I was watching TV this morning and a commericial came on for Cascade dish washing soap. There was a mother/daughter scene where the mother thinks the daughter is asking her for money when she's trying to let her know the dishes are greasy by rubbing her fingers together. Another woman breaks in the scene to tell the mother this. The daughter, feeling vindicated gives the mother a really Hateful look! A face that really looked like contempt. Just an innocent commercial about soap but it is an example of a lot of TV now. I have a 12 year old who likes the kid programs like ICarly and a few others I can't remember the names. The stories may be different but they seem to have a common thread. The thing that stands out to me in most of these shows is the attitude the kids have towards the grown ups and and parents. It's terrible! They all talk back and and it is obvious they think anyone over 20 is stupid and barely tolerated. The scripts for the parents, teachers, most of the adults are written so that they are! They act goofy and silly, not worthy of much respect and the kids run over them. What has happened? Is this part of what is wrong with a lot of kids attitudes today? My son is only 12 and I know it's natural to talk back some and test the waters as they get older but looking around and listening to other kids and how they talk to their parents at the store, etc. it's so disrespectful and I'm thinking they get a lot of bad examples off of the TV. I remember the TV shows of my youth. Leave it to Beaver, Hazel, My 3 Sons, Andy Griffith, etc. Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver did not come off as silly goofballs and Wally and Beaver treated them with some reverence. Opie looked up to his "Pa" with love and respect in his eyes and thought his Dad was a smart man. There was usually a lesson to be learned in each program. Sometimes there is a life lesson in there somewhere in the newer programs but at least for me the behavior of the kids and parents and the way they interact is so distracting I wouldn't get it. In the program ICarly one of the girls, Sam a tough talking girl, is always talking about hitting and beating someone up and in one episode I saw she was actually hitting a boy and the group makes fun of another chubby boy. It just seems so counterproductive to have this kind of programming when the school's are introducing programs about bullying and character building. When my middle son was in Middle school a few years ago he would come home regularly with stories about kids talking back, even yelling and spitting at teachers. And teachers winding up having to apologize to the student and his/her parents for kicking the offender out of class! Wow. When I was in school, if the teacher had to call home you knew you were in trouble! Parents were always on the side of the teacher. I wouldn't be a teacher now with some of things I've seen them have to put up with at our school. Our schools are in good areas and are some of the highest ranking schools too. It doesn't help kids learn about having to cope in the real world with fellow employees and bosses. My 20 year old nephew quit his job a few weeks ago (dishwasher job). When I saw him and asked why he quit, he said his boss 'disrespected him". ???? I remember some of my first jobs when I was young and you just suck it up! Unless of course you're being abused in someway, but that wasn't happening to him, he just had that attitude that I think a lot of younger people have now of some sort of entitlement. It makes me wonder what kind of world will I be living in in 20 years? These kids are the ones who will be running it and I wonder if they are equipped to handle the job?
3 comments:
I think I need to print this post out and save it somewhere close by! Surely, you must be inside of my head. My 15 year old son is mouthy but nearly as bad as my 13 year old daughter. She is completely arrogant and disrespectful. She thinks that if she bullies and degrades me that she'll get her way. The other night she came home from soccer practice and didn't like what I had made her for dinner. She had a toddler like melt down and was screaming that I'm not allowed to make her things without asking her first. I stood there staring at her and remembering that when I was her age I ate what my mother put on my plate and that was it. The internet and television programming is destroying these kids.
Oh my gosh, me too! I never would have dreamed of complaining or asking for something else like my kids do. Dinner was what ever was put in front of you back then and if we didn't like it we kept it to ourselves.
I agree. It seems like we are living in a different world. Sometimes the behavior I see in kids out inpublic every day leaves me shaking my head, asking myself "What hapened?"
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