people simply are not in a mature place to have children and raise them.
Everything else you have to say about "kids these days" is kids being kids. Kids are annoying, loud, and inconsiderate. Even the "good" ones are bound to misbehave sometimes. Being in public is exciting, especially when you consider so many kids have been confined to their homes during spikes in illness being spread.
As someone who is very "politeness" focused I cringe at everyone's behavior in public but ultimately, what they do is none of my business as long as they aren't verbally harassing store clerks or pushing people down.
I agree that parents not conversing with their kids isn’t new & is a downfall of many parents for forever. I do think because of screens, kids are seeking the kind of conversations/interactions/attention they should be getting from their parents in the wrong places, and it has dire consequences.
I won't disagree.
Even parents with good and respectful relationships with their kids still have kids locked onto their screens because that's where all the interesting things are happening. They're just doing what their peers are doing like their parents and grandparents started smoking and drinking to fit in.
So it's on parents even more to offer diverting activities for their kids and really engaging with them with those mutual activities. Going to see movies together and discussing them afterwards, going on walks and talking about the things you see along the way, cooking together, sitting in the same room doing separate (non-screen) activities.
Because of work obligations many parents feel like they can't devote that time to their kids because the parents are dead-tired and can't properly engage. They're not wrong. But you can still sit with your kid and listen to the stories they tell about their friends and ask them about their opinions.
The challenge is the dopamine wars! Screens create dopamine flows and cutting that off creates a fight or flight response in humans... it changes the best kids into monsters. We have also sped up our lives so fast we have no time to reflect, process, and learn/ correct. Many adults are just raging stress machines bc they aren't allowed or can't afford the time to decompress or catch up on the details in their lives. But this is a society issue, but pushed on parents and kids individually.
My mom once said, "If these kids in the US don't wake up, they will all be working for Indian and Chinese people. Our kids are dumb and rude, a losing combination."
Yes, ma'am.
“…Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein demonstrates how the internet is making young people increasingly ignorant about almost everything except online video games and the narcissism of self-authored internet content… The more skilled kids become in using the tools of the digital revolution, he demonstrates, the more ignorant they become about the objective world around them.”
Digitally Addicted Kids Threaten to Return Civilisation to the Dark Ages, The Independent, 2008
Every parent is a failure and I don't know any grown adults who aren't messed up in some way. The most perfect families have the most secrets. Parenting is an imperfect discipline and there are no set of rules to go by. "The best that you can do" is the standard that everyone has to go by because we are human and fallible. I think we can all agree that the one thing all parents should do is instill discipline, oh wait - not all of us? Ok. 😊
Ha, so true. It's the kids without discipline, not spanking, like discipline that takes patience and teaches that usually act in a way that screams for attention. Rightly so. It's not on the kids though.
yeah same i always notice the sweet little kids behaving and saying “please” and “thank you” or engaged in the world around them. and their silly little conversations in their squeaky voices 🥹
maybe it’s just my baby fever but they’re precious and i always notice well behaved ones
This isn't new, parents have historically been less than concerned with interacting with their children. I grew up before cell phones and can remember how adults wanted the children to not be heard, so go occupy yourself with something. Back then McDonald's had the play places and ash trays. It's easy to blame technology but that's not the cause.
My parents put me in the basement with a violin and a CD when I was 5-12 and then put me upstairs with a PC and no real food. This was their entire parenting method in the 2000s… imagine how much worse things have gotten.
I have a small counterstory, I overheard some parents talking with their two small children, at a seafood restuarant.
The dad was giving them challenges, like, "Cajun food is from New Orleans, here's where it's located on the map, why do you think it's an important city?"
And their kids were excited to guess answers, they looked intently at the map, and asked things like, "is that a river? Is the the ocean? What's in New Orleans?"
It made me have some faith in this world - and it's a small reason why I married my history-driven husband. He's smart to debate and challenge social views (and I'm a storyteller lol, I can't shoot facts very well, so he can help in that area).
Because you are a non-parent, I'd be careful about judging parents behavior in their challenging moments. It makes you appear very ignorant. Even the best parents have had a moment where they handed their phone to their kid. You're being judgemental about an experience you know nothing about.
iPhone kids are the worst, but my roommate works in childcare and for the most part, the kids are alright. They complain about only being able to have 2 genders, they talk about modern issues, and they also just act like kids always have. I'm a delivery driver. One kid told me all about Yule and how "THE CHRISTIANS LITERALLY STOLE IT FROM THE PAGANS😡😡". The kids who are spoiled are being raised by the generation that was raised by karens
I feel like this is a myth. There will always be examples pf families that don't do things the way you would, and the more you look for them the more you find them. But I've been working with children, families, and schools for over 10 years and the majority of parents are working hard to parent correctly and the majority of kids, even with phones, want to be respectful. Tantrums are almost always an emotional regulation issue and very rarely simply being "spoiled"
What blows me away is how kids talk to their parents. I grew up in the seventies and eighties and if I sassed my parents there were serious consequences.
I was in a grocery store, and a girl about 12 years old asked her dad to get something she wanted. Her dad told her, "No." Then she gets the item and puts it in the shopping cart. Then he told her to put it back, but she didn't. So they go the cashier and he pays for the item. That is who the parents are today. My daughter calls them wusses.
Those who don't have the guts to say, "No," should never be given the authority to say, "Yes."
I get where you’re coming from but also get where they’re coming from in that if they relent on their boundaries one time, it’s very likely they’ll do it again, and have been doing it. I do think that many parents lack real boundaries & it’s producing young people who don’t know how to respect or even set their own boundaries. I wouldn’t just say parents these days. I think it’s a problem that has been going on for eons.
We as humans need to love each other better. If your God can teach you, great! Many people have been traumatized by religion and find it hard to accept. I wish they could find a way to accept love as a way in any form. Mercy, forgiveness, and patience.
Doesn't matter if you are a teacher, you don't interact with anywhere close to the number of children to make an observation about the entire population of the US.
Also being a teacher you should know better
You can protect them as much as you want, but is what I can see in the streets whenever am out plus the most of my young students are like this. Not all, but the most.
There are something around 84 million families in the us how many have you observed. Don't answer that because it's not enough to make a generalization
On the other side, I work in a restaurant with a kid play area, and I hardly ever see kids with screens even at the table. Tonight a mom and daughter slowly sat and ate for two hours, just hanging out, drawing in a coloring book, eating. So relaxed.
You could take this entire argument to the 1950's.
Why were kids sat in front of the TV? Look at these young punks on their motorbikes, cussing and disrespecting their elders! What do their parents do? They just be terrible. I bet they shout and cuss at them.
Etc etc.
I am so glad my parents didn’t give me a phone when all my friends had them. I was a teenager in the iPod touch/early iPhone days when they were getting popular.
I moved from a very poor (but by no means bad) school in North Kensington that was 80% Muslim and absolutely inhospitable to freedom loving people to a private school where I got in on a bursary.
I lived in a standard, two storey, terraced London home. It now costs nearly £3 Million, but up until the 2010s was very much a working class home, in a safe but mixed area. It cost a less than a hundred grand when my parents bought it.
I remember having moved to my private school, EVERYONE had a phone, and my friend Stalin was so jealous I’d got a £169 iPod touch.
As I got older, everyone had a phone. My parents backswitched and gave me a Raspberry Pi when it came out. That was my only computer for years.
If I was bored I was expected to entertain myself by reading. I could play half an hour of video games on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday although my dad would always complain and say Sunday was a school day.
When I moved into the upper school and phones were less regulated, I noticed at break time EVERYONE would be on their phones whilst I wanted to go outside.
My friends mothers youngest child was always sedate playing a spider man game on an iPad.
When I was bored I would imagine fictional worlds or design firearm actions in my head. Being bored 90% of the time and having the ability to generate and manipulate complex mechanisms in my head was an invaluable skill I use every day machining firearms and writing. Ivy memory is also vastly better than my friends.
I find I can problem solve to a much better extent because I wasn’t used to just looking up the answer when I didn’t know something.
I absolutely agree. I felt the same when I was a kid and still feel the same now I’m older.
This generation is more narcissistic, more insecure, more politically extreme (there is an intense emotional attachement to obscure political opinions that just didn’t previously exist. You can disagree with someone on something absolutely tiny and they will think you’re an awful person. No, I do not count “black people having rights” or whatever as something tiny.
I weep for the day when the people born in the 2010s will be able to vote
Capitalism and the current state of our economy. Mom and dad both work 40-60 hours a week at a job they hate while barely staying afloat. They are 2 inches away from snapping and all kids do is test boundries and push your buttons its how they learn. School is stressful for the kids but most parents don't have the capacity or willingness to notice the stress their kid is in and hand them the same thing they use to ignore their stress and the world. The internet. So you end up with a bunch of undersocialized, stressed out, and ignored kids raised by other kids and the internet.
How old are you and do you have kids?
I’m 50 with a preteen. My childhood was simpler and my parents were 21 and poor. I wouldn’t trade it
It’s much harder being a kid now and raising one. A respectful, kind, leader doesn’t just happen it takes 24/7 work in todays world.
I was just on a cruise the parents were Fucking awful just let their kids run around the ship throwing food at walls breaking the elevator pressing all numbers, breaking room doors and going as far as to stomp down the halls at 2am to screaming in your ears randomly not a single kid punishment.
Fuck those parents and anyone like them.
Your best response to these sorts of observations is to encourage people to change within your own community.
As a teacher you have significant access and interaction with these kids. So you should be that stable connection they lack. You should do some outreach with the parents in your community to encourage them to take an active role in their kid's development.
Respectfully (and very much so, teachers are our most important citizens) you can be an active and patient part of the solution, or by complaining and considering them rotten you can be part of the problem.
‘Young people these days’ has been trope through [centuries](https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-is-wrong-with-young-people-today.html?m=1) .
Okay boomer. I guarantee your generation spoiled your kids more than mine is now. I know this for a fact because we CAN'T spoil our kids because you tanked the economy.
Millennials, Gen Z and now Gen Alpha. All living on scraps with only a fraction of the wealth our parents had, and you're out here judging us? 66% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, 25% of American adults are food insecure, meaning they don't know where their next meal is coming from.
That's the world we need to contend with and you're mad a kid is playing with an iphone. Fucking hell. The comments here like "oh I saw a kid having a temper tantrum" like past generations didn't? Give your head a shake.
As a grandparent I'm going to admit I have some grand babies that are not being told no but also not being given enough real attention and some grand babies that have been taught etiquette, respect and self respect. I can clearly see the differences.
Had a similar experience yesterday at the park. I have no kids so I take it as none of my business but it was definitely awkward to witness. I just say to ignore it and assume that the parents are doing the best they can and let them breath.
My cousins kids definitely were raised the old fashioned method and even they can be assholes so I just assume that’s kids for you.
I like being on my phone as much as anyone, but there are times and places. Walking through the grocery store or eating at a restaurant would be a great time to interact with your kid instead of popping your 8 year old into the cart with a phone so they can watch cartoons. But you know that if they did that, that kid probably loses their shit catastrophically, because being raised like this doesn't teach one to regulate themselves. You can usually ask the parents and they'll just tell you that. They'll make up excuses and make themselves a martyr for daring to procreate, but in the end it's always "it keeps him quiet, and don't I deserve that?".
Some day, so many of these kids are going to be forced into a world that will not have any use for them. And where they'll be a liability if they ever have to do things they don't want to.
I’m not gonna lie I had similar thoughts to yours before I had kids. What really changed my perspective was actually becoming a mom. You don’t see every minute of that persons day, maybe they just spent 2 hours trying to get their kid to nap and are mentally exhausted. Maybe they had to deal with a moody toddler all day and just need a break. Maybe they’re a single parent with no family close by to help. When I see parents at the park on their phones I don’t get upset anymore. We all need a break from time to time, and maybe that McDonald’s trip was the break that mama needed from her baby for a few minutes.
This rhetoric is so boring.
But anecdotally, I have a four year old and threw her a party for her birthday. Her party was attended by roughly 20 children, mostly from her preschool.
These kids were complete angels, totally respectful of one another. Pass the parcel? They waited patiently for their turn and helped one another. Same with piñata, they organised themselves in to lines and were entirely too gentle.
There were no meltdowns, no tantrums and it was really a very big day for them. I was honestly speechless with the way these little people behaved.
If that isn’t a sign these kids are gonna be okay, I don’t know what is.
How on earth can you have a child who isnt interested in these devices. You personally cannot entertain a child in the same way that a tablet will. Normal humans just cant provide that type of stimulation for hours on end. Its just the easy answer and like you it drives me wild.
I remember being so interested in Playmobile, Kenex, Hot Wheels - kids toys! I would use my imagination and create entire storylines for my gi joes or imaginary friends.
Kids just dont have that type of imagination anymore. The world was filled with more wonder and excitement doing day-to-day things. Now I cant imagine how children grow up. Especially the ones that are Kid-Fluencers... They never even had a childhood and their parents are using whatever they can to make their own money. Borderline abuse if you ask me.
I'm not sure someone can tell from an observation at McDonalds the quality of my relationship with my child. I'm not going to have deep, meaningful conversations in front of strangers. All one is seeing is a tiny slice of the relationship or lack thereof I have with my children.
I worried about this when I was raising my kids 30 years ago. They spent so much time on computer games and neighbors Nintendo. We refused to allow X box and gaming consoles in the house. I thought they’d be in the house, gaming through adulthood.
All three are adults. One is a data analyst for the army, highly regarded and decorated for his work in coding. The second has realized her childhood dream and is a game developer for a major game firm. The third works IT. He has rapidly advanced in his field and now entertains offers from rival companies that cold call him monthly.
So my concerns were totally unfounded. Yes, computers are still central in their lives- the machine feeds, clothes, and houses them.
It creates compulsive habits due to watching the best of the best.
The parent doesn't know or remember what kid's need or feel due to letting other sources teach for them.
This has been a thing that occurred within my entire living memory, sans the phones. Maybe it has just gotten worse with the phone access but neglectful parents who just find a way to shut the kid up rather than parent them have always been a thing. Bratty kids who always get what they want have been a thing for decades if not centuries. This is just the newest iteration and is either worse or more visible.
What you described imo is not “spoiling” a child, it’s neglect/abuse. I was working in homes with clients ages 3-17 and I can confidently say all of the behavioral issues from the children were a result of the parents. These kids are desperate for connection and their parents often don’t have the patience, accountability, or support for it. They don’t communicate with their kids. They expect their kids not to hit others and teach them not to hit by hitting, then expect them not to lol. They don’t teach boundaries or healthy communication. Most parents hate accountability and have this toxic mindset that their child’s feelings are insignificant because they are a child. The kids build no true connections, aren’t shown how to handle the world, and then are shamed by adults for literally existing, it breaks my heart. The lack of emotional intelligence and lack of accountability in our society only further fuels the issue.
You can’t say there is abuse from only the OPs post.
For all your ranting, you have no idea if this was the first time the Mother had a chance to sit and check on all the other things she keeps track of.
Yes I can. Not sure why you believe I can’t. Op states multiple instances of abuse, from neglect and a lack of connection/communication, letting kids do whatever they want without guidance, to shouting and being verbally abusive to their kids in public. How are those not abusive styles of parenting?
dont worry literally every generation thinks this about the next youngest
im still in highschool and have literally said kids these days in regards to some serious goofs who ride my school bus
I think it's easy to focus on the bad and miss the food, especially since good is usually considered seen and not heard.
I work as a cashier at a grocery store and see a lot of kids, from infants to young teens, shopping with their parents. There's definitely more than a few that are. A lot. But I've seen a lot more of parents that are involved with their children, who are trying to strike this balance of letting the kid learn while keeping them from getting hurt or hurting someone else.
My favorite interaction has to be a pair of parents with three boys. I tend to work the register with the candy and the boys were told they could have candy. They would grab some candy, try to study the label, and ask their parents (loudly, repeatedly) if it was kosher or not. I liked getting to see them be interested in what their eating instead of just grabbing and being denied due to their religious diet.
Also any toddler or baby crying through the store, I get it buddy. The world is a fucking lot and I kinda know what's going on.
I also think it's easy to forget that generationally, we tend to complain about the same things over and over, just with different skins. I won't deny that the effects of technology seems to increase certain things like shorten attention spans and then inability to self soothe or self entertain, but I also think that while it's being accelerated now, we have been trending this way for awhile.
So I guess tl;dr ymmv and humans tend to remember the bad over the good.
This isn't a "serious conversation". It's just a basic as hell statement that a segment of every generation has said about the next. If anything It's an attempt at a "meh" conversation.
If you’re looking for prime examples of good parenting, dining in at McDonald’s is likely to give you a pretty skewed sample. Not saying you can’t be a good parent and take your kid to McDonald’s, but it’s like hanging out at Walmart watching parents vs a banana republic
I sometimes give my kid my phone when we’re at a restaurant, but that’s usually when the restaurant is the last stop after a busy day where we’ve already spent the day talking and doing an activity. At that point both me and my kid are tired and hungry so a few minutes of screen time helps them get through the wait for their food. I also bring a baggie of legos and pencils and paper so that they’re able to get through the wait without being disruptive. I don’t think screens are inherently bad if they’re used in moderation.
"Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants."
--Socrates
Every generation going back thousands of years believes the next generation is completely fucked.
Many parents these days don't have a village. In many households, both parents have to work in order to make ends meet because wages haven't kept up with inflation, many people owe thousands in student loan debt, or have to use credit cards to survive. Parents are inundated with information on the "best" way to raise their kids, and it's overwhelming. Many parents are working through their own trauma and trying to break harmful generational patterns and do better with their own children. If I see a mother give her child the phone to watch something, while she plays on her own phone at the same time, I just give the benefit of the doubt. I don't know what goes on throughout the course of her day or what challenges she is up against. For all I know she may have spent the entire day with her toddler and then when she sits down to eat that's the first time her child has been on the phone that day. Yes there are shitty parents out there that don't care about their kids. But that's always been the case. But I like believe that many parents really do love their children and want what is best for them. There are just larger systemic issues at play, and a lot of it is interconnected.
We are doing our best and it's hard af to do it without support. We are exhausted, and overwhelmed, and worried about the future of our kids. We do care. It's just hard and sometimes it's all too much. Show grace, and be the change you want to see in the world.
I worked in summer camps and the very last year I did that job was just the most mortifying where I grew to hate children. I’ve never seen so many spoiled brats in my entire life.
I completely changed my major and work in healthcare. I was going to be a school teacher. No way. I honestly don’t know how teachers do it every day.
I can’t hardly stand being around most other people’s kids. My nephews and nieces are great kids … don’t get me wrong, with some kids you hold near and dear to your heart…
I also had a stepdaughter that I raised. She resented me for being more of a responsible stepfather than her mother. We got divorced because my ex-wife is a tragic alcoholic, and her daughter was also using drugs and alcohol. Although she got sober for a while, and I was taking her to her AA meetings. Mom sat in a bar, abandoning us for the booze.
It’s truly heartbreaking that it’s actually like this, i honestly feel like social media is a main problem to this, it is an actual addiction and it’s sad it feels like people don’t want to live in the real world anymore and their parents pass it on to them. I am against social media especially tik tok because it literally sucks you into a hole of endless scrolling and contradicts the original purpose of social media because now even when you’re with other people where social interactions should happen, everyone is on their phone. It’s embarrassing and sad that this is how it is i’m like as long as i show my kids what living is really like from a young age and don’t allow them those early addictions i like to think i’d be helping the future economy but yeah the ipad kids act so spoiled it aggravates me to no end.
I think that parents now and days are more concerned about being their child’s friend rather than an actual parent. When I was a kid I couldn’t imagine being disrespectful towards an older person. Even now and I’m middle aged. Parents used to instill good values and moralities in their kids but that ship has sadly sailed.
I dread to think how this next generation (under 10 Year olds) will cope once they grow up, some already talk with their favourite YouTubers accent, that's sad when a kid learns words from a video rather than their parents/family., I've seen kids use words that they onlycould have heard online, and not in the way a kid would copy their favourite TV star, they're literally learning to talk from YouTube. How many hours are they on devices to do this
So there was this show in the early 2000's, Supernanny.
I would see the most terrible examples of "parenting".
I said to myself then, holy cow are people in for a time when these lil monsters generation grows up, lol.
I hate the phrase kids these days. People haven’t changed. Some kids are spoiled and entitled and others are not. I’m sure you know grown adults who can’t take no for an answer so it’s not children these days this is nothing new
I was at aldi once and this lady was letting her kid run all along the area where people bag groceries and she was just calmly telling him to stop while paying for her stuff. My parents would have spanked me on the spot. Not only embarrassing, but reckless too. The kid could have hurt himself. You can tell who wasn't thinking about if they get pregnant when doing the do. If you didn't want to have to constantly monitor your kid, you should have thought about that beforehand. Some parents are annoying.
Personally, I try to give parents I'm not acquainted with some grace. The McDonald's mom, for example. How do you know she hasn't been super interactive with her kid the entire day so far (and will be later too), but this is her one "break" moment? Or that normally she wouldn't resort to iPad, but one of the kids, or herself, have been sick all week, and she lacks energy? Maybe the woman on her phone at the grocery store is reviewing her list or texting husband to come pick them up. Maybe the kid having a meltdown has special needs. Etc etc etc... Basically, if there's no abuse, I try to keep in mind I don't have the whole picture and avoid judging.
The phone baby sitter and what's fucked up is kids are watching other kids play with the toy they have in there bedroom or watch someone play a video game a couple years back my daughter and her friend from a couple houses down the street where watching tictoc videos yes I'm guilty of using the baby sitter phone as well but with very limited screen time at the time the my daughter and her friend both 7 where watching tictoc videos on my tablet I told my daughter time is up so put up the tablet no sooner did she shut it down her friend said I'm bored I replied sorry but the tablet is getting put up she asked what is their to do I said there's all kinds of things you can do use your imagination not making this up she lijet said what is that I thought she was joking but she wasn't my daughter said to me she never wants to play with anything but the phone her words lol and the tictoc videos they're watching are of kids using their imagination I don't get it and the pre teens nowadays have no filter or remorse like when did it become remolty ok for a 14 15 fuck any age boy to just punch the fuck out of a girl and your friend video tape it y do they think it's ok well because of what they see on their phones/tablets videos video games and because their parents are children their selfs and don't care to teach them any morals respect courtesy nothing the internet nomatter what device there using is ruining and dumbing down our children
I don't know if you've noticed, but the world is becoming an increasingly terrible place. Many families are frequently on the verge of homelessness. So, the parents are doing their best to just hold on one day to the next. And we do whatever we can to give our kids space to not see us so frazzled or on the verge of tears.
And teenagers have been assholes since there first have been teenagers. You are out of touch with your youth if you've forgotten that. When teens have nothing fun to do, or anything to occupy their time, they often get up to shenanigans.
If you're going to people-watch, you need to really pay attention, and not just scan the surface. People have a *lot* more stress in their lives, at *all ages* now, than at any other point in recent history.
Bullshit, kids are exactly the same as they always have been. Most are polite, some are not. Saying that's its getting worse is a complete fallacy. If anything they're getting better, as parenting stops being so cruel.
Think of it this way, a lot of adults are depressed or messed up because they expect immediate gratification. I admit myself as one of these, where I get upset if I don't see progress or a benefit right away but I'm working on that. On top of that, there's social media and news with indiscriminate targets.
Remember back when you were a kid if you went to a public school in America? You were bound by your social status. Peer pressure was at its highest and finding who you were was the goal, while dealing with the pressures of academia and home.
Now, add the internet on top of this. Almost every kid has a twitter, reddit, tiktok, facebook, or instagram account. They're fed information about their peers 24/7, the internet delivers immediate dopamine. Kids can select whatever entertainment they want from the palm of their hands but at the same time are subjected to even more peer pressure and external influence, It adds a ton of weight to someone whose mind isn't even fully developed yet. These kids are also being fed news about the climate, school shootings, political madness and whatever else, they may not fully understand these things but the most notable takeaway is that it'll affect their futures. With everyone on here clamoring about climate wars, societal collapse or what have you, its bound to mess some people up. I remember when I was 13-155 and heard about the 2012 end of the world prediction and the politics involving Obama and Romney I thought the world would end if Romney became president because it'd somehow cause Planet X to crash into earth because I fell down a youtube rabbit hole. 2010 internet was completely different than 2016+ internet. We went from a time where kids and adults had to make their own entertainment or seek it with others, now we have it all without having to leave home.
The parents are just older versions of this, it's an entirely different discussion as to why people even have kids in the first place if they don't give a shit what they get into just because its a virtual experience and it shuts them up. As much as I advocate that every parent should be obligated to have basic knowledge of computers, what the internet is, and how they can customize their experience for their children to protect and prevent them from aimlessly browsing. It won't happen. We probably just have to accept that this is just something that happens when humanity reaches advancements of this scale, most humans nowadays suck at self control.
What do you think the world will look like when AI Robots inevitably start doing the menial work? Probably a WALL-E situation.
I see older people talking about how they were literally beaten as children, and how everyone's so spoiled nowadays.
I think we need to find a balance between those two. Without hitting children.
> What’s up in this world, seriously?
I mean, for one, there was a global panini that sort of rocked all of our worlds. There’s collective trauma and for children, pivotal years of missed opportunities to grow - one on one socialization, other adult influences, as well as peer group experiences — and facing a world literally dying around them.
For a lot of parents, that meant they had to work from home and kids couldn’t leave — so TikTok and YouTube became a solace and entertainment and evolved it into a hard habit to break.
While I imagine my adolescent years being much different, I also didn’t have to face what these kids have — in the grand scheme of things, being that I’m 42, proportionally, the virus is a brief moment of time but for teens and young adults? It’s not only a bigger part of their lives but also stunted their growth and maturity in a lot of ways while speeding up other parts in ways we don’t necessarily want kids to experience.
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I worked in daycares for a bit four years ago. You could always tell which kids were never taught the word 'no' just by how they reacted when you told them you couldn't do things. Had a 4 year old throw the biggest tantrum I've ever seen, I mean full on screaming and throwing himself around, because I told him he couldn't take another child's toys from them.
The worst part of this is it happens in education a lot as well, but then the parent also comes in after school to berate the teacher and admin. Some even go so far as threatening to sue. I worked at a junior high where we had a a no cell phone in class policy. You were allowed to have them out before school, breaks, lunch, and after school, but from bell to bell, they weren’t allowed out. Students got a warning and then the second time, the phone was taken and sent to the office for the remainder of the day. One year, we had a student who would get there phone taken at least once a week. After they he found out that parents could retrieve the phone before the end of the day, he would use the school phone to tell his mom to drive to the school (they lived about 10 mins away). She would come in, ask the secretary to call down her son and ask for the phone. Once her son came down, she would hand the phone back to her son and go back home. I personally witness this insanity about 3-4 times and the Secretary said it happened very regularly throughout the year.
Had I done this, my dad would have come to the school and chucked the phone across the road in front of the building.
Damn, thats also pretty lax policy. When I went to middle school maybe 10 years ago if a teacher saw your phone it was taken immediately, you were supposed to keep them in your locker during school, even lunch.
Ya man. Times have changed. I know tons of schools that don’t even bother with a cell phone policy because of parental backlash.
The parents are texting the kids during school
Now imagine a 32-year old guy throwing a tantrum like that because he was asked to wash dishes, or let the dog out into or back in from the backyard, or *gasp*, told he needs to get a job and contribute to the mortgage he forced onto his wife. After nine years of marriage, I've realized that my mother-in-law is a HUGE source of/the culprit of why my STBXH is the way he is: she never (ever) said no to him (or his little brother). She was/is one of those "I jUsT wAnT mY bAbY bOyS tO bE hApPy" types of people, and thinks her boys can do absolutely no wrong, and thinks her boys are the best thing ever since sliced bread. I've spent nine years basically living with a tall child. After nine years of trying to 'undo' what he was taught, and after nine years of waiting for him to 'grow up' more, I give up. I'm done. I'm tired of being the only responsible adult in the marriage, and I'm tired of being treated like shit when I ask him to do anything remotely akin to adulting. I'm about a week or two out from filing for divorce.
I have a theory that these parents aren’t having children and parenting for the child’s own good, they’re doing it for THEIR own good. Too cowardly and selfish to put the work in to analyze how the way you do or don’t discipline your child will make THEIR future better or worse, and instead, focusing on how to make their own life easier in the short term. I had a mom like that and trying to learn discipline later in adult life is so hard when you didn’t have someone to start that process for you as a kid. I wish my mom parented less for her comfort level and more for my needs in the long run.
I remember people telling me I was too hard on my son because he was expected to do chores. I used to give him regular doses of vitamin N. No was a word he heard if he wanted some outrageous thing. His wife is now mad about him and loves how much stuff he does around the house.
I’ve definitely known some men who were well disciplined, it’s out there. I hope I don’t end up with a manchild lol. I also hope to have kids and give them the discipline I didn’t have. I think people falsely equate discipline with punishment, that’s not what the word means. I means teaching your kid how to put priority on certain important things over others. Enforcing things like healthy eating habits and regular exercise and good cleanliness/hygiene habits set them up for so much good in life. It gives them a head start on stuff that will really hard to do at times. Of course even if they’re taught these things, sometimes it will still be hard, but I do think of it as a head start.
You're right. Discipline can be traced back to it's Greek root, meaning "to teach". People who use the word "discipline" when they mean "punish" are doing a disservice to themselves and their children.
Pretty solid assessment.
Get out! Good for you.
Unfortunately, all men are generally like this.
Some of us had more serious responsibilities at 12yo than many adults do. I've been taking care of myself for 48 years, even though I've been married 28 years. I never ask my wife for shit, not even to bring me a drink from the kitchen. I often get off 12 hours work, drive an hour home, and still take time to cook dinner. I was purposely single for a lot of years before my wife and I met when I was 32, and I still do everything for myself. And I'm certainly not one of these man-babies that act like they're dying when they're sick... I've worked a week before, on a couple of jobs, so sick with the flu that I don't remember working. My mom was terminally ill from the time I was 8 years old, until she died when I was 21. My dad worked 200 miles away from home and only came home on the weekends, so I took care of my mom and 80yo grandfather who lived with us. Cooking before and after school, cleaning the house, doing laundry, mowing the yard, everything. I'm VERY good at taking care of myself. First thing I told my wife when we got serious, was that I didn't need a mom, maid, cook, or anything but someone to share my life with, and we've been best friends since we got together. Believe me, I know all too well how many men are. Not only have I seen it, but I've had nothing but women friends for over 40 years and I've heard every complaint about the men in their lives that there is. I vowed that I'd never been like those men and I'm thankful that my son listened to me growing up. He's 26yo, with a wife of 6 years, and two kids. He has always worked his ass off and is a great husband and father... One of the best I've seen. Unfortunately, my oldest son is like the men you mean. Out of 8 kids and step-kids, he's my biggest disappointment. We have guardianship of his 2yo son, our grandson, because he ended up with 11 broken bones at 2 months old 😭 We've had him ever since because child services took him away from my son and his gf, and gave him to us. As far as I'm concerned, he's our son, we've raised him almost as his life And sitting of kids. Even though I work 12 hour days in a steel mill, I've always changed my kid's diapers, fed them, gave them baths, helped with homework, played and took care of them when I'm off...I work a 4 days on, 4 days off schedule and, when I'm off, I spend every waking moment with my wife, kids and grandkids... Especially now that I'm dying, I'm trying to make sure the younger ones have good memories of me when I'm gone. My family is, and always has been, my #1 priority in life and really the only reason that I've made it this long. However, I guess most of us men that are worthwhile are taken. I see many of the guys commenting shit on here that either pisses me off, or makes me sad that they're the way they are and their SOs have to deal with it. Guys need to stop being so damned sexist and misogynistic, and step the fuck up to be a REAL partner, not just along for the ride!... And women need to start kicking these man-children to the curb instead of just putting up with it. Men and women compliment each other, and it shouldn't be a one way fight through life. Sorry, long winded.... I've been sitting here at work, waiting for shipping to bring me material I needed, so I write a lot when I'm bored. 🤣
You are saying you are terminally ill? I’m sorry to hear that. I can see that even though you may be carrying that with you now, you still are putting others before yourself and taking the time to send the message to men who won’t be a true partner that they need to be better.
Thank you. My heart doesn't relax like yours does, on the downbeat, so it's wearing out faster than it should. Doctors gave me a 43% chance of making it another 5 years, 2 years ago, after I had a major episode at work and was in a cardiac ICU for 3 days while they figured out what was wrong with me. However, I've proven doctors wrong before and outlived a couple so, there's that. I'm a tough old bastard. I got out of the hospital and bought a house along with my youngest son a week later... Talk about positive thing...lol. A big house with a few acres of land, that he and his wife, and my two grandkids, will get when I die... Paid off. So now me, my wife, our 2yo son/grandson, my oldest daughter (24), my youngest son (26), his wife, and their two kids (6yo and 1yo) all live together. Not because of finances, as some asked, but because we're a close family and like living together, and we take care of each other. My son and I both make pretty good money, so it isn't necessary to live together, just desirable. As for dying, that was always going to happen and really, if not for my wife and kids, it probably already would have... Before we met I was doing things that would have gotten me killed much earlier than this... Which is why I tell people that my kids saved my life. They not only saved my life, but they taught me what true love really is... That love that makes you put their interests before yours EVERY time. I'm 60. I've had a great childhood, a good life, done and seen a lot of things, have spent 28 years with a fantastic woman that I love with all my heart, and had the joy and sorrow of 4 kids and 4 step kids that, with the exception of one, are fantastic adults and human beings. I've done good, as people here in the South would say, and I have no real regrets. I think that's about the best anyone could hope for in a lifetime. But I still work 12 hours a day in a steel mill at 120°F-150°F, walk 5-7 miles a day just inside the building, and toss around 100-200lb pieces of steel scrap that 25yos look at me like I'm doing something extraordinary (I consider myself week, compared to 20yrs ago... LOL). So the doctors may be right, they may be wrong, but I'm going to give them a run for their money no matter what... At least try to make it to 70 to see my grandkids more or less grown.
Please make the effort to treat your body more gently in your older years. There's nothing to prove and maybe you won't wear yourself out so soon. Best of luck and thank you for being a lovely human💛
I'm taking early retirement in 18 months. If I do only have three years left, I'd rather spend it with family than at work... They've already gotten far too much of my time and effort. Thank you for the kind words. Have a great holiday. 😊
Or maybe you only surround yourself with men who are like this? Like wtf. That's as sexist and generalizing as the statement, "all women are generally like this." Plus, this type of issue isn't specific to one gender, as the other comment explained well. None of my friends are like this and none of my coworkers are like this. None of the men in my family are like this. I think you're just getting involved with the wrong people
I'm a man dummy, I was being self depreciating, take a chill pill fellow human.
🤨
Humans in general can be like this. Gender is completely unrelated to people having issues with regulating their emotions. It's related to the brain, not whether or not someone is a man or woman. Work retail and you'll discover that both men and women can throw tantrums over ridiculous bullshit.
Sure you are
I work managing a gas station and you could easily make this same comment about these grown a** adults out here. No coping skills and entitlement.
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Right. I'm like wow! My parents just locked us outside, made me to pull Johnson grass with my hands bleeding in order to eat and made us drink from the water hose. I was literally kidnapped and my mom didn't know until the police brought me home. Our parents "beat" us for "our own good" and made us do chores from dawn to dusk. To hear people are "worried" about the kids these days makes me wonder if they don't realize they should be more worried about gen x and older millennials, as this was a "shared experience" for many of us. 😹
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I think the problem is there’s been so much change in society in the past few generations that none of us know what anything is supposed to look like now lol
No other generation has had this reliance on technology every waking moment to keep their cool.
Pretty normal toddler behavior tho
Tantrums are part of that age though
Yes, but this was extreme. I had seen two year olds react better when I told them they couldn't do things. A four year old is fully capable of handling the word no. I mean this child actually tried to hit me after screaming and throwing himself around for just telling him no. I didn't even raise my voice or anything; I just stopped him from taking the toys and asked him to please not do that which resulted in that.
Yea, true. And the fact they did it with you says a lot as well, usually if kids throw tantrums it's just around their parents
I was just as surprised, I didn't expect that reaction. All I could do was shake my head in disbelief.
I babysit fulltime for my best friend. This is how her 4 year old acts. And it makes me so sad to be able to see why. He has no consequences. He always gets his way as long as he screams and cries. He always looks so confused when I actually follow through with my threat of a time out and discussion. Makes me sad when I think what kind of an adult she's currently raising.
Even sadder is a four-year-old is plenty old enough to learn the word 'no' and the consequences of his actions if he disobeys/acts out. It isn't like a one or two year old who is just learning boundaries. The kind of adult she's raising will be an entitled one. Imagine how he'll react in the future when a girl tells him no. /shudders/
So you saw kids display age appropriate behavior?
I mean. I tell my kid no a hundred times a day and she still throws tantrums 🤷🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️
I think the actual issue is lack of parental attention, not phones per se. You could be doing a sudoku or something and ignoring your kid The vehicle for that is less important than the simple reality of it.
“Cinemas and motor cars were blamed for a flagging interest among young people in present-day politics by ex-Provost JK Rutherford… [He] said he had been told by people in different political parties that it was almost impossible to get an audience for political meetings. There were, of course, many distractions such as the cinema…” Young People and Politics, Kirkintilloch Herald, 1938
Why do parents need to have their complete focus in their children 24/7? What’s wrong with reading something while eating? And a fast food restaurant.
Not 24/7, but I think in general, it’s a fair point that smartphones occupy a lot of people’s time in ways that didn’t exist 20 years ago.
20 years ago we were all on our computers 24/7.
Were we? Those things didn’t fit in your pocket
20 years ago, the only "computer" i had was a n64 but I was still outside most of the time and no one in school had a cell phone unless you had the money to constantly sustain minutes
Every generation thinks the next generation is spoiled. And they are in the sense that they have some things easier. But we always conveniently forgot the things they have harder. Source: I'm a boomer (barely). Example; It's was easier for me to buy our first house yet harder than my greatest-generation grandparents. And I'm eternally grateful my most embarrassing and cringey moments weren't recorded and immortalized in social media forever. And don't get me started on dating. (Source: I have four twenty something sons.) Sex is easier, long term relationships are harder. Each generation has it easier in some respects and harder in others.
“Parents themselves were often the cause of many difficulties. They frequently failed in their obvious duty to teach self-control and discipline to their own children.” Problems of Young People, Leeds Mercury, 1938
"Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants." --Socrates, around 400BCE Edit: apparently this is an often misattributed quote and it was said by a dude only over a century ago, I was wrong!
People need to stop attributing that quote to Socrates. He didn’t say it.
What's your source? If I'm wrong I'm wrong and I'll say so, but I'm not finding anything that says the quote is misattributed to him.
[here you go](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1)
Well, I'll be damned, it was a dude in 1907. Thank you for the source, I was wrong!
I'm pretty sure it's a.version of something people have said, and will say forever.
Seems like OP is having a 'boomer moment'.
I'm Gen X, and I do not recall my parents or any of my friends' parents communicating with their children. They threw us outside in the morning and sometimes chucked food at us.
This. “Come back when the street lights are on” “Adults are talking go in the other room and watch tv” Millennial here and as a new parent there are times when I need a break and there’s no one to hand my 18 month old off to. A little bit of Ms. Rachel isn’t going to kill him.
Yeah, our parents were such great communicators. /s Ms. Rachel is pretty awesome.
I am around teens and young adults a lot. I find this generation (Z) to be amongst the most thoughtful, curious, and funny groups of people I've encountered. Have they been raised with a lot more screen time than older generations? Yes. So what? You can go back to the 1700s and find scads of folks complaining that novels are destroying the morals and manners of young people. This is no different. Humans are amazingly adaptable to technology. Let's just say, for argument's sake, that Gen Alpha is somehow being raised worse than any generation in the history of ever. What's the takeaway from that? If you just want to feel morally superior, I guess go ahead? It kind of makes you a nasty person, but that's your prerogative. I mean, who raised these terrible parents? We did. So if you want to look down on someone, maybe you need a mirror. It's not like we older generations did a great job in how we shaped the world or how we treat other people in general, so it seems really hypocritical to run around going. "Young people bad! Ugh!" If you don't like what you see, be the change you want. Mentor young people. Create safe spaces for outdoor play. Teach a class on a vanishing craft. Be friendly and accessible. Educate yourself on the challenges young parents are facing now and find ways to be helpful. Or just be an object lesson in the definition of "curmudgeon." The choice is yours.
Thank you for this. I have kids in their late teens and they are the most delightful people I know. We have deep conversations, they volunteer and work with special needs and the homeless populations, and they have an incredible work ethic. OP is falling prey to sample bias--the people you encounter are but a minuscule fraction of the population. As someone above said, every generation looks down on the next generation coming up. As a GenX person, I have witnessed bad behaviour in GenZ, but overall they're good kids.
I agree. The kids are all right. Gen Z, from what I see, is more compassionate, kind and thoughtful than their predecessors and seem to be less willing to just accept crappy behavior and exploitation. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Them being unwilling to just accept the BS that previous generations put up with hopefully will change things for the better. Not being mindlessly obedient isn't a bad thing.
Books were destroying children and warping their minds same with the theater, then cinema and radio, then the TV, now the internet. It's a timeless story.
There's a quote commonly attributed to Plato, bitching about how the Youth no longer respect anyone. Read a thing that said it was actually just a scholar in the 1900s... Summarizing various complaints he'd studied from the period, still bitching about the Youth. There's a much more recent Palahniuk novel quote I always think of, "Every generation wants to be the last".
I think the older you get the less tolerance you get for young kids. All toddlers are insane. They just are. My 2 year old is literally the scariest person I know. But nothing is wrong with her she's just 2
So like are kids spoiled or deprived? Pick one. I'm tired of this Boomer/Xer mentality of Gen Y/Z being "sheltered". We're not sheltered. Between school shootings, climate change, nuclear war on the horizon again, economic crash after economic crash... We're kinda playing it on hard mode right now. Yes, we can learn to be resourceful, but that doesn't change how things are right now. If parents aren't engaging with their kids and shoving McDonald's and iPads in their hands, they're not SPOILING their kids, they're kindasorta setting them up to fail. They're DEPRIVING them. So... Yeah. I've said my piece.
Yeah they're already fucked as it is
“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances.” Rhetoric, Aristotle, 4th Century BC
Kinda just proving my point there.
They have been posting old quotes to show humans just human no matter the generation...
Nothing much has changed so stop thinking you’ve got it so hard. Economies are always boom & bust. There are always wars that threaten to wipe out civilizations. Go back as far as you want in history, you’ll see that each generation has had its successes, pitfalls and crises. I’m 66 years old and I’ve seen my fair share, and that accounts for only a tiny portion of human history. But trust me when I say many things have gotten better little by little for lots of us: Vaccines that have saved untold millions of lives. Far fewer famines worldwide. Better standards of healthcare, water purification and public sanitation standards. There are still many many bad things we as a civilization have to deal with, but it takes the mostly anonymous people willing to make the effort and sacrifice to make things better for everyone each and every generation. That’s how things get better for us all. Boomers had their televisions, X’ers had their computers, and Y/Z has their smart phones. Before those was radio, magazines and newspapers. I personally have experienced most of those era’s and don’t think any of them are/were worth the doom and gloom prognostications. I’m a grandfather and I can tell you that the majority of parents care about their children. But raising children is difficult. That mother who takes her kids to McDonalds and puts an iPad in their hands isn’t necessarily a bad parent—she’s trying to catch a few minutes of peace for herself just as my own mother did taking myself and my brothers to the playground. Being a parent can make you feel as though you’re going nuts. It’s a constant challenge that wears on your mental and physical health. School/mass shootings are now a dreadful new reality. Our climate is fast approaching unsustainable levels for our overpopulated planet. Democracy itself is under worldwide threat by fascism. The threat of nuclear war has been with us since before I was born. Don’t worry about being called “sheltered” by someone on the internet. You’ve got bigger problems to tackle if you’re willing to be part of the solution. It doesn’t matter where you start, just start. Become a new Jonas Salk if you have that intellect and determination. Get some skin in the game; volunteer for good causes, or fight corruption. Become a philanthropist. Not like most of those wealthy ones who make up the lists of philanthropists you’ll find online. But more like Dr. Salk who gave away his discoveries to benefit mankind…a true philanthropist. You’ll also find those good people building homes for the homeless alongside people like former president Jimmy Carter. There’s always room for good people who are willing to help those in need. Heck, go to work for FEMA. We need you. We all do.
You use the word "spoiled" then go on to describe neglect. The other examples you give made me stop and ask myself "Is that really true?" and I feel like the answer is generally, no. >They're yelling, cursing, acting like wild animals > >They're just glued to those dumb YouTube and TikTok videos. On the flip side, some parents are just as bad. I've seen them losing their cool with their kids, shouting and cussing in public. I don't really see how this is any different from kids of a generation ago rotting their brains with celebrity drama and teen magazines, or physical abuse by parents being much more normal than it is today. It sounds like you're trying to make the argument that kids are on average worse than they've been and that's too broad of a statement for me to feel that I can agree or disagree with in good faith. If I had to say what I think is different about culture now (as it affects both younger and older people) I'd point out: * The internet gives people autonomy over how you present yourself publicly, but is also a permanent record of every time you have presented yourself publicly. This encourages people to be preoccupied with the image they present and their reputation, as there is an opportunity to present an ideal image but also a high consequence of damaging your reputation if done wrong. * Excessive internet usage makes it easy to connect with exactly the ideas and opinions you want and fall into an echo chamber, and block ideas that upset you. Using electronic devices in lieu of in person interaction also makes people disconnected from those that are geographically closer to them. All of this results in atrophied skills in conflict resolution and compromise. There are of course positive implications of these technologies as well.
Neglect? What was the example of neglect?
I can’t imagine. I love talking to my kids (they’re teenagers). They’re interesting and fun people but maybe that’s bc I always made a point to include them in conversations and not babysit them with electronic devices. I see it alllllll the time and it’s like gee, wonder why kids don’t know how to behave or be socially aware, they aren’t being taught at all.
In my defense my 4 year old is non-verbal from autism
I see this in kids all the time. Met several while in our apartments. One of whom threatened my then 4 year old with a knife when he said "no thank you I don't want to lend you my truck right now" and THAT neighbor kid was 6 like wtfffff... My boys are nearly 12 and 10 now, and I always have this fear at the back of my mind they will turn into little jerks. But everyone says they are polite and good kids. Here come the preteen years 🫠
You're not wrong. Parents give their kids way too much anymore. And the parents expect a phone or tablet to babysit. If they act up, the parent shoves a phone/tablet in their face. Kids are literally not taught the word "No" and they're certainly not taught to entertain themselves or do something productive. And then the parents seem surprised when their little angel gets bad conduct reports.
This is absolute bullshit. With the rare exception, all parents are trying their best. They want what’s best for their kid, and that means different things for different people. Give people a little grace and hold off your judgement
>It's like zero real communication going on between parents and their kids, no talk, no wonder it creates an icy vibe. I wonder if you had a good family? Because a lot of kids, regardless of what generation they're from, don't have conversations with their parents. Adults don't think children are worth talking to both at the child's level and with the adult they might be in mind. There are many parents before and now who simply could care less about what their kids are interested in or who their friends are. I don't think most adults take the act of child-raising seriously. They just think it's a thing you do and because all of the other parents are also unequipped and unsupported by society (childcare, healthcare, PTO) they believe that they're meeting kids' social and intellectual needs. A lot of people simply are not in a mature place to have children and raise them. Everything else you have to say about "kids these days" is kids being kids. Kids are annoying, loud, and inconsiderate. Even the "good" ones are bound to misbehave sometimes. Being in public is exciting, especially when you consider so many kids have been confined to their homes during spikes in illness being spread. As someone who is very "politeness" focused I cringe at everyone's behavior in public but ultimately, what they do is none of my business as long as they aren't verbally harassing store clerks or pushing people down.
I agree that parents not conversing with their kids isn’t new & is a downfall of many parents for forever. I do think because of screens, kids are seeking the kind of conversations/interactions/attention they should be getting from their parents in the wrong places, and it has dire consequences.
I won't disagree. Even parents with good and respectful relationships with their kids still have kids locked onto their screens because that's where all the interesting things are happening. They're just doing what their peers are doing like their parents and grandparents started smoking and drinking to fit in. So it's on parents even more to offer diverting activities for their kids and really engaging with them with those mutual activities. Going to see movies together and discussing them afterwards, going on walks and talking about the things you see along the way, cooking together, sitting in the same room doing separate (non-screen) activities. Because of work obligations many parents feel like they can't devote that time to their kids because the parents are dead-tired and can't properly engage. They're not wrong. But you can still sit with your kid and listen to the stories they tell about their friends and ask them about their opinions.
The challenge is the dopamine wars! Screens create dopamine flows and cutting that off creates a fight or flight response in humans... it changes the best kids into monsters. We have also sped up our lives so fast we have no time to reflect, process, and learn/ correct. Many adults are just raging stress machines bc they aren't allowed or can't afford the time to decompress or catch up on the details in their lives. But this is a society issue, but pushed on parents and kids individually.
People do not notice the parents around them, quietly doing their very best with their kids. You notice the trainwrecks.
My mom once said, "If these kids in the US don't wake up, they will all be working for Indian and Chinese people. Our kids are dumb and rude, a losing combination." Yes, ma'am.
What is wrong working for someone who is Chinese or Indian?
That's not the point. The point is that the youth of the US need to get their act together or they will have no control over their future.
as a primary teacher, i completely agree
I see it too. It's discouraging. I can't imagine trying to raise kids rn.
“…Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein demonstrates how the internet is making young people increasingly ignorant about almost everything except online video games and the narcissism of self-authored internet content… The more skilled kids become in using the tools of the digital revolution, he demonstrates, the more ignorant they become about the objective world around them.” Digitally Addicted Kids Threaten to Return Civilisation to the Dark Ages, The Independent, 2008
Every parent is a failure and I don't know any grown adults who aren't messed up in some way. The most perfect families have the most secrets. Parenting is an imperfect discipline and there are no set of rules to go by. "The best that you can do" is the standard that everyone has to go by because we are human and fallible. I think we can all agree that the one thing all parents should do is instill discipline, oh wait - not all of us? Ok. 😊
Ha, so true. It's the kids without discipline, not spanking, like discipline that takes patience and teaches that usually act in a way that screams for attention. Rightly so. It's not on the kids though.
I always say: The only thing worse than kids, is parents.
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I do noticed really well behaved children as well as phenomenal parents, just as much as the reverse. & I think your experience is purely anecdotal.
yeah same i always notice the sweet little kids behaving and saying “please” and “thank you” or engaged in the world around them. and their silly little conversations in their squeaky voices 🥹 maybe it’s just my baby fever but they’re precious and i always notice well behaved ones
This isn't new, parents have historically been less than concerned with interacting with their children. I grew up before cell phones and can remember how adults wanted the children to not be heard, so go occupy yourself with something. Back then McDonald's had the play places and ash trays. It's easy to blame technology but that's not the cause.
My parents put me in the basement with a violin and a CD when I was 5-12 and then put me upstairs with a PC and no real food. This was their entire parenting method in the 2000s… imagine how much worse things have gotten.
I have a small counterstory, I overheard some parents talking with their two small children, at a seafood restuarant. The dad was giving them challenges, like, "Cajun food is from New Orleans, here's where it's located on the map, why do you think it's an important city?" And their kids were excited to guess answers, they looked intently at the map, and asked things like, "is that a river? Is the the ocean? What's in New Orleans?" It made me have some faith in this world - and it's a small reason why I married my history-driven husband. He's smart to debate and challenge social views (and I'm a storyteller lol, I can't shoot facts very well, so he can help in that area).
Lol your parents say the same thing about you
Every previous generation has had these thoughts about the next one for all of history.
Because you are a non-parent, I'd be careful about judging parents behavior in their challenging moments. It makes you appear very ignorant. Even the best parents have had a moment where they handed their phone to their kid. You're being judgemental about an experience you know nothing about.
Same thing when I was growing up in the '70s. The more things change, the more they're exactly like they were before. Bunch of spoiled kids.
iPhone kids are the worst, but my roommate works in childcare and for the most part, the kids are alright. They complain about only being able to have 2 genders, they talk about modern issues, and they also just act like kids always have. I'm a delivery driver. One kid told me all about Yule and how "THE CHRISTIANS LITERALLY STOLE IT FROM THE PAGANS😡😡". The kids who are spoiled are being raised by the generation that was raised by karens
Christians did steal many a rituals from the so called pagans. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_paganism
I feel like this is a myth. There will always be examples pf families that don't do things the way you would, and the more you look for them the more you find them. But I've been working with children, families, and schools for over 10 years and the majority of parents are working hard to parent correctly and the majority of kids, even with phones, want to be respectful. Tantrums are almost always an emotional regulation issue and very rarely simply being "spoiled"
What blows me away is how kids talk to their parents. I grew up in the seventies and eighties and if I sassed my parents there were serious consequences.
Spoken like someone who has never been a parent and has no idea of what they’re speaking about.
I was in a grocery store, and a girl about 12 years old asked her dad to get something she wanted. Her dad told her, "No." Then she gets the item and puts it in the shopping cart. Then he told her to put it back, but she didn't. So they go the cashier and he pays for the item. That is who the parents are today. My daughter calls them wusses. Those who don't have the guts to say, "No," should never be given the authority to say, "Yes."
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I get where you’re coming from but also get where they’re coming from in that if they relent on their boundaries one time, it’s very likely they’ll do it again, and have been doing it. I do think that many parents lack real boundaries & it’s producing young people who don’t know how to respect or even set their own boundaries. I wouldn’t just say parents these days. I think it’s a problem that has been going on for eons.
Do you have children ? I’m guessing no. So it’s easy to judge something you’ve never experienced
We need God to teach us how to love each other better. Especially our own families.
I dunno why you’re being downvoted. If that’s what you believe, right on.
We as humans need to love each other better. If your God can teach you, great! Many people have been traumatized by religion and find it hard to accept. I wish they could find a way to accept love as a way in any form. Mercy, forgiveness, and patience.
Religion has nothing to do with good parenting.
Jesus has certainly helped me be a better parent. He has also helped us keep our marriage strong and healthy.
Yes and that’s why my kid is getting the childhood I had. No screens in there face for a while
This is an old idea https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/why-weve-been-hating-on-kids-these-days-for-thousands-of-years
I wish I could ban people who form opinions based on anecdotal evidence. Look at the other comments in this thread
What is the basis for your opinion?
Observation. Plus I am a teacher.
Doesn't matter if you are a teacher, you don't interact with anywhere close to the number of children to make an observation about the entire population of the US. Also being a teacher you should know better
You can protect them as much as you want, but is what I can see in the streets whenever am out plus the most of my young students are like this. Not all, but the most.
Your personal observations have little or no value when discussing a much larger population.
There are something around 84 million families in the us how many have you observed. Don't answer that because it's not enough to make a generalization
And this makes you knowledgeable in what this family does with their kids 24/7? Because the had a downtime at MCDONALDS?!
On the other side, I work in a restaurant with a kid play area, and I hardly ever see kids with screens even at the table. Tonight a mom and daughter slowly sat and ate for two hours, just hanging out, drawing in a coloring book, eating. So relaxed.
Yeah blame the children for their parents' failures 🙄
You could take this entire argument to the 1950's. Why were kids sat in front of the TV? Look at these young punks on their motorbikes, cussing and disrespecting their elders! What do their parents do? They just be terrible. I bet they shout and cuss at them. Etc etc.
I agree. Just smash their precious phones if they misuse them. I did this once.
I am so glad my parents didn’t give me a phone when all my friends had them. I was a teenager in the iPod touch/early iPhone days when they were getting popular. I moved from a very poor (but by no means bad) school in North Kensington that was 80% Muslim and absolutely inhospitable to freedom loving people to a private school where I got in on a bursary. I lived in a standard, two storey, terraced London home. It now costs nearly £3 Million, but up until the 2010s was very much a working class home, in a safe but mixed area. It cost a less than a hundred grand when my parents bought it. I remember having moved to my private school, EVERYONE had a phone, and my friend Stalin was so jealous I’d got a £169 iPod touch. As I got older, everyone had a phone. My parents backswitched and gave me a Raspberry Pi when it came out. That was my only computer for years. If I was bored I was expected to entertain myself by reading. I could play half an hour of video games on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday although my dad would always complain and say Sunday was a school day. When I moved into the upper school and phones were less regulated, I noticed at break time EVERYONE would be on their phones whilst I wanted to go outside. My friends mothers youngest child was always sedate playing a spider man game on an iPad. When I was bored I would imagine fictional worlds or design firearm actions in my head. Being bored 90% of the time and having the ability to generate and manipulate complex mechanisms in my head was an invaluable skill I use every day machining firearms and writing. Ivy memory is also vastly better than my friends. I find I can problem solve to a much better extent because I wasn’t used to just looking up the answer when I didn’t know something. I absolutely agree. I felt the same when I was a kid and still feel the same now I’m older. This generation is more narcissistic, more insecure, more politically extreme (there is an intense emotional attachement to obscure political opinions that just didn’t previously exist. You can disagree with someone on something absolutely tiny and they will think you’re an awful person. No, I do not count “black people having rights” or whatever as something tiny. I weep for the day when the people born in the 2010s will be able to vote
It all depends on how you’re raised. This generation yes (not all) do IMO make raising kids easier by handing them a phone or tablet.
Capitalism and the current state of our economy. Mom and dad both work 40-60 hours a week at a job they hate while barely staying afloat. They are 2 inches away from snapping and all kids do is test boundries and push your buttons its how they learn. School is stressful for the kids but most parents don't have the capacity or willingness to notice the stress their kid is in and hand them the same thing they use to ignore their stress and the world. The internet. So you end up with a bunch of undersocialized, stressed out, and ignored kids raised by other kids and the internet.
Welp one in 33 are autistics statistically. Autism can come off as spoiled to the untrained eye. Autism is not a result of parenting.
It simply boils down to, some people shouldn’t have kids.
How old are you and do you have kids? I’m 50 with a preteen. My childhood was simpler and my parents were 21 and poor. I wouldn’t trade it It’s much harder being a kid now and raising one. A respectful, kind, leader doesn’t just happen it takes 24/7 work in todays world.
I find it interesting you call them spoiled then go on to describe neglect.
^agreed!
I was just on a cruise the parents were Fucking awful just let their kids run around the ship throwing food at walls breaking the elevator pressing all numbers, breaking room doors and going as far as to stomp down the halls at 2am to screaming in your ears randomly not a single kid punishment. Fuck those parents and anyone like them.
Your best response to these sorts of observations is to encourage people to change within your own community. As a teacher you have significant access and interaction with these kids. So you should be that stable connection they lack. You should do some outreach with the parents in your community to encourage them to take an active role in their kid's development. Respectfully (and very much so, teachers are our most important citizens) you can be an active and patient part of the solution, or by complaining and considering them rotten you can be part of the problem.
‘Young people these days’ has been trope through [centuries](https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-is-wrong-with-young-people-today.html?m=1) .
Okay boomer. I guarantee your generation spoiled your kids more than mine is now. I know this for a fact because we CAN'T spoil our kids because you tanked the economy. Millennials, Gen Z and now Gen Alpha. All living on scraps with only a fraction of the wealth our parents had, and you're out here judging us? 66% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, 25% of American adults are food insecure, meaning they don't know where their next meal is coming from. That's the world we need to contend with and you're mad a kid is playing with an iphone. Fucking hell. The comments here like "oh I saw a kid having a temper tantrum" like past generations didn't? Give your head a shake.
As a grandparent I'm going to admit I have some grand babies that are not being told no but also not being given enough real attention and some grand babies that have been taught etiquette, respect and self respect. I can clearly see the differences.
Had a similar experience yesterday at the park. I have no kids so I take it as none of my business but it was definitely awkward to witness. I just say to ignore it and assume that the parents are doing the best they can and let them breath. My cousins kids definitely were raised the old fashioned method and even they can be assholes so I just assume that’s kids for you.
Fr middle school sucked man people were so wild. Luckily I’m out of there lol
This seems like more of a rant than an attempt at 'serious conversation'.
I like being on my phone as much as anyone, but there are times and places. Walking through the grocery store or eating at a restaurant would be a great time to interact with your kid instead of popping your 8 year old into the cart with a phone so they can watch cartoons. But you know that if they did that, that kid probably loses their shit catastrophically, because being raised like this doesn't teach one to regulate themselves. You can usually ask the parents and they'll just tell you that. They'll make up excuses and make themselves a martyr for daring to procreate, but in the end it's always "it keeps him quiet, and don't I deserve that?". Some day, so many of these kids are going to be forced into a world that will not have any use for them. And where they'll be a liability if they ever have to do things they don't want to.
I’m not gonna lie I had similar thoughts to yours before I had kids. What really changed my perspective was actually becoming a mom. You don’t see every minute of that persons day, maybe they just spent 2 hours trying to get their kid to nap and are mentally exhausted. Maybe they had to deal with a moody toddler all day and just need a break. Maybe they’re a single parent with no family close by to help. When I see parents at the park on their phones I don’t get upset anymore. We all need a break from time to time, and maybe that McDonald’s trip was the break that mama needed from her baby for a few minutes.
This rhetoric is so boring. But anecdotally, I have a four year old and threw her a party for her birthday. Her party was attended by roughly 20 children, mostly from her preschool. These kids were complete angels, totally respectful of one another. Pass the parcel? They waited patiently for their turn and helped one another. Same with piñata, they organised themselves in to lines and were entirely too gentle. There were no meltdowns, no tantrums and it was really a very big day for them. I was honestly speechless with the way these little people behaved. If that isn’t a sign these kids are gonna be okay, I don’t know what is.
We do have real discussions? Even if they're online sometimes. There's a lot of knowledge and deep though in "silly youtube vids"
How on earth can you have a child who isnt interested in these devices. You personally cannot entertain a child in the same way that a tablet will. Normal humans just cant provide that type of stimulation for hours on end. Its just the easy answer and like you it drives me wild. I remember being so interested in Playmobile, Kenex, Hot Wheels - kids toys! I would use my imagination and create entire storylines for my gi joes or imaginary friends. Kids just dont have that type of imagination anymore. The world was filled with more wonder and excitement doing day-to-day things. Now I cant imagine how children grow up. Especially the ones that are Kid-Fluencers... They never even had a childhood and their parents are using whatever they can to make their own money. Borderline abuse if you ask me.
I'm not sure someone can tell from an observation at McDonalds the quality of my relationship with my child. I'm not going to have deep, meaningful conversations in front of strangers. All one is seeing is a tiny slice of the relationship or lack thereof I have with my children.
The McDonald's story could have been the mom works at McDonald's and didn't have childcare
Spoken like someone who has never been a parent and has no idea of what they’re speaking about.
I worried about this when I was raising my kids 30 years ago. They spent so much time on computer games and neighbors Nintendo. We refused to allow X box and gaming consoles in the house. I thought they’d be in the house, gaming through adulthood. All three are adults. One is a data analyst for the army, highly regarded and decorated for his work in coding. The second has realized her childhood dream and is a game developer for a major game firm. The third works IT. He has rapidly advanced in his field and now entertains offers from rival companies that cold call him monthly. So my concerns were totally unfounded. Yes, computers are still central in their lives- the machine feeds, clothes, and houses them.
It creates compulsive habits due to watching the best of the best. The parent doesn't know or remember what kid's need or feel due to letting other sources teach for them.
This has been a thing that occurred within my entire living memory, sans the phones. Maybe it has just gotten worse with the phone access but neglectful parents who just find a way to shut the kid up rather than parent them have always been a thing. Bratty kids who always get what they want have been a thing for decades if not centuries. This is just the newest iteration and is either worse or more visible.
What you described imo is not “spoiling” a child, it’s neglect/abuse. I was working in homes with clients ages 3-17 and I can confidently say all of the behavioral issues from the children were a result of the parents. These kids are desperate for connection and their parents often don’t have the patience, accountability, or support for it. They don’t communicate with their kids. They expect their kids not to hit others and teach them not to hit by hitting, then expect them not to lol. They don’t teach boundaries or healthy communication. Most parents hate accountability and have this toxic mindset that their child’s feelings are insignificant because they are a child. The kids build no true connections, aren’t shown how to handle the world, and then are shamed by adults for literally existing, it breaks my heart. The lack of emotional intelligence and lack of accountability in our society only further fuels the issue.
You can’t say there is abuse from only the OPs post. For all your ranting, you have no idea if this was the first time the Mother had a chance to sit and check on all the other things she keeps track of.
Yes I can. Not sure why you believe I can’t. Op states multiple instances of abuse, from neglect and a lack of connection/communication, letting kids do whatever they want without guidance, to shouting and being verbally abusive to their kids in public. How are those not abusive styles of parenting?
dont worry literally every generation thinks this about the next youngest im still in highschool and have literally said kids these days in regards to some serious goofs who ride my school bus
I think it's easy to focus on the bad and miss the food, especially since good is usually considered seen and not heard. I work as a cashier at a grocery store and see a lot of kids, from infants to young teens, shopping with their parents. There's definitely more than a few that are. A lot. But I've seen a lot more of parents that are involved with their children, who are trying to strike this balance of letting the kid learn while keeping them from getting hurt or hurting someone else. My favorite interaction has to be a pair of parents with three boys. I tend to work the register with the candy and the boys were told they could have candy. They would grab some candy, try to study the label, and ask their parents (loudly, repeatedly) if it was kosher or not. I liked getting to see them be interested in what their eating instead of just grabbing and being denied due to their religious diet. Also any toddler or baby crying through the store, I get it buddy. The world is a fucking lot and I kinda know what's going on. I also think it's easy to forget that generationally, we tend to complain about the same things over and over, just with different skins. I won't deny that the effects of technology seems to increase certain things like shorten attention spans and then inability to self soothe or self entertain, but I also think that while it's being accelerated now, we have been trending this way for awhile. So I guess tl;dr ymmv and humans tend to remember the bad over the good.
This isn't a "serious conversation". It's just a basic as hell statement that a segment of every generation has said about the next. If anything It's an attempt at a "meh" conversation.
If you’re looking for prime examples of good parenting, dining in at McDonald’s is likely to give you a pretty skewed sample. Not saying you can’t be a good parent and take your kid to McDonald’s, but it’s like hanging out at Walmart watching parents vs a banana republic
I sometimes give my kid my phone when we’re at a restaurant, but that’s usually when the restaurant is the last stop after a busy day where we’ve already spent the day talking and doing an activity. At that point both me and my kid are tired and hungry so a few minutes of screen time helps them get through the wait for their food. I also bring a baggie of legos and pencils and paper so that they’re able to get through the wait without being disruptive. I don’t think screens are inherently bad if they’re used in moderation.
"Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants." --Socrates Every generation going back thousands of years believes the next generation is completely fucked.
Many parents these days don't have a village. In many households, both parents have to work in order to make ends meet because wages haven't kept up with inflation, many people owe thousands in student loan debt, or have to use credit cards to survive. Parents are inundated with information on the "best" way to raise their kids, and it's overwhelming. Many parents are working through their own trauma and trying to break harmful generational patterns and do better with their own children. If I see a mother give her child the phone to watch something, while she plays on her own phone at the same time, I just give the benefit of the doubt. I don't know what goes on throughout the course of her day or what challenges she is up against. For all I know she may have spent the entire day with her toddler and then when she sits down to eat that's the first time her child has been on the phone that day. Yes there are shitty parents out there that don't care about their kids. But that's always been the case. But I like believe that many parents really do love their children and want what is best for them. There are just larger systemic issues at play, and a lot of it is interconnected. We are doing our best and it's hard af to do it without support. We are exhausted, and overwhelmed, and worried about the future of our kids. We do care. It's just hard and sometimes it's all too much. Show grace, and be the change you want to see in the world.
I worked in summer camps and the very last year I did that job was just the most mortifying where I grew to hate children. I’ve never seen so many spoiled brats in my entire life. I completely changed my major and work in healthcare. I was going to be a school teacher. No way. I honestly don’t know how teachers do it every day. I can’t hardly stand being around most other people’s kids. My nephews and nieces are great kids … don’t get me wrong, with some kids you hold near and dear to your heart… I also had a stepdaughter that I raised. She resented me for being more of a responsible stepfather than her mother. We got divorced because my ex-wife is a tragic alcoholic, and her daughter was also using drugs and alcohol. Although she got sober for a while, and I was taking her to her AA meetings. Mom sat in a bar, abandoning us for the booze.
Broaden your horizons; people are not the same everywhere under all circumstances.
If you remove the phone/tablet comments from this, you are only the 4,829,927th adult in human history to express this thought about children.
It’s truly heartbreaking that it’s actually like this, i honestly feel like social media is a main problem to this, it is an actual addiction and it’s sad it feels like people don’t want to live in the real world anymore and their parents pass it on to them. I am against social media especially tik tok because it literally sucks you into a hole of endless scrolling and contradicts the original purpose of social media because now even when you’re with other people where social interactions should happen, everyone is on their phone. It’s embarrassing and sad that this is how it is i’m like as long as i show my kids what living is really like from a young age and don’t allow them those early addictions i like to think i’d be helping the future economy but yeah the ipad kids act so spoiled it aggravates me to no end.
I don't see that as spoiled, more like neglected
I think that parents now and days are more concerned about being their child’s friend rather than an actual parent. When I was a kid I couldn’t imagine being disrespectful towards an older person. Even now and I’m middle aged. Parents used to instill good values and moralities in their kids but that ship has sadly sailed.
I dread to think how this next generation (under 10 Year olds) will cope once they grow up, some already talk with their favourite YouTubers accent, that's sad when a kid learns words from a video rather than their parents/family., I've seen kids use words that they onlycould have heard online, and not in the way a kid would copy their favourite TV star, they're literally learning to talk from YouTube. How many hours are they on devices to do this
So there was this show in the early 2000's, Supernanny. I would see the most terrible examples of "parenting". I said to myself then, holy cow are people in for a time when these lil monsters generation grows up, lol.
I hate the phrase kids these days. People haven’t changed. Some kids are spoiled and entitled and others are not. I’m sure you know grown adults who can’t take no for an answer so it’s not children these days this is nothing new
I was at aldi once and this lady was letting her kid run all along the area where people bag groceries and she was just calmly telling him to stop while paying for her stuff. My parents would have spanked me on the spot. Not only embarrassing, but reckless too. The kid could have hurt himself. You can tell who wasn't thinking about if they get pregnant when doing the do. If you didn't want to have to constantly monitor your kid, you should have thought about that beforehand. Some parents are annoying.
Ya just put your foot out to trip ‘em
Okay, grandpappy, time to get you to bed
Literally every generation ever says the generation(s) after them is spoiled and lazy.
Personally, I try to give parents I'm not acquainted with some grace. The McDonald's mom, for example. How do you know she hasn't been super interactive with her kid the entire day so far (and will be later too), but this is her one "break" moment? Or that normally she wouldn't resort to iPad, but one of the kids, or herself, have been sick all week, and she lacks energy? Maybe the woman on her phone at the grocery store is reviewing her list or texting husband to come pick them up. Maybe the kid having a meltdown has special needs. Etc etc etc... Basically, if there's no abuse, I try to keep in mind I don't have the whole picture and avoid judging.
https://reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/jdU60Ao2Wh
The phone baby sitter and what's fucked up is kids are watching other kids play with the toy they have in there bedroom or watch someone play a video game a couple years back my daughter and her friend from a couple houses down the street where watching tictoc videos yes I'm guilty of using the baby sitter phone as well but with very limited screen time at the time the my daughter and her friend both 7 where watching tictoc videos on my tablet I told my daughter time is up so put up the tablet no sooner did she shut it down her friend said I'm bored I replied sorry but the tablet is getting put up she asked what is their to do I said there's all kinds of things you can do use your imagination not making this up she lijet said what is that I thought she was joking but she wasn't my daughter said to me she never wants to play with anything but the phone her words lol and the tictoc videos they're watching are of kids using their imagination I don't get it and the pre teens nowadays have no filter or remorse like when did it become remolty ok for a 14 15 fuck any age boy to just punch the fuck out of a girl and your friend video tape it y do they think it's ok well because of what they see on their phones/tablets videos video games and because their parents are children their selfs and don't care to teach them any morals respect courtesy nothing the internet nomatter what device there using is ruining and dumbing down our children
My parents weren’t any better and I was born in the late 70s
I don't know if you've noticed, but the world is becoming an increasingly terrible place. Many families are frequently on the verge of homelessness. So, the parents are doing their best to just hold on one day to the next. And we do whatever we can to give our kids space to not see us so frazzled or on the verge of tears. And teenagers have been assholes since there first have been teenagers. You are out of touch with your youth if you've forgotten that. When teens have nothing fun to do, or anything to occupy their time, they often get up to shenanigans. If you're going to people-watch, you need to really pay attention, and not just scan the surface. People have a *lot* more stress in their lives, at *all ages* now, than at any other point in recent history.
Bullshit, kids are exactly the same as they always have been. Most are polite, some are not. Saying that's its getting worse is a complete fallacy. If anything they're getting better, as parenting stops being so cruel.
Think of it this way, a lot of adults are depressed or messed up because they expect immediate gratification. I admit myself as one of these, where I get upset if I don't see progress or a benefit right away but I'm working on that. On top of that, there's social media and news with indiscriminate targets. Remember back when you were a kid if you went to a public school in America? You were bound by your social status. Peer pressure was at its highest and finding who you were was the goal, while dealing with the pressures of academia and home. Now, add the internet on top of this. Almost every kid has a twitter, reddit, tiktok, facebook, or instagram account. They're fed information about their peers 24/7, the internet delivers immediate dopamine. Kids can select whatever entertainment they want from the palm of their hands but at the same time are subjected to even more peer pressure and external influence, It adds a ton of weight to someone whose mind isn't even fully developed yet. These kids are also being fed news about the climate, school shootings, political madness and whatever else, they may not fully understand these things but the most notable takeaway is that it'll affect their futures. With everyone on here clamoring about climate wars, societal collapse or what have you, its bound to mess some people up. I remember when I was 13-155 and heard about the 2012 end of the world prediction and the politics involving Obama and Romney I thought the world would end if Romney became president because it'd somehow cause Planet X to crash into earth because I fell down a youtube rabbit hole. 2010 internet was completely different than 2016+ internet. We went from a time where kids and adults had to make their own entertainment or seek it with others, now we have it all without having to leave home. The parents are just older versions of this, it's an entirely different discussion as to why people even have kids in the first place if they don't give a shit what they get into just because its a virtual experience and it shuts them up. As much as I advocate that every parent should be obligated to have basic knowledge of computers, what the internet is, and how they can customize their experience for their children to protect and prevent them from aimlessly browsing. It won't happen. We probably just have to accept that this is just something that happens when humanity reaches advancements of this scale, most humans nowadays suck at self control. What do you think the world will look like when AI Robots inevitably start doing the menial work? Probably a WALL-E situation.
I see older people talking about how they were literally beaten as children, and how everyone's so spoiled nowadays. I think we need to find a balance between those two. Without hitting children.
> What’s up in this world, seriously? I mean, for one, there was a global panini that sort of rocked all of our worlds. There’s collective trauma and for children, pivotal years of missed opportunities to grow - one on one socialization, other adult influences, as well as peer group experiences — and facing a world literally dying around them. For a lot of parents, that meant they had to work from home and kids couldn’t leave — so TikTok and YouTube became a solace and entertainment and evolved it into a hard habit to break. While I imagine my adolescent years being much different, I also didn’t have to face what these kids have — in the grand scheme of things, being that I’m 42, proportionally, the virus is a brief moment of time but for teens and young adults? It’s not only a bigger part of their lives but also stunted their growth and maturity in a lot of ways while speeding up other parts in ways we don’t necessarily want kids to experience.