Arrested development …

Every generation thinks every following generation is not as good – not as smart, not as tough, not as disciplined, not as self-reliant. In short, not up to their standards.   

I once thought that was nuts. Of course, that was when I was in the generation they were talking about. Sure, my parents’ generation lived through the Depression and fought and won a world war. Okay, they'd been through a lot.  

But my generation was going to change the world for the better. We were smarter than our parents. We were revolutionaries. We were going to create a brighter future. And we couldn’t wait to get out on our own, away from our parents’ rules, and build a life of our own. 

Then we grew up. We got jobs. Many of us married and had kids. Suddenly we were adults, with adult responsibilities, not just to ourselves but to families, jobs, and community. 

We finally understood what our parents had learned. At least most of us did.  

The lesson was simple: you can’t be a kid forever.  At some point, you have to take responsibility for your own actions. There’s nobody to bail you out when you do stupid stuff.

As you get older the stupid stuff has greater consequences.  Do something dumb at work and you could get fired; without that paycheck, you struggle to pay rent and buy food or even gas for your car, if you’re lucky enough to have one.  Do something dumb in your marriage and you could get divorced, lose half your personal property – assuming you have anything – and end up paying alimony for years.  Smart mouth a cop and you could end up in cuffs. 

When you’re over 18 the world changes.  Turn 21 and your world has changed even more dramatically in just three short years.  Next thing you know, you’re 30 and you’d better have your act together or you’re in serious trouble in terms of your career and long-term prospects.    

If you haven’t grown up by then, too bad. The challenges are only going to get harder, the competition more intense, and the work more demanding. 

Now in my mid-60s, born in the middle of the Baby Boomer generation, I find myself wondering how the latest generation will survive. I hope I’m wrong – and maybe just repeating the same misconceptions our parents thought about us – but I really don’t think so. 

I’m certain our grandparents thought our parents were spoiling us rotten. I suspect that’s what most of our grandparents felt, especially those who raised families during the Depression.  However, my fellow Boomers did a much worse job with their own children, in my opinion. 

My parents’ generation had lived through a lot. It’s not surprising that so many of them wanted to make up for lost time. They partied. They had fun. They drank. They smoked.  They lived as if there were no tomorrow. Who can blame them?

They cared for and loved their kids, but they had their own lives to live. They were interested in what we did, but only up to a certain point. As long as we made good grades, didn’t embarrass them, didn’t cause problems at school, didn’t get arrested, get pregnant or get someone pregnant, we were pretty much okay. They were content to leave us alone. 

When we turned 18, they were happy to see us leave home – either to go to college or to a job, or in some cases to join the military. Their work was done. 

So what happened to Boomer parents? I think too many of them decided to take way too much interest – and control – in their kids’ lives.

Where we were raised as somewhat “free-range” kids whose main parental directions were to go play outside, don’t get hurt, and be home when the streetlights came on, Boomers’ kids were smothered with attention. Boomer parents micromanaged every aspect of their kids’ lives, from scheduled “play dates” to a variety of music, dance, computer skills, sports and other lessons. 

Every child of a Boomer was a genius.  A prodigy.  a superstar. The next pro athlete. And Boomer parents were dedicated to pushing their child to his or her full potential. 

That included boosting their child’s self-esteem; something many Boomers perhaps felt their own parents neglected to do enough for them.  Self-esteem became more important than a child’s actual, objective performance.  Failure was hurtful to self-esteem, so Boomer parents fought hard to prevent their children from ever experiencing failure – at anything. 

If that meant intimidating and threatening teachers to give their kid a better grade, so be it. If that meant leaning on a coach to make sure their kid got on the team, regardless of his or her ability, so be it. If that meant demanding their kid be given special treatment, special classes, special exemptions in his or her school, so be it. If that meant getting lawyers involved, so be it

The parents of Boomers would never dream of doing any of that.  The only time they went to our schools was when they absolutely had to.  Those “had-to” moments were fairly limited: a call from the school nurse or principal would do it; you being disappointed wouldn’t.  

To our parents, if you got a bad grade it was your fault, not the teacher’s. If you got detention you probably deserved it.  If you didn’t make the team, it probably was because you didn’t work hard enough or should try some other sport or activity.  If you were on a team and lost a game, get over it and learn from it.

There were no T-Ball moments I could remember. Not everybody made the team. Not everybody got As. Not everybody got into accelerated courses.  Not everybody made the Honor Roll, much less the Honor Society. Not everybody got to be Prom King or Queen, either.

And nobody I knew got promoted to the next grade simply because their parents complained enough, or it would make them feel better about themselves. 

Boomers succeeded or failed largely on their own. This was a valuable lesson.

Our parents’ benign indifference meant they were always there to comfort us when necessary, patch us up when we got hurt, but they never promised we’d get everything we wanted. If anything, they taught us that there were no guarantees everything would always turn out the way we wished.

That’s just the way things are, they’d say.  Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose.  And sometimes things just don’t go the way you planned. Get used to it.     

Stunningly, many Boomer parents failed to pass this along to their own kids. 

They protected their kids from everything. They constantly intervened. They made sure their kids felt nothing was ever their own fault.  They took charge of every decision their child should make, and managed every outcome, so their child would never, ever feel the sting of failure. 

Or get the valuable lessons failure provides.   

So what we have now is a generation – the offspring of those Boomers – who don’t know how to fend for themselves. They don’t know how to manage their money or their financial obligations. They don’t know how to manage their careers. They don’t know how to manage personal relationships. They don’t know how to deal with adversity. They don’t know how to do any of these things because their parents always managed everything for them.   

They also don’t know how to recover from failure – personal or work-related – because they’ve never really experienced it thanks to their parents.  

Instead of solving their own problems and making their own decisions, many still rely on their parents – who are now in their 50s or 60s – for practically everything.

Some of them never left home or have moved back in after college, or supposedly to “save money for a house.” In the meantime, mom is cooking their meals, making their bed, doing their laundry, and in many cases mom and dad are still buying the groceries and paying their health and car insurance for them.   

To me that’s pretty weird when your children are in their mid-20s and even weirder still when they’re in their 30s or 40s, often with kids of their own and full-time jobs, and they’re still living in your house rent free. When they’re that old, they’re supposed to have their act together. They’re supposed to be able to take care of themselves and make their own decisions. 

Many Boomer parents apparently don’t see anything wrong with having their adult offspring back at home.  Continuing to be totally dependent on mom and dad.

Maybe that’s what those Boomer parents always wanted. I sure hope so. Because it’s too late to teach those kids how to be responsible adults who can survive on their own. 

I shudder to think how these Boomers’ kids will raise their own children. I could be wrong, and they could decide to raise their own kids more responsibly to prepare them for the real world. 

We can only hope.