21st Century Children

I have 2 children, a soon to be 12 year-old daughter and a soon to be 7 year-old son. Since their birth I have tried to 'compare' their childhood experience to mine...not to evaluate or rate which experience is better or worse, but just in a general sense. Comparing my children's childhood experiences in today's society with what I experienced when I was younger.

Let me preface everything with this, I love my children unconditionally...and the following will likely appear as more of a negative dissertation towards them and the children of today, but it is not. It is just my observations and opinions. Yes, my children have angered me but they also have brought joy to my life...and those with kids probably can relate. I have never hurt my kids, not even a spanking - which might be a factor in development of respect and attitude, but I'm no expert.

What has spurred this blog entry is my daughter. My daughter is of the age where she now essentially hates me...which I think everyone as a child goes through...the dislike of their parents. Of course we all know that this is in words only but it still hurts everytime she says it to me and I also know that she is saying it in an attempt to anger me...but here is the differences between her childhood and mine...

First, my daughter is a slob and lazy. Yes, kids are oftentimes not the tidiest and with little to no responsibilities it is easy for them to adopt a routine that allows them to essentially do nothing. My daughter not only does not do anything around the house to assist the family, if left alone for any amount of time, she will have the house completely trashed with shit strewn from top to bottom. If you are able to get her to clean up, rest assured that a mess of almost equal size will be left behind and anything that was 'cleaned up' is likely lost or broken but, most certainly, not put away properly. I was always under the impression that girls were neat and clean, but I am clearly incorrect. My daughter's bedroom is testament to that. Not only is her room littered with trash and clothes at almost all times, she is so lazy that instead of simply putting her dirty clothes into a hamper, she oftentimes chooses to 'hide' her dirty clothes in her closet or in shelves...or where ever...why? No one, including her, I think knows for sure. Comparing her current 'lifestyle' with my childhood, I don't recall ever getting punished for having a unclean room or trashing the house...why? It never was even a consideration. Oh sure, I know there were probably times when I made a mess around the house but the magnitude that my daughter mess makes greatly outweighs anything I ever did. But again, it was never even a consideration when I was young to leave a mess after doing any activity...it was a simple rule, you take something out you put it away, you make a mess you clean it up. My daughter not only laughs at such foolish notions, I think purposely makes even a bigger mess knowing it bothers her parents. The floor around my computer desk is littered with snack wrappers, chip crumbs, popsicle sticks, ponytail holders, jewelry and more and there is literally a garbage can right next to the desk ... so instead of reaching over and dropping her trash into the garbage can, she elects to throw it on the ground...that's how considerate she is.

Excuses and lies: Nothing is my daughter's fault. My daughter has an excuse for everything. You could catch her lighting the house on fire and it wouldn't be her fault. If she gets a poor grade in school, it is my fault because I didn't help her enough. The excuses that come out of her mouth every single day is astounding. If she doesn't have an excuse handy then she just reverts to lying and a lot of the times it is both... she has an excuse for something that is usually a lie. More than once I have flat out told her that I don't trust her and I think she is lying and she will storm off saying how she hates me and that no one ever believes her...but to date, she has yet to do anything that has proven her to be even remotely trustworthy.

Cares about nothing, respects nothing: My daughter does not have one thing that she cares about or that she cherishes. Nor does she respect anything that you may have cherished or cared about. Her mother and I had a fair amount of games that we had when we were children. These games were (obviously) about 20 years old, but could still be played and in as good as shape as you could ask for a game that would be that old...all the pieces still present and boxes in good shape. None of those games are even playable today. My daughter has wrecked, lost and ruined every single board game I and my wife had as child. These games, that we took care of starting at her age and held onto for 20+ years was all for naught. You can walk through my house and find a piece from my Risk game here, a Monopoly piece there and so on. The sad part is that any game that is given to my daughter can be played one time and just one time only because after that first time the game can not be played properly because pieces will be lost or broken. My daughter got Attack Uno for a present a year ago and I remember our entire family unpacking it and playing it...having a good time. A week later I found Attack Uno cards throughout the entire house and she came up to ask if I would play it with her and I simply said that we can not play a game that is incomplete and that game has never been played again. To me that is just sad... I had multiple games that I literally played hundreds, if not thousands of times and here my daughter can't take care of one game long enough to play it more than once. But it isnt' just games, it is essentially everything...my daughter cherishes nothing. There is nothing that is 'special' to her or at least enough to have her care about it. She has been given 'special' jewelry, books and items ... all are often shoved into drawers, lost or broken, but in any effect, if asked to produce any of these special items, my daughter would be hard-pressed to do so.

Social life: my daughter almost races home after school and when gets home will close the doors and stay inside waiting for her mom or me to return home from work. She does not want nor does she even consider doing anything with anyone else outside of school. Once and a while she has gone to a movie or to a friend's house, but for the most part, she is content to stay home and inside the house. For the past couple of summers she has stayed home during the summer break from school and what did she do? Nothing. She NEVER left the house and stayed hunkered in everyday. Again, comparing it to my childhood (once again, not right or wrong, just a comparison), when it was summer time and I was her age and it was a nice day, it would be extremely odd if we stayed in the house for the entire day. Usually, I would get up and be outside for the entire day and return home when I was literally totally tired. I recall biking across town to watch a movie, play with a friend, go to the park, go on a bike ride, go to the Dairy Queen...just go anywhere! To stay home on a beautiful summer day seemed totally wrong when you have your own 'wheels' and the entire summer to explore the world. My son is adopting the same attitude towards summer time ... On a beautiful summer day it is easy to find my children...they will be inside the house. There have been times during the summer, on a beautiful day, that my children will literally be driving me nuts and I begin to get upset with them. I then will say "You guys have an entire garage full of bikes, skateboards, scooters, water guns, balls, bats, gloves, frisbees, chalk, an endless amount of toys to play with outside, parks and playgrounds and instead of doing ANYTHING else, you two kids are going to choose to stay inside this house and drive me insane?" And that is what they will choose. Yes, to me I find it extremely odd that as a child they would rather stay inside the house and get screamed and yelled at by their parents when, what would clearly be a more entertaining and enjoyable time for them is a viable option, they would rather stay inside the house and make my day even more miserable. You say then, they just want to be with you, to do things with you...yes, I know this and don't get me wrong, I do enjoy spending time and doing things with my kids. Here is the difference though; you see, if I was to go outside on a beautiful summer day to just stand in the front yard and not do anything...that's right, just go outside and stand in the front yard and nothing else, my children will almost run me over to get outside. While I stand in the front yard, doing nothing, the kids will get out the bikes, balls, skateboards, whatever and begin to play and have a grand old time. But the second, and I literally mean the SECOND, I set foot inside the house again they almost trample me over to beat me inside the house. When I was a child, especially during the summer, I never expected my parents to be outside or do anything with me outside...and why should they? As a result, I have already come to the conclusion that I will NEVER go outside during the summer until my children have enough sense to do so on their own.

Which leads me to my final observation...my children have little or no respect towards their parents and especially not me. I am only their cook, butler, chauffeur and provider of funds for them, but that is it...nothing that would deserve even common courtesy. The way my daughter talks to me on a daily basis would have had her beaten to a pulp if she was raised my parents when I was a child. Very little is 'talking' from her. It is demanding and when demanding it is RIGHT NOW! Not tomorrow and not in 5 minutes, I mean right now and even if her demand is spoken in a civil tone, if your reply to her is anything less than what she wants to hear she will instantly erupt into a screaming tantrum. An example will be as follows:

Her: "Dad can I get on the computer?"
Me: "Can you wait 5 minutes so I can finish what I am doing?"
Her: "NO! And thanks Dad, now I am going to fail my science class because of you. Now you see why I hate you!"

My daughter on more than one occassion has 'needed' some things from school...not just one thing, but a plethoria of things. On one particular occassion she needed an entire list of items for some school project...and not for next week or tomorrow...RIGHT NOW! This list was like going on a scavenger hunt...there was not one store that could possibly have all the items and after all was said and done the bill was $30. But because of her screaming tantrum, I got her items for school but am hard pressed to believe that a teacher would require their students to get this entire laundry list of stuff for tomorrow...but of course my daughter just follows up with and excuse/lie ...and why not? She has her own personal chauffer, cook, butler and provider of funds to cater to her every whim....

To conclude, I just am perplexed... I know it will likely get worse before it gets better... but I just don't know why my children (especially my daughter) will make the decisions that she does. My daughter has done very few of the things that I considered normal for when I was a kid. Instead she has chosen the exact opposite. If I knew her when I was 11/12 it would have been almost laughable to have a conversation with her...

Me: "I'm going to the baseball diamond to play ball, what you going to do today.?"
Her: "I'm going to stay inside all day long, leave garbage and my personal items all over the house along with any of my parents things that I want to get into and then when my parents get home I am going to DEMAND that they take me to a store and buy new shoes because I don't like these ones."
Me: "Well, have fun with that...I'm going to go play."

Just makes me sad that this is a child and that is the decision she chooses to make rather than do ANYTHING else....what makes it even more sad for me, it is my child. I would feel sad for any child that's life is such as hers....but at least she has her personal butler, cook, chauffeur and free money....