Millennials. The word strikes fear into the hearts of adult men and women across the globe. How did they get this way is the question on most peoples minds and the answer is pretty much everything. More than half of all Millenials come from broken homes, most of their parents were off working even when they stayed together, and the school system didn’t teach them anything that would be useful in adult life.
Whether the indoctrination has worked on you or not you have been taught that children are resilient and that is better if a mother and father get divorced if they don’t get along or fulfill each others needs/desires for the sake of the children. This of course is not true. Children carry the burdens of your divorce for the rest of their lives and it isn’t for their betterment. Most inmates also come from broken homes. There is also the issue of being raised by someone who is not their natural parent and what that 3rd parties motivations really are. Children raised by women are often overprotected and coddled through childhood. If dad doesn’t eventually fly the coup completely it is a contest for who can spoil the kid more. On the other hand parents who stay together through thick and thin teach their children that the world doesn’t have to come to an end just because people are fighting and this gives them a feeling of security. Children from broken families struggle with purpose and tend to believe nothing much matters except perhaps for their own desires.
Sadly as a nation we have replaced parenting for traveling, large homes, fancy cars, and things. Buying these things takes a lot of money and largely because of the feminist movement in most families both parents have to work to compete with all the other good parents who buy a lot of things and have a lot of nice things. Children don’t need all that. Poor children rarely know they are poor until someone tells them they are because they have very simple needs and the most important need they have is time with their biological parents. You can’t replace that need with anything else. Standing in line at Disney World with your kids is not raising your kids.
Finally, and for the entire point of this diatribe we get to the school system. There is no doubt that it is badly broken. How does a child graduate from high school without an understanding of economics, U.S. history, accounting, use of basic hand tools, and the basics of cooking. These are the things kids need to know when they become adults. When I was a kid in elementary school they taught us how to use a 22 rifle in the basement shooting range of the school. We had shop class and cooking (home economics) and you had to do the work to pass the class. How many kids are going to use algebra and if they are shouldn’t they be going to secondary school to learn it?
If schools aren’t going to teach kids anything that will actually help them in the adult world and parents are divorced or just not around, who teaches these kids? Who taught Millennials? Clearly no one did. So what are you, patriotic citizen going to do about it? Complain? How about this.
You see young people all the time you might even work with some. How about taking it upon yourself that at every opportunity you take the time to explain economics, history, accounting, cooking, or any number of other things they probably don’t know much about.
For example the kid down the street has the hood open on his car and he doesn’t look very experienced. Go over and give him a hand and teach him how to fix his car. Got a girlfriend who can’t cook, invite her over with the promise of a meal them ask her to help you cook it. Hear someone complain about having to pay someone to do their taxes? Offer to help them and teach them how to do it themselves. See a young person on drugs or alcohol and help them find God. Sometimes young people just need a little quality advice without sounding like a lecture. Take a young person hunting or fishing.
These young people are America’s young people and if their parents and the government can’t help them then it falls upon the people themselves to step up and at least try to fix what has gone so horribly wrong. Yes we might someday fix the school system (ahem) and we might someday get parenting back on track but this issue cannot wait until the slow wheel of change does it for us. All of us must be willing to either act, or quit complaining.
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