Something I Worry About
07 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Tiger Mother
Eliana recently posted something related to this on her regular blog.
On page 21-22 Chua talks about the generational slide into worthlessness. ”Because of the hard work of their parents and grandparents, this generation will be born into the great comforts of the upper middle class. . . . They will have wealthy friends who get paid for B-pluses. . . . Finally and most problematically, they will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and therefore be much more likely to disobey their parents and ignore career advice. In short, all factors point to this generation being headed straight for decline.”
When I was young, I HAD to have a job or I didn’t get school clothes and mechanical pencils and make-up. I got the cheap-o jeans and cheap-o, wooden pencils. I worked my way through college because my parents couldn’t pay for it. I had to share with my brothers. I slept in the same bed with every single one of them because that’s all there was–at one point Kellen, Troy, and I shared a full bed because there were 5 kids, 2 parents, and 3 bedrooms. My first car was a 1989 -station wagon but since I was the only one of my friends with a car, I was cool. I got one-on-0ne time with my mom when I turned 25. And yes, I did walk to school uphill both ways in snow up to my waist. But all of these things made me tough and thankful and they gave me perspective.
Isaac will have more than I did. He already has more in his college fund than I had when I was 18. I’m worried that it will be too hard to make him do chores, have a job, go without because he’ll know that it’s artificially created suffering inflicted on him by his parents. Like right now he’s sitting on my lap, playing with my hands because it’s too boring to sit on the floor and play with his toys. The other day I thought, “I need to have six more kids RIGHT NOW so that I don’t ruin this one.” That way scarcity will be real and we’ll all just have to learn to deal with it–but hopefully we’ll all be happy and have great perspective in the end.
