re: #280 Targetpractice

“Participation trophies” are not something our generation created, we didn’t ask for the damned things and even we see them as a joke. They’re something that the yuppies and their Gen X offspring came up with, the “helicopter parents” who didn’t want Junior to feel bad because he didn’t get a trophy at the end of the season. No offense to the parents in attendance, but a lot of the “you kids have it so easy” business came about because our parents lowered the bar. And a large part of the reason for that is because we’re increasingly becoming a nation of latch-key kids, parents working longer shifts or multiple jobs and having no time left in the day to be parents. That’s not something that’s gonna magically change with a voucher or a charter school, no matter how much conservatives may believe so.

I think some of the child psychologists and behaviorists of the 50s and 60s actually got that ball rolling as far as everyone has to feel good and never be left out.

And I am not a parent so I may be totally out to lunch, but I have always wondered if all the people that had children actually wanted to have children or felt it was the thing everyone did to be responsible citizens or to live within their religion’s dictates.

I saw some of that in my “boomer” generation. You did things because that is what you do and you did that because that is what everyone does.

Uh, hello…but to me that is not the reason to have children and the way to want to do it properly. You should really want to be a parent and that means a pretty good chance that you will be a good parent and have good happy kids.

Being unwanted to any degree comes out eventually and is revealed to the children and that I should think creates a lot of issues too. Unwanted can be as simple as one or both parents realizing parenting was not for them, or that they really do not like it and “only if things were different and I did what I wanted to do” instead of this boring life I hate. Kids see and feel that. It is not good for anyone.