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From The WSJ: The Entitlement Epidemic
By JLP | July 19, 2007
Today’s Moving On column titled The Entitlement Epidemic: Who’s Really to Blame? ($) by Jeffrey Zaslow began with two questions:
Why do so many young people today have an inflated sense of entitlement? And who’s to blame?
Today’s column was a follow-up to a previous column titled Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled, in which Zaslow basically stated that Mr. Rogers and his “you’re special” message basically turned kids into entitled young adults. I like Mr. Rogers and I think he did a lot for kids but I also can understand Zaslow’s point. Somehow it seems that the “you’re special” message has turned into the “I’m entitled” belief.
Anyway, today’s column listed three main causes for today’s entitled kids:
1. Indulgent parenting – Oh yeah, this is a HUGE reason for the sense of entitlement. Parents have forgotten how to say no.
2. Consumer culture – Zaslow mentions the MTV show “My Super Sweet 16,” which is a show about lavish birthday parties. I haven’t seen the show but have heard lots about it.
3. Self-esteem movement – The “we’re all winners” mentality. Yes, we are all special. However, that doesn’t mean we all deserve the same things. Heck, I’m as “special” as Donald Trump but that doesn’t mean that I deserve to live his lifestyle. The fact of the matter is, life is tough and by teaching kids that everyone is a winner is only setting them up for huge disappointments somewhere down the road. That’s one of the reasons I’m not a fan of school uniforms.
The article ended with a really great quote that a teacher named Syd Corbett tells his students:
That’s awesome! I think the best way to build self-esteem is to help others. That’s where I’m falling short as a parent. I need to do more service projects with my kids. I think compassion is a learned habit.
Thoughts?
Topics: Personal Growth | 14 Comments »
July 19th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I read both articles and I reject the idea that there is an ‘entitlement culture’ among young people. Yes, you will always be able to find anecdotes like the Grandmother at the kids’ school concert. [The kids thought their performances were great - Grandma thought they sucked] You will always have schools that take supporting esteem too far.
I think articles like this are the typical older generation looking down on the younger one. Happens every generation without fail. Is “My super sweet 16″ ridiculous? Absolutely. Just like “Wives of Orange County” (or whatever it’s called).
Consumerism and self-absorption isn’t a youth problem. It’s an American problem.
July 19th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I was about to rant about these articles, but I deleted it. I’ll just say this. It’s the parents who are overindulging their kids. I’ve seen people with everything spoil their kids and not spoil their kids. It’s not resources in the family that make people feel entitled, it’s the parents who think they have to give their kids everything. That’s a fallacy and not true. People grew up just fine back in the day when TV was a luxury and computers didn’t exist. People don’t need cashmere sweaters to survive.
I had a friend flat out tell me his parents didn’t discipline him enough as a kid which is why he ended up being a little sh*t. He told me that his parents should have been tougher on him and he probably wouldn’t have been such a brat.
I should say that I don’t have kids. My only formal training in child psychology was in school when studying human development. I worked with elementary school aged kids for three years as an afterschool program counselor. But you get to observe a lot of parenting that way, who cares about their kids and who doesn’t. It’s fascinating stuff.
Sorry for still getting a little ranty in the comment, but kids learn things from adults and adults need to be more mindful of what they are teaching. Indulging ourselves with fancy gadgets and cars, etc. teaches kids to indulge themselves with fancy gadgets and cars, etc.
July 19th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Well, honestly, and I realize that this is biased based on my experience, I think the problem is that schools have gotten much, much less challenging for the average student in recent years, especially with the new focus on not tracking kids according to ability and teaching to the test and least skilled pupil. Kids haven’t really had to work very hard to achieve anything, and have had to spend very little time on “grunt work.”
July 19th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
KMC, I disagree completely, and I am part of the younger generation (I’m 27). I grew up around kids my age and their younger siblings getting more and more demanding . . . and I honestly think the spoiled brat phenomenon is transitioning from exception to rule.
This doesn’t mean that Gen Y has no future . . . but reality, when it hits, will hit very hard. To go from zero responsibility to full responsibility is a big transition, and one that too many people my age and younger are having to face because of (IMO) inadequate parenting. Too many adults wanting to be friends with their kids instead of parents.
July 19th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
As a youngin’ (27) and a former high school teacher, I have mixed feelings about articles like this. I grew up in a family where I was told ‘no’ when my parents couldn’t afford things. Most people assume that because I was an only child that I was spoiled. How wrong they are. I’ve worked since I was 11 (babysitting), and I put myself through college with student loans (working the whole way through too). I think all problems start with the parents. Kids learn what they see. I saw so many examples of this teaching. Strong well mannered parents tended to have well mannered children. Parents who wanted to be friends with their children tended to have children who didn’t know their place. Drove me nuts.
And as far as school uniforms, it goes MUCH deeper than self-esteem. When you work in an area with gang violence, uniforms can be a godsend. It also makes it much easier to tell the girl who walks into your classroom with a skirt that barely covers her rear that she needs to go find different clothing to be in your classroom. Clothes can definitely be a distraction in the classroom.
July 19th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I wonder if the economy would be doing so well without the entitlement?
July 19th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I believe it’s partly the parents’ fault, and partly the kid’s fault. To say that the kids have no choice in expecting more entitlement and throwing a fit when they don’t get it is completely wrong – even though you may grow up in a spoiled environment, you could have enough sense to look at people less fortunate and say, “I have this stuff because I’m lucky, not because I deserve it”. It is one of the reasons many 20s and 30s will not have enough money for retirement because they are wired into the “I can buy whatever I want” mentality.
Having seen My Super Sweet 16, it is an absolute waste of money (in one show, a girl’s mother bought $700 sneakers for her and they looked no different from other sneakers). That money would much be better used to help poorer people or do something good with the money. Of course, some might say that one way to become rich is to take advantage of other people, but I digress.
I am 22 and try to be frugal. My parents didn’t discipline me that often (except verbally which I somewhat ignored), but I learned their frugal nature and never asked for things that I didn’t need. The question to ask yourself when you’re buying something is – “will this item or service provide me with enough utility (subtracting out opportunity cost of using the money for something else) that I won’t ever look at it with buyer’s remorse?”
To be honest once I get rich, I will raise my kids as if I were poor to middle-income, because the last thing I’d ever want is a spoiled kid.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I think we do have an entitlement problem, but also agree with the person who said it was an American problem, not a youth problem.
The fact is, if it’s a youth problem it’s because they’ve learned it from somewhere else. Like their parents. Especially their parents, who in all likelihood are more involved in securing their own self-fulfillment and pursuing their own careers than they are to be actively engaged in rearing their offspring.
Or like an education system that seems to be increasingly removed from any sense of mission to EDUCATE – if you ask me any school that isn’t setting a high academic bar and expecting to have classrooms full of gifted and talented students is a school that is selling its students short. And yet in this day and age, teachers are teaching to those horrid tests and it really says something that there is a higher value assigned to teachers who get masters degrees in special education (e.g., remedial education) than teachers who get masters degrees in other areas. Like gifted and talented education.
I think it’s also part and parcel that we are growing increasingly relativistic. Not to say that I expect everybody to believe the same way I do, but we’ve thoroughly trashed the notion in this society that there is any hard and fast truth that holds to everybody. How else do we expect children to behave, if they grow up planted with the thought that their thoughts, feelings and experience have no moral consequence, because the only morality is the one they define for themselves and can’t be informed by any sort of norm based on a universally held truth. (For example, to believe in the wrongness of murder is a moral judgement based on the recognition that it is morally evil to deprive another person of life – one we really wouldn’t want to see left to the individual to decide whether they think it is a moral good or not. The less we are willing to state that murder as a de facto moral evil is a universal truth, the harder it and surrounding concepts like justice are to define). Relativism is a real Pandora’s box.
ON THE OTHER HAND — I have to say that I am personally acquainted with some great youth who give me hope for their generation.
DB
July 19th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
There is an entitlement problem, but as was already mentioned, it is across the board and not just young people. Society as a whole has lost virtually all traces of personal responsibility and accountability. It is always someone else’s fault and everyone thinks they are entitled to a good job, an education, a perfect neighborhood, or that the government should give you handouts when things don’t go your way.
July 19th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Fortune magazine had a cover story about Gen Y and their entitlement issues. Kids these days will quit a job and just run back home and live rent free if they don’t like the job or feel that they are working too hard.
I’m ready for the cyclical change for when workers keep their head down, don’t mind actually working to get ahead, and know the real value of a dollar.
July 20th, 2007 at 10:10 am
The company I work for as Controller hires 18 year old to do general clean-up around the shop at $10 per hour. Kid rolls in on first day in late model $40,000+ Dodge Ram pickup apparently supplied by Dad the Contractor. Two weeks later kid arrives in a brand new Nissan Z sports car with aftermarket exhaust you can hear coming from a mile or so away. Kid makes comment in break room that he can’t wait for his Grandmother to die so that he will be rich. Kid is serious. Kid will find out the hard way that life has a way of reverting just about everything to the mean at some point.
Just an anecdote for your consumption and not meant to be extrapolated to any particular classification of people.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Funny! Talk of entitlements, and look to afix blame to someone.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:11 am
There is definitely an entitlement culture in our young adults today. Your hair would turn purple if you knew what some of these young people think. I’ll give one of several examples here.
I did a presentation about debt a few months ago. The food server working the event asked me a question as I packed all the boxes up.
He wanted to know if I knew who he could contact to be able to get all his money instead of waiting for his income to rise to have access to it.
For the life of me I couldn’t understand his question.
He went onto explain his buddies all had there allotment of cards issued to them already and they’d led him to believe he’d get his when his income rose to such and such.
I explained to him that his friends were making payments and had created DEBT.
Oh, he knew full well about the payments. He just wanted to know who he could call to get all his money.
I think he was talking entitlements!
He also had no earthly idea he was talking about revolving credit and the interest paid on such an arrangement.
July 20th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I really think that the thoughts of entitlement regarding living outside of their means, selfish habits, waiting for grandma to die *shudder* etc. need to be VERY widely seperated from articles about entitlement related to the workforce.
Corporate America has built and feathered their own nest with their move to “the company owes you no loyalty”… the generations who grew up thinking you owed the company 100% of your efforts, etc. accepted it while still working hard, but Gen Y, who entered the work force with no more guarantee than a paycheck for the work you do that day never built up that delusion, and yet Corporate America still wants the benefits of a loyal workforce… putting in extra hours when convenient for the company, giving notice when you quit, putting your life second to the companies scheduling needs, etc…. all while the company wouldn’t blink at walking you to the door tommorrow if they could outsource your job and save 20% of your salary, even if it is below the poverty line already. And now Corporate America realizes that this isn’t such a great deal for the companies anymore since people are wising up, so some are taking steps to be more attractive and provide more rewards for employees… while others bitch about the sense of entitlement of Gen Y’ers.
If you factor inflation into the starting wage most companies are paying less than the real starting wage when the current managers/top brass started out, and these guys also have the same myopic vision… to them, every success they had was because they were bold and siezed opportunity… not because the entire company did well in a growing market. If anyone has “entitlement” issues these days, it’s the CEO’s playing the “but he got more” game back and fort as the multiple of their pay compared to regular employees grows geometrically.
Now, that’s no excuse for Gen Y’ers living beyond their means, not appreciating what they have, balancing out corporate weakness with personal strength and savings, but when it comes to Gen Y in the workforce, my message to companies is “Supply and Demand, enjoy being on the short end for a change”… and I say this as an early Gen X’er who watched the shift from the inside and thinks this endless race to the bottom, sacrificing quality, value, and community wellbeing is the dumbest thing possible. (Although I am very pro: global free trade… just make sure everyone has to handle their currency fairly (no pegging) and follow the same human rights and environmental rules).