many (including this internet feline) have been shocked by how many people have taken to lockdown like dogs demanding collars and leashes for fear of being allowed to run free in the yard. the sincere desperation with which they desired to have authority and structure imposed upon them has been jarring.
“alex” below is far from unique. she’s actually a quite common avatar of her generation and when one looks dispassionately at the issue, perhaps her (and their) needs and desires are not so surprising after all.
we have failed the millennials and failed them badly. far too many are a broken, bereft generation that went from helicopter parents and play dates to tiger moms to going away to school and crying for deans to nerf their college world.
their whole lives were structure. they had no free play. they did not make their own friends nor did they resolve their own disputes or even learn how. where previous generations got tossed out of the house and told not to come home until dinner, they were scheduled and supervised. where children were once told “work it out between yourselves” they just yelled "mom!" and mom or some other authority figure was always there to make the ruling on the field. in my childhood, running to parents was viewed as lower than being a prison snitch. for them, it was simply de rigueur.
seeking to render their childhoods safe stunted their evolution and their growth and so they grew up to still desperately need mommy surrogates.
so they ran to deans in college and now they run to government, all because they have no idea how to manage their own lives or set their own priorities. they have zero idea how to live independently or how to take responsibility for their own desires and the pursuit of them.
they were raised on likes and social approval and freak out if they are alone or try to stand alone. they were raised on having to post your whole life online to be “cool” and “popular” and to be in the mix but were never taught how to draw boundaries in their own lives or to carve out personal agency from the group and resolve conflicts interpersonally.
is it any wonder they are experiencing totalitarian authoritarianism as a warm blankie? what else, really, have they ever known?
speaking for gen-X, it’s honestly quite sad to see animals that should be wild begging for cages.
Well said. I watched as parents older than me, parented exactly as you have described. My husband and I said, No Way are we parenting like that. Our kids grew up the way we had...lots of free time with kids in the neighborhood playing manhunt, whiffle ball and just plain unstructured time. They were the last ones to get phones, oh the moaning with that one, and had very limited screen time of any kind. They are now the leaders in their respective college and high school classes trying to make a difference. There is hope.
I've been tracking with this line of thinking for a while now. To your list of helicopter parents, play dates, and tiger moms, I'd add "participation trophies". They created a generation that believes there is value in "being on the team", regardless of outcome; and which fails to recognize unsuccessful results as something to be questioned & avoided. Even though someone lost because their strategy/execution/preparation/talent was inferior, they were still rewarded for "participating"; i.e., doing what they were told. I think of this every time I see a millennial alone in a car with their mask on.
Alexandra's life had no meaning and little purpose before Covid, so she was happy to give it up in the name of safety. These articles - and they will continue to grow - are confessions of people who lead boring lives and were desperate for the excitement that a 'pandemic' brought to their world.
So....Alex in the article still got to work from home, had meals delivered (probably) and didn't want for anything, including "real" friends, because he didn't lack for anything. My daughter (who is a millennial btw) has been working full time with one short week off (when we traveled -gasp) to celebrate my 94 yr. old mom's b'day (2nd gasp). She never "locked down", did her own shopping, filled up her own gas tank and continued to pay her own bills. And her experience of working in close contact with multiple children, families and staff, in close quarters, has (thankfully) given her a whole different perspective about this virus, what it does, who it affects and how the restrictions imposed are unnecessary, unscientific, and don't reflect nor represent the people who have been "out there" keeping everyone else afloat, since day one.
P.S. My kid had ONE structure activity that she chose...and that was it. The rest of the time was spent free-wheeling it with her friends.
High tech enrertainment and complicit parents have been a huge contributor. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, it wasn't our Moms who kicked us out of the house. Boredom did. Would we have have behaved the same way if modern video games and on-demand entertainment were available? I think not. In the years ahead when the story is written of where it all went wrong. This will be it. A generation of kids were stunted by high tech addictions, couldn't survive on their own, and voted us all into authoritarian socialism. The functional minority enslaved by the dysfunctional majority. Could we have been saved by some level of conservative authoritarianism? Laws aimed at big tech predators to protect kids? Spartan style boys programs to raise up confident young warriors? The world will never know.
I have grave reservations about any type of govt coercion so I would not have been pleased with a conservative authoritarianism but I certainly understand the impulse because I completely agree with your assessment of the tech addition and boredom. It is a REAL and growing problem and too many parents are too weak (or lazy) to deal with it. It is easier for them to agree to the ipad/fortnight because it shuts the kid up AND it enables to the parent to return to his/her own tech addition or whatever activity they find less aggravating than their annoying child that will not stop asking for more ipad...add to this the cancerous "remote learning" and we have a big problem on our hands.
I have the same reservations. I know the quickest path to collectivism to destroy the individual so they need collectivism to survive. It's tempting to contemplate using authoritarian methods to protect and strengthen the individual, particularly kids.
Millennial here wishing to heaven we could all just get on with our lives...but I'm an "old" Millennial and was homeschooled (translation: I never got to be part of the crowd and have a preprogramed skepticism toward all authority figures) so maybe I don't count.
I'm also old enough to have been called lazy for graduating into a recession, worked at a major tourist destination straight through Swine Flu which was actually dangerous to young people, only now to have my own kids'-party business shut down pointlessly for this nonsense. Kind of tired of being the disposable generation!
Haha. This is total fucking garbage. Millennials are now 40. Yes their lives have been fucked. Not by helicopter parents though. But by their parents’ voting habits. Their parents, spying a quick buck, and despite outward protestations, voted repeatedly and dogmatically for mass migration into England, thus pricing their own children out of step one on the ladder of life (a house). Thus: subsequent rungs (baby making!) are never reache, the social contract razed. Everything falls from there. And then, in the coup de grace, their parents (now mostly retired) rolled over and had their tummy tickled about stopping the economy for over a year for a virus with a negligible lethality to 85% of the population.
I had a [couple of] jobs where the direct customer contact was 'on the road'. The rest of the time was done 'distance'. Mgmt decided [for one] everyone should go to an office every day. Many people including myself were to be 'moved' at company expense. The biggest complaint: "I have to get out of my PJ's'. I 'moved on'! ILO accepting a BS change.
FWIW, i have high hopes for gen Z. the millennials (gen y) will act as a foil for them and they will rebel against them and differentiate. so many of my friends with young kids now are going back to the old ways of benign neglect and giving kids free time and free structure. the gen z kids feel real again and resilient and independent.
From your hopes to God's will, your wisdom and presence are proof that sometimes some felines are really needed to meditation and to achieve Enlightenment, even if only for a couple hundred of years (which would be about enough for us to recover and not falling again into the vertigo of this hysterical abyss), as in the Japanese story told by Paulo Coelho: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2016/09/26/cat-in-meditation-3/
i had not seen that story (but have always liked coelho).
but can any really argue that if they had kept their cats, zen buddhism would be both more spiritual and repeatable today instead of the trite, richard gere hipster infested mess it has become?
nothing beats a cat for keeping the population of little pests down.
Brilliant insight and it explains all the calls to authority we endure on twatter and elsewhere yet those same people that seeks out PhD and MD handles to support their opinions, they never bother to notice that many of those people are charlatans spouting opinions sans evidence. These social engineers are a threat to a free society.
FWIW, I have a 6 and 9 year old and although I am older to have kids these ages (almost 50), I was raised with three siblings and in a strict household. You are spot on with the comment of how low it was deemed to run to a parent or any person of authority to settle a dispute. My wife and I repeatedly reply with "work it out" and they do...and they make these appeals less and less.
Thank you for sharing your insights. I look forward to them as I inevitably learn something every dang time.
Not fully agree here. I am French 70 but in someway enjoyed staying home quietly, no travel hours lost in the day, sweet home, i lockdowned on the sea side even.. Yes. So its more by principle that i would blame this period, lost of freedom to move and on the horribly poor unscientific management of all this. This was terrible yes!
out of curiosity, if you enjoy such things, what was stopping you from pursuing them before?
it seems to me that most of what people seem to like here was and always has been available to them. they were just too full of social fear and fear of missing out to do what they actually wanted.
This is exactly the case. One of the most intelligent things I have ever heard was "You have the time to do X, you just don't think it's a priority." If something is important to us, we will make the time to do it. If you're not making time to do it, maybe it isn't as important to you as you say it is.
i never was. if it's important to you, live closer to work or work closer to home or find something virtual. it's been common for ages. living a 2 hour drive from work is a choice, not a a mandate.
Gato, you’re half right with this. Theoretically, yes. But finding something virtual in Europe (Marsouin says he’s French) isn’t so feasible as in North America, and moving from a town you love to the one where your job is, at times makes little sense… so people commute, and find it normal. It used to take me 1.5 hr each way to drive 30 miles from home to work. (BTW: I did move LOL… but I’m an exception). Lots of commuters might have a change of heart, hopefully.
As a side note: my friends in Italy call remote work “smart working”… sounds like office work isn’t that smart after all, eh eh:)
Well said. I watched as parents older than me, parented exactly as you have described. My husband and I said, No Way are we parenting like that. Our kids grew up the way we had...lots of free time with kids in the neighborhood playing manhunt, whiffle ball and just plain unstructured time. They were the last ones to get phones, oh the moaning with that one, and had very limited screen time of any kind. They are now the leaders in their respective college and high school classes trying to make a difference. There is hope.
I've been tracking with this line of thinking for a while now. To your list of helicopter parents, play dates, and tiger moms, I'd add "participation trophies". They created a generation that believes there is value in "being on the team", regardless of outcome; and which fails to recognize unsuccessful results as something to be questioned & avoided. Even though someone lost because their strategy/execution/preparation/talent was inferior, they were still rewarded for "participating"; i.e., doing what they were told. I think of this every time I see a millennial alone in a car with their mask on.
Alexandra's life had no meaning and little purpose before Covid, so she was happy to give it up in the name of safety. These articles - and they will continue to grow - are confessions of people who lead boring lives and were desperate for the excitement that a 'pandemic' brought to their world.
thanks again for coming back to us
50 yo white male...I'd be happy to never go back to my workplace (college campus) for obvious reasons
So....Alex in the article still got to work from home, had meals delivered (probably) and didn't want for anything, including "real" friends, because he didn't lack for anything. My daughter (who is a millennial btw) has been working full time with one short week off (when we traveled -gasp) to celebrate my 94 yr. old mom's b'day (2nd gasp). She never "locked down", did her own shopping, filled up her own gas tank and continued to pay her own bills. And her experience of working in close contact with multiple children, families and staff, in close quarters, has (thankfully) given her a whole different perspective about this virus, what it does, who it affects and how the restrictions imposed are unnecessary, unscientific, and don't reflect nor represent the people who have been "out there" keeping everyone else afloat, since day one.
P.S. My kid had ONE structure activity that she chose...and that was it. The rest of the time was spent free-wheeling it with her friends.
High tech enrertainment and complicit parents have been a huge contributor. Growing up in the 70's and 80's, it wasn't our Moms who kicked us out of the house. Boredom did. Would we have have behaved the same way if modern video games and on-demand entertainment were available? I think not. In the years ahead when the story is written of where it all went wrong. This will be it. A generation of kids were stunted by high tech addictions, couldn't survive on their own, and voted us all into authoritarian socialism. The functional minority enslaved by the dysfunctional majority. Could we have been saved by some level of conservative authoritarianism? Laws aimed at big tech predators to protect kids? Spartan style boys programs to raise up confident young warriors? The world will never know.
I have grave reservations about any type of govt coercion so I would not have been pleased with a conservative authoritarianism but I certainly understand the impulse because I completely agree with your assessment of the tech addition and boredom. It is a REAL and growing problem and too many parents are too weak (or lazy) to deal with it. It is easier for them to agree to the ipad/fortnight because it shuts the kid up AND it enables to the parent to return to his/her own tech addition or whatever activity they find less aggravating than their annoying child that will not stop asking for more ipad...add to this the cancerous "remote learning" and we have a big problem on our hands.
I have the same reservations. I know the quickest path to collectivism to destroy the individual so they need collectivism to survive. It's tempting to contemplate using authoritarian methods to protect and strengthen the individual, particularly kids.
Millennial here wishing to heaven we could all just get on with our lives...but I'm an "old" Millennial and was homeschooled (translation: I never got to be part of the crowd and have a preprogramed skepticism toward all authority figures) so maybe I don't count.
I'm also old enough to have been called lazy for graduating into a recession, worked at a major tourist destination straight through Swine Flu which was actually dangerous to young people, only now to have my own kids'-party business shut down pointlessly for this nonsense. Kind of tired of being the disposable generation!
Haha. This is total fucking garbage. Millennials are now 40. Yes their lives have been fucked. Not by helicopter parents though. But by their parents’ voting habits. Their parents, spying a quick buck, and despite outward protestations, voted repeatedly and dogmatically for mass migration into England, thus pricing their own children out of step one on the ladder of life (a house). Thus: subsequent rungs (baby making!) are never reache, the social contract razed. Everything falls from there. And then, in the coup de grace, their parents (now mostly retired) rolled over and had their tummy tickled about stopping the economy for over a year for a virus with a negligible lethality to 85% of the population.
excuse me mr ben, but are you a millennial?
because this seems like maybe the sort of blaming everyone else for their problems that millennials do.
thank you.
Nice! Ad hominem logical fallacy. Interesting.
excuse me mr ben, but was that a "yes"?
…shouldn’t they be… 20-something?
Beautifully written.
I had a [couple of] jobs where the direct customer contact was 'on the road'. The rest of the time was done 'distance'. Mgmt decided [for one] everyone should go to an office every day. Many people including myself were to be 'moved' at company expense. The biggest complaint: "I have to get out of my PJ's'. I 'moved on'! ILO accepting a BS change.
fucking brilliant.
Generation X became Generation Z(oo)
FWIW, i have high hopes for gen Z. the millennials (gen y) will act as a foil for them and they will rebel against them and differentiate. so many of my friends with young kids now are going back to the old ways of benign neglect and giving kids free time and free structure. the gen z kids feel real again and resilient and independent.
From your hopes to God's will, your wisdom and presence are proof that sometimes some felines are really needed to meditation and to achieve Enlightenment, even if only for a couple hundred of years (which would be about enough for us to recover and not falling again into the vertigo of this hysterical abyss), as in the Japanese story told by Paulo Coelho: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2016/09/26/cat-in-meditation-3/
i had not seen that story (but have always liked coelho).
but can any really argue that if they had kept their cats, zen buddhism would be both more spiritual and repeatable today instead of the trite, richard gere hipster infested mess it has become?
nothing beats a cat for keeping the population of little pests down.
Brilliant insight and it explains all the calls to authority we endure on twatter and elsewhere yet those same people that seeks out PhD and MD handles to support their opinions, they never bother to notice that many of those people are charlatans spouting opinions sans evidence. These social engineers are a threat to a free society.
FWIW, I have a 6 and 9 year old and although I am older to have kids these ages (almost 50), I was raised with three siblings and in a strict household. You are spot on with the comment of how low it was deemed to run to a parent or any person of authority to settle a dispute. My wife and I repeatedly reply with "work it out" and they do...and they make these appeals less and less.
Thank you for sharing your insights. I look forward to them as I inevitably learn something every dang time.
Not fully agree here. I am French 70 but in someway enjoyed staying home quietly, no travel hours lost in the day, sweet home, i lockdowned on the sea side even.. Yes. So its more by principle that i would blame this period, lost of freedom to move and on the horribly poor unscientific management of all this. This was terrible yes!
out of curiosity, if you enjoy such things, what was stopping you from pursuing them before?
it seems to me that most of what people seem to like here was and always has been available to them. they were just too full of social fear and fear of missing out to do what they actually wanted.
This is exactly the case. One of the most intelligent things I have ever heard was "You have the time to do X, you just don't think it's a priority." If something is important to us, we will make the time to do it. If you're not making time to do it, maybe it isn't as important to you as you say it is.
Man.. In normal time you are forced to drive to office! I used to spend 2 hours one way to go there!
i never was. if it's important to you, live closer to work or work closer to home or find something virtual. it's been common for ages. living a 2 hour drive from work is a choice, not a a mandate.
Gato, you’re half right with this. Theoretically, yes. But finding something virtual in Europe (Marsouin says he’s French) isn’t so feasible as in North America, and moving from a town you love to the one where your job is, at times makes little sense… so people commute, and find it normal. It used to take me 1.5 hr each way to drive 30 miles from home to work. (BTW: I did move LOL… but I’m an exception). Lots of commuters might have a change of heart, hopefully.
As a side note: my friends in Italy call remote work “smart working”… sounds like office work isn’t that smart after all, eh eh:)