Can We Make the Next Generation Better?
Recently, I streamed the show “The Great”. It is a dark comedy fictionalizing the account of the rise of Catherine the Great to become the Empress of Russia in the 18th century (and was frankly more entertaining than I expected it to be).
Of particular note was the character of her husband Peter, as portrayed by Nicholas Hoult. When the show begins, he is the reigning emperor and son of the late conqueror Peter the Great. To call him self-involved would be a monumental understatement - Peter is selfish and does horrible things to his subjects, his enemies, and even members of his inner circle, especially the women.
What shines through, however, is not so much that he himself is evil, but that he’s misguided and ignorant. He certainly does evil things, but they are portrayed as coming from childish responses to his surroundings with no frames of actual human reference, which is all that was ever expected of him since his entitled birth. He was raised with so much spoiling and deference that he can’t even comprehend empathy. People are merely toys for him to play with, and from his perspective, have always been.
Though this is a fictionalized comedy, we are nonetheless aware that monarchs have been treated this way throughout history, as gods who could do no wrong.
In the real world, a generation ago, society began to overcompensate for abusive parents by implementing such a soft touch in child rearing that their children no longer experienced real consequences for their actions. We went from whipping kids with belts to the opposite extreme, gently prefacing every confrontation with “It’s okay, you’re okay, now tell me what happened”. We can’t comprehend why they don’t seem to have any boundaries when we’ve never set any for them. Who, exactly, has this helped?
Many Gen Z and later individuals remind me of Peter. Even mild, appropriate corporal punishment is nonexistent, so they have no fear. Parental anger is considered abusive, as the goalposts have been drastically moved. In single-parent households or when both parents work, it is less stressful to do everything ourselves than to give children chores and see that they get done.
Children have always thought they knew everything and strived to experience things for which they were not ready. But mostly, those things remained out of their reach until an adult made them accessible at an appropriate time in their lives. Since the advent of the internet, nothing is out of their reach any longer - and now they have adult frames of reference to convince themselves that they know more than the adults around them do.
Most teenagers I see have not even considered a career. The artistic ones have lost their creativity, since they rarely create ideas from scratch, instead regurgitating the tsunami of crap that floods their screens and frontal lobes. The musical ones would rather copy dance moves and allow a program to write and perform than learn to play instruments and write themselves. The thought of learning a trade is met with derision, a career choice for suckers.
Recent surveys of college students reveal the fantasy world in which they think they live. An alarming percentage state their plans after school as advocacy, gender studies, DEI, or some other flavor of the month. As a side cause, sure, if that’s your thing. But nobody’s telling them that this is a waste of their time and tuition, since the colleges are happy to sell them an angry future with no income, and they assume their government will likely cancel their debt when they realize their education won’t provide a means to pay it off themselves. Student debt or not, this still leaves them out in the cold without valuable skills.
So can we make the next generation better? Can we direct the next wave of future adults toward more practical outcomes, which will ensure their financial stability and our continued growth as a society? We have to act fast before successive generations reset the status quo.
We mostly limit our time with our kids to recreation, a time to unwind and have fun outside of work or school. We want them to associate time with us with positive memories. That has to stop - there is more to life than playtime.
Spend time doing their homework with them. Give them chores that increase in responsibility as they get older, and follow up to ensure they’re completed. Teach them useful skills, which they can use in the future not only as potential sources of income but also to make their own adult lives easier. No responsible young adult should be unable to cook, clean, do laundry, drive a screw, hammer a nail, change a tire or their oil, perform other minor auto mechanic tasks, mow a lawn, rake leaves, set a tile, write comprehensive and grammatically correct sentences, or make their own cup of coffee.
They should learn a few waltz steps or guitar chords from Mom and/or Dad - not to be professionals, but to see if they catch the creativity bug. They should write stories and draw pictures, away from their computers. And we should be with them, every step of the way.
Limit and observe computer and phone time. Inspire in-person relationships. Enforce standards, and set examples. Let them see what life outside the bubble has to offer.
The result will be children, and a future, of which we can all be proud.
Zephareth Ledbetter’s latest book, “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism - Rational Thoughts on an Irrational World”, is available cheap at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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Thought provoking job! May we all experience some real down home independence in a safe, caring & loving America this Independence Day. Thanks for sharing your art.
My wife and I certainly did make a better generational representative with our over-achieving daughter. Perhaps ironically, it was by being more traditional in terms of strictness and punishments than her peers.