I was stunned

[Thumbcocker]

A few days ago a co-worker came by to help my daughter and I load some scrap metal to take to the salvage yard. While we were talking he told me that he had helped his neighbor bail hay the weekend before because the neighbor could not get any other help. The neighbor has a 16 year old son , who also helped, but none of the sons friends or any high school age boys were willing to put up hay!
This is in a rural Central Illinois county, not some northern suburb. I couldn't believe it.

When I was in high school in the 70's bailing hay was a sought after job. You usually got a fair wage (I made $5 per hour in 79) lunch, and quite often the farmer's daughter would wander by during the day. While it was not unusual to lose 7-8 pounds during the day you would get it back by raiding the fridge and drinking tea at home. At 19 I felt like I was doing mans work for mans wages and was proud of myself.

My daughter is 19 and has been working her butt off in 90 degree heat helping me haul off junk and cut wood off of our building site. She doen't complain and is a cheerful worker. I am teaching her to run the chainsaw and she does a good job.

So my question is: What happened to boys raised during the 1990's?

[mtnman31]

Not enough parenting or mentorship. They probably got most of their life lessons from TV and video games.

[Brasso]

Agree 100%!! It also appears that for the ones who graduate college expect $100,000 salary.

Sam

[frkelly74]

The graduates need $100.000 Salary to pay off the usurious loans racked up. The system is broken. Work is not properly rewarded any more. Manpower and the companies moving offshore have put quick profit above long term solid growth and developing loyal hard workers.

[WILCO]

So my question is: What happened to boys raised during the 1990's?

They've all been feminized by their mothers, taught that most of them really were gay after all, doped out on Ritalin, abandoned by their fathers, and destroyed by the socialist public school system.

[Guesser]

The new electronic age!!!! No one can make change from a cash register, read an analog clock, get their hands dirty or sweat. It's a brave new cowardly world!!!

[462]

Apathetic parents, and 50-plus years of creeping socialism which rewards the idle and lazy. The term "slackard" defines most of an entire generation.

[canyon-ghost]

Most are raised without fathers nowdays. Remember the part about empowering women? Well, they kick their new boyfriend out with amazing speed! Most boys nowdays don't have any idea what their father knew or sometimes, really who he was.

Not enough parenting or mentorship. They probably got most of their life lessons from TV and video games

That's way too close to the truth.

[garbear]

I married the farmers daughter. I don't know. I was expected to buck hay into Grandpa's pole barn. reward ws a nice lucnh by Grandma and free run of the place. I am still putting hay away but this time is for my father inlaw. rewards are great considering we have been married for 11 yrs and have 7 kids.

Garbear

[old turtle]

+1 Canyon, the idea of raising children in a single mother household is not a very good one. It takes two parents to raise children especially when the hit teenage. Even then it is sometimes not fun.

[roysha]

Don't forget that in a lot of areas farmers can't hire "underage" people to work for them unless they meet a lot of rather stringent restrictions. It still makes no sense to me that we put in a high dollar gym in a school with weight room and such, where kids can lift all they can, but it is against the law for them to pick up a 65-70 pound bale of hay out in the open sunshine and fresh air, making a buck or two.

To hire "adults" they need to have a porta-potty, breaks, lunch, pay unemployment insurance, have insurance on the place so if some brain dead yoyo hurts himself he doesn't end up with the farm via a lawsuit, etc.

I won't even begin the broach the illegal immigrant situation and how it affects this situation.

This in addition the the problems mentioned in the previous posts.

[Olevern]

Our new culture has taught them that the strong have a right to prey on the weak, that the display of any caring for their fellow man is weakness, that life is all about cars and flashy jewlery (bling) and humility has no place in the top of the food chain, it's instead all about "swager".

I used to think that the cities and that sub-culture could just kill each other off and eventually the problem would take care of itself, however, now, with the advent of the 'plugged in' generation, that culture and it's 'values' has come into the rural areas as well.

If you don't believe it, just listen to the lyrics of the **** the younger generation is listening to that passes for music today.

When 11 year olds (and younger) sing lyrics about 'takin her in the back door' and robbing drug dealers and killing cops and other like filth it tells me that we have produced a whole generation that are a waste of breathable air.

That said, there are still some good kids out there, although I believe they are in the minority. The decline of the church as a focal point of the family and the community bodes ill for our future.

God can give or remove His blessing from a nation, just look at Israel's early history with the entire nation being carried off into captivity and enslaved when the people turned their backs on Yahweh (God)

[Dframe]

There does seem to be a severe lack of a work ethic in todays young. Not sure exacly when or how we lost it but it's there.

[felix]

Not sure exacly when or how we lost it but it's there.

Well, I'm sure. Lack of goals and objectives to meet those goals, which comes from the lack of ideas. The Lord helps those who ask for guidance. The schools have no interest in the Lord. ... felix

[diehard]

The graduates need $100.000 Salary to pay off the usurious loans racked up. The system is broken. Work is not properly rewarded any more. Manpower and the companies moving offshore have put quick profit above long term solid growth and developing loyal hard workers.

Lot of truth here.

They've all been feminized by their mothers, taught that most of them really were gay after all, doped out on Ritalin, abandoned by their fathers, and destroyed by the socialist public school system.

[I wish to apologize in advance for my forthcoming rant...I'm just feeling it today. It is NOT directed at Wilco, or any other member here. Just some points I wish to make. Many of them might be WAY OFF base, but it's how I'm seeing things from where I sit this morning. It's a long one...skip it if you like...but there may be a point or two you can relate to inside]

I heartily agree with the most of the above statement. However, I had a grandmother that pushed education on me to the point I was reading a year before kindergarten. To her, education was the antidote for poverty. The plan worked for me. If not for her and some really excellent teachers that pushed and pushed, I'd probably be a drug addict, felon or a participant in welfare fraud like many of those back home that took a different route.

Anyway...I keep reading about this "socialist public school system" in nearly every forum on this site. After 7 years in corporate America I gave up a very high paying job to become a school teacher, after I realized that I hadn't seen my family in over a month. This alone can be a recipe for messed up kids. So, I took a a 50% cut in pay to land my first teaching job. I have now been a teacher in one of the "mill towns-without a mill" (read no jobs...poor) that dot the New England landscape for the past 13 years. I have yet to see *** you guys are talking about.

I will agree that there are some liberals/idealists and.... gasp...Democrats (too many)... in the school systems in which I have worked. Yet like me, many of the teachers I work with are career Reservists or National Guard members, retired military, or just plain old fashioned Patriotic Americans. Most work two jobs and throughout the summer to pay their bills. In the school where I work now, we have a population of kids of which 50% fall in criteria set by the Federal government (the real socialists) for poverty. They come to school from broken homes, homes with one or both parent is in prison, ect... such is the nature of the New England ghost mill town. I will tell you that it is VERY difficult to get students these days to buy into anything you have to tell them about the constitution (my favorite subject) and history, because they come to high school with their minds already shaped by the different messages they have absorbed in movies, TV, etc.

Examples: Walt Disney has taught all our kids that animals live in little nuclear families, and communicate with each other, and are harassed by the evil hunter man. Movies and the 6"clock news have taught them that guns are BAD, BAD BAD, and that rural people are stupid, ignorant rednecks with bad teeth. Movies and TV and the internet have taught them that corporate America is greedy, evil and ruthless, and that the government is one amorphous mass of conspiracies. Movies and TV have convinced them that gangsters are cool, homosexuals are a persecuted underclass fighting for justice...so they are cool too (teens have such an innate sense of "justice" don''t they?) TV has taught kids that all adult males---especially fathers and teachers-- are buffoons and clowns and not worthy of any respect. ( &^%$@* Family Guy and Homer Simpson, and just about all sit-coms, etc.) Worst of all, they see no point in working for minimum wage, when its so easy to "make bank" recording hip hop tracks, or peddling a dope (after all its doesn't hurt any one does it?---they don't see the blood stains in every puff of weed they take). Becoming America's Idol is easy right?

These are the brains I am asked to shape into patriotic Americans. And I love my job...and I do my best to break through all the **** and help kids make up their own minds about what constitutes solid American values. As a libertarian, I pull no punches on what the Constitution says and ....just as importantly......what it doesn't say. So do the vast majority of my colleagues. Being an idealist doesn't necessarily mean that one is socialist...it means one believes kids should have hope, dreams and goals...and work for them.

Now the NEA...may they rot in hell...is an organization ripe with all types of whack jobs. There is a continuous stream of "hate email" going back and forth between me and them.

This is getting long....and probably should be deleted, but I have some more to say, and since I have time on this Sunday morning I'll go on hoping to create a real dialogue about the youth today.

There are few more points that I want to make about why kids don't' want to work:

We have feminized our male children. I kills me to no end to see Moms at the park fretting over a boy who fell off a jungle gym. Helping him up and wiping his nose is the WORST thing to do. If you don't just tell him to get up and to try again, he'll expect mommy to pick him up his whole life. I could go on forever...because I see the impact of it every day. I saw a parent sue the school for kicking their child out of the National Honor society for cheating and plagiarizing an entire paper. The lawyer won. (Can you remember President Clinton asking the Senate hearing to "define sex" during the Lewinsky scandal? Honor too is all in the definition apparently).

And times have changed. Remember when we were kids riding our bikes for miles to work on farms or play little league? Not any more. Mom gives them a ride.... they have to because times have changed. Panic about West Nile Virus, Lyme disease, sexual predators, violence, drunk drivers, etc, etc is very real. I know teens that have spent their entire lives indoors
out of fear of those things. The only worlds these kids know are the fantasy worlds in their video games. These are brilliant kids...but soft and weak both physically and spiritually because they don't know God and Nature for what they are. [side note: I had a class of 30 kids once where only TWO of them had ever been to any type of church service].

Here's a brief true story about what SOME young people expect and how they rationalize their actions: For 18 months in Iraq I was a platoon sergeant for 63 soldiers, the bulk of which were under 20 years old. We set up and maintained fuel operations for combat troops and convoys going in and out of country. We were largely independent and pulled our own security. During the night we manned twice the number of guard posts than we did in the day. One young man, age 19, came back from guard duty one morning (from a tower not manned during the day) after leaving a highly sensitive SINCGARS radio UNSECURED IN THE GUARD SHACK! Now this radio was programmed with all the codes for the entire theater of operations. Insurgents would have loved to get one back then. The soldier's rationale......no one picked him up (our vehicles were all on a convoy support mission), so he felt it unfair he had to carry the 18 pound radio a full half mile back to the TOC. IMAGINE THAT...no soccer mom for a ride and no sense of responsibility to every soldier in the theater. The story gets ugly after he set the EEO officers on me claiming racial discrimination (for not picking him up n the morning), but I won't bore you with those details.


Now... I grew up in the diary, poultry, and small time-logging independent operation heart of Maine. By age 5 us kids would pick wild raspberries and sell them by the quart to distant neighbors. At age 9, when I asked my Dad for basketball shoes he called a local chicken farmer and got me a job picking eggs every weekend...one of several jobs I kept until I was 18. I cleaned barns, learned to run a chain saw by age 14 so I could limb fallen pines for loggers. I raked blueberries --back breaking working only done today by illegal immigrants--picked apples and sorted seed potatoes. I LOVED haying, and every farmer in the area would call me to come work for them. In addition to the manual labor, I even worked as sports stringer for a local weekly news paper. As much as I worked., MANY other kids worked much harder. We had to. We wanted to. Our culture valued it.

Time to tie this up (I can hear some of you screaming "thank God!). The point is ...the way I see it anyway...is that our popular culture doesn't value ANYTHING! Every institution is up for bashing and blaming and demonizing--from government, to police, to church, and....what got me started...schools. Heck, we even have TV shows that demonize the pop stars that demonize our society. Ironic, isn't it? Life is all about entertainment these days I guess.

Oh well, I'm done. I apologize if my scattered thoughts failed to make any valid points. I can see that since I started writing this (30 minutes ago?), several other posters have made incredibly valid points that hit the mark. I hope I at least added SOMETHING of value to the discussion.

One more thing...if anyone wants to "visit my socialist public school" for a day please let me know. I will hook you up.

Rant over...thanks for your patience,

Laurel

[bowfin]

Before we come down on this next generation like a ton of bricks, ask who was responsible for their proper rearing? The generation before. Does that include you?

What did anyone here do last week to counteract any of these problems of single mothers, bad schools, nanny state mentality, and video games? What more can one do?

I know it sucks to put in so much time on your own family and then have to donate time and effort to try to limit the damage caused by someone else's poor lifestyle choices or arrogant wrongheadedness, but this is the world we live in, not the world we want.

[Wayne Smith]

One thing that wasn't mentioned and may have a significant impact in our understanding - how much was he paying?

[Trey45]

Diehard, I enjoyed your rant! There's something cathartic about getting stuff off of ones chest, and you did so. Keep up the good work, I like your style.

[SharpsShooter]

dirhard,

1st thanks for serving our country on two fronts. First in war and second in education. The problem most here have with public education is that there aren't enough professionals such as yourself in the system to make the difference. I do not not to intend to discourage you, but the liberals have taken over the education system and pretty much destroyed it with "feel good" advancement instead of setting proper goals and letting them suffer the results of their failure as students. Now for fear of injuring their self esteem, substandard, even functionally illiterate students hit the streets every spring looking for work.

No one will hire them and they have good reason not to do so.


Teachers are not wholly responsible, parents are complicit in the disaster of today's youth. Single or both parents present irregardless, they have put their careers before their children and most have not a single clue as to what their kids are being taught. Many have no contact with the school unless little Sally or Billy gets into trouble.


The combination of the two creates a faceless entity that is raising the adults of tomorrow and that's pretty damn scary if you ask me. That entity is under the guidelines of our government under the guise of the Dept of Ed. and that just adds to the problem.

Private Christian school has been the answer for our kids. Private schools win almost all around. Most private schools have small class sizes. One of the key points of private education is individual attention. You need student to teacher ratios of 15:1 or better to achieve that goal of individual attention. Public has better pay and benefits generally, but far less bureaucracy to impair teaching. Funding is through tuition and fundraising activities that the STUDENTS must work on as part of their curriculum. That is the entire point I guess...we, the parents and teachers, teach "work ethics".


Hang in there.


SS

[EDK]

I see that "kids" tend to be visible in the two extremes. Either they expect to have money, car, etc given to them while basically "spinning their wheels" with no goals in sight. OR they are so motivated and "eyes on the prize" that they are a PITA. The others need some goals or possibly a tour in Uncle Sam's military to inspire them.

I work in a power plant and we have four girls in the labor gang. Two wear a small mans T-shirt...I bought some as gifts at the Quigley shoot this year...and the other two wear a medium or large. All of them willingly volunteer for overtime and the chance to get "an up grade" to higher paying, but much more strenuous work. When I asked one what she was going to do with the $800 (pre-tax) from 12 hours on the up graded job on her day off, she said "it's going into the bank." After working miscellaneous jobs before, $60+ an hour looks d*** good! (One, incidentally, was VALEDICTORIAN in high school and got an associates degree in electronics before getting hired.) When I see what all four of them do, I see hope for the future. My biggest regret is that I'm old enough to be all of thems' grandfather and won't be around work long enough to see them work their way up the ladder.