Un-Earned Privilege Or Over-Indulgence
After WW-2 this kids of the “Great Depression” in the USA became mothers & fathers. They had lived through & survived 2 stressful yet character-building events. The first being the “Depression” & the second being World War Two. Both of these catastrophic events left in them a desire to never see their own offspring have to suffer the vast deprivations, emotional, psychological & social upheavals that they themselves had just survived.
As a result the “Baby Boomers” lived a life of comparative luxury, ease & mass indulgence. We “Boomers” were raised with the idea that we were the cream of the crop, in the foremost nation on earth, complete with privileges, “rights” & no responsibilities. This was most evident in the Viet Nam war when the poor darling mama’s boys were confronted for the first time with a society that was vastly different from their own. They were subjected to a discipline that was certainly not the indulgent sort that their own parents & society imposed upon them. They had to face & confront such things as people who wanted to kill them, wanted to end their way of life, wanted to destroy their sweet world of privilege. They could not run to the malt shop, cruise through the local drive-in restaurant in their cars, take their girls friends to the movies or do any of the things that they had been led to believe were their inherent rights. This caused many a young man & woman to turn to something for solace. Some turned to the bottle & became alcoholics. Some turned to the allure & peace of a drug induced reality that was anything but real. Some turned to excessive violence to try to cleanse the nastiness of their own rage from their psyche.
They too eventually produced offspring who, if anything, are more spoiled less able to face the “real” world. There was a time in this nation when a teacher could & did apply discipline in the classroom. When a parent could & did apply discipline at home without the fear of arrest for simply being parents. Policemen & women were able to “protect & serve” as well as fight & control crime. Today we live under the shadow of political correctness, psycho-emotional theory certainly not fact & a societal directive to make everything easy, non-confrontational as well as “safe!” What a bunch of drivel!
Life in the world is not a safe life nor is it guaranteed to make one feel superior or warm & fuzzy. In some instances that does happen, in most instances it does not. Life is not fair & life is not on even terms for anyone. This what we, as a nation, have patently chosen to ignore & tried unsuccessfully to avoid. By shielding our children & ourselves from the realities be they good or bad, pretty or ugly nasty or sweet we have done ourselves as well as our offspring a great & harmful disservice. Throughout history mankind has had to face adversity. Man’s great ability to learn to adapt & overcome adversities is one of his greatest assets as a successful organism on this planet. We as nation are not doing that anymore.
Contrary to the gurus of the socio-cultural norm it IS NOT harmful for child to witness violence as long as that violence is explained & dealt with in a decisive manner. It IS NOT harmful for a child to fail in school or lose at a sport or have a pet die or any of the myriad of other things that we try today to “protect” our precious brats from ever experiencing confronting, overcoming & dealing with in a pro-active manner. When one is living life they are experiencing life. Having to learn to resolve problems rather than avoid them or never having to confront them is what maturing is all about. Having rights means also having responsibilities yet we never hear about nor are we taught this anymore. We did away with the draft. It was perhaps opne of the greatest tools of maturation that ever existed. Boys went into the military, evolved into men & became productive citizens. National service, not necessarily military, is not something we should avoid. Everyone should have to spend 2 years of their lives doing as a way to pay back to this nation for the right to be citizens of they nation.
Yes I know that the left-wing, liberals, the proto-communists, the sheep if you will are going to argue with me about this. So what? They have no clue & I have no time for their wishy-washy fecal matter! In this day & age it is fashionable to appear to be disinterested in anything that may have any importance to others. Oh yes, volunteer for something but when you have done your civic duty, go home wash the dirt off & do something that is indulgent!
By re-installing discipline in the schools, by allowing our law enforcement officials to be just that instead of “public safety” officials, by not legislating commonsense issues into laws & by making fashionable to take responsibilities for acts we can reclaim our nation, be able to face the future with confidence & perhaps lead the way for future generations who can do the same.
© Donald R. Houston, PhD, 2007
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Comments: 10
It never held much weight to my mind because I grew up on the stainless steel spoon of a single-parent rural-teacher's salary and he had grown up on the silver spoon of a St. Louis architect.
Although my step-father would often talk about the horrors of The Great Depression, he once confessed that its only impact on his family's life was that they had to let one of their house maids go. He was a member of the Navy's ROTC program at the end of WWII and was safely stationed in Michigan.
What he really resented in me was that I had a mind of my own and was not the programmed (or programmable) automaton that he thought I should be. I was 'damned' because I insisted on trying to think for myself.
Many Baby Boomers became immune to discussion. The incidences of the Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights movements proved to them that threats to their lives and livelihoods need not come from overseas, from foreign nationals or from corporate malfeasance.
Deadly force could and would be wielded by fellow church members, the carriers of badges and people you'd grown up with all your life.
It was a heady lesson for them, that their authority figures would kill them for speaking their minds.
This is not only true in Europe, this process of "submission", but is becoming global because of complacency.
Your weltschauung is very cynical and dispossessive. I fear for the future of our wonderful country when I read rants such as yours on the nature of the problems and your supposed reasons for them. I am not a proto-communist, but I am also not a right-wing reactionary, as your words paint you to be. There are many problems that this country faces, but I do not think that they can all be laid at the doors of the "Baby Boomers" and their parents. I am just pre-B-B, although from the country I was born, I am a war baby.
I am distressed when I read your ideas and thoughts and even more distressed to find that there are people whose thoughts coincide with yours. Your generalizations regarding the lack of discipline and the need for it remind me of the way that Nazi Germany wanted to bring up its children. There are many ways that we can approach the perils and problems of the world that do not entail such a draconian approach.
There are many, many parents who taught their children values that coincide with our Judeo-Christian philosophy and the need to look at society and its ills with a much more rational and benevolent attitude. Granted, there are problems within our society that a dissociated family does not tackle with any rational outlook. However, forcing each and every member of society, or even only its male members, to undergo an enforced two-year period of national service is not, to my mind, the only way to solve those problems. Such an approach has been attempted in many societies, Russia for one, and Israel, for another, and while in the latter country, with its encroaching neighbors, it may work, I don't think it would, necessarily, in this one.
I am bothered that a person with a higher education as you claim to have feels the necessity to punish its citizens with an enforced two-year period of service to the country. By all means encourage such service. Encourage the young to take a year and go overseas to help in any way they can, or to stay at home and work in an impoverished area where they may be able to do some good. If nothing else, they will learn something about the rest of the world and they may even do some good. But to legislate good works is probably more counter-productive than helpful.
Encouraging volunteerism among the young to assist in day-care centers, or senior citizen centers, for those who cannot leave their hometowns for whatever reason, would be a much more rational and sane approach to my mind.