Look at our kids

Submitted by Jeff (United States), May 11, 2021 at 23:57

Great article, Dr.Pipes.

To quote Jacqueline Kennedy, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much." She was right.

People who graduated from college in the 1970's. What are their kids doing? Living with more wealth, health, comfort and leisure than any generation in history. And whining about it. Whining about living in an age where women and black Americans have equal rights (never whining about places in the world where slavery still exists or women have no rights). Whining about vaccines for a virus we didn't even know existed 9 months prior (my father lost 3 friends to childhood diseases by the time he was 10 and I had partially crippled polio victims in my class). Fighting for causes that have already been solved. Dressing like women in a fictional story as though that has any relevance to reality. Marching against global warming and when it's over, throwing signs in the street for the city to clean up (with diesel powered equipment). Yelling "believe all women," as though Rosie Ruiz was the real winner of the 1980 Boston Marathon and Ma Barker was a picture of honesty. Democratic congresswomen all dress in the same color at a state of the union address to make a statement just like back in middle school.

Can't read or write cursive. No whining about that. Lots of fellow high school grads who can't read or do arithmetic. No whining about that.

Luckily our parents built dams, highways, reservoirs and power plants. How many reservoirs have been built in the last 10 years? All we and our kids can do is argue about building almost anything. And hire lawyers to argue for us. We love wind power, well, as long as it doesn't obstruct our view from the deck. Let's put a stop to offshore drilling. Actually, let's stop all domestic drilling. As I drive my humungous SUV to the gas station.

These are our kids (and many of us too)? We have failed miserably. And we should be ashamed. Our parents raised us so much better. And expected much more from us.

UMass class of 1974, I'm also grateful to have received a solid, demanding and apolitical education. And I graduated before there was a federal department of education. How lucky am I?

P.S. Parietals. A friend and I tried to visit his sister in her dorm at St. Elizabeth's School of Nursing in Boston in 1971. Forget it. Bye guys. But her room was on the first floor and she opened her window so we could sneak in. We climbed through and the three of us sat in her room and talked for hours.

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