On 3/19/2017 6:00 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Mar 2017 14:26:37 -0400, dick balaska wrote:
>
>> I am very disappointed with my generation.  As a teen in the 70s, we had
>> the most freedom of any generation of kids *ever*.  And we turned that
>> into being the worst overprotective helicopter parents.
>
> Indeed - I was a teen in the 80s, but I feel the same way.  I was talking
> to someone at a brewery this evening who it turned out grew up not far
> from where I did in Minnesota at about the same time - remembering that
> during the non-winter months, we might have ridden our bikes to school,
> even though it was *gasp* a couple miles away.  Today, parents are
> sometimes accused of *child abuse* for allowing their kids that kind of
> freedom.
>
> It's fucking stupid.
>

It's not just stupid it is unkind. For the reasons you mention.

I used to walk the two miles to school when the weather permitted. 
Otherwise I had to take two buses which took as long as walking. The 
upside was that I would have saved half a crown, 2/6 or or 12·5p.


> How do we expect our kids to be sane in today's world if they aren't
> allowed to take risks and if they aren't allowed to fail?  I fear for an
> entire generation of people who are given "achievement awards" that are
> really "participation awards" because everyone has to feel like a winner
> - and then they get their first job, fuck up *really badly* and get fired
> for it.  How do you cope with something like that if you never learned as
> a kid how to?
>

I agree with that too.
Life is no bed of roses.

> Some will go out, get a gun, return to the workplace, and shoot a bunch
> of people - probably before shooting themselves.
>

If only they would do the latter first. O lot of problems would be non 
events. It is the same with some fathers who kill their own family 
before killing themselves.


> It's pretty obviously not a good thing for mental health.  Everyone needs
> to learn how to fail with grace - and that failure is often a great
> teacher.
>
Can you imagine the hoo ha if that were to be introduced into school 
syllabuses?




-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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