The "Greatest" Generation

I always smirked at the older folks when they said that they didn't understand what was happening to kids these days. I always thought that we were fine and that the older generation just didn't know what they were talking about. We treated it as a "barefoot in snow, uphill both ways" story. Now that I've reached my early 30's I'm not quite sure if I look at their stories the same way. I don't think it's just my age, I think it's more than that. Society is going to hell in a handbasket, and my generation is one of the largest contributors.

At what point do we start looking at society and start worrying about the future. I'm not talking about global warming, social security, or even medicare. I'm talking about a lack of leadership in the generation that is coming up behind me and the new generation behind that. What is going to happen after my generation is too old to lead. What happens when we are the retired and aging generation.


We have only ourselves to blame. Parents of today are corrupting our future. For evidence look no further than Lindsay's, Britney's, and Paris' parents. All in the name of entertainment and free speech. There may be nothing wrong with educating our children about the real world, but what's lacking is the education. Allowing children to make the moral choices without education is a recipe for disaster.

Who is educating our children? Is it a representative cross section of society? Absolutely not. In 2001, 34% of educators claimed to be center of the road politically. That sounds great. Until you look at the other numbers. Only 18% claim to be right leaning. A whopping 48% claim to left leaning. That's a stunning statistic. It's all about freedoms and speech, etc. That's all well and good, but there is no such thing as freedom of speech inside the family.

Who is raising our children? Video games, cell phones, the internet, and television. Teachers are running movies like "Brokeback Mountain" in middle school classrooms. Recently a friend told me that their children were taking field trips to see Spiderman 3. When I was in school it was trips to a dairy factory, a museum, or a zoo.


Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with "Brokeback Mountain." Free speech should be alive and well and I personally found the movie boring and pointless. Even for a love story, it lacked content. But I don't think that a movie that is rated PG13 or R should be shown in a middleschool classroom setting. I don't want my nieces or nephews watching "Bachelor Party" or "Cruel Intentions" during English Class. They need to watch it at their friends house when their parents aren't around like we did. At least then we knew it was wrong. It wasn't legitimized by a teacher or a parent who says that kind of portrayed behavior is "OK".


Instead we end up with Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton filling the vacuum left by today's parents.