Kids today

When my younger daughter was littler, she was told that, when she grows up, she could be whatever she wanted. She said, "I want to be a watermelon." [by the way, that really happened and, though others will tell slightly different versions of it, only read versions by me (with apologies to Christos Bartzokis)]

We, as parents, and I speak on behalf of the historical evolution of the parental role, are to blame. A long time ago, children, upon birth, were assigned a job and required to work 103 hours every day so that the family could afford to eat old shoes. Technology and an enlightened attitude developed over time and leisure time was born. During that era, we started dreaming of a better life for our children, a time when they can explore the deepest reaches of self-actualization and, like the drones we envision them to be, live on buzz words and a slavish dedication to their queen. The metaphor doesn't stand deep scrutiny, true, but who does these days?

There is a huge binary that we live in the midst of. We struggle to keep track of our wants vs. our needs. This distinction used to be a lot starker -- we need to live, so our efforts were focused on killing predators and being predators. There was no opportunity to worry about the color of the drapes in our castle or cave because adding color to drapes required a team of slaves, 2 draft horses (though bottled horses can do in a pinch) and 3 years of straight sunlight and temperatures between 34 and 35 degrees (F or C? I'll never tell). This is nothing compared to what was necessary to make windows in the first place -- for centuries, drapes covered solid wall because the making of a window was too imposing. Such was called an arras.

Parents, though, stopped being taskmasters and started seeing themselves in their children, wanting their children to become something more and better because who wants to live vicariously through a chimney sweep. Apologies to Chimney Sweep Local 101 but I have no interest in black lung or jaunty dance routines. So we freed up time so we could force our children to spend 103 hours a day practicing baseball and jazz dance while still interning at a leper colony in French Polynesia (or, more accurately, Freedom Polynesia). We told them that we would find a way to make their wildest dreams come true because nothing is too good for our little snookums.

As this stress on the "need" was relieved, and we were able to teach the young people to indulge the "want" we started letting them go soft. Facts. Follow your bliss, we say. Go travel and find yourself. (back in the day, young people found themselves and it ended up that they found themselves in sweatshops unless they were royalty or nobility and they found themselves in the company of mistresses and chromosomal defects) I'm not saying that we here in the U.S. have creampuffs for kids, but there is a reason Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teevee and Augustus Gloomp are seen as horrible. They are all about the want, whereas Charlie has grown up knowing only "need." He Is allowed a moment of want and wins a ticket but then as he travels up into the elite realms of want, he almost gets himself and his grandfather killed. Only burping (that is, the physiological need to expel hot air) brings him back to earth and safety. At the end, he recognizes that the ever lasting gobstopper is the ultimate answer to everyone's wants so he gives it back. Quite the morality tale but it isn't unique. The Israelites in the desert were given what they need but they continuously whined about what they wanted. So God gave them quail and they got sick. Be careful what you ask for -- you might eat a bird and get spoiled. That's a well known truism I just made up.

Judaism has worked hard to teach children about the difference between want and need. Adam and Eve were given all they needed and were told just one rule -- don't take anything else. Eve gets convinced that her "want" and the logic behind it is more sound than God's statement of her needs. Bad move and this is why I don't use Apple products. We teach children all about being happy with what they have. To recognize entire categories of "need" that will fill their time -- commandments. We try to replace the crushing demands of physical life with the demands of spiritual life because the physical stuff is becoming less and less demanding. Obligations towards others, praying for a community, focusing on what we don't have and what we need take precedence over a more wishy-washy floating through life spending thousands on toys and games and entertainment because we have the free time to destroy ourselves with junk food.

I'm not recommending the life of a Luddite or a move back to the olden days where the life expectancy was 38 and most of that time was spent drawing water out of a poisoned well. I'm also not asking anyone to not spare the rod and not spoil the child. We still want happiness for our kids, but a generation raised on immediate gratification, soundbites instead of analysis, bright colors and slogans instead of critical thinking, promises that they have the right to be heard and that their opinions are just as valid and any one who has actually lived a life and struggled, will not be a generation which can  put in the effort and understand that sometimes, our wants simply don't matter. Balance is key.

When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me to "deal with it." She didn't solve all my problems. She didn't alter her schedule too much to cater to my whims. She let me decide what I needed and told me to stand on my own two feet as hers were getting painful. My dad required that I justify my wants and show how they had value in the need category as well. And it wasn't perfect. And I did suffer some. And I was spoiled some. And I turned out OK, I hope.