Kids

Ok let's get this going... Life in general is an amazing thing. I mean think about it... We all are born grow up and die. On average a human lives 85 - 90 years. How much can one accomplish in those 90 years? We as humans do most of our learning in the first 7 years of our lives. After that it's all extra. If you really think about it its amazing. We learn the difference between right and wrong, how to count, how to read, how to speak, how to eat, go to the bathroom, keep ourselves clean, learn how to remember things, learn how to tie our shoes, learn math skills, and the list goes on and on. After about seven though on average society takes over educating our children.

In some cases even earlier ages stray from the norm. I remember just a few days ago being in a gas station and there was a guy in there with his son. The child was about 5 and for the most part was a typical 5 year old. He wanted everything he saw and made sure everyone knew it. The dad was doing what any parent would do and was calmly keeping his eye on his son and telling him no that he can't have those things. He kept telling him to quiet down and to come over to where he was. The child wanted nothing to do with it as any 5 year old does. The dad was hurrying to complete his transaction. There was one item in particular the son wanted and he pleaded with his dad to get it. As the dad was finishing up he looked at his son and sternly said "No you can't have it." The son in turn backed himself against the door and yelled out, "You're a F***ing A**hole." and pushed the door open. I think everyone in the store dropped their jaw.

I'm not blaming this particular incident on society in general. A lot of what this particular child has learned has been at home and in places he has been with his parents. However I have been in elementary schools and walked down the halls and have heard the same if not worse out of school age kids. The amazing part is that it happens in front of teachers and not a word is said to the students. There have even been times that a teacher has spoken up and the child turns and looks at them and says "what ever" and flips them off. Again a lot of the language is learned at home but by schools and teachers not saying anything is condoning the behavior. They might as well be telling the kids they can talk how ever they want.

Think about this - Who do you spend most of your waking hours with? For most people it will be the people you work with and not your family. Who do school age kids spend most of their waking hours with? The teachers and school mates. I'm not saying schools are the cure all to the problem. It needs to be a joint effort between the parents and the schools. The schools need to admonish and in some instances punish for the language and disrespect that the students display. Parents need to back it up at home and do the same thing.

Kids today have very little or no respect for authority. I don't think anyone can pin point exactly when things started going wrong in society with young people. However if you look back in history I think you can get a pretty good idea. Some people that went through the 60's as teens and young adults might think that it started there when they stood up to the control and authority. Personally I think the 60's and free love and all that was more isolated incidents and it was made out to be more than what it was by the media. (But that is another topic all together) I think the problem actually started before that.

As with any country, young or old, they have to be able to function. For this to happen there has to be money to support programs that are presented to the citizens of that country. In the basic sense you can calculate that if every working person in the country contributed say $2.00 a month the program, as designed should function. However the problem comes with the bureaucracy. You put people in charge of various programs and they draw a salary - as it should be. You work you want to get paid. The problem is that people are paid out of several programs that they supervise, manage or what ever. It's not that they get paid say 100k a year to manage 5 programs they are paid 500k a year because each program pays them 100k. Now if that is just the top level you also have the lower level managers who really do most of the work. Plus remember all the managers from the top down usually have a staff of assistants who draw a salary and in some instances assistants have assistants. SO a program that is designed to bring in X amount of dollars to function, and would under normal circumstances, now is running a deficit. So what happens? The people of the country have come to rely on the program but in order for the program to keep going the government needs to raise taxes. So taxes are raised slightly to make up the difference. This is fine this is acceptable keeping in mind that society is growing and more people are coming into the work force to aid in the funding of the program. HOWEVER more often than not Administrators and Government officials sneak in pay raises for themselves so the program really barely breaks even. The tax raise in itself would have brought the program to the black instead it's border line.

So how does all this affect society and how did it affect respect for authority? As you all know "back in the day" the father went to work to support the family and the mother stayed home and took care of the home and the children. (WAIT... Before you all start jumping up and down about being sexist and back in the stone age and wanting women bare foot and pregnant in the kitchen.) The children were basically supervised 24 hours a day. Children said "yes ma'am", "yes sir", thank you, were active and helpful in the community and host of other things. I'm not saying all of society was like the Cleaver's but there was definitely respect from children and young adults no matter what. Kids knew that "Wait until your father gets home!" meant there was going to be a reckoning. Now as society grew and more and more programs developed and government got bigger it needed more money to support wages and programs. Tax hikes were the "only" way to increase the funds for the programs. (There were other ways but how often do you hear that a CEO and upper management take a pay cut to keep a company afloat and to avoid laying people off?) As the taxes went up and the salaries stayed the same families found it harder and harder to make ends meet. More and more families became 2 income families. At first the mothers would only work while the kids were in school but taxes continued to climb forcing both parents to be at work before the kids left for school and not get home until well after the kids. Enter the Latch-Key Kid syndrome.

Kids found themselves unsupervised for hours a day. Parents asked for programs at school to keep the kids there longer but schools were and still are faced with less money to support the programs even though taxes have been raised. Eventually generations of latch-key kids are in the system and they find that it is easy to skip school, wander the streets or do pretty much what ever they want. Parents are unable to supervise the children and the schools blame the parents for the children acting out as they do. The schools begin to take more and more responsibility for the children and begin taking away what little control the parents have over the children. In come the bleeding hearts saying "If you are being beaten and abused all you have to do is talk to a teacher or another adult or even call the police." This is drilled into the children and soon a parent can't discipline a child when they act out. I remember growing up and being a latch-key kid. My parents had to do what they could to raise us and put food on the table. There were times when my parents would alternate days that they would eat just to make sure us kids had food to eat. We as kids had unsupervised time like you wouldn't believe. We got into trouble and did things we shouldn't but we all knew that if we got busted doing something really wrong we got the belt. Trust me ... I didn't get into much trouble knowing that was what would happen.

Anymore if a parent tries to discipline their child with a spanking or even a paddle on the butt in public everyone cries abuse. Even the kids know that if they get in trouble and get in a screaming match and start swearing at a parent and the parent slaps them across the face all they have to do is call the police. Society has convoluted disciplining children so much that now the parent gets hauled off to jail for punishing their children. The is a difference though between punishing and beating the hell out of the child. There is a big difference between a slap for swearing and a closed fisted punch to the face. There is a big difference between a couple hits across the butt with a belt and cornering a child and whipping them.

So over time more and more kids loose the respect they once had for parents, because what little discipline the parents had was taken away, and really any adults - even police. Taxes continue to rise and parents are spending less and less time with the kids. The kids have more and more free time to do what they want. The schools back off from discipline because the bleeding hearts say we have to nurture children and can't put a child down for failure and can't yell at children. HELLO!?!?!?!?!?!? If I can't discipline a child and teach them the difference between right and wrong and how to respect authority then what are we really teaching them? We are teaching them that there is no consequence for their actions... At least not to them. They don't need to take responsibility for their actions. They don't have to take responsibility for anything they do.

So how does this further complicate matters? Kids that are of working age want to work but expect to get paid far more than what entry level should be. They expect to get paid full wages even though they called in 3 out of 5 days. They expect a lot and expect that everything be handed to them. The problem still remains they have no respect for anything and a lot of times no respect for themselves. Next time you are at a fast food restaurant look at the kids behind the counter and preparing your food. If you were a business owner would hire them with the way some of them look? I have an 18 year old step daughter. We have been trying to get her to understand that showing up to a job interview in jeans and a tee-shirt with writing on it is not a way to get a job. We have been trying to get her to understand that if she wants a decent job that when she goes for interviews she needs to dress appropriately. She has the interview process down and how to answer questions and what questions are generally asked. Her personality is great, she's out going but she lacks the respect. We tell her that she needs to buy casual clothes for interviews and in some cases she will need to dress that way if she gets hired. She continues to show up in the trendy "teen clothes". What kills us is that she sits there and still wonders why she didn't get the job.

I've been in positions where I am the one in the hiring position. There have been people that I have interviewed that on paper they look great, the perfect employee based on experience but when they show up for the interview their hair is a mess, their clothes are dirty, in sandals, dirty hands and a host of other things. Then they wonder why they don't get hired!! I'm sorry but to come to an interview like that shows you have no respect or care for your self if you could take the time to clean up.

What does it all boil down to and how did things get they way they are? Really there is no one entity that can be blamed. Granted the Government with taxes, over spending, miss appropriated funds, etc had a major role it's not entirely their fault. Many factors in society have contributed. From Government, to schools, to parents, to lobbyists, to TV, various media to the man down the street. I'm not saying that freedom of expression or speech needs to be removed but I think society needs to "get back to basics". We need to start disciplining children for bad behavior, we need to have the "tools" back in our hands to teach right from wrong and that there is a consequence for actions - good or bad - and that you have to take responsibility for those actions.

I don't have the answers to how we can do it or what we need to do other than people need to take a hard look at what is going on. People need to interact more with local, state and federal government to get the changes that are needed to start to correct the problem. A place to start would be allowing parents to use corporal punishment for discipline with out the fear of being hauled off to jail. It's not the cure all but it's a start. Take a look around you, look at your children, look at how you were raised, look how others are acting. Start teaching that actions result in consequences good and bad and to take responsibility for yourself and others.

I welcome any and all comments!