Why Are Children So Soft and Weak Today ?
I touched on this generational weakness the other day but an article in The Times proved too much to avoid the subject once again.
Why are we raising children to be so soft, weak and ill-prepared for the real world outside of school and mom’s apron strings ?
Parents are spoiling their kids and indulging their every whim; this is something most of us know and is endemic now.
My opinion on the reasons are several fold:
Some parents simply don’t care
Others think that giving their kids everything is a good thing and a sign of love
Some want what they perceive to be a quiet and easy life
etc etc
But where do schools and society come in ?
The wrapping up of children in cotton wool has gone to extraordinary lengths in our politically correct world. You can’t smack them, you have to take them to school and pick them up etc.
It seems as though nobody wants to do anything that may seem to even slightly displease young people - let alone, and god forbid, upset them !
Our system is full of nonsense, mollycoddling, false praise and false hopes.
Take this absolutely true corker:
 My daughter came home with a printed certificate of Merit the other day.I thought she’d done really well until I read it. It was for “sitting nicely” 
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The concept of everyone’s a winner may seem nice in school years but what happens when they leave and the real world hits them like a ton of bricks.
Fact:
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Not all kids are as clever as each other
The majority do not need to go to university
At best no more than 10% should achieve an A grade
Somebody has to dig ditches
Somebody has to flip burgers and you don’t need a media studies degree to do it
Why can we no longer speak as we find and state the obvious ?
Why does this post sound like an old-fashioned fool ranting ?
Somebody tell me this true story is justifiable
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A boy was banned from handing out invitations to his birthday party at school because it was discriminating against those not invited
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Or how about this one …
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A school production of Snow White had 15 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch ! This avoided complaints from parents whose kid was not Snow White and meant all children could feel ‘equal’
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It’s little wonder I hear stories about 19 year old ‘men’ going to job interviews and taking their mothers with them !
A 20 year old man who ran out of his workplace crying because he got a bollocking.
A mother who phoned up her son’s employer and said her son wouldn’t be in today as he was tired.
Why on earth is it seemingly impossible to tell people the realities of life and therefore prepare them for it ?
Why do parents and teachers not see that the primary job of raising and educating children is to prepare them for 60 odd years of adult life ?
I’ve probably gone on too long but it’s frustrating beyond belief
Rod
Some similar articles
Are real men a thing of the past
Don’t bother with education
National Service
How to raise children parody
Fat kids
British teenagers
Jordan said,
July 1, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
RC
Good post!
Totally agree with you, Children, adolescents, are mollycoddled far too much. And I believe that it is more on the male child front than the female child.
Do the parents not realise that these spoilt children are going to get picked on and bullied more because they are wimps?
A sign of a sniffle and they are off school, a bruise on the leg stops them from doing P.E.
It is ridiculous! How they are ever going to stand on their own two feet when they get older? Probably with the dowry that their parents put by!
Bring back National Service for all, male and female!!
Going to College/University to study anything that will allow them to stay away from working for longer. It’s the same when people join the forces to think they will get an easy ride. Only to find out that they are being shipped off to the front line and really have to defend their country. That is what you joined the forces for, to defend your country! If you don’t want to be a target don’t join.
Jordan
Rod said,
July 1, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Jordan
we’re singing from the same hymn sheet !
I agree about boys seeming softer than girls, I have still not managed to get my head around the fact that teenage boys at school hug each other when one of them is upset !
As to standing on your own two feet and being week, I have something of a mantra
Being weak is OK so long as you’ve got somebody who is strong to be there for you !
What happens when you’re on your own ?
We’re turning out people now who expect everything for nothing and have never really experienced hardship or learnt the life lesson that you have to work for things !
It’ll all end in tears - thanks goodness I won’t be around to see the eventual result
Best
Rod
Little Brother said,
July 1, 2008 @ 11:57 pm
Rod,
Don’t get me started! The percentage of those actually prepared to put in a hard day’s graft is ever diminishing. None of them are bothered about career progression, it’s all pay and time off. They cannot accept that you have to work your way up and that it might take a little longer than three months to achieve it. If I had a pound/dollar for every deadbeat I have had the misfortune to interview I would be retired. Before anyone rants put yourself in my shoes, I come into work to interview ‘promising teenager’ on my only day off, said teenager arrives chewing gum, nose, ear and tongue piercings, arm wrapped around girlfriend, ripped jeans and dirty t-shirt. Not a one off by any means, then try giving them a job and waiting a month for them to start to find they don’t bother turning up after you have turned away other possible candidates. Then you get the one who does start, ‘really passionate about job etc’ lasts a week, has to leave because of ‘personal issues’ and gives a week’s notice but doesn’t bother working it.
We can all go down the ‘PC’ route of over protecting and crapping ourselves at being taken to court by a ‘no win, no fee’ cowboy solicitor but at the end of the day it’s the consumer who is going to suffer as always. The shop assistant who cannot tell you anything about a product you want to purchase or a crap meal you’ve just spent your hard earned cash on will be the norm, I give out bollockings because they are deserved, not because it serves my ego. I don’t want my customers to have a bad meal, or, worst of all, food poisoning. Discipline goes a very long way to preventing that. What happens when that gets taken away?
It’s thankless, it really is.
LB
Femme Fatale said,
July 2, 2008 @ 12:37 am
Rod,
Interesting to see that the only three comments on this topic are from childless people,
You cannot judge on a subject that you have no experience in. You can say that you would all be different, but you do not know what sort of parents you would be, you only think what you would be like. Knowing and thinking are worlds apart, as is being a parent and not being a parent.
Need I say more!!
FF
( Fabulous Parent )
xx
Rod said,
July 2, 2008 @ 8:14 am
LB
It’s there from your experience.
What’s more you’re seeing the changes as to how things used to be and you’re not old !
Clearly things are changing fast and the point I think about is who is going to take your place one day ?
Rod
Rod said,
July 2, 2008 @ 8:21 am
FF
you do make the killer point and I have to acknowledge and accept it.
I have not raised children so that will always diminish my standing in any discussion on the subject.
I hope I’ve always been big enough to accept that and also sensible enough to factor it in.
To that end I try to keep to the bigger issues that strike me as common sense and don’t really require experience to make a judgement.
Take the 3 quotes in the original article I don’t believe people need their own children to see the stupidity in those.
LB has no children but is dealing with the issues that are now arising. It is somethig that is getting much worse.
All that said I still have to bow to your point of not having brought up children.
Anybody that wants tips on how to bring them up properly should read this
Regards
Theoretical Rod