Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Maybe the Kids are Alright | a Fragment from Raising Adults

 Most kids seem to be doing fine. They’re not in jail nor do they seem likely to go there. They get to school or work most days.
They don’t carry concealed weapons, traffic in drugs, or consort with Russian spies. They seem to be turning out OK. 
    Perhaps it’s benign neglect: Despite ourselves, we managed to not screw them up. Maybe its Providence, which was very popular with the founding fathers and mothers and I see no reason we can’t invoke it now. 
    And maybe, somehow, we didn’t do such a bad job on the whole. Maybe the kids are alright.
    Except that some of them don’t seem alright, at all…some days it seems like most aren’t doing so well.
    Generation X, Y, Z, and whatever’s next, are clichés constructed on something observable. That observable something includes sometimes disturbing levels of aimlessness, sadness, anger, fear, occasional violence, and hopelessness. Many of our children reach adulthood with a serious life skills deficit. They enter their adult years emotionally impotent, unable to cope with pressure, socially awkward, scholastically under-prepared, spiritually undernourished. This produces considerable second-guessing among those who think of themselves as somehow responsible for the outcome.
from Raising Adults by Jim Hancock

No comments: