As far as college students go, I'm fairly sure I'm near the top of the age curve. I suppose that this being what it is lends itself to the opportunity and pronation to observe the younger generation in action on a more consistent basis. For the most part, my time spent at the university has been a pleasant one. People will actually hold doors open if they know someone is coming in behind them and they will typically thank you if you're the one holding the door for them - a realm of manners I thought had long since disappeared. With as often as I encounter this type of behavior around campus, I tend to think that this would be the norm. However, there's always at least one...
As I was recently sitting in what is essentially the central building on campus biding my time between classes, I wasn't particularly paying attention to anyone or anything until a girl's phone conversation taking place not far from me happened to wrest my attention. It didn't take me long to get the gist of what the conversation was about. The girl's parents, who she was evidently on the phone with at the time, had received their latest cellular phone bill and were displeased at the charges this girl managed to accrue by texting. Apparently, the girl's first choice for a response was one of contempt for whichever of her poor parents was on the other end of the phone at the time, which turned out to be her mother. After what seemed to be a failed attempt at bargaining with her parents by offering to pay them back whatever the amount of the extra charges were, she actually had the nerve to raise her voice and spew the following venom: "Omigod, mom, what is your function?" We'll stop tape here.
Last I checked, the function of a parent is to make decisions for their children who clearly lack the life experience and thought process to make good choices on their own. Now I'm sure there's room for the possibility that the finite details of the family cell phone plan aren't always shared with the kids of the family, though I would have to believe that a cautionary piece of advice such as "don't go texting all over creation because we don't have unlimited texting on our plan" might have been a good idea to share with this young lady. Clearly, acting on the side of caution is not something that the average college-age child is known for. That being a safe assumption to make, perhaps a bit of forewarning for this young lady might have been in order if it wasn't already. What I took issue with was the philosophy that this young lady seemed to be reacting on was that she felt that her mother needed to validate her existence to her daughter. (Just paused to hold my head together in order to keep it from exploding and fragmenting, possibly killing anyone in a 20 yard radius.)
My curiosity stems from nothing more than the apparent role reversal that this girl had managed to somehow justify in her mind. There seemed to be no hesitation as she asked her mother this question with absolutely no trepidation whatsoever. I was completely blown away. Now, I know that it wasn't my place to eavesdrop on this conversation. However, I heartily contend that if someone elects to have a conversation of this nature in a public forum with no consideration for their surroundings, they have essentially brought this conversation to my doorstep and unwittingly brought me in as an observer - against my own will, I might add. On it's head, this particular situation entitles me to an opinion that I do not necessarily have to share with her, saying nothing about my propensity to share my opinion here.
Let's start with the obvious - the girl's mother did not elect to have her aborted, nor did she opt to put her up for adoption which leads me to believe she went full-term with the pregnancy, gave birth to this child and brought her home. She then, depending on her economic status and assumably along with this girl's father, adjusted their lifestyle to suit this child in order to properly and adequately care for her. I can only imagine the diapers they changed, the nights of interrupted sleep they contended with, the money they once spent on vacations or other items of life's pleasures that then went to a crib, baby gates, countless toys and clothing that would only fit for a few months at a time, if that. It's probably not too much of an imaginary stretch to assume there were work schedules that needed to be adjusted in order to get her from day care, get her to and from school and support all the activities their darling daughter wanted to do at any given time. Perhaps they helped her with homework, helped put together school projects - maybe they even cared enough to serve on the school's PTA. Shuttling this girl to friends' houses, jobs she may have had through high school until they furnished her with a car, buying prom dresses and tickets (assuming she went), paying for class trips, taking her on family vacations, helping her deal with break-ups with various boyfriends, throwing countless birthday parties, buying her yearbook, class ring, cap and gown for graduation, paying for application fees to colleges and maybe even helping to pay for college itself. I can safely assume that they were also paying for the cell phone she used to run up her parents' bill.
So, what was it that led this girl to believe that her mother needed to explain herself? I sit here completely at a loss for legitimate explanations. I understand the concept that kids tend to get testy to say the least while growing up, particularly in their teens. At some point, there has to be a level of realization that happens for this girl that her parents are the ones who have enabled her to get to where she is today with assistance, encouragement, and tons of time, money and effort. I might be able to understand if the girl's mother had done something deceptive or otherwise shady to warrant ASKING for an explanation. However, making the assumption that no such thing had taken place, the girl's demand for an explanation of what her mother's "function" is is beyond the bounds of any legitimate course of action a child might take toward their parents. Sweetheart, I'm betting dollars to donuts that if it weren't for your parents, you might not be calling them from a phone that they are obviously paying for while you stand in the building of a university to which they are likely at least partially funding your attendance. Seeing as though in this particular situation that gratitude is probably too much to hope for, how about just the realization that there are no apparent circumstances or pretenses (in her situation, anyway) that would validate her asking her mother to explain what her function was.
That kind of air of entitlement which prompted this girl to speak to her parents in this manner has become a pervasive threat to modern day society. I subscribe to the concept that parents work hard enough to provide their children with things that they themselves did not have while growing up. With every passing generation, parents have had to work that much harder to keep up with the average expenses of raising children than the generation before them, not to mention factoring in things that didn't exist in generations prior. While this is a noble concept, it carries with it the inherent risk of children not having a clue what goes into providing them with the things that they have throughout their life. In particular, I feel that when children grow up in households where they are exposed to the finer things that the parents of these children have created for themselves the additional task of instilling a sense of value and appreciation for those things. Otherwise, the risk is run that these kids will grow up thinking that all the niceties they have are "standard issue" and that the continued furnishing of these types of things becomes an expectation. This sense of entitlement has since broken out of the realm of tangible items and seeped into interpersonal relationships with others. People who now expect that a wide berth should be given to them in order to do as they please and take no consideration of the people they affect in doing so is the new rotting agent of American society.
There should never have come a time when one individual could walk into a situation and change things around because the conditions they walked into didn't suit them. Once upon a time, American society ran on things like "democracy" and "majority rule" and the minority, especially if that minority is one person, would have to suck up and deal with whatever conditions were in place. This is not so any more. It appears that we have succumbed to the mentality of appeasement of the mouthy minority. In the case described above, the girl doesn't like what she is being told by her mother and without thought or hesitation, proceeds to blast and insult her own mother. I remember once upon a time when there would be repercussions to talking to either of my parents in a manner considerably less hostile and disrespectful over the phone, let alone in person. The high school/college age can be a socially fragile time for children - it certainly was for me. I learned, however to keep my transgressions as clandestine as possible and certainly never verbally issued challenges to my parents, unless I just felt like being prohibited from leaving the house.
The point I'm getting to is that parents should never have gotten to the point of allowing their children to act like little company CEOs - making demands of people they have no business making and talking to people like subordinates - all the while thinking that it is their right to do so. Local and state legislators need to revisit the laws that have now been categorized as "child abuse" and reevaluate those useful and attention-getting tools once used to effectively raise respectful children who in turn have a higher probability of turning into respectful adults. Perhaps to some, the archaic methods used to raise children might seem cruel and unusual. However, I feel that these methods have survived the test of time and we've since run the experiment as to what will happen if we simply did away with them. It is time to reclaim responsibility for raising a society that should know how to treat one another. Let's revisit the times when the parent embarrassed the child in a store and not the other way around. Let's have the accountability stream be at least more of a two-way street than the one way street it has become where parents are explaining themselves to their children. The truth is that we cannot be fired as their parents. They are stuck with us until they devise a way to move out of our homes, thereby escaping narrowly from our authoritarian ways. Perhaps an occasional, less-than-gentle reminder of who exactly is in charge in times of rebellion isn't a bad thing. Take the cell phone, the computers, the TVs...... You can even take....... The car keys! Create the opportunity for children to think about who it is they're railing against and let them know that there are are definite, swift and severe repercussions for disrespecting other people because they never know - should they be allowed to grow into adults who are comfortable disrespecting other people, one day the person they unleash their temper on may be the one that will decide some facet of their fate.
