Wifey B: In school, it's all a competition with many parents pushing hard. They start working on building resumes very early. Test scores are critical. Participation in activities and holding office important. GPA and class rank have many thousands of dollars riding on them. The top high school students are probably taking several AP classes or even IB (International Baccalaureate). Student Council officer with work days and some type project every week. National Honor Society. Then perhaps the debate team or maybe they're in band or choir or on a sports team. If any of those, they miss days of school for games or competitions and must cover all that work. Then on top of it they may have afternoon or weekend jobs. Competition for scholarships and even for admission to some schools. This competitive environment starts young too.
Kids today are also exposed to more things earlier than prior generations. Sex and decisions about it presents itself at 12 or younger, not at 16 or 18 or even 14. Drugs are around them as early as elementary schools. By high school, binge drinking is everywhere.
Teen suicides rise every year. They reflect the pressures mounting on kids. When most of us went to schools, at the very least they were safe havens. School shootings are daily occurrences and lockdown procedures are a common part of most students lives.
Then there is their home life. Divorced parents or parents together and fighting. Parents they live with but whom are really absent from their lives. Parents undergoing a lot of pressure and passing it on. Job insecurities of parents have tremendous impacts on the kids. More parents, and more kids, worried about losing their homes. Many home environments are mentally very unhealthy. In most cities, the number of homeless kids, with and without parents, is shocking.
A lot of kids grow up in dangerous neighborhoods with shootings commonplace and the most successful people they see being drug dealers. Kids are turned into runners for drugs, bookmaking, shoplifting and theft.
Now we have an additional group of kids under extreme pressure worried about their parents being snatched up and deported. Just imagine that pressure on the kids.
Then all the inflamed topics of society, the hatred being tossed around daily at all levels and in all environments.
Kids are growing up faster and not shielded from the adult world. Then toss in social media. You say kids shouldn't be on it. I personally agree with you. Except. They have to be. Most school organizations today, from honor societies to sports teams to student councils use twitter as their primary means of communication.
Most of all, kids are not allowed to be kids. For some, that works out fine. In fact, some are successful adults sooner. For others though it varies between unhealthy and tragic. Families, as once known, rare today. Both parents working, children unsupervised. Access to trouble that we didn't have. One wanders into drugs, another into alcohol, another into cam shows, another into sex, but these aren't just the 18 year olds, these include as young as 12 or even younger.
None of this is to say kids of prior generations didn't face challenges. They certainly did. I did. My hubby did. Most of you did. But, please, just because it's different today, don't live under the illusion that today's kids have it so much easier than prior generations. They have it much different, but that doesn't translate into easy.
It's odd how things come along presenting new challenges. Many cite social media today. I was talking to a man last night who is around 60. He said the world of raising his daughter changed with MTV and Madonna. Obviously before my time but I've heard Britney Spears blamed for the ruin of society and now I guess it's the Kardashians. Still, I wanted to know what he meant. Well, he meant the first time he saw his six year old in front of the tv screen watching Madonna on MTV and copying the dance moves and wanting to dress like that. Well, I can relate because I thought she was the coolest person ever and could sing every song she ever did. I didn't know what "sexy" even meant, much less what it was.
I'd say this just in general. Never judge how life is for others. You don't know. Not for another generation, another race, another religion, another gender, another anything. You see people you think have it so easy and have no idea what challenges they're dealing with. I try to think of it just in my daily life. Some waitress is unfriendly. I am tempted to think, "what a b..ch". But there may well be something serious troubling her. About five years ago, a restaurant in Annapolis for breakfast. I step to the restroom and as I return I see my hubby with the waitress sitting close to him, his arm around her. (prior to me corrupting him, he would have been concerned but not pursued). I saw her tears and asked the manager about it, then arranged for her to have the day off. Her husband had left her and her son, taken the rent money, because she was married still she hadn't been able to qualify for any help, and the three day eviction notice had been posted two days earlier. I recall her biggest fear was picking her son up from school that afternoon and telling him they weren't going home, because they had their home no longer. We spent the day helping her but the impression on us is forever and that is that you never know what the absent minded or rude waitress or sales clerk or anyone else is dealing with today. Maybe a sick child. Maybe their mom just died.
And certainly don't judge a group or generation. Most of you here are older than me, many much older. I don't even profess to fully understand what it's like to be 75 or what life was like when you were young. By listening and observing, I've learned a lot but then that's only about a small group and may not be representative. As some of our family ages, it scares me. When one here mentions having lost their wife, I feel pain, but it's still not the pain they feel. I know I have an idyllic life. However, I've not always and even today I spend time around those far less fortunate and try to get to know them and understand.
Today's kids are so wonderful, but they do have it tough. So did yesterday's. So will tomorrow's. I love them all.
