Buffalo Gal

As a guest blogger, author Susan Dench wrote about kids who have so many trophies they do not know where to put them and do not really care about them that much.
She cited her own childrens’ many trophies that crowded out everything else on some book shelves in their home.
She called it the Trophy Kid syndrome that is so prevalent in our era.
It is no longer a meritocracy….where those who have worked hard, practiced long and performed well..get the awards. Everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.
Dench says ” “we want to play down to the lowest common denominator and treat everyone equally. You’re special just like everyone else. In fact we are huge proponents of and encourage mediocrity. Otherwise we might hurt some feelings and damage kids’ self esteem.”
Dench has recently published a book on nearly the same topic….the book’s title is “The Power of Personal Responsiblity”. She takes on the current bad news of how much we have lost by nearly eliminating personal responsibiity out of our culture.
She also cites the Spoiled Children who still get allowances from their aging parents when they (the children) are adults—-even older adults into their 40s and 50s. She also takes on the moving back into their parents’ homes that so many “adult children” are wont to do in this time in our history.
One can understand a temporary “shelter” for adult children if they have had things like a job loss hit them hard…..they need temporary living quarters then..but she takes on the ones who absolve themselves of all personal responsibility for their own lives and continue to rely on their parents to support them even into adulthood….older adulthood.
And apparently it is ocurring more and more all the time.
I heard her interviewed about her book and she expressed the “fear” that such irresponsible behavior on the part of adult children and their parents who enable them to continue being irresponsible by continuously giving them money to live on…as a detriment to our national econonomy experiencing any real recovery. And I can see how she might fear that…..irresponsible adults drive poor economies by being continually dependent on others to support them.
Not many days ago the Governor of New Jersey spoke and said that we are fast approaching a time when our American society will consist of people who sit on their couches at home waiting for their governemnt checks to arrive.
No need to work or try to find a job that will support you when the government steps in more and more and provides your “support”.
I do not know many people like that but I live in a part of our country where personal responsibility is still a very high priority among people who take pride in working to support themselves and their famlilies–sometimes at the cost of working at more than one job.
I DO know people like that!
But when one reads “abroad” in the larger USA it does not take long to find evidence that Americans are becoming very dependent on governemnt rather than on themselves.
Along with that mentality goes the “victim card”….”I am in this condition through no fault of my own..alas, alack—Poor Me.”
Dench again as a guest blogger says this about Trophy Kids who grew up believing they are “entitled”….

“So how does this play out as kids reach adulthood? Well, Lands’ End and Bank of America have “praise teams” to make sure their younger employees enjoy high self esteem and feel good about themselves by having praise doled out in consistent dosages. Our friends have noticed their younger employees are quite needy, wanting constant reassurance about what a great job they are doing even if they aren’t. Younger employees have the temerity to ask for entitlement raises…not for merit but for simply showing up. (Hmmmm, there seems to be a pattern here.) I haven’t heard of anyone asking for a medal for anyone attending a conference, trade show or meeting, but could that really be far behind?”

Dench then asks the question who is responsible for this sort of situation in an adult workplace? She lays it squarely at the feet of parents who “volunteer as coaches and hand out the tropohies, parents who serve on local sports boards that create such stupid, inane rules as “no scoring” parents who have words with the volunteer coaches about the amounts of playing time their kids get, parents who praise the kids even when frankly, they stink. Parents who actually condone and encourage this behavior. And we have created some monsters—in both kids and parents.”

I am eager to read Dench’s new book. And I haved not seriously… up til now..thought about how the “entitlement generation” in this culture of ours might very well affect the needed economic recovery.
Maybe we are way past the time of responsibility among individuals. If we are beyond that…..we are really in deep trouble for the decades to come and we will be living in a vastly different USA.
And sadly, I recognize a political element thqt is very noticeable in the present administration….the push to make everyone equal, economically, to the point of high taxation on those who have worked hard and succeeded on their own merit…and also the concept of “sharing the wealth” a totally Marxist Saul Alinsky concept.
I cannot stand to see my great nation going down such a dead end path.