children

I’m pretty good at seeing the positive in every situation.  There are a lot of great things to be had from the current recession we are experiencing.  And one of the more important ones, in my opinion, has to do with our younger generations.

I am the mom to a 15 year old, almost 16 and a bonus mom to another 15 year old.  I have nieces and nephews that range in age from 22 down to 8.  I’ve worked with chidren of all ages through various programs and careers I have held.  I see a trend in this generation of children that is rather discouraging.  It seems they lack the desire, motivation or incentive to work for what they want.  Rather, if it isn’t handed to them, they’ll just do without but whine about it none-the-less.

In consecutive generations of parents raising their children, the goal was to provide for them a life that was better than they had themselves.  My fear is that it went too far.  Our kids have more than they could ever want and that doesn’t give them a reason to go out and work for anything.

The pre-2008 economy encouraged parents to provide children as young as 5 or 6 years old with cell phones complete with data plans and laptop computers.  Shows like Sweet 16 on MTV encouraged kids to think BIG in terms of what they could and/or should expect.

This attitude carried through to the job world.  Those just graduating from high school or college expected big salaries with little work.  If something better came along, they wouldn’t think twice about leaving an employer without much notice.

Now, we have a new economy.  The Christmases of 2009 and 2010 weren’t quite as big as years past.  The job market has dried up and teens are finding it harder to find even  low paying jobs to pay for those fancy cars with high car insurance rates that their parents can’t afford any more.

All of a sudden, something for nothing doesn’t exist.  And that’s a good thing.

The economic collapse may help the United States get back to the days when the US was young and wanted to prove itself to the world.  We were willing to work hard for what we wanted and didn’t sit back with an entitlement mentality.

The Great Depression gave rise to one of the most prosperous times in US history after teaching us a valuable lesson of selfish indulgence from the 1920’s.  If we are fortunate, that is the lesson we have to learn again.  Hopefully, it will be the last time we have to learn it.