Have We Created A Lazy Next Generation?

Have baby boomers created a lazy 'next generation'?  I heard someone say over the weekend that "this generation of young people seem to want everything handed to them on a silver platter. They seem entitled, as if they are owed something just for waking up in the morning".  Is this true or are we just blind as to all our kids really do?  Do they just work hard in other ways?  Let's take a peek.

I just hung up the phone with my daughter, being a college student as much as I hate it, talking money is a must.  And most of the time, it's not the greatest of conversations.  As a parent, I'd like my children to try to grasp how hard it is to make the almighty dollar.  Sometimes I think they get it and other times I don't.  But today I paused after my daughter exclaimed to me what her days are like.  And even though, sure, I know what her days consist of, this time she spoke so eloquently about her schedule it made me look at things a bit differently.

As parents we think our kids have to play sports, piano, do hours of homework, clean their room, do chores, maybe even get a summer job.  And that's just the early years.  Growing up they have to endure the growing pains of mom and dad's marriage which many times ends up in divorce, then there's peer pressure, a plethora of hormonal changes, off to college and finally... the real world.  We might want to rethink this 'they have it easy' stuff.  Heck, it's a wonder they even grow up sane.

Jeff Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article that attributed entitlement to the fact that the upcoming generations are repeatedly told how special they are. Zaslow writes that we need look no further than Mr. Rogers with his daily affirmations of just how special his viewers were to realize we have created a generation of spoiled kids who expect so much more because they truly are special. Zaslow also writes that kids today feel free to address adults by their first names and rarely feel compelled to talk about anything other than themselves when chatting with parents or other adults.

Sounds like we did this to our children.  Remember, we were given them with a clean canvass.  Whatever images are on the canvass today, are the one's we've painted.

[Via:  Wall Street Journal, ParentDish]