On Sun, 19 Mar 2017 08:29:35 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> 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.

Yep.  I might have strong opinions about this subject.

> 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.

For me in high school, it was about a half mile to get to the bus, which 
then took me about 4 miles to the school.  I'd occasionally walk it or 
bike it (the latter rarely), but in the winter, my dad would drive me to 
the bus stop - it got extremely cold where I grew up.

>> 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.

Indeed.

>> 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.

Part of me agrees, but part of me thinks that it's not their fault they 
were never taught how to cope with life.  At the same time, I know people 
who are the product of that kind of upbringing who recognize how screwed 
up it was and have worked hard to overcome it.  Everyone copes 
differently - it's when harming others comes into it that things get ugly 
and messy.

>> 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?

I can.  When I interview people, I ask questions I know they can't answer 
(I'll withhold key information, typically) because how you respond to 
that kind of situation is really important to being successful.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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