It couldn’t be more perfect if it was a full-fledged conspiracy that had the singular purpose of keeping our children helpless.  They simply cannot deal with the unpredictable, the uncharted, the unfamiliar.  We have taken away their capacity to think on their feet.  They have been understood and collaborated with to a point where they are ineffective at navigating even the most innocent of confusing situations.  Their brains freeze up and they lurch to some bizarre response, pursue fight or flight or simply have the deer in the headlights look that says we have enabled them to the point of possible no-return.

Two examples: One young man was ready to leave the program and be employed full-time at a job we had lined up for him.  19 years-old and being given the opportunity to earn $28,000 a year plus benefits.  To see if he was ready, we gave him one last real life test.  It was a Thursday and he had just told one of the staff members that there was no way he would blow this chance.  He came by the office and jokingly said something borderline inappropriate to the boss.  He was immediately confronted and told that he needed to rethink what had just happened and come up with a better response.  He looked lost.  Again, it was demanded that he make a different choice.  Out comes the old behavior - oppositional, screw you, “I have no idea what you are talking about”, you can’t tell me what to do.  One last time, a directive to fix this and still he was blank.  In 120 seconds, he had blown a pretty sweet deal.

Another young man was volunteering at a startup program that had just received funding.  As such, there was no equipment yet, no routine established, no official start date.  His response was to say that the situation was “fishy” - how could a program have no equipment?  It was as if he thought that we are all just dropped into situations where everything we need is already there.  He was literally overwhelmed with the idea that nothing was ready yet and it was going to have to be created each day.  He quit.  Full-time job, money for college, high demand skills being taught, all weeks away, and he could not deal with the uncertainty that it wasn’t there this minute.

We have done this to them.  We have rendered our children impotent in the face of the spontaneous, the unusual, the seemingly incomprehensible.  We have robbed them of what is necessary to be creative, patient, visionary.  What is it that we get out of making our young people helpless?  What grand advantage, what sick rationalization, what pathological need moves us to ensure that our children are ill-equipped to navigate the parts of life that are potentially the most exciting, rewarding, open-ended, change producing? 

Seems simple enough.  And entertaining.  Young women dancing provocatively.  Their booties ogled by a rapper type (Burger King’s stereotype).  Perfect way to sell the Kids Meal and Spongebob toy.  It is pure genius.  What the hell?

Kids watch a lot of TV.  Way too much of the boob tube.  But allowing them to do whatever they want is seemingly the path of least resistance.  And of course we do not want resistance or conflict because that would require the hard work of change.  And we can’t have that because everything is going so well.

This blog is not about that… It’s about how adults are portrayed in TV commercials and how much kids get the message that we are idiots.  And parents are in the category of all adults so they are idiots also.  Parents kneeling under the roller coaster to catch spare change to pay for the family calling plan and anally-retentive rollover mom who saves all her minutes.  Then we have overweight dad riding his super-charged lawn mower to tackle a single lot yard.  And the ex-athletes who are so undisciplined that they have to have special meals delivered to their house in order to lose the extra 50 lbs.  Or the poor souls who are kidnapped and helped to get a good deal on a hotel room because they are too stupid to do it on their own.

It all seems simple and humorous and harmless.  It’s not.  It breeds disrespect.  The kids see it over and over again and it is reinforced in their minds that we are incapable, bungling, fat, lazy weirdos - even if we’re not.

Although it is not a laughing matter, I see it so much that I can’t help but smile at the tragic-comedy unfolding in the 21st century.  Kids, in all different settings, treating their parents like doormats on whom they wipe their feet without thought or regard.

The more puzzling part is parents allowing this to happen on a continuous basis. What’s up with that?  What are they thinking will result from this?  Does it buy them some alliance with the kid or is it simply weakness, insecurity and fear?  With footprints all over their minds, bodies and spirits, it seems counter-productive to raising healthy kids.

And it sets kids up for disaster when they go out into the world believing every adult will allow themselves to be walked upon with total disrespect.  This is not how the world works and many of us adults will not put up with this kind of dysfunctional behavior from your punk kid.  The kid will be stunned and eventually angry with you for teaching them a fairy tale version of reality.  Of course, by the time they figure out you set them up, you will have created some cute rationalization for your behavior.

Bottomline: Allowing your kids to walk all over you is a losing proposition for everyone.

This is not about weight…It is about fattening up our kids’ needs list with a bunch of crap they don’t really need.  It is about giving our kids too much permission too soon and fattening up their belief that they are entitled to do whatever they want whenever they want.  It is about a cultural shift that is based on overindulgence and it is wreaking havoc with an entire generation.  And then when they don’t get the goodies or the permission, they respond with tantrums, conduct problems, learned helplessness, threats and an assortment of other weird behavior based on the cognitive distortion that it is their birthright to be the center of the family and they are to be taken care of in the style they have become accustomed to.  Now what do we do?

I confront the young one about this or that and it ends up with them copping an attitude.  I’m not about to give in and they are not about to back down.  And then they utter, “When I’m 18…”  Implied is: I can do whatever I want; no one can tell me what to do; I won’t have to put up with your crap.  And they say it like all their problems will be solved.  The doors of the universe will be unlocked and the Red Sea will part.  I’m thinking, you will maybe know a little more than you do now which is not very much but I smile and say, “When will that be?”

How did it happen?  Did we do this to them or can we blame someone or something else?  “It’s all about me”, they say, because that is what you taught me.  You made me the center of your universe and now I believe I am the center of the universe.  And you can’t take it back because the experts say that would injure my self-esteem.  And then you would have to take care of me some more.  See, it is a never ending circle that surrounds me.  I am wrapped up tight and snug inside my own little world.  I would say thank you but that might imply some empathy and you have taught me not to care about anyone else but me.

You ask the kid a simple question. They stand there as if you do not exist, shrugging their shoulders, head kind of bowed and they mumble, “I dunno”. This continues multiple times where you get the same “I dunno” and the whatever shrugging. You didn’t ask them a quantum physics question but just whether they cleaned up their room. Frustrated, you give up and let them off the hook by never getting a straight answer. The result: they develop poor posture and a mumbling problem; and when they do this outside the family, people conclude they might not be so bright.

Under the guise of supporting each other, it becomes a complaining session and a misery loves company cluster mess. Under the wonderful idea of a parent support group, it becomes something unrecognizable. Instead of being a creative and energizing process, it becomes a rehashing of all the failed techniques and strategies. Shame on us. We should all be forced to make a list of everything we’ve tried with our kids that hasn’t worked (repeatedly) and be made to vow never do those things again. And what’s more, we shouldn’t be allowed to suggest our failed attempts to anyone else. It won’t work for them either. Try something new.

So you lie for the kid. You get them out of trouble by leaving out a little bit of the truth. Seems innocent enough. A natural instinct. And whether you admit it or not, in the back of your mind, you think it buys you something. Loyalty, gratefulness because you helped them out. In a weird sense, they owe you. But then there is the next time when they put you in a situation and expect you to do it again. They are now giving you an opportunity to prove your love and loyalty once more. It is a clever reverse: now, strangely, you owe them. Come on, don’t fall for this nonsense. It is the beginning of yet another virus…