Why parents are to blame for epidemic of entitlement sweeping our children’s generation
I’M beginning to wonder who’s in charge at our house — the kids or the adults. We’re pushover parents too scared to say no to the generation of pampered, privileged children who rule the roost, writes Susie O’Brien.
Susie O'Brien
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WHO’S in charge at your house? The kids or the adults? I’m beginning to wonder.
On Sunday afternoon, I spent two hours at a freezing suburban footy ground acting as the volunteer water carrier for my kid’s junior footy team.
I stood there on the sidelines, running on to the field with the water bottles as soon as there was a break after a goal. Stay on too long and I could cost the team a point; fail in my duties and someone might go thirsty. It was more pressure than it should have been.
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Is this what we’ve come to as parents — lugging bottles around a football field on the off chance a 12-year-old needs a mouthful of water?
“I’m pretty sure no one was carrying water on to the field when I was a kid,” my partner said.
“I am glad you didn’t muck it up, Mum,” my kid said.
It got me thinking. I think the inmates are running the asylum.
At the same match, umpires gave out two yellow cards. One was to a kid from the other team who criticised the umpire loudly — enough for him to hear — that he was too old to know what he was doing (He was no more than 50).
The other was for swearing on the ground at the opposition.
In more than a decade of watching junior sports, I’ve seen it all; players arguing with umpires who have to be escorted on and off the ground for their own protection; children targeting other kids on and off the field.
Kids scream at their parents because they’re five minutes late or have the wrong shorts and blatantly ignore their coaches and other volunteer officials.
And at the end of it, the kids get a medal for merely participating, $10 worth of fast food from the canteen and a chauffeur drive home from mum or dad.
Of course, not all kids are like this, but I’m often left feeling something is out of whack.
We’re pushover parents raising a generation of pampered, privileged children.
Evidence is all around. When I was pulled up at a traffic light on Sunday morning, I noticed a little boy about three being pushed in a pram by his mum, who was also carrying his soccer ball.
His dad was there, carrying the boy’s mini scooter and helmet. The kid was watching something on a smart phone nestled in his lap, totally oblivious to anything other than what was on the screen.
Hasn’t this kid got his parents wrapped around his little finger!
There they were, carrying all his accessories for half an hour at the park, and he couldn’t be bothered to look up while sitting in the pram.
It’s no wonder Aldi this week is once again selling kid-sized exercise bikes in its famous middle aisle.
The bikes allow kids to play games on their tablets while they ride in the comfort of their living rooms.
No more outdoor exercise! No more free play! No need to ever leave the house!
The reward from exercise is more screen time, not the pleasure that comes from being active.
Other parents are feeling the same and it seems the pressure comes from even the youngest kids.
“I can’t get him off the iPad,” said one parent of a two-year-old. The kid makes such a fuss that the parent stops bothering to try.
“I can’t get her to eat healthy food. All she wants is white bread jam sandwiches with the crusts cut off,” lamented another.
What this child wants is what she gets.
These are the kids who think nothing of interrupting an adult conversation just because they want to say something.
They blame their parents if they forget something and they expect to always have the latest gadgets and fashion items regardless of the cost.
It’s an entitlement epidemic: kids rule the roost and parents are too scared to say no.
Today, we’re having a discussion about what schools should be teaching kids to prepare them for the future when the debate we should be having is about how too many parents let kids get away with being brats.
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I’m not saying I’ve got it right myself — as a working mum who’s raising three kids solo more than half the time, I know the guilt that comes from having to work long hours or struggle to keep up with the Joneses.
Indeed, on Sunday I was driving one son to the bookshop to get the latest edition of his favourite book then delivering him to a play date.
Then I had to ferry my older two around to their sporting matches, in each case dropping them an hour early then coming back to watch their games and fulfil my volunteer duties.
Kids today think they have rights we would never have dreamt of when growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s.
We’re not empowering them, we’re doing what psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg calls infantilising them into incompetence.
Perhaps we should start by saying no a little more often, and let them get their own drinks for a change.
— Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist
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