I want to start by quoting something I read on NPR: “A judge held an unusual hearing in New Jersey on Tuesday: a lawsuit brought by an 18-year-old who says her parents kicked her out of their house. Rachel Canning is seeking to force her parents to give her financial support and money for college, in addition to pay for tuition at her private school.”
This can only happen in the USA. See, I almost said America there, but then I would be a hypocrite and a victim of my own entitlement. America–The Americas–consist of a lot more than our 50 some odd states. Because I myself am entitled, I generally feel okay calling our chunk of the Americas the only America. I, like most of us, tend not to consider Mexico and Canada as part of the Americas, and tend to ignore South America on most days unless I am thinking about vacations or really good soccer.
The point is we are living in a dangerously entitled society. Once kids start to believe they can sue parents for college money we need to go back to the part where when they didn’t do their chores we locked in a dark room and slid bread under the door. There is a reason my kids don’t watch commercials. I can’t lie–there was at least a year where I sat my kid down in front of a TV and called it good. I mastered the 30 second skip forward feature and danced past all of those silly commercials. They’ve started to believe they have an inherent right to television, and from that television and from the things they have they believe they have a right to privileges in general. I don’t think I’m going to be sued if I opt out of paying for college or put them out on the street, but they are far from understanding what it means to live in a shanty town.
My wife and I came from humble means. She is a refugee and I lived in Harlem when there were still black people there. Because of the way we were raised I’m driven to give my kids more than I had. This in no way means they are entitled to those things, but I understand that giving things to my kids can lead to that impression. It is something important to recognize as a parent.
Some Thoughts:
- That soccer comment got me thinking about the upcoming youth soccer season. I’m pretty excited. No expectations except a lot of kids running really hard to to the ball