This generation of kids...

[V.C. Brunswick]

I went to a rather strict, old fashioned British style school where we were always addressed by our surnames by the teachers and it's funny but it's stuck.

I always got a kick out of the "old school" way of differentiating siblings by referring to the older one as "major" and the younger one as "minor."

 

[Yeps]

TI went to a rather strict, old fashioned British style school where we were always addressed by our surnames by the teachers and it's funny but it's stuck. Whenever I see old school mates, we often address each other by surname (even my user name here is the nickname which has stuck with me since school days and obviously comes from my surname). Many times I either can't remember - or even don't even know - somebody I went to school with's first name!

We did that largely because I went to a Catholic school, and half of us were named John.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

We did that largely because I went to a Catholic school, and half of us were named John.

When I was in high school practically every other boy was named Jeff while every other girl was either Deborah or Cheryl.

 

[Tomasso]

I went to a Catholic school.....

That's where the problems start...[huh]



I keed, I keed.......

 

[Hereward]

One of the only professionals I see who uses my surname is my dentist. I respect him more than the others. He is working past the usual retirement age and is far better trained than the usual type one finds nowadays.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Many of us who didn't grow up in the Modern Generation were taught there are overtones in the use of first names when addressing people that may or may not be appropriate in any given situation. What I was taught was that when you call someone in an otherwise formal setting by their first name, you're reducing them to the level of a child -- parents call children by their first names, but children don't refer to their parents that way. Same with teachers in school.

Informal settings among friends or peers are one thing, but calling a boss or a customer by their first name without being granted permission to do so would, to me, be like going up to the President and saying "Yo, Barry!"

 

[Feraud]

Hell Night and Halloween have come and gone. There were no visible amounts of property damage done in our neighborhood by carousing bands of unsupervised, ill-bred youth.

To be fair I will have to say our generation was much worse than today's kids!

 

[jamespowers]

Hell Night and Halloween have come and gone. There were no visible amounts of property damage done in our neighborhood by carousing bands of unsupervised, ill-bred youth.

To be fair I will have to say our generation was much worse than today's kids!

Geez, you kids must have been horrible!
I would have been dead long ago if I tried to get away with what many kids do today.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

There was a very strange Professor in my department in Indiana who insisted on introducing himself to new graduate students as, let's say "Dave Smith", then got in a strop when the students would greet him with a friendly "Hi Dave". He actually wanted to be greeted as "Professor Smith". This was just confusing. Maybe he was just an ass.

Informal settings among friends or peers are one thing, but calling a boss or a customer by their first name without being granted permission to do so would, to me, be like going up to the President and saying "Yo, Barry!"

 

[Fletch]

It's not the school-age goblins the culture wharrgarblers are by and large beeotching about. It's the 20something college grads who are thrown a miserable crust of a job that denies them the least dignity (sorry Lizzie, but it's all too often true), then fail to lick the boss's hand in abject gratitude.

All the hyperbole about how they've got to suck up and fall in line says a lot more about the speakers than their subjects. Folks are jealous and afraid - jealous that they never felt free to ask for better, and afraid that these pukes may actually f up the status quo that their elders gave their lives for.

Many hope to make things easier for their children. Damn few want to make things easier for everyone's children.

 

[Pompidou]

Many of us who didn't grow up in the Modern Generation were taught there are overtones in the use of first names when addressing people that may or may not be appropriate in any given situation. What I was taught was that when you call someone in an otherwise formal setting by their first name, you're reducing them to the level of a child -- parents call children by their first names, but children don't refer to their parents that way. Same with teachers in school.

Informal settings among friends or peers are one thing, but calling a boss or a customer by their first name without being granted permission to do so would, to me, be like going up to the President and saying "Yo, Barry!"

I imagine it's about time for a paradigm shift in the assumptions about how a person prefers to be greeted. Back in the day, I imagine most everyone preferred formality unless otherwise noted, but these days, most everyone responds to formality with, "Please, call me (shorthand/nickname of first name, IE: Matt, Jen)". Even full first names are a little too formal for most. Since the point of the formal greeting was to make most people feel comfortable, and most people are more comfortable with informality, informality should be the norm taught to kids in school. School is supposed to prepare kids for the real world, and a life of "Please, I'd rather be called X" will probably leave them wondering what the big deal was about. Seems Mister or Misses are titles reserved solely for teachers, who've become a anachronism of formality of a time long past.

 

[jamespowers]

It's not the school-age goblins the culture wharrgarblers are by and large beeotching about. It's the 20something college grads who are thrown a miserable crust of a job that denies them the least dignity (sorry Lizzie, but it's all too often true), then fail to lick the boss's hand in abject gratitude.

All the hyperbole about how they've got to suck up and fall in line says a lot more about the speakers than their subjects. Folks are jealous and afraid - jealous that they never felt free to ask for better, and afraid that these pukes may actually f up the status quo that their elders gave their lives for.

Many hope to make things easier for their children. Damn few want to make things easier for everyone's children.

I could care less what other people do or are able to do.
I concentrate on my own children because they are my responsibility. I don't presume to know what is right for everyone's children. If every parent cared about making their childen's lives better then we wouldn't have the problems we have today.

 

[Fletch]

That's a very big if.

If, OTOH, we want young people to be more courteous, respectful, responsible, etc., we are going to have to give them better reasons than they have now, and find a way to reach them that is not just about alienation and stoking our frustrations.

 

[jamespowers]

That's a very big if. Kind of like saying, "Until they make all cars and roads out of rubber, I could give a $#!! how many people get in accidents."

You aren't exactly going to throw the parents in jail for moral or manners neglect. That would be going a bit far. Sometimes people have to make mistakes to learn from.
I see children all th time at my son's school that are completely rudderless. The parents drive them to school int heir pajamas and the children are also in pajamas. They are idiots but we do not license children---unfortunately.
All I can do id do the best with my sons and encourage others to do the same.[huh]

 

[jamespowers]

That's a very big if.

If, OTOH, we want young people to be more courteous, respectful, responsible, etc., we are going to have to give them better reasons than they have now, and find a way to reach them that is not just about alienation and stoking our frustrations.

Now that is a different subject. It seemed to work just fine for our parents and grandparents though. Being the opposite of all those things you mentioned will in the end make their lives harder and their interactions with people less pleasant. That is an incentive already. Add to that the ability to advance in career and in other's eyes and you add more incentive.
It like the old chain gangs along the side of the road. Your parents were sure to mention that that is exactly where you were going to be if you did the wrong thing in your life.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I guess for me, the only incentive I needed was being told as a small child-- and further, seeing demonstrated every day around me -- that there was nothing anybody was going to *give* me in life. When you don't have parents with money in the bank, and there's nobody else standing in the wings to help you out, you tend to realize that if you want to eat regularly, it depends on your own efforts. Anything I wanted, I had to work for, and working meant doing the best job I was capable of doing because someone was paying me for my time, and it was my obligation in taking their money to give them honest return on the money spent. That may be too simplistic a philosophy for some, but I've been putting the buck on the table with it since I was thirteen, and it still makes sense to me.

I was raised in a family that depended on giving good, courteous service to customers for its survival -- and that, likewise was a powerful incentive to be courteous in my own dealings. As more and more of the economy turns to "service industry" jobs, a lot of other people will be learning that lesson, I think.

 

[PoohBang]

My daughter just barely went back to school on Monday (she's 7) & already has a 4 day weekend for Labor Day! Apparently, a 3 day weekend isn't good enough? Idk, I'm just feeling frustrated & disappointed with how things are going for this generation of kids and I feel like they today get waaaay to much time off and way to much slack. Seriously, not a month goes by that they don't have at least an extra day off for whatever reason. Example: a whole week off for Thanksgiving? When I went to school we only got a long weekend! They're coddled & spoiled. I see it every day! They don't know what hard work is, nor do a lot of adults for that matter. Give me the people from the WW2 generation...they knew what it was to sacrifice and work hard! Granted, it was a tough time to live but at least it built character and made them appreciate what they had! I hope I don't offend...these are just my observations....

ETA: I'm not saying my generation is/was perfect but we didn't have all this instant gratification that kids today do. Technology is wonderful and a downfall at the same time.

I did not read the whole 11+ pages of this, but to your question if it is a question... perhaps you're not looking that the school district is cutting costs by having longer vacation as then they don't have to pay teachers for all that time, run busses and electric. Many of the vacations of current are caused by budget cuts and not being slackers...

 

[Fletch]

Being the opposite of all those things you mentioned will in the end make their lives harder and their interactions with people less pleasant. That is an incentive already. Add to that the ability to advance in career and in other's eyes and you add more incentive.

OK, so why can't we communicate this in a positive way that brings light to the issue and not just heat?

We may need a Munro Leaf for the internet generation. Someone to write titles like The Rat Race Can Be Fun, or How to Suck It Up and Why. I'm only half kidding.

 

[Fletch]

They're coddled & spoiled. I see it every day! They don't know what hard work is, nor do a lot of adults for that matter. Give me the people from the WW2 generation...they knew what it was to sacrifice and work hard! Granted, it was a tough time to live but at least it built character and made them appreciate what they had! I hope I don't offend...these are just my observations....

They're not just yours, Heather. Many people have similar thoughts - enough that it's either a) a widely observable phenomenon in the world around us, or b) a widely shared impression originating from something other than what we see in the world around us - say our shared wishes, fears, frustrations, beliefs.

The way lots and lots of people use just the same words and phrases as you do - coddling, sacrifice, building character, etc. - suggests to me that it's more b) than a). There are no doubt some examples in real life, but the rest lies in ourselves.

 

[Pompidou]

I like to think the modern generation just works smarter. I can't deny work was harder back in the day. It was probably harder and harder the further back you go in time. I see, "They don't know what hard work is," and I say, "I hope I never have to." I know what I need to do. I know what I want to have. If even one extra bead of sweat drips off my forehead, it's not a mark of good character, it's a mark of poor planning. Why, in an ideal world, I wouldn't sweat at all, but I'm not quite there yet. I imagine folks blazing the Oregon Trail would've looked at the folks of the golden age and said the same things - "They have it too easy... don't know what hard work is," yet a longing to return to the days of little house on the prairie and earlier doesn't seem to be a common one. I never heard my grandparents longing for the days when simple tasks were arduous. Then again, they were pretty reserved, so maybe those sorts of thoughts were left unspoken. I'll sacrifice character for quality of life any day.