"Your not special"

[Scuzz]

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2012/0608/David-McCullough-Wellesley-teacher-says-grads-not-special-video


An interesting high school graduation speech that is apparently catching heat because the speaker, an English teacher at the school, told his kids they were "not special".

It is 12 minutes long, but if you have time it is worth the listen. A very good speech that will probably be taken out of context by the media.

[Brian Rubin]

"You're", got dammit.

[Pogue Mahone]

Demerits for not closing with, "and get off my lawn."

[Scuzz]

"You're", got dammit.



dang.

well, my education was not special.

[Brian Rubin]

Demerits for not closing with, "and get off my lawn."
*whacks with cane*

[Mrenda]

You may not be special, you might be interesting though.

[Harkonis]

you are unique, just like every other person in the world.

[charmtrap]

I guess if anyone knows a lot about living a life of quiet desperation, it's a high school english teacher.

[Pogue Mahone]

Except maybe Pink Floyd.

[Pogo]

My not special what?

[Scuzz]

McCullough, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/David+McCullough)


I wondered about that possibility.

[Desert Journeyman]

A timely message, and valuable.

In teaching our children that they are all special, we may have taken the important message of self-empowerment too far. An increasingly litigious culture and the increasing significance of college education have encouraged and facilitated helicopter parenting of the worst sort, debilitating teachers and reducing childrens' sense of personal responsibility. It was also promoted the pursuit of accomplishment for its own sake, as well as a reduction in emphasis on rigorous competition and evaluation -- until college, until the workplace, until "real life," where people learn hash lessons too late to be able to adapt very easily. The celebration of everybody's opinion as equally valid, equally good, risks leaving children with the sense that right and wrong are matters of perspective; that their own perspective is somehow beyond question or criticism; and that they needn't respect authority figures because there will always be a parent to deflect consequences. In a world where your opinion always matters, how can you ever be wrong?

"Special" appeals to people who want to be noticed. It appeals to people who want to be the center of God's plan. It appeals to people who want to feel less alone, less undervalued, less overwhelmed. In other words, the desire to stand out is quintessentially human. But when we add entitlement and infallibility to a media environment in which you can essentially choose your own facts; an education system no longer teaching the fundamentals of rhetoric, research, and analysis; and a socio-economic environment in which our problems as a nation are so complex, and the proposed solutions so difficult to judge, that we are reduced to talking in abstracts, it's a recipe for disaster. It produces aggressively self-righteous voters who select their leaders by comparing only visions, not results, with egos too fragile to withstand compromise, let alone more direct criticism. Find a middle way? No! That implies that there were valid solutions other than those I selected myself. How can that be?!

In love with ourselves, we are increasingly living in denial.

[Pogue Mahone]

Are you paid by the word?

[Desert Journeyman]

You guessed it! A prize for this guy.

[Becoming]

Are you paid by the word?

I happen to think that was fairly on the money.

I was highly offended not too far back when my (at the time) 5th grade girl was in a softball tournament and at the end they gave all the kids ribbons just for showing up.

I get that we don't precisely need cutthroat competition for 10yr olds, but at the same time I sure as hell don't believe rewarding everyone the same regardless of performance in a sport is sending any sort of appropriate message.

Yes, lets teach our children that they can show up and suck and in some cases not even try and still get rewarded because mommy says they're awesome. We wouldn't want to hurt their feelings by teaching them actual useful life lessons.

[Strollen]

I nice antidote to the Job's commencement speech.

[Brendan]

We're all fucked up in our own special ways.

[Anders Hallin]

You know what, if, as the responsible adults, we make sure that people growing up today has a) accessible and affordable education, b) a vibrant job market that welcomes young people, and c) a reasonable expectation having a family, getting sick or growing old will not automatically put them in dire straits, I think people can say whatever the fuck they want at commencement speeches, since that and the naming of generations is a complete sideshow anyway.

[Teiman]

Thanks god!

Being special has ben a lot of trouble in my life. I want to be like everyone else as posible, and still be me (being me is awesome sometimes).

Why people want to be special? being normal is like a invisibility cape plus other superpowers, plus being special make really hard to find a partner in life

[W Wiley]

I wonder if his fat and psychopathic wife is going to thrash him Within inches of his life.

[gurugeorge]

I don't think there's anything wrong with teaching kids that everyone is special in their own way, a unique ray of God, or whatever. Everyone is best at being who they are. "Everything that lives is holy" (Blake).

However, this can easily turn into something icky when it negates the validity of concepts like striving and competition, winning and losing, being-better-at and being-worse-at.

"Everyone's intrinsic specialness" and "winning/losing" are on different levels - one is spiritual and metaphysical, the other practical and pragmatic. A background sense of the universal aspect of one's nature and the everything's-ultimately-perfect-as-it-is-ness of existence, in fact gives one the ability to bounce back from defeat more easily, and the heart to carry on - but as a practical matter (in terms of voluntary action undertaken) one is still engaged, precisely, in trying to win the game.

If you bleed the spiritual into the practical you get "political correctness" (I mean this as a general syndrome, not just the Left-wing kind - "magical thinking" might be less contentious :) ), if you bleed the practical into the spiritual you get ... religion.

[Brad Wardell]

I've been told I'm special a lot. Usually right when they're putting my mittens on my sleeves in the summer.

[Jag]

In hiring high level employees, I tell my recruiting manager that the most important quality I look for is someone who can use critical thinking and problem solving skills. It amazes me how few people actually possess this.

I agree that I don't think kids are learning this by having everything handed to them and telling them that it's always someone else's fault.

[Desert Journeyman]

The most pernicious problem that I see arising from this almost aggressive celebration of the individual is it primes people to take offense when their opinions are challenged. Whether it's about basic life choices or a discreet opinion about, say, how to manage interest rates, we can no longer have civil discussions in this country without somebody becoming frantically upset.

Don't agree with me? Why, you're judging me! Who are you to judge?!

Voters are beginning to reward ideologies who explicitly promise to put a wrench in the gears of government. This owes in large part to the fact that people who take a different view of things are understood to be making implied criticisms of those on the other side of the political fence.

[Hanacker]

Holy shit. He was one of my high school English teachers. Mr. McCullough was one of my favorite teachers. Had a very sarcastic sense of humor. Forgot he'd moved to Massachusetts.

[RichVR]

You may not be special, you might be interesting though.

You may be right, I may be crazy.

[DTG]

In hiring high level employees, I tell my recruiting manager that the most important quality I look for is someone who can use critical thinking and problem solving skills. It amazes me how few people actually possess this.

I agree that I don't think kids are learning this by having everything handed to them and telling them that it's always someone else's fault.

When I'm looking for replacements for relatively entry-level jobs (5-10 years of experience), I use more simple language. "critical thinking and problem solving skills" seems boilerplate these days, it's on every job description and everyone says they've got it

My words are (basically the same I suppose): "I want someone who can figure things out on their own", and "once they figure it out, I want them to be able to tell me something I don't already know".

My major interview question is me asking for a few examples of when they've figured out what they needed and then mastered it on their own. I'd say 90% of candidates die right there.

I became tired of new hires waiting to be provided a flow-diagram of every single thought and task they have. Of course, my job is to guide them to, and/or provide them with the appropriate resources for their jobs. Basic training is also part of my role. But I'm not a professor; after a few times of correcting their work that's enough.

[Jason McCullough]

The most pernicious problem that I see arising from this almost aggressive celebration of the individual is it primes people to take offense when their opinions are challenged. Whether it's about basic life choices or a discreet opinion about, say, how to manage interest rates, we can no longer have civil discussions in this country without somebody becoming frantically upset.

This is not new. 19th century politics makes today look polite.

[Ephraim]

You may be right, I may be crazy.

But you just might be the lunatic he's looking for?

[Omniscia]

But you just might be the lunatic he's looking for?

And he's trading in his Chevy for a Cadillacacacacacac...

[Desert Journeyman]

This is not new. 19th century politics makes today look polite.

"Dirty politics" aren't new, no, but we might have reached a new low in the thinness of our collective political skin.

I think that there has been a collision between access to information, "buffet" media, and self-empowerment that has rolled out proto-pseudo-scientists: people who think that the opinion pieces and hackjob issue treatments they read qualify them to go toe-to-toe with, or even to dismiss, credentialed experts touting bonafide science. These same voters are increasingly drilled in very basic rhetoric: they call out perceived fallacies and deploy all sorts of fancy sophistry that boosts their egos and quells their self-doubt. And, because, as I've said before, they've given up on trying to choose between competing policy prescriptions, it's a race to just advance a specific perception of the future. To choose somebody who promises the nicest things. Wasn't it Oliver Wendell Holmes who said that, between two groups of people advancing different visions of the world, there can be only conflict? There you have it. If my vision and your vision are different, and the disputes are always over "all the marbles," then compromise is inherently foolish, and I should reward maximalism.

[RichVR]

And he's trading in his Chevy for a Cadillacacacacacac...

You oughta know by now...

[Scuzz]

I happen to think that was fairly on the money.

I was highly offended not too far back when my (at the time) 5th grade girl was in a softball tournament and at the end they gave all the kids ribbons just for showing up.

I get that we don't precisely need cutthroat competition for 10yr olds, but at the same time I sure as hell don't believe rewarding everyone the same regardless of performance in a sport is sending any sort of appropriate message.

Yes, lets teach our children that they can show up and suck and in some cases not even try and still get rewarded because mommy says they're awesome. We wouldn't want to hurt their feelings by teaching them actual useful life lessons.

Ribbons. You mean they didn't each get their own little trophy just for competing? My kids played one year each of soccer and t-ball (my daughters hated them both) but they got trophies for competing each year.

[Tin Wisdom]

I was highly offended not too far back when my (at the time) 5th grade girl was in a softball tournament and at the end they gave all the kids ribbons just for showing up.
Age and effort-appropriate rewards.

Ten-year-olds participating in youth-league team sports are not the same as a high-schooler playing on a "travel" or varsity team. As a parent of both extremes, let me give you the low-down:

My ten-year-old just closed her season in youth-league volleyball. She participated because her parents mandated that she play a spring sport (she got to choose which one, and she admires her sister). She was dumped on a team with a bunch of other child-conscripts of varying skill levels, and the teams were chosen by the highly-scientific method of who was standing next to whom when the time came to divvying them up. Whether or not the girls won or lost their games was almost random chance at the youth-league level since there are no tryouts and league rules mandate that every kid gets the same play time for their parent's money. If, by the luck of the draw, one team managed to get three players who were motivated and talented out of ten, then that team won. The individual talents of the other kids on the other teams couldn't actually affect the outcome. But at that level it's not about winning or losing, it's about teaching the kids the rudiments of the sport and (potentially) instilling a love of the game into them.

So yeah, everyone gets a tiny trophy at the end of the season. It's effectively a "I Participated!" certificate, but the purpose of the trophy is to sit on their dresser and remind them in four months that, oh yeah, I had a good time last year and I think I ought to do that again instead of sitting indoors playing the XBox. But you know what? Even at the ten-year-old girls' level, these kids understood the difference between first and sixth place finishes in the tournament. My ten-year-old cares much less about the trophy and much more that she was (for the first time in three seasons) selected to be on the "All-Stars" team at the end of the season.

And even in the youth-leagues the rewards start to get more sparse as the kids become older and more competitive. Next year, only the first and second place teams will get the tiny trophy; everyone else literally gets a "I Participated!" certificate.

By contrast, my older daughter is (by the grace of genetics and a stubborn streak) a national-level volleyball player. She trains year-round for the season and fought hard to be accepted to the "Select" team of a prominent club -- tryouts were invitation-only and there were 80 girls fighting for twelve slots. Every single kid on that team fought to be there and every one of them wants to win first-place medals. Getting silver means nothing to any of them and not making the finals in any given tournament is downright shameful in their minds. These girls know they are special because all their peers dropped out back in the later youth-league days, but they also know that there are a bunch of equally-special and very tough girls on other teams that want to win just as badly. Not a single one of these kids would accept a "I Participated!" certificate unless the tournament venue was out of toilet paper.

Tl;dr version: kids are smart and so are the sports organizers. The former know when they are being pandered to and the latter don't want to waste money on awards that aren't going to motivate the players.

[Jason McCullough]

"Dirty politics" aren't new, no, but we might have reached a new low in the thinness of our collective political skin.

Ok! Provide some citations that reach the level of a Senator beating another one to death with a cane.

[Becoming]

Age and effort-appropriate rewards.

Ten-year-olds participating in youth-league team sports are not the same as a high-schooler playing on a "travel" or varsity team. As a parent of both extremes, let me give you the low-down:

My ten-year-old just closed her season in youth-league volleyball. She participated because her parents mandated that she play a spring sport (she got to choose which one, and she admires her sister). She was dumped on a team with a bunch of other child-conscripts of varying skill levels, and the teams were chosen by the highly-scientific method of who was standing next to whom when the time came to divvying them up. Whether or not the girls won or lost their games was almost random chance at the youth-league level since there are no tryouts and league rules mandate that every kid gets the same play time for their parent's money. If, by the luck of the draw, one team managed to get three players who were motivated and talented out of ten, then that team won. The individual talents of the other kids on the other teams couldn't actually affect the outcome. But at that level it's not about winning or losing, it's about teaching the kids the rudiments of the sport and (potentially) instilling a love of the game into them.

So yeah, everyone gets a tiny trophy at the end of the season. It's effectively a "I Participated!" certificate, but the purpose of the trophy is to sit on their dresser and remind them in four months that, oh yeah, I had a good time last year and I think I ought to do that again instead of sitting indoors playing the XBox. But you know what? Even at the ten-year-old girls' level, these kids understood the difference between first and sixth place finishes in the tournament. My ten-year-old cares much less about the trophy and much more that she was (for the first time in three seasons) selected to be on the "All-Stars" team at the end of the season.

And even in the youth-leagues the rewards start to get more sparse as the kids become older and more competitive. Next year, only the first and second place teams will get the tiny trophy; everyone else literally gets a "I Participated!" certificate.

By contrast, my older daughter is (by the grace of genetics and a stubborn streak) a national-level volleyball player. She trains year-round for the season and fought hard to be accepted to the "Select" team of a prominent club -- tryouts were invitation-only and there were 80 girls fighting for twelve slots. Every single kid on that team fought to be there and every one of them wants to win first-place medals. Getting silver means nothing to any of them and not making the finals in any given tournament is downright shameful in their minds. These girls know they are special because all their peers dropped out back in the later youth-league days, but they also know that there are a bunch of equally-special and very tough girls on other teams that want to win just as badly. Not a single one of these kids would accept a "I Participated!" certificate unless the tournament venue was out of toilet paper.

Tl;dr version: kids are smart and so are the sports organizers. The former know when they are being pandered to and the latter don't want to waste money on awards that aren't going to motivate the players.

Too bad I don't believe that the majority of the parents involved have anywhere near that sort of understanding, and they are a direct influence.

Glad to hear that your experience is a bit less depressing from an organizational standpoint than what I've seen personally though.

[Pogue Mahone]

Then your problem is with parents, Becoming, and not with the children themselves. My experience lines up with Tin Wisdom's. Children that succeed do so because they are driven, not because they got participatory ribbons or trophies. These kids will be fine.

[Houngan]

When I was a kid I just wanted to play with other kids, the sports were very much secondary. A win was nice and at the time I hollered and fist-pumped with the rest of the team, but I was mainly there for a good time. That held true through my entire school career because I frankly didn't give a shit about the various sports. They just happened to be the only game in town for socialization. Some few kids very much did care about certain sports and were very, very good at them; I can't recall their success meaning anything to me in the grander scheme of things.

Fast forward to adulthood and when I did decide to become very good at something, and I switched over to the other side; manic intensity, focus, practice, etc. Like Tin pointed out, coming in second means exactly jack shit to me, it's first or nothing, even with a second place finish at the national level two years running. It's hard to be polite and accept congratulations on "almost winning the whole thing!" when I really want to say that I couldn't give less of a fuck for that finish and please let me start practicing for the next tournament.

tl,dr; Tin's right, a person can occupy both states, merit recognition works for driven people.

[Scuzz]

There is a certain insanity now though in what has become the "reality" of kids sports. School sports, summer leagues etc. There are 13 year olds who play (seriously compete in) a sport 9 months a year now. I wonder what the burnout rate is for those kids and how it effects them later on.

I say that having a niece who played softball from youth into JC ball and who turned out wonderfully, but also knowing at least two girls who played competitive golf and basically refuse to touch golf clubs now.

[billt721]

There is a certain insanity now though in what has become the "reality" of kids sports. School sports, summer leagues etc. There are 13 year olds who play (seriously compete in) a sport 9 months a year now. I wonder what the burnout rate is for those kids and how it effects them later on.

I say that having a niece who played softball from youth into JC ball and who turned out wonderfully, but also knowing at least two girls who played competitive golf and basically refuse to touch golf clubs now.

The ones who burn out (in my experience of swimming with a club team 11 months out of the year + the various other teams that were part-year only) were the ones whose parents forced them to participate and were way too involved in general.

[StGabe]

Yes I am.

There are kids who have parents telling them, "you're special" that aren't and won't be. So what? There are also kids who truly do become special who never would have gotten to that point without that encouragement back when they were merely mediocre. I'd rather set my kid up to be awesome than give up before they get started just because I might end up being wrong.

[Starlight]

You know what, if, as the responsible adults, we make sure that people growing up today

a) Enough food
b) Shelter and utilities

We're failing to do those.

Also, "Tiger" parenting is a problem, but so is this deliberate type of crushing aspirations.

[Scuzz]

a) Enough food
b) Shelter and utilities

We're failing to do those.

Also, "Tiger" parenting is a problem, but so is this deliberate type of crushing aspirations.


The speaker isn't trying to crush aspirations, he's telling these grads that they will need to work to get what they want and that if they do work they can succeed. How was what he said "crushing" their aspirations?

[Becoming]

Yeah, there's an extreme of both spectrums going on.

I just wonder often where you draw the line between wanting your children to have it better than you did, and becoming part of the problem and raising helpless little babies that don't learn what it means to earn anything or be self reliant.

An example that freaked me out personally- a mother calling for roadside assistance for her 22yr old daughter... For a flat tire. Now, the part when I witnessed this that really bothered me was not necessarily that the daughter couldn't change a tire, but that she was apparently so distraught by it that mommy had to call for her (I asked, she could have called herself and it would have been easier if she had).

This is an adult. Old enough to vote, drink, buy porn, get a tattoo and join the military and she's so upset over a flat tire that she can't even make a phone call to get help herself? Something is very fucking wrong there.

[Scuzz]

I blame the world of cell phone communications on that kind of stuff. Parents make sure at an early age their kids have cell phones in case "anything goes wrong" and then they wonder why the kid calls them anytime something goes wrong. What did kids do before there was cell phones. (I am shaking my head in wonder).

My daughter's (she is 19) car wouldn't start once, so she called me. I asked her if she had her AAA card and if she did to give them a call, not me. I was for when every other option ran out.

[Starlight]

How was what he said "crushing" their aspirations?

If you can't see it, there we go. But he'd of stopped Richard Branson dead in his tracks. He's saying that you're a cog, that to be yourself and reach for goals is wrong, *fit in*. Rewards don't fit that mindset, only punishments for failure. It's the culture of smacking kids over the knuckles with a ruler, and is thankfully rare in education now.

And Western culture is very risk-averse, yes. Combine that with the way deflating salaries have progressively reduced people's abilities to have relationships NOT based on economic needs...we're facing the first generation since the Great Depression who will be worse off than their parents. In many cases, significantly so.

[jason]

When I was a kid, we didn't get a participation trophy, we got better than that. The baseball league, for one, had real uniforms, like with leggings and everything, and each season, about midway through, they had "picture day" where all the teams got their pictures taken, and each kid got individual pictures. At the end of the season, every kid got a picture of their team and a baseball card that had their individual picture plus stats. I did get some little trophies and ribbons growing up, but those are either gone or in a box in the attic. I still keep the baseball cards in my photo album on the coffee table.

[Scuzz]

If you can't see it, there we go. But he'd of stopped Richard Branson dead in his tracks. He's saying that you're a cog, that to be yourself and reach for goals is wrong, *fit in*. Rewards don't fit that mindset, only punishments for failure. It's the culture of smacking kids over the knuckles with a ruler.

And Western culture is very risk-averse, yes. Combine that with the way deflating salaries have progressively reduced people's abilities to have relationships NOT based on economic needs...

That is not what he is saying. He was saying don't believe you are special as you are because there are millions just like you. He was encouraging them to go out and do something, not to wait for something to come to them.

I have come to the conclusion your just a troll, spouting shit to get a reaction. Nice try. But we are done.

[Starlight]

That's right, you're in complete agreement with him that aspiration of any kind - including disagreeing with you...

[Desert Journeyman]

Ok! Provide some citations that reach the level of a Senator beating another one to death with a cane.

Why would I furnish you with citations to prove a point that I never made? We aren't talking about the incivility of our lawmakers; we're talking about a general decline in the electorate's willingness to engage in mere debate.

Consider Mark Lilla's excellent piece in The New York Review of Books, 'Tea Party Jacobins.'

J.M. Berstein's 'The Very Angry Tea Party,' a New York Times opinion piece from 2010, is also interesting.

Despite identifying as a Republican myself, I also agreed wholeheartedly with the argument advanced by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein as discussed in The Washington Post back in April: 'Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem.'

As I've indicated above, I think the really significant change arises from the ability to pick not only our own brand of commentary, which was always available in the form of politicized newspapers, but also to fool ourselves into thinking that we are getting 'the facts' at the same time. The Internet has given rise to a dangerous pseudo-science, the validity of which we can no longer even discuss because people insist that they are being belittled in the process.

[MattKeil]

That's right, you're in complete agreement with him that aspiration of any kind - including disagreeing with you...

No, he's trying to correct your very strange misinterpretation of the speech. The summary is "You are not inherently special, go make yourself special." There is nothing negative or aspiration-crushing about this message.

[Qmanol]

Ribbons. You mean they didn't each get their own little trophy just for competing? My kids played one year each of soccer and t-ball (my daughters hated them both) but they got trophies for competing each year.

This happened to me as well, in 1987. Kids aren't dumb, they know a trophy everyone gets doesn't mean anything except that they were a part of something.

On the other hand, I would ace all the science and chemistry standardised tests every year to the point where I was always getting a plaque and medallion. I got a $100 cheque at least 2-3 times as well for coming top in the state/country. That was fun, but I suppose it was fun because I was good at something. I don't know what it's like if you're not good at anything that anyone values.

[StGabe]

A response (http://phoenixandolivebranch.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/open-letter-from-a-millennial-quit-telling-us-were-not-special/).

I don't think the whole thing is perfectly on pitch but I do agree with the that all this, "hey, you're not special" crap is misdirected and has more to do with the parents of the current generation than the kids.

[StGabe]

Or I suppose another way to sum that up: we're blaming our kids for their failure to achieve a version of the American dream that we promised and then failed to deliver. This isn't about some kid who thinks they're slightly better than they really are (and worrying about that is just a way to deflect blame). It's about the fact that there is actually less economic opportunity for them today than a generation ago and that's our fault, not theirs.

[Scuzz]

I think it was more about the way there parents and educators treated them Does anyone know a kid who went through elementary school that didn't end up with one of those "Student of the Month" stickers for your car. Somehow every kid in school managed to "win" one of those. Everything is feel good, build up and hugs. Life outside school doesn't work that way. Thatis what he was saying.

He was letting the kids know that what they had been told was BS and doesn't work when you go for a job.

[StGabe]

He was letting the kids know that what they had been told was BS and doesn't work when you go for a job.

Thanks dude but a bit late.

All of the emphasis on the fact that we might tell kids they're more slightly special than they are, is misdirection. It doesn't matter. Self-esteem correlates with success even when it's not justified. You're not going to raise a kid that is special by erring on the side of caution and telling them they're not.

It's misdirection from harder truths. Truths such as: hey kids, we raised you with a life plan that is fundamentally flawed. We told you to do certain things to go to a good school and that'd lead to a great job, a house and the American dream. We were full of shit and we promised you things that we couldn't deliver. Now, rather than face up to that, we'd rather get shrill the moment one of you complains or acts the least bit entitled (even though we did the exact same when we were growing up). We fucked up our economy and failed to create opportunities for you and we're going to make sure that everyone knows it's your fault.

[W Wiley]

Hey, kids there's no jobs. But please pay for my health care and retirement, with your fast food job.

[charmtrap]

Does anyone know a kid who went through elementary school that didn't end up with one of those "Student of the Month" stickers for your car. Somehow every kid in school managed to "win" one of those.

Yeah. My kid didn't. None of his friends did. Student of the Month goes to one student per month. That's why it's called "Student of the Month". So what's your point again?

[drake113]

It's misdirection from harder truths. Truths such as: hey kids, we raised you with a life plan that is fundamentally flawed. We told you to do certain things to go to a good school and that'd lead to a great job, a house and the American dream. We were full of shit and we promised you things that we couldn't deliver. Now, rather than face up to that, we'd rather get shrill the moment one of you complains or acts the least bit entitled (even though we did the exact same when we were growing up). We fucked up our economy and failed to create opportunities for you and we're going to make sure that everyone knows it's your fault.


Wait... where, exactly, did ANYONE promise this? The Declaration of Independence promises Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (but doesn't actually SAY you'll get said happiness); the Four Freedoms supposedly promise freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from fear, and freedom from want, but none of those explicitly say something about a house or a good life. In fact, off the top of my head, the only promise made regarding the promise of real estate also involved a free mule, but that wasn't even official.

Providing kids with an environment that fosters the best education and upbringing the parents and community has access to has, to my knowledge, NEVER been accompanied with an ironclad guarantee of success; it is, however, historically regarded as a best path solution to achieve those goals.

If you did tell your kid "I promise you that if you go to school and get good grades, you'll live happily ever after," then I'm sorry, you're a terrible parent. Today, more than ever, is a day-by-day exercise in managing expectations, and that falls squarely within your area of responsibility. If your precious little snowflake walks out of high school (or God forbid, college) graduation thinking they'll own the world in 5 years, you've done them a horrible disservice, and I'd advise you to consider remodeling your basement as a new bedroom ASAP.

There's only so much parents, education, and the community can do; sooner or later it falls to the individual to find their path to take responsibility for their lives, and entering the job market with a sense of entitlement rather than a realistic understanding of one's competition for the same job is precisely the terrible decision this teacher is trying to warn the graduates away from when he tells them "you're not special". It's not a recrimination; just an opportunity to provide an accurate perspective.

To quickly review: there's a big difference between "we promised you a perfect life" and "we're dedicated to providing you every advantage we can". You can do the latter with some difficulty and sacrifice, but you can never count on achieving the former.

[Pogue Mahone]

The first thing I told my newborn baby upon his entrance to the world six weeks ago was that his would be a perfect existence, untainted by missed opportunity or reduced expectation. And now you would call me a bad parent? How dare you, sir.

[rattledrush]

Cant edit thread titles? This kills me every time it bumps to the front page. First Im like, "dont tell me what I cant do with my life," then Im like "also, why dont you put a shirt on before you tell me do with my life?" and then Im out of things to say until it gets bumped to the front page again. And here we are.

[lesslucid]

"I'm".

I like the response StGabe linked. Good stuff.

[rattledrush]

"I'm".

I like the response StGabe linked. Good stuff.

Totally different situation! That's a superfluous apostrophe.

[blah!]

The first thing I told my newborn baby upon his entrance to the world six weeks ago was that his would be a perfect existence, untainted by missed opportunity or reduced expectation. And now you would call me a bad parent? How dare you, sir.

A perfect existence? How can you even promise that to a child when so many things are out of your direct control? Drake113 is right, giving your children every opportunity to succeed is a good thing, but promising them a perfect life is not only harmful it's downright lunacy.

[rhinohelix]

Or I suppose another way to sum that up: we're blaming our kids for their failure to achieve a version of the American dream that we promised and then failed to deliver. This isn't about some kid who thinks they're slightly better than they really are (and worrying about that is just a way to deflect blame). It's about the fact that there is actually less economic opportunity for them today than a generation ago and that's our fault, not theirs.

That article just reeks of adolescent angst, among other things. After it got finished patting itself on the back for working so hard, it shouted at it's parents that it hated them for making them dependent and then slammed the door and sulked in its room about the over-competitive nature of the world. There is surely a kernel of truth there but its just a kernel.

[Reldan]

Realistically, how many of the kids in that audience are actually going to amount to anything at all? How many of them THINK they're going to amount to something. Probably a wide margin there. Once you're out of high school the real world kicks in unless you're family is wealthy. Time to get over the fantasy and get practical.

Folks in this thread are right - the national-level-at-something kids know they're hot shit and special, don't need or want pats on the back, and probably are going to do fine. It's the kids that are cold shit but know they're special only because somebody told them so a million times and they're so far removed from being able to recognize "special" that they believe it. Those kids get the rude awakening. Unless their families are wealthy.

[charmtrap]

It must be galling to hear "you're not special you lazy fucking kids, work harder" coming from Baby Boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers. Could there have been a softer, more untroubled time to be born a white kid than the 60's or 70's?

[blah!]

It must be galling to hear "you're not special you lazy fucking kids, work harder" coming from Baby Boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers. Could there have been a softer, more untroubled time to be born a white kid than the 60's or 70's?

Yeah, it's called the 80's and 90's.

[Houngan]

It must be galling to hear "you're not special you lazy fucking kids, work harder" coming from Baby Boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers. Could there have been a softer, more untroubled time to be born a white kid than the 60's or 70's?

Your selection covers the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, actually. And yes, it was pretty easy, although it has gotten progressively worse. My Generation (X) is stuck waiting for the shitheel baby boomers to retire so we can run things, but the fuckers didn't save any money so they're sitting on their cushy pensions (grandfathered out), unions(busted), and jobs(technically beyond them).

Granted I have a ton more anger than most since I work for a company that rewards and protects those who maintain the status quo and is financially non-competitive.

[legowarrior]

Your selection covers the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, actually. And yes, it was pretty easy, although it has gotten progressively worse. My Generation (X) is stuck waiting for the shitheel baby boomers to retire so we can run things, but the fuckers didn't save any money so they're sitting on their cushy pensions (grandfathered out), unions(busted), and jobs(technically beyond them).

Granted I have a ton more anger than most since I work for a company that rewards and protects those who maintain the status quo and is financially non-competitive.

I'm starting to feel the same way. Let's face it, we're going into a time period where the gulf between the rich and the poor is at its largest, college is at its most expansive, and the US governments spends the larger portion of its funds on old people than ever before.

Very few moments in history of the US, that have been worse for young people than at this time.

[Brettmcd]

I'm starting to feel the same way. Let's face it, we're going into a time period where the gulf between the rich and the poor is at its largest, college is at its most expansive, and the US governments spends the larger portion of its funds on old people than ever before.

Very few moments in history of the US, that have been worse for young people than at this time.

Wow I would have to totally disagree with that last statement. No one is in danger currently of being drafted and sent off to a war to fight and die. I would consider growing up in times when that is what was happening to be far worse then anything today. And until recent years that happened on a fairly regular basis. 4 wars just in the last century.

[legowarrior]

We've been in two wars, in which the hardships of the event haven't been spread across the entire US, but instead on the shoulders of a small subset on the population. And unlike most other wars we've had, Bush decided to put it on our credit card.

Maybe it would have been better if we did have a draft. At least than we might have had a serious discussion about it.

Also, my point was in comparisons to other generations. In previous eras, the costs or benefits have been spread around multiple generations and social classes. In this era, the costs are primarily on the young or the less well off, while the mega wealthy are pulling ahead. If you look at history, you'll see that nations do best when the gap between the rich and poor are narrower, but as they expand, you start to see nations end up in a terrible state. South America in the 70s and 80s are a great example of what can go wrong when that happens.

[Pogue Mahone]

A perfect existence? How can you even promise that to a child when so many things are out of your direct control? Drake113 is right, giving your children every opportunity to succeed is a good thing, but promising them a perfect life is not only harmful it's downright lunacy.

Bullshit. My child is the chosen one who will lead god's people to the promised land, and probably win several little league championships along the way. Fie on you, infidel.

[bishop]

Wow I would have to totally disagree with that last statement. No one is in danger currently of being drafted and sent off to a war to fight and die. I would consider growing up in times when that is what was happening to be far worse then anything today. And until recent years that happened on a fairly regular basis. 4 wars just in the last century.

While being drafted is definitely a major drawback for older generations, nobody born since the mid to late 50s was drafted. Compare the following metrics of any recent generation to the kids that are 18 today:

1) Median housing cost
2) Median starting wage with high school degree
3) Median starting wage with college degree
4) Median cost of college degree

You'll find that kids today are completely screwed compared to any recent generation.

[rhinohelix]

While being drafted is definitely a major drawback for older generations, nobody born since the mid to late 50s was drafted. Compare the following metrics of any recent generation to the kids that are 18 today:

1) Median housing cost
2) Median starting wage with high school degree
3) Median starting wage with college degree
4) Median cost of college degree

You'll find that kids today are completely screwed compared to any recent generation.

Do you have a source for that data? I ask sincerely, as I was thinking about that earlier. I would also think that in absolute terms, kids today are much, much better off in terms of the goods to which they have access. We are very much more materially wealthy than previous generations as well.

[TimElhajj]

It must be galling to hear "you're not special you lazy fucking kids, work harder" coming from Baby Boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers. Could there have been a softer, more untroubled time to be born a white kid than the 60's or 70's?

Dig it. Color TV. Vietnam. Hot pants.

[corsair]

It must be galling to hear "you're not special you lazy fucking kids, work harder" coming from Baby Boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers. Could there have been a softer, more untroubled time to be born a white kid than the 60's or 70's?

The sixties were untroubled?

[StGabe]

The sixties were untroubled?

The sixties were chaotic but full of opportunity.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of things are significantly better now and I think that's important to recognize. However it's absurd watching a bunch of baby boomers who act just as entitled try to pin their economic failures on the folks who just started voting. You can find annoying, spoiled idiots of any generation but focusing all your attention on those people is just an excuse to ignore more pertinent, personal failings. I think the irony of the situation is that kids today are, actually, a lot smarter than their parents. All that spoiling actually worked and gave kids the self-esteem to break free of the dogmas of their parents. Unfortunately, no matter how smart they are, they still have to clean up the mess of those who came before them (which takes time). When your kid grows up smarter than you and then asks, "why'd you fuck this up so badly?", it's easier to call them an entitled brat than to admit fault,

[legowarrior]

Do you have a source for that data? I ask sincerely, as I was thinking about that earlier. I would also think that in absolute terms, kids today are much, much better off in terms of the goods to which they have access. We are very much more materially wealthy than previous generations as well.

http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wages+and+Benefits:+Real+Wages+(1964-2004)

This has real wages on it. They have been going down for a while. So, yeah, we'll earn yes than our folks did, we'll have fewer vacation days, and we'll be paying off our debts forever.

My father use to tell me stories of how he could work during the summer at a factory, and make enough to pay for college during the school year. I don't think that's possible today, unless you go to a community college (which he didn't, he went to a state school).

[Starlight]

I would also think that in absolute terms, kids today are much, much better off in terms of the goods to which they have access. We are very much more materially wealthy than previous generations as well.

This is the first generation since 1900 which is facing worse economic outcomes than their parents.

[Slainte Mhath]

Despite the peaks and valleys, America has been on a steady upward climb econmically since the end of WWII, until now. Those born in the years between 1950 and 1990 certainly had their share of ups and downs, but generally if you were a lower-middle class family or above your kids came out alright and are probably college educated or skilled in a trade and are now raising families of their own.

Those born after 1990 (including my oldest son who is 21) are looking at the highest adjusted cost for higher education in the history of the U.S., and the reward at the end of those four years is a giant student loan and very few decent jobs in most fields as Baby Boomers, the largest segment of the workforce population, refuse to retire or scale back at work because they have little to no savings or were wiped out in the economic turmoil of the stock market and housing market disasters of recent years. Add to this mix the exhorbitant cost of healthcare in this country and those same Boomers face a bleak financial future even if they were able to scrape together enough money to retire. My mom is retired from a modest job as a college administrator, and her largest expense by far is health insurance. Her coverage has been shrunk by a large amount in the past 5 years, while the amount she is expected to pay has increased by nearly 400%. How are you supposed to plan for shit like that?

There is a ticking time bomb out there that the political candidates don't want you to think about. They don't want you to think too hard about what is going to happen over the next 20 years as people who would have exited the work force are forced to stay on and hold jobs that would have gone to younger workers. The don't want people in their 30's and 40's to think about how much longer it's going to take to get promoted to the "next level" job because the guy holding it didn't retire at 55, or 60 or even 65. Trickle down effect means that those 30 & 40 somethings then hold onto the jobs that the 20 somethings would have been promoted to, and eventually you've got people in their early 30's in jobs that normally would have gone to recent college graduates because there is no upward mobility left. Then all those kids with college degrees are working retail or service jobs just to get by. It's a fucking mess, and it can't be solved unless there is real economic growth in this country. That's not going to happen with our current political climate. Entire government programs need sweeping change to make this situation better. Social Security, Welfare, Medicaid/Medicare, Military Spending, dozens of federal agencies, and last but certainly not least, the healthcare system. All need huge changes moving forward if this country is going to pull itself out of the spiral it's headed towards, but nobody in Washington is ever going to have the balls to do anything like that because government is no longer interested in what's best for the people, but what's best for the professional politicians, lobbyists, businesses and special interest groups who make fortunes off the backs of middle America.

[corsair]

The sixties were chaotic but full of opportunity.

But "untroubled"?


Don't get me wrong, a lot of things are significantly better now and I think that's important to recognize. However it's absurd watching a bunch of baby boomers who act just as entitled try to pin their economic failures on the folks who just started voting. You can find annoying, spoiled idiots of any generation but focusing all your attention on those people is just an excuse to ignore more pertinent, personal failings. I think the irony of the situation is that kids today are, actually, a lot smarter than their parents. All that spoiling actually worked and gave kids the self-esteem to break free of the dogmas of their parents. Unfortunately, no matter how smart they are, they still have to clean up the mess of those who came before them (which takes time). When your kid grows up smarter than you and then asks, "why'd you fuck this up so badly?", it's easier to call them an entitled brat than to admit fault,

I'm not sure what this has to do with speech in question beyond a lot of nonsensical finger pointing (I blame the thread in general, not you). It's always somebody else's fault, this is the laziest generation ever, blah, blah, blah. Anyone who thinks that the exact same things weren't said during the sixties either weren't paying attention or didn't live through them.

Still, I gotta say: if you never had to face the draft, stop yer whining.

And get off my lawn.
;-)