I guess I really am a cranky white guy — wife Jen, tells me so, reminding too, that I am old. (So I got that going for me . . .) Being a Cowg (Cranky old, white guy) I get a little wigged out when thrown in with a bunch of teenagers.
My ‘Spidy? senses really start to tingle when that bunch of teens consists primarily of loud, obnoxious and rude boys. I don’t know why teenaged lads cause this reaction in my psyche, I wasn’t always old, cranky or white. I have always been a guy and — gulp — was once loud, obnoxious and rude. So, in effect, the loud, obnoxious and rude are my brothers.
But, I still don’t like ’em.
Jen says I don’t like any kids, only my own. And, she adds, that since they are only nine and seven respectively, they are fast approaching the age where I won’t like them, either. Interesting hypothesis, Babe. (Note to Shamus and Sean: Boys, regardless of your age, I’ll still love you. Just, don’t be too unpleasant, please . . .)
Thinking about it, when I was of youngster status, I liked old-timers more than my peers. I got my first real newspaper job in the eighth grade. Five days a week (that’s all they printed) I used to deliver the Oakland Press. Unfortunately for my customers on Dubuque and Marconi (I can still remember some of the names — the Bernards, Zubaliks, Slaughterys and Moraleses . . ) the first folks on my route were old folks. Mrs. Fritch was first — she was old and worked in the kitchen at Bailey Lake Elementary. Second was Mr. & Mrs. Arnold. They’d wait for me on the front porch of their Greenview/Clarkston Road brick ranch. This usually involved pie, milk and gratuitous stories of looking for sarsaparilla roots by Walters Lake, mining in Indiana and trying to drive on Clarkston Road in the spring when it was still gravel. The Arnolds and the Fritches were old, but not as old as Mr. Bassett. He was ancient, and always needed his driveway shoveled, his grass cut or lawn raked. Mr. VanHorn was next and usually had some manual labor needs, which, for a price, I met.
The Oakland Press at that time was an afternoon paper. It was an evening paper (darktime paper) for the customers at the end of my route. This is probably a good time to apologize to those customers. Sorry.)
Now that I am older and closer to old-timer age, I still can relate to them easier than the younger generation. I am not an age-bigot, but it was with interest I read an on-line article by Victoria Clayton, headlined:
Are we raising a nation of little egomaniacs? Debate erupts over whether kids get too much praise or not enough.
Seems there’s a backlash a-brewing in the pointy-headed world of academe concerning the self-esteem movement. The self-esteem movement, you may recall, started in the 1980s. In short, teachers and parents told their young’uns that they were special. The adults bent over backwards to make sure no kid felt bad. In sports, there were no winners and losers, just ribbons for all participants. In the classroom, this led to 90 percent of the kids making the honor roll.
Honor rolls were once reserved for those who worked hard and got good grades — a status symbol, if you will, that unfortunately made those who didn’t get good grades feel bad about themselves. And kids were once taught there were winners and losers and just because you didn’t win doesn’t make you a loser — that you can’t always win, but you can give it your best effort.
The article states this movement has lead to ‘today’s onslaught of unreal, narcissistic kids? who tend to lack warmth, can be dishonest and angry failures as adults. ‘When you’re raised to think you’re great at everything, it can be a devastating blow when success turns elusive.?
While Shamus and Sean are great, special wonders of the world, they shouldn’t walk around with overinflated egos. I believe Jen and I have been described as, and I quote, ‘the meanest parents in the world,? more than once by both lads.
I guess I don’t buy hook, line and sinker, the whole argument that you risk making your child a self-absorbed idiot, if you tell ’em they’re special. Come one, we all know, kids are born knowing the world revolves around them and that it is our job to fill them in on reality — the earth revolves around the sun and in fact it is the universe that revolves around them, not the world.
Or, something like that.
Send comments to Cowg: dontrushmedon@charter.net