I don’t know where this word came from, but it sure as hell describes this situation:
A book serialised on Mail+ at the weekend, called Bad Therapy, suggests that ‘touchy feeling parenting and therapy’ had effectively damaged Generation Z, those born from 1997 to 2012, who are now in the 20s and teens.
The rush to ‘diagnose and accommodate, not punish or reward’ has led to ‘the loneliest, most anxious, depressed and fearful generation on record’.
The modern emphasis on protecting and safeguarding has led us to our current predicament, where even the wrong use of pronouns makes some people ‘feel unsafe’.
This may sound harsh, but this generation snowflake really does need to get a grip. Their future mental wellbeing depends on it.
Never mind “mental wellbeing”; their entire future requires that Generation Snowflake needs to grow balls (figuratively speaking, of course), develop a thicker skin and stop thinking that the world depends on their mental wellbeing.
I would humbly suggest that the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools would be a good first step, but no doubt some will disagree with me — which is part of the problem, right there.
Awhile back I was talking with a dood that told me he was taking his 15 yo sons dirt bike to the shop to get the starter fixed? I asked, “Did he break some teeth off the pawl?” and he said, “No, it’s an electric start.”
Then he told me it’s a Yamaha 250cc strictly dirt bike – not street legal. I told him I never heard of such a thing and asked why he bought a dirt bike with an electric starter. He said he didn’t want the kid to have to struggle with kick starting if he stalled it in the mud.
My eyes glazed over as I pondered some 50+ years into the past as I remembered when that exact same thing happened to me, many times. I struggled to pull the bike out of the mud and onto dry land where I could mount it and start it like a grown up. Those incidents built small increments of steel into my back bone and toughened the shells on my nutz.
Thousands of incidents before and after created the person I am today, that is capable of taking on tasks that require temerity and perseverance.
You have to let them fly under their own power and when they fail be there to help them back on their feets with words of encouragement and when they succeed boost them with words of pride.
If you handicap them with crutches they will never learn to run with the big dawgz. Single moms and dads hamstrung by the legal system are creating generations of weak, mostly worthless shells of men that perform like women. No wonder no one knows what bathroom to use.
Ghost, Bingo!
Coping mechanisms are developed over thousands of small inconsequential “failures.” That is also how we gain wisdom. we gain that by making mistakes and learning from them.
I did a work from home tdy during covid, with dozens of other people nationwide, and we relied heavily on chat to communicate, obviously. Each team had its own “room,” and the back & forth was often lighthearted and occasionally fun. There was one chick who was fond of posting song lyrics. One day I shared one of my favorites from It Ain’t Necessarily So:
Methus’lah lived nine hundred years
Methus’lah lived nine hundred years
But who calls dat livin’
When no gal will give in
To no man what’s nine hundred years
The next day a supervisor (whom we’ll call Dipshit) hauled me into a private room: an unnamed colleague is offended by the sexual innuendo & disrespect for women “celebrated” in the Gershwin lyric. I pointed out the woman in the song doesn’t give in. Sounds like she’s standing up for herself, and the disrespected party appears to be the elderly man who can’t win her favors.
Dipshit replied that perception is the issue & I had to respect that. I assured him that would never happen. I gave him a brief tutorial of Porgy & Bess (which he had never heard of) & its portrayal of blacks in the post-reconstruction South; how its debut performance featured all black actors & singers, which was hugely controversial at the time. If I was disciplined in any way, I’d file a grievance against the complainant, and argue how he/she/it, and by association the company, were racist.
The complaint was dropped.
I obviously don’t know if I was sparring with Gen Z, but he/she/it certainly fits the profile. Especially in light of articles like this: Some Gen Z jobseekers are bringing mom and dad to interviews and it’s turning off employers, new survey finds
I can’t even fathom mommy or daddy holding my hand at a job interview when I were a youngin’. Ye gods.
“…At least 58% [of employers] said [Gen Z employees] would get offended too easily and were unprepared for the workforce. The survey suggested that this included an inability to take feedback and poor communication skills…”
A friend of mine has a company that provides in-home care to developmentally disabled adults, and avoids Gen Z hires like the plague.
KDT: are there formatting tools here that I’m missing? Hyperlinking, italicizing, etc?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/some-gen-z-jobseekers-are-bringing-mom-and-dad-to-interviews-and-it-s-turning-off-employers-new-survey-finds/ar-AA1mCIkP?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=b593fdcec0dc46fba3bcc761ea45458a&ei=63
Slanty, you have to use the HTML stuff. It’s a PITA.
The easy stuff is BOLD and ITALICS
Using your link as an example, it would be:
Some Gen Z jobseekers are bringing mom and dad to interviews and it’s turning off employers
I grew up on a working cattle ranch. My folks weren’t cruel, or uncaring, but there was simply no time for any of the above bullshit. You had to figure it out and get over it. Too many people anymore are raised on concrete, not dirt, and it shows.
The normal dynamics of growing up into a self sufficient adult have been thwarted.
They have been thwarted at the atavism that is the schools.
They have been thwarted at the struggle session camps that are the univerities.
Finally, they have been thwarted in the places of work, in the name of preventing a “hostile workplace environment”.
That last one is key.
In every productive young man’s life, if he had not by his own power attained the achievement of understanding that no one owed him a damned thing, that no one was responsible for his feelings or perceptions, that any last vestiges of dependent childhood had no place at work, he would be set straight, in clear, plain, unambiguous terms by an adult member of the tribe and workplace. The admonishment typically included exhortations to get one’s head out of one’s ass, to buck up, to get one’s shit together, and generally understand that the world was not constructed for that one’s individual benefit.
Today, such an admonishment would be referred immediately to HR, whose primary function is to manage the firm’s exposure to legal risks.
Sidebar: I read an article where one worker, rather than use his militant colleague’s absurd pronouns, began referring to it as his “esteemed colleague”, which infuriated the being. It went to HR, and then to court, and the finding was that referring to one as an “esteemed colleague” is respectful, and does not contribute to a “hostile workplace environment”.
1907:
School days, school days,
Dear old golden rule days
Reading and writing and ‘rithmitic
Taught to the tune of a hickory stick …
Quiz, we need far more of that