Okay, here’s the bad part about kids.
–they don’t read
–they have woeful taste in music
–their eating habits are spotty, at best
–their world is so small, as if leaving the area where they live will cause kyrie irving to claim he was correct after all (kyrie recently claimed the earth was flat)
–they don’t date, don’t go out, don’t know anything past last week
–they LOVE their phones and would rather get online likes than real ones
The list could go on and on, and every older generation has had their “get off my lawn!” moment with the kids today.
I still like them. They’re funny, and unlike many of the adults on campus that make me shake my head, they are works in progress and have excuses. I worry about the day I finally give up on teaching and retire because I think the job keeps me youthful. How else can one explain my boyish charm and good looks? It’s being around them all day–we sort of morph into what we’re surrounded with.
So, here’s the rub, I guess, and it goes out to the older people (What? You just thought I was going to complain about kids?) and I don’t care if I’ve written it before. Stop being so wimpy and quit trying to protect your little “baby girl” or “big boy” from the real world.
They actually want to know things from the real world. Recently, I asked my students what they wished they had learned in high school, and the responses were very similar and easy to figure. They wanted to know “real world” things. Any subject from knowing how to cook, to sewing on a button, to figuring out taxes and the stock market (those little capitalists). They wanted to drive a car, or figure out finances and how to plan travel, or learn more about the past. No one wrote about learning what we teach in school, though one could assume that they have “learned” it, so they don’t wish they had learned what they already did.
But it seemed pretty apparent where they felt slighted in knowledge. Parents of kids today, that world you came from is probably WAY cooler than the one your kid is living in. Expose them to it. Five classes, 160 kids, two knew who Robert Plant is. Come on! There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold . . .
That laundry you’re going to do, toast you’re going to butter, dish you’re going to wash–we did not have kids to be their servants. My kid is going to get practice being an Uber driver in four years when he’s driving my sorry arse around town. If the zombie apocalypse happened today and your kid was a survivor, what skills would he or she bring to the table? We will assume that texting in the apocalypse is not an option.
My kid is eerily like me. That’s good and bad in many instances. But I made him THIS LIST of music because he should know it, and much more (I’m always adding on). We’ll watch the Oscars this Sunday. I’ll teach him how to fish in a river.
I keep hearing the word grit these days. It doesn’t mean that kids have to be tough enough to play for a Kirk-Gibson-managed team, or wear a Rooster Cogburn eye patch. It means what you think it means, and there used to be other words used in its place.
Our kids are our caretakers, people. I don’t want to be hearing no Drake during my nightly spongebath, thankyouverymuch.