In my search for a new nanny, I’ve had a lot of exposure to the 20 to 25 year old age group and I have to agree with the prevailing opinion that this particular generation seems to have a highly over-developed sense of entitlement.
A week or so ago, I read about a study by Ellen Greenberger, a psych prof in California, who examined that sense of entitlement and found that students today expected high grades for modest efforts and were extremely demanding of their professors: they expected same-day e-mail responses, special consideration for effort over achievement, and believed that professors had no right to ban cell phones during lectures. I’m not that far removed from my own academic career (only a decade or so) but I can’t imagine making the kinds of demands on a prof that I see students making of Beloved where he teaches.
Hot on the heels of that article, last week there was another report, this one about a high school in Saskatchewan that is thinking of doing away with those self-esteem crushing Fs when a student scores below 50% on a course. Instead, students would receive “incomplete” or “no mark” on their report cards and transcripts. (I’m barely able to type this for the rolling of my eyeballs.)
“Failing marks do not encourage student engagement with school,” [the principal] said yesterday, pointing to the permanent scar on a student’s transcript, as well as negative effects on motivation and self-esteem. Teachers are also demoralized when they hand out failing grades, because many see it as indicative of their own efforts, Ms. Figley said. “Just like doctors don’t want patients to die, teachers don’t want their students to fail.”
So the message to students is, “we know failing sucks and we don’t want your feelings to be hurt, so if you don’t pass we’ll just pretend you never took this course.” Yeah, that’s a healthy approach.
In the past month, I’ve been appalled by the lack of respect shown by the young nannies applying to take care of the boys. This is a job where trust and personality are two of the keys to success, and I’ve received replies that are barely literate, let alone borderline impolite with their immediate familiarity. That, and we’ve scheduled four interviews so far with only one candidate even bothering to show up. One at least had the decency to call a couple of hours before an interview set up three days ago and ask for a reschedule due to that old standby, a “family emergency.”
I don’t want to seem like an old biddy shaking my cane and tsk-tsking an entire generation, but what the heck is going on? And, more importantly, what do you think we as parents can do about it to avoid the same fate for our kids? Is this sense of entitlement a product of being raised in an environment of leniency and lack of discipline, or is it a question of having always gotten everything they asked for? Is it that in waiting longer to have kids, we’re too tired to mount a decent offense in the discipline department, so the kids are running roughshod and getting away with stuff we never would? Or are they posh because they were constantly escorted and chaperoned from playdates to skating lessons to sushi dinner?
