They Say: Today’s Kids Are Rude, Here’s Why

Here’s the argument: today’s kids, so coddled by parents who prize a sizable self-esteem above all else, are turning into rude, self-absorbed little jerks who not only don’t take “no” for answer, they’ve never actually encountered the word.

Yes, that sounds about right.

A reporter on MSNBC writes that experts say kids these days are ruder than ever and that it’s our fault, we Gen Xers, who were so benignly neglected that we now over-compensate as parents by co-sleeping and baby-wearing and opting out. And that we’re so fixated on our children’s well-being that we wind up teaching them that other people’s feelings are less important than our own, that kids should first make sure they feel good, then (if ever) worry about others.

An expert:

“I see parents ferociously advocating for their children, responding with hostility to anyone they perceive as getting in the child’s way — from a person whose dog snuffles inquiringly at a baby in a carriage, to a teacher or coach whom they perceive is slighting their child, to a poor, hapless doctor who cannot cure the common cold,” says [Dr. Philippa] Gordon, [a long-time pediatrician in Park Slope, Brooklyn, an urban New York neighborhood famous for its dense Gen-X parent population]. “There is a feeling that anything interfering with their kid’s homeostasis, as they see it, is an inappropriate behavior to be fended off sharply.”

But, another argues, we Gen Xers come by it honestly, since we, according to another expert, are some of the most neglected kids in history. We’re apparently healing our wounds through our intensive parenting. Our kids will have what we did: demonstrated love and protection.

Another expert lets us off the hook, though. She says that today’s culture celebrates negative behaviors and goes on to finger American Idol judges and Bratz dolls as examples of mainstream meanness.I would have to agree that parents these days can be a little screwed up when it comes to their kids. For example, why didn’t the mother whose school-aged boy was chasing other kids with poo on a stick tell him to stop and remind him that poo-on-a-stick is disgusting? I also didn’t appreciate the mum who brought her son over and said “he loves to explore,” when my husband and I stood stunned that the little explorer was back in our bedroom going through the closet. Huh?

But I’m sure some mum has included me in the “rude kids” pile. I’m verrrrry passive when it comes to kids under 2 years old sharing toys. I know that, developmentally, sharing makes no sense to them. So I tend to tell my under-twos to share, watch them not share, and then get the other kid something else to play with and roll my eyes at said other kid’s parent, hoping she’ll understand. She usually does.

Also, my stubborn, hair-trigger four-year-old gets so many passes, not because I worry about the fragility of her self-esteem, but because I worry about the fragility of my last nerve. But we don’t tolerate kicking seats on airplanes (unless the person in front has leaned back all the way… that passenger is on his own), or snarky talk to grown-ups. We do table manners. We play to win at Old Maid. We also expect the kids to listen to their teachers and other parents.

We’d like our kids to have a healthy self-esteem, but we’re not interested in narcissistic little tyrants. And I say this as a very benignly neglected, latch-key GenXer parent.

Do you think kids these days are rude? (Not yours, of course!) Do you blame culture at all or are parents too permissive? Too focused on their spirited little genius?