Getting Kids to be Adults

My sister and I were reviewing our childhood and the question came up “How do you want it be different?”   Becky asked me that because I was lamenting the fact that all of my parents are gone, passed away, heart attack, obesity, all of the above.  We were also discussing the belief structures that we had formed as a result of our childhoods.  From the German side (paternal) we received these lamentations: “Suck it up, Deal with it, Sacrifice until you are done.”  From the Italian and Irish (maternal) the exhortations were somewhat different, the Irish were always concerned with drinking and Italian concerned with eating…  Always the Prohibition and Recession era people were concerned with practicality, saving everything and sacrificing now for something (un-named) later.

From this background noise, I somehow developed a belief system that the way to deal with bad situations was to “suck it up and deal with it!”  While I believe there are situations where this can be true and good advice, it is not a good belief system.  Particularly if you mix it with an Italian mama who MUST feed her children!  What comes to pass is a belief system of self sacrifice and martyrdom, that can be ad nauseam.  This is important because beliefs guide our actions of everyday life.  Belief tells us how to raise our children.

Over the last month, I’ve had occasion to discuss the current generation with lots of folks.  I have discussed today’s kids with professionals, with parents and with step-parents.  There seems to be a lot of disappointment and discouragement out there.  Kids are uncooperative and appear to lack any understanding of self-awareness and responsibility.  There is ravenous hunger among kids for self and instant gratification.  They seem to have an uncanny ability to increase parents’ guilt and inadequacy feelings and all for the sake of the the correct and most fashionable footwear and the latest in electronic games.  Divorced parents seem to lead the pack in ability to feel guilt, but lots of parents feel guilty about their ability to parent, for no other reason than because they can’t buy the latest $300.00 electronic game.  It’s easy to fall into the guilt trap and it’s easy to say yes to your child – even when you know the price is very high.

So here is what I thought after this long, long discussion with my sister and with my boyfriend – These beliefs that were inculcated into our psyche from my generation need to be passed on, not as beliefs, but as coping mechanisms for this new “I want it now” generation.  I don’t think that my generation’s belief systems were exactly correct, nor were they health producing.  However, I do think that they are great ways to cope.  The fact of the matter is that we can’t always get what we want, and we need to help this generation learn that fact of life.  On the other hand, I don’t think that this new generation needs to sacrifice everything all of the time (like we did, or our parents did), just to get by. 

The belief system of “toughening up” should instead be a coping mechanism.  It should be in the psyche on a temporary basis to help us with a situation.  It should not be a belief system.  As a belief system it is damaging, because it implies that any situation can be dealt with if you just “suck it up.”  That’s not true, we must develop a healthy balance of coping with problems AND taking care of our sacred self.  We must find a way to deal with the fact that life is somewhat disappointing, yet there is nothing inherently wrong with pursuing the best and happiest life that we can.