Baby Boomer Grandparent

The older generation reacts to the current generation of teenagers as if they came from another planet.  We are appalled by their language, their dress or lack thereof, their casualness about sex and drugs, the movies they watch and their ability to instantly transmit photos and words to 30 people in 30 seconds.  I guess you could say we are reacting much like our grandparents did.  Yes there is information overload thanks to technology but are our grandchildren really much different than we were?  Flower children,  free love, campus protests and music our parents  thought was barbaric.  I consider this a fact finding mission much like the recent  health care surveys  that now say carrots do not improve your eyesight.  (I only wish my mother was alive so I could show her that article).  Let’s start with patriotism.

“The kids today don’t know what it is to sacrifice for their country.”  Tell that to the 18 and 19 year olds in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Tell that to the thousands of teenagers who volunteer at Special Olympics or Habitat for Humanity or who work at homeless shelters or our food banks.  How about the young boy who mows his elderly neighbor’s lawn? Look at the faces of our young people when the National Anthem is playing.  They have pride in their  Country.   Don’t judge them, ask them.

“Young people today have no respect”  We were taught respect in my home.  How many of you turn off the television when company comes?  How many introduce your children or grandchildren  to your friends and require that they greet every person with a hand shake or some acknowledgement? How many fathers or grandfathers remove the “acceptable” baseball cap from their head in someone’s home or at a restaurant?  Do you swear in front of your children or grandchildren?  Do you talk about others in front of them?  Respect is learned by example.  We are not our children or grandchildren’s peer, we are their role model and their parent or grandparent.  Respect is both taught and earned.

“Today’s teens dress like street walkers and hip hoppers” – Where are the parents when these young people leave the house?  Who allows their child to walk down the street with his pants below his butt and his underwear hanging out? Who bought the clothes?  Sure we can’t be around them 24 hours a day and yes after they leave home they could roll up that skirt or lower those jeans but I see more parents who are okay with it because it’s “in” and they don’t want their children to be left “out”.  Why have we’d given up teaching our children to be individuals and to respect themselves?

I had an interesting conversation with my 14 year old granddaughter as we sat eating lunch at a neighborhood Subway Sandwich Shop. Three people were waiting to be interviewed by the manager for a position that was open.  The first person was a young girl about 17 years old with a ring in her eye brow and one in her lip.  Her clothes were clean but hung loosely on her thin frame. She was chewing gum and occasionally would stretch it out with her fingers from her mouth and put it back. She was texting on her phone while she waited.  The second person was an elderly man around 65 years old in a blue collared shirt and neatly pressed pants.  He shuffled when he walked and his glasses hung around his neck on a safety chain. As he waited for the manager he would take a small piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, put his glasses on, read it and return both the paper and his glasses to their original place.  The man repeated this process several times. The third person was a young man about 16 years old.  He wore clean well fitting jeans, a tee shirt  with a plaid long sleeved overshirt and clean laced gym shoes.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 28th, 2011 at 12:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.