Are We Raising a Generation of Helpless Kids?

[Sector 7]

Having taught ABE (Adult Basic Education) in a prison, I can vouch that the origin of "sagging", as advertisement of availability, is true. Many young "thugs" came in sagging. Then a convict would grab that butt. Next thing you know, they were keeping their pants up and belts tight.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

You know everyone thinks the horga'hn is a great idea and then when an earth equivalent springs up people get all precious about it.

 

[Amaris]

I still think the horga'hn is a great idea.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

the horga'hn is a great idea because it doesn't show its undies.
Just remember the good old Victorian days where you had the flower language and the fan language.
I have nothing against people advertizing their availability. I just prefer the floret over the club

 

[Amaris]

the horga'hn is a great idea because it doesn't show its undies.
Just remember the good old Victorian days where you had the flower language and the fan language.
I have nothing against people advertizing their availability. I just prefer the floret over the club

How do you feel about neon lights and rotating billboards? Just... just askin' for a friend.

 

[KimMH]

Once when I was a kid I uhh.. Liquid Paper'd my teeth to make them super white.

My sister has never let me forget this.

I had a couple of classmates who loved to sniff that stuff when it first came out. I very much doubt it gave them a high but it made them happy. Remember how long that stuff used to take to dry when it was first available? And how the ink used to bleed though? Several of my teachers in the early 80s wouldn't let us use "that white stuff", insisting we continue to cross out our mistakes instead.

laughed at both of these!

 

[wulfio]

Yes to OP. I think the newer generations are being raised helpless. Especially the current one. Growing up staring at a phone or tablet seems to be slowing the development of social skills in youth.

And the PC agenda is so rampant now it only serves to create a generation of complainers that moonlight as social media witch hunters. It's already disgusting when you see examples of it today. Not to mention how everything is supervised and censored.

I remember reading an article where a woman got arrested for letting her 10 year old go to the park, 1km away from their house, by himself. It blows my mind that the children of the 70's and 80's are spearheading these movements, over compensating for what they feel were injustices or irresponsible that their parents forced on them.

Looking back on my life, I'm so happy I got to boot around on a dirt bike at 8 years old out in the bush at my leisure. It's sad how the majority of kids are raised now in my opinion.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

How do you feel about neon lights and rotating billboards? Just... just askin' for a friend.

I prefer candles and handwritten letters. (Guess I'm hopelessly romantic). Besides, I'm propably the wrong gender for your friend, unless he's bi.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

PC agenda

Uh oh.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I personally think the Apple agenda is far worse than the PC agenda.

 

[Mudd]

Yes, modern kids have been raised on tablet computers and devices. They spend countless hours image crafting their online personas and "collecting" friends -- but are these not the skills young people will need to be productive adults in the future?

Only as long as they're able to continue living relatively privileged, self-absorbed lives.

 

[Crisp Conditions]

I personally think the Apple agenda is far worse than the PC agenda.

If you think those are bad, what about the UNIX agenda?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I personally think the Apple agenda is far worse than the PC agenda.

If you think those are bad, what about the UNIX agenda?

Neckbeards for everyone?

 

[SPCTRE]

I personally think the Apple agenda is far worse than the PC agenda.

If you think those are bad, what about the UNIX agenda?

 

[Surfin' Santa]

. . . I remember reading an article where a woman got arrested for letting her 10 year old go to the park, 1km away from their house, by himself. It blows my mind that the children of the 70's and 80's are spearheading these movements, over compensating for what they feel were injustices or irresponsible that their parents forced on them.

I think it's more the irrational fear caused by today's omnipresent, 24-7 news media. The statistics on child abductions, for example, have been fairly constant for the last couple of decades -- in the U.S., about 100 children under the age of 16 are abducted by strangers every year. That's roughly one in a million. Your precious little darling has a stronger chance of being sucked up by a tornado or swallowed by the ground in an earthquake.

Hell, by the time I was 10, I was riding my bike alone or with friends my own age all over the freakin' San Fernando Valley. And there were no bicycle helmets in those days. Amazing that we all survived, isn't it?

 

[thestrangequark]

Yes, modern kids have been raised on tablet computers and devices. They spend countless hours image crafting their online personas and "collecting" friends -- but are these not the skills young people will need to be productive adults in the future?

Only as long as they're able to continue living relatively privileged, self-absorbed lives.

Yeah. It's like all those people who wasted time learning to use computers. And telephones. All electrical appliances really. What a bunch of privileged, lazy fools. And those ones who learned to drive cars instead of steering teams of oxen? Don't get me started on them. And man, those damn kids with their #neolithicrevolution #nomorenomads #youdon'tneedaspeartoeatanymore ...totally unprepared for the real world.


Seriously, this bemoaning of the youngest generation was old in Socrates' time.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah. It's like all those people who wasted time learning to use computers.

Well, if you'd take a moment to actually read the quoted remarks you'd learn that the exchange is about social behavior, not the acquisition of any productive "skills."

They spend countless hours image crafting their online personas and "collecting" friends -- but are these not the skills young people will need to be productive adults in the future?

The fact that these kids happen to be playing with little boxes that light up, which by design impose the least challenging learning curve possible to usage by any imbecile who wants to "craft their online persona" does not make it about keeping up with changing tools and technology.

Modern technology is enabling corporations to keep new generations hooked on the consumption cycles that let the sellers line their pockets while providing less and less value to their customers. Kids may not be able to afford housing or find work remunerative enough to get them out from under the debt they now incur to purchase vastly overpriced and mostly useless college degrees, but they evidently can scrape up enough in service-sector jobs to buy glowy boxes which they'll pay for, and pay for, and trade up for to maintain status for...well, probably for as long as the modern world can hold itself together. The boxes cost the corporations almost nothing to manufacture (plenty of dirt-cheap child labor, far away from eyes and concerns of the kids who are "collecting friends"), are made deliberately obsolete faster than Studebaker could change the tail fins on next year's model back in prehistoric days, and are remarkably flexible tools for complaining to strangers about one's marginal existence.

 

[publiusr]

And with real journalism getting sparse, there are fewer folks to remind the self absorbed who is making their pleasure boxes. Ironically, the kids living in dirt, doing talks are probably more well rounded, and know how to work--not to justify their exploitation of course. It doesn't help that our kids over here are libertarian Rand worshipers with no regard for their fellow man. Maybe a movie about kids from different worlds chatting could help...

A lot of these kids live at home--and are thus the only source for expendable income. We have businesses extracting money out of the communities, what with pawn shops and the like, now that factories have gone overseas.

I like the sound of a typewriter in the background---for awhile at least.

I love the sound of ticking clocks, probably because I grew up in a house full of old-fashioned wall clocks and, in later years, a grandfather clock. It's surprised me over the years how many people hate that sound, including people my age. When my kids were small I made sure we had a clock with a traditional clock-face on it to help my kids learn to tell time traditionally as well as digitally. I had real issues finding a mantle clock that had Arabic rather than Roman numerals.

There was a nice old lady by the name of Shoemaker my Mom used to visit. She sewed up shawls for the dear. They both loved clocks.

There would be these old Salesian mission books, and calendars with gentle art. One place I worked had an image of a Lion opening the door for a Lamb for March IIRC. One could appreciate time passing...

Liquid Paper

Remember The Monkees? Mike Nesmith's mother invented that stuff.

Interesting trivia--that and heady Lamar's history.

One of my heroes was Butterfly McQueen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_McQueen

She played a demeaning role--but made a lasting contribution to free thought

 

[thestrangequark]

Yeah. It's like all those people who wasted time learning to use computers.

Well, if you'd take a moment to actually read the quoted remarks you'd learn that the exchange is about social behavior, not the acquisition of any productive "skills."

Oh, come on, you're smarter than that; you must know that's not the point I was making. Every generation laments the laziness/ineptitude/short-sightedness/etc. of the next and it's as tiresome as it is unfounded. I wouldn't be surprised the parents of the first generation to develop written language lamented the deterioration of their children's social skills just as you lament those of the tweeting tweens of today.

At the very least, they were whining about it in the 1780s:

The total neglect of this art [speaking] has been productive of the worst consequences...in the conduct of all affairs ecclesiastical and civil, in church, in parliament, courts of justice...the wretched state of elocution is apparent to persons of any discernment and taste… if something is not done to stop this growing evil …English is likely to become a mere jargon, which every one may pronounce as he pleases.

 

[Mudd]

The assertion that older folks looking askance at the younger generation is an ancient delusion overlooks the corollary, which is that the younger viewing asserting that this is an ancient delusion is...also an delusion. And everyone is pleased to believe that they see clearly and that it's the other folks who are repeating a tired old mistake.