I ran across this article about "Obnoxious Boy's T-shirts" and I had also read a comment that someone had left elsewhere, where I found the article from. The comment was, to paraphrase, saying essentially that moms who think the way that the original article writer do are "too sensitive" and essentially need to loosen up. To be honest though, I agree 100% with the article writer.
Too many parents today were, themselves, teens who bought into this garbage when they were kids, and slowly convinced themselves that these negative messages were how they felt about school, studying, and then later on, work, morals, and life. How often do we hear people complaining about coworkers who don't get any work done because they're texting, playing in their email or online, or just not paying attention. Or those who will purposely put no effort into their jobs, knowing that there will always be someone there to pick up the slack? These people who put more effort into avoiding work are the same ones who bought into the "I don't like school because it's the cool thing to do," mindset when they were teens, and lost out on not only a good education, but also a good work ethic and learning what it means to be responsible.
What really angers me, however, is that these people are passing this garbage on to their own children!! They're passing it on, and encouraging their own children to be as lazy as they are/were, and just propagating the issue further. These are the people we see on forums who can't write a sentence that makes sense, whether it be for textspeak, spelling, grammar, punctuation, or any combination of the above. These are the people who put their babies in sexual-innuendo laden onesies because they think it's "cute" to turn their child into a billboard that says, "HEY EVERYONE! I HAD SEX!" These are the people who are producing a new generation of children, and choosing to either overparent or completely not parent their children. Yes, I said overparent, and I will explain that, very shortly.
Ever go to Wal*Mart (you know you have!) and almost been run down by a 4-year-old whose parent wasn't paying attention, and then not ever hear an "Excuse me," or "I'm sorry," from the parent or the child? No embarrassed look from the parent, or even worse, the parent laughs at the child's antics. These are the parents who are raising their children to disrespect others, that what they do is nothing they will be held accountable for. Later, as these children go to school, when the parents are called into the principal's office because of their child's behavior, they are the ones who yell at the teachers and administrators, claiming that it is their fault and demanding to know what the teacher did to their child. I'm not making this one up, I've seen it myself, sadly. It happens all the time. In fact, I've seen it happen after the child struck the teacher because she told him he needed to behave. No raised voices, no angry tones, just calm speech. These are the neglectful parents.
Then we have the overparenting parents, who insist that their sweet little babies couldn't possibly do anything wrong, that it, too, must have been someone else's fault. These are the parents who indulge their child's every whim so that they don't have to deal with doing the hard job of actual parenting. They don't teach their children what is acceptable and what isn't, so these children grow up acting and feeling entitled.
These shirts aren't the source of the problem, of course. They were, obviously, originally intended as a joke. Too often however, they aren't taken as a joke by the children wearing them, who take the messages to heart and slowly assimilate these messages into their daily lives. Why aren't we putting out more positive messages for our children, and for other's children to take to heart? I'm not talking the "Everybody's Special" garbage that the school is putting out. Everyone has heard that, time and again. I'm talking about positive messages about school, working, learning. Positive messages about being a true friend, about enjoying life, and about overcoming obstacles. These are the messages we should be sending our children, and encouraging them to spread to others. These are the things we need to be teaching, from birth onward. If we encourage even just our own children, they will spread those ideas and beliefs to others, slowly but surely, and that can only improve things, can't it?
Too many parents today were, themselves, teens who bought into this garbage when they were kids, and slowly convinced themselves that these negative messages were how they felt about school, studying, and then later on, work, morals, and life. How often do we hear people complaining about coworkers who don't get any work done because they're texting, playing in their email or online, or just not paying attention. Or those who will purposely put no effort into their jobs, knowing that there will always be someone there to pick up the slack? These people who put more effort into avoiding work are the same ones who bought into the "I don't like school because it's the cool thing to do," mindset when they were teens, and lost out on not only a good education, but also a good work ethic and learning what it means to be responsible.
What really angers me, however, is that these people are passing this garbage on to their own children!! They're passing it on, and encouraging their own children to be as lazy as they are/were, and just propagating the issue further. These are the people we see on forums who can't write a sentence that makes sense, whether it be for textspeak, spelling, grammar, punctuation, or any combination of the above. These are the people who put their babies in sexual-innuendo laden onesies because they think it's "cute" to turn their child into a billboard that says, "HEY EVERYONE! I HAD SEX!" These are the people who are producing a new generation of children, and choosing to either overparent or completely not parent their children. Yes, I said overparent, and I will explain that, very shortly.
Ever go to Wal*Mart (you know you have!) and almost been run down by a 4-year-old whose parent wasn't paying attention, and then not ever hear an "Excuse me," or "I'm sorry," from the parent or the child? No embarrassed look from the parent, or even worse, the parent laughs at the child's antics. These are the parents who are raising their children to disrespect others, that what they do is nothing they will be held accountable for. Later, as these children go to school, when the parents are called into the principal's office because of their child's behavior, they are the ones who yell at the teachers and administrators, claiming that it is their fault and demanding to know what the teacher did to their child. I'm not making this one up, I've seen it myself, sadly. It happens all the time. In fact, I've seen it happen after the child struck the teacher because she told him he needed to behave. No raised voices, no angry tones, just calm speech. These are the neglectful parents.
Then we have the overparenting parents, who insist that their sweet little babies couldn't possibly do anything wrong, that it, too, must have been someone else's fault. These are the parents who indulge their child's every whim so that they don't have to deal with doing the hard job of actual parenting. They don't teach their children what is acceptable and what isn't, so these children grow up acting and feeling entitled.
These shirts aren't the source of the problem, of course. They were, obviously, originally intended as a joke. Too often however, they aren't taken as a joke by the children wearing them, who take the messages to heart and slowly assimilate these messages into their daily lives. Why aren't we putting out more positive messages for our children, and for other's children to take to heart? I'm not talking the "Everybody's Special" garbage that the school is putting out. Everyone has heard that, time and again. I'm talking about positive messages about school, working, learning. Positive messages about being a true friend, about enjoying life, and about overcoming obstacles. These are the messages we should be sending our children, and encouraging them to spread to others. These are the things we need to be teaching, from birth onward. If we encourage even just our own children, they will spread those ideas and beliefs to others, slowly but surely, and that can only improve things, can't it?