1873. The Spoiled

My kids have Kindles. They have multiple video game systems, a game room and enjoy all the fun a group of boys could possibly enjoy. It isn’t enough. Not a week goes by that they don’t ask to download some new free Kindle game. I’ve rarely said no because, well, its free. Whats the harm? It turns out the harm is developing a sense of entitlement and a deeply spoiled nature to the boys. It has to stop.

I think the culprit is a mix of permissive behaviors and a genuine inability to balance the lifestyle of yesterday with the needs of modern life. I get that the last part sounds like total BS. I mean, do kids NEED to have a kindle or an Xbox 1 or any other gaming platform? Do they NEED to watch shows constantly and have their own Netflix streaming queues or any of it? Not really. Honestly, I think my boys would be well prepared for the future if all they had were stacks of books and a C++ coding environment. The problem: I want to give them a great childhood as well.

Great isn’t necessarily defined by what you have, but these things we do have are contributing to the greatness. The problem is that they take everything for granted. I don’t know that they’re even aware of how little most people have. I need to learn how to strike a balance between what I give them and what they appreciate. It might take some time.

Some Thoughts:

  1. Judy Mozes, the wife of an Isreali politician, took me by surprise when she joked that Obama coffee is ‘black and weak’. It constantly surprises me when people who should know better than to promote racism and try to reap the benefits of such shameless promotion. We are reminded on a constant basis of the horrors of the holocaust and told again and again that it should never be repeated. Well, it starts with off-handed jokes based on purported racial superiority. It matters less that she apologized for being caught than it does that she publicly made the remarks in the first place.

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