Who’s Really Raising Our
Kids?
Published in Marietta Daily Journal May 29, 2016
We all know that the political
season is red hot and that the public’s interest in the presidential election
has never been higher. But most of us
still have kids or grandkids who need attention as well.
I don’t mean the frothing “You’re so special”
and “You’re the smartest generation ever” type of attention. That type has produced the sense of
entitlement that marks so many current teens and young adults. No, I’m referring to a type of attention that
is sadly and dangerously waning, to a state of affairs in which parents have
pretty much turned their kids over to non-parental “mentors.” It’s a condition that raises the question:
who are the chief influencers of our children and youth?
Since August of 1966 my line of work
has placed me with people whose age has ranged essentially from 14 to 21. What a way to find out what your community
and nation are like! What a way, for
sure, to keep a grip on the pulse of the times. Teachers are necessarily
students of youth culture. They are incidentally
learners of how fares the home. Teachers don’t learn from asking, but from
overhearing and, as non-scientific and non-empirical as it sounds, from
sensing.
Even though the overhearing and the
sensing can take its toll (because you hurt for the students who can’t get
their minds off their fussing and fighting parents), being in a room with 25 or
30 young people is still a joy of all joys.
Recall “Welcome Back, Kotter” to get the idea.
Not every teacher has similar
experiences and not every class produces joy.
Some can produce hair-pulling or paralysis of analysis that comes from
doubting if you even know how to teach.
Despite such introspective moments or days, I’m fortunate that I can
still say teaching high school and college “kids” is beyond rewarding. My debt to class clowns is deep. My respect for introverts is keen. My love for teenagers of the last half
century, come this August, is immeasurable.
It is that love that now makes me
sad. Sad that parents are no longer the
primary influencers of their children.
Sad that neither are grandparents, or Uncle Joe, or even caring school
teachers, though teachers rank high as influencers.
Today the chief influencers of
children and teens are other children and teens, plus an entertainment culture
that has gone crazy. What is peer
pressure if it isn’t peer influence?
Because of peer influence, our children desire to be like each other. Pursuing non-conformity, they conform to one
another.
Even the most responsible of parents
today are often perplexed. With faltering confidence, and following the culture
as their children do, they no longer view their parental role as a natural one
obtained mostly from human instinct.
That role must be learned from “parenting” classes. Parents of an earlier generation – before
1960 let us say – find the perplexity of today’s parents perplexing. They didn’t need classes or manuals. They just did it. Neither did they consider their job as
parents a “role.” It was a stewardship,
a responsibility that came as naturally as making a living.
If you are 50 or older, the culture
you grew up in was basically passed down from generation to generation. Your parents played the primary role in
transmitting cultural values such as traditions, beliefs, stories, and even
music and dress. For the last half
century or so, however, culture has been transmitted to our youth and young
adults by entertainment icons. I began to see this social reality intensify in
the mid 70s.
Social scientists have dubbed this
type of transmission as horizontal, as opposed to society’s earlier type which
was vertical. Horizontal transmission of
culture is the result of laissez faire parenting, of turning children over to
the “mentors” of television, schools, and even youth ministers at church. For a half century I have watched as parents
more and more have succumbed to youth culture and its values, granting their
role to others.
Parents must now fight the culture
to raise their children well. But fight
they had better. Call this self-serving,
but I have three children who are proving with their own children that parents can
successfully fight the instant gratification and narcissism of modern culture
and transmit the things they value, even if the culture doesn’t.
If they can do it, other parents can
as well. The right thing to do is to jealously make sure we matter more to our
kids than do their peers. A half century
has taught me that our youth are wishing and hurting for just that.
Roger
Hines
5/25/16
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