"OK, Boomer!" Really? Why This Laughable Meme Is Going Nowhere Beyond The Instagram-Twitter Bubble

Here we go again. Time to pound on the Baby Boomers, this time by an apparent "alliance" of twerps consisting of Millennials, Gen Z losers ("Zeds") , and other younger generation malcontents who feel compelled to blame Baby Boomers for their lot in life or state of the world. According to the relevant Denver Post op-ed (Perspective, Nov. 10. p.1D) by one Molly Roberts.

Okay, we know that in the era of Trump and his retinue of enabling, sycophantic Repukes the fetish of grievance and victimhood has attained new heights. One beheld it on 'Fox & Friends Weekend' yesterday a.m. as a trio of caterwauling muppets cried their eyes out at Adam Schiff appearing before California Dems in Long Beach on Saturday and vowing to "send the charlatan back to his golden throne".  "How he could he say that?" They whined in unison. "Isn't he supposed to be above partisanship as head of the House Intel committee?"  

Give me a break. What are you losers, crybabies or journalists?

Given the Reeps will always wear the victim and grievance badge, but one expects the younger generations to rise above that and in particular, cease conflating all Boomers and blaming an entire generation for their ills.

Anyway, Roberts informs us that "OK, Boomer" has now become the all purpose comeback or retort anytime a perceived Boomer offers a criticism, e.g. "your grandpa tells you kids these days have lost all sense of civility for yelling at Ellen Degeneres for going to a football game with George W. Bush"

As Roberts puts it (ibid.):

"It's glib. It's short, and its's not at all sweet but 'OK, Boomer' also reveals something about each of today's generations.  So does the response they wrought."

Fair enough, but again let's be clear that despite the media's laziness it is not okay to conflate entire generations, particularly one like the Boomers that's been singled out for opprobrium far more than any other.

How did the meme originate?    Well, we learn: "the mainstreaming of the meme was making its way onto $36 Redbubble style sweatshirts sold by entrepreneurial 17 -year olds."

The meme evidently then caught fire because a conservative talk radio host (Bob Lonsberry) took to the internet to publicly pout and - instead of ignoring the (then) minor memetic insult - whined that "boomer  was the n-word of ageism".   Well hey, I never said conservos were not whiners and wimps, did I?  After all they're the ones driving the GOP grievance, victimhood mission against impeachment.

In any case, the response of the right wing radio jock  Lonsberry circulated, went viral, and "OK, Boomer" was born. Again, spawned on the back end reaction to a 3rd rate conservative talk show host.

Roberts goes on to inform us:

"Millennials have allied with Gen Z and managed to vitiate the meme in the process by basically, overdoing it.  'OK, Boomer' was fun and funny, so we said it about a million times on Twitter in the space of one day, and now it has become unfunny and lame.  That's appropriate too for a generation that supposedly kills every good thing."

But, of course, as one Denver Post letter writer (Susan Cummings),  responding to the piece in yesterday's paper noted (Perspective, p. 3D)::

"Boomers created the internet, the personal computer,  synthetic skin, the artificial heart and the cell phone so beloved by the young- all of which are taken for granted. Being a Boomer is an honor. We protested for peace, the environment, the end of the Berlin Wall, LGBTQ rights, animal rights, etc. At this point, all a Boomer can say is, 'OK, Kid".

Another letter writer (Douglas Croot) sounded off (ibid.):

"Being universally dismissive and surly is probably not the surest path to the success and fulfillment you seek,"

So it's a bit off to say - or even suppose- that  the Boomers "killed every good thing" especially given "recycling and composting programs around the nation were started at the demand of Baby Boomers, same for fuel efficient cars" (Letter from Mandell S. Winter Jr.).

Then the kicker from the 'OK, Boomer' author:

"It makes sense that millennials are taking up arms with our Gen  Z comrades-  because we're the ones who've been maligned the most for the sin of our birth years."

In fact it's not the "sin of your birth years"  but your indolence and insufferable lack of pluck especially (for millennials) in getting your asses out to vote and away from the tiny screens!  What we're all about then is the evident lack of independence, autonomy, and resilience i.e. that most of us had to develop very quickly given there was next to zero hand -holding from parents.   As one commenter put it, in response to my March 16, 2017 post excoriating Bruce Cannon Gibney and his anti-Boomer book:

"Most of us were raised by people with massive and undiagnosed PTSD from WW2. Mr Gibney has no concept of how much those people scraped up their lives and bravely had children and encouraged them to be better, and no, most of us, did not have a golden ticket."

The generational differences in autonomy and resilience are most evident in the younger generations' dealing with the  environments of college and political representation (namely lackadaisical voting patterns for the Millennial brigade). 

Hara Estroff Marano, the author of A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting,  put the issue in a nutshell in the case of the first:

"But in a real sense, students don't really leave their parents behind. Their parents go to college right along with them — in their front pockets. That is, the parents are a speed dial away by cellphone. And the evidence is clear that students call parents and parents call students at an alarmingly frequent rate. This, of course, significantly reduces independence.

A student gets a C on her first paper? Instead of absorbing the negative information and figuring out how to resolve the problem or how to do better, the call gets made to home, where Mom or Dad solves the problem, often by calling the school administration. This kind of behavior is, sadly, commonplace today and is a mark of the lack of coping skills among students because all the lumps and bumps have been taken out of life for them until now."

Protect the precious little dears so they undergo a minimum of pain or travail. Keep them in an artificial cocoon to sustain their dependence as long as possible. Don't allow them to have to negotiate their way in an unfamiliar college environment.  God forbid!

This take has also been confirmed by Linda Bips, a college psychologist:

"Many of today’s students lack resilience and at the first sign of difficulty are unable to summon strategies to cope. The hardship can be a failing grade on a test, a cut from the team, or a romantic  breakup. At the first sign of trouble many become unable to function and persevere. Often they even anticipate difficulties and their anxiety alone paralyzes them."

She then goes on to point out just how many incoming college students are on "meds" and writes:

"The number of students who arrive at college already medicated for unwanted emotions has increased dramatically in the past 10 years. We, as a society, don’t want to “feel” anything unpleasant and we certainly don’t want our children to “suffer.”

As Prof. Bips also observes:

 "The resulting problem is that by not experiencing negative emotions, one does not learn the necessary skills to tolerate and negotiate adversity.

The preceding observations are relevant if we (older Boomers especially)  are expected to take the young rebels' snark and memetic impudence seriously.  Particularly after Ms. Roberts writes:

"OK, Boomer' flips the script and is now telling old people that they're the one who don't  get it, and this 'despite countless chances to learn'"

But if she (and the OK, Boomer contingent) expect us to take that ""flipped script"   seriously - and not howl with laughter-  how about proving it. Showing us you have some moxie by being independent and not texting mommy and daddy every minute while at university, or expecting them to run interference with your college instructors. 

In the 60s, in our college days then, we took our lumps like the adults we one day wanted to be - whether from our profs or fellow students (including for 'Hell Week' orientation). The lumps taken helped us build character, personal authenticity (not just being part of a crowd) as well as reinforced critical thinking skills, i.e. when we engaged in sometimes animated 'bull sessions' in the dorms..

So the issue is not decrying Gen Zs or Millennials as "profligate"  or being "basement dwellers" but rather the consistent failure to evince pluck and autonomy,   to project their own authentic power and exercise it - whether in university or the political arena. You may be a "basement dweller" but (if a Millennial) you can still vote, and in so doing affect the arc of your life and that of your generation.

What one would like to see- certainly in my Boomer demographic - is more of the "OK, Boomer" lot not merely churning out snarky memes but emulating the courageous Parkland students, like David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez. and Delaney Tarr.  They not only mounted a credible and effective move for more gun control in Florida after the Feb. 14, 2018 Parkland massacre, but actively went out to sign up young prospective voters.  What are the rest of you doing? Will you even vote next year?

I ask this because it turns out that seniors, e.g. Boomers,  are the most reliable voters with nearly 70 percent counted on to cast ballots as in the 2020 election. Compare that to the 18-24 year demographic  who've only exceeded a 40 percent turnout twice since 1996. Pew Research reports consistently that only 10 percent of likely voters are under 30.  Do you really want to change things so your agenda is dealt with and not ignored? Then you need to triple or quadruple that performance.

 Yet this is the age demographic most adversely affected by a plurality of federal resources being spent on seniors. So what exactly do these under 30s  (e.g. Millennials)  expect when the political class feels it can write them off each year as non-serious threats?

The voting percentages are even worse in the off year elections, which are often as important as general elections. The reason is that House seats are often up for grabs and it is in the House that budgets are made and where economic winners and losers determined. In the 2010 election, for example, barely 16% of 18-24 years olds voted compared to 28 % in 2008. 

My point is that if you really want to impress me and other Boomers, don't invoke a dumb meme and then wear it out. Get your butts out to vote - in every election- and change your lot in life by pushing the political class to recognize you instead of ignoring you.  Even more impressive, put down your cell phones and the incessant, vacuous search for 'likes'  and cut out the social media -instagram blabber.  Instead,  emulate the Parkland students' style of activism and maybe even voter enrollment instead. 

Thus, we want to see action - again, voting is a start- as opposed to reading this malarkey from Roberts:

"'OK, Boomer' indicts not an individual but an entire generation, or entire generation's attitude- and it does so with two words dripping with dismissal. "

Adding:

 "OK, Boomer sends the message that grown-ups have screwed up  totally, and are veering so speedily into irrelevance that convincing them of anything is a waste of keyboard characters."

But you don't get to be "dismissive" unless and until you make your own marks on the world, and not merely as petulant victims of older generations' perceived attitudes.  As Post letter writer Mandell Winter Jr. went on to point out (ibid.)

"The dismissive 'OK, Boomer' is the same as saying the classic, disrespectful  'whatever' - when you don't have a constructive response.  

Not happy with the world you got? Neither were we. So start fixing it and stop blaming."

Want to convince me you've "flipped the script"?  Then put down the cell phones and project your power in the real world.  Tired of all the "long endless Middle east wars"? Then take to the streets and protest like we did against the Vietnam war, playing a huge role in its more rapid ending. Do more than we did in our era and I will grant that you've truly "flipped the script".

 In other words, start acting more like the Parkland students in the wake of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas school massacre, and not like the grievance -filled twerps who spawned the 'OK, Boomer' meme misfire.

See also:

• Another Clueless Dimwit - Bruce Cannon Gibney - ...

Handwritten Notes: Definitely Better Than Laptop-generated For College Classes

                         Some my class notes for Stellar Evolution course, Spring, 1971.


The front page WSJ piece, 'I'd Be An 'A' Student If I Could Just Read My Notes', (March 13),  garnered little sympathy from me, and I am sure the many professors who now have declared laptops off limits in class.  To those of us in an older generation, taking notes by hand in college - using cursive (e.g. actual handwriting) - ought to be no biggie. You just do it.

But according to the WSJ article, today's crop of college students feel handicapped without their laptops. According to one quoted in the piece: "I always had beautiful, color coded notes in high school"  but was shocked to learn many professors at Georgetown University "don't allow laptops in their lecture halls"

And who can blame them? The clacketty clacking of fingers plunking on a keyboard is definite distraction especially multiplied by dozens. Also, the sight (for a lecturing prof) of so many heads geared to the assorted laptop monitor screens.   As noted (ibid.):

"Professors are weary of looking out over a sea of laptops, with students' faces aglow from who knows what. Are they taking notes? Ordering sneakers on Amazon? Checking out memes?"

Indeed, or perhaps going to a porno site. Professors aren't sure and they'd rather have the devices out of the lecture room entirely. Besides, it's good for the students and hand notes enable better learning (see the SciAm link at the bottom).

According to one professor  (Carol Holstead) at the University of Kansas quoted in the article:

"I really get tired of seeing them out there on their laptops and doing something other than pay attention to me."

True to her take she banned all laptops three years ago and "now tells students when it is time to pick up their pens and take notes on a particular point."

Seriously? She is way too generous.  In my years at Loyola, - and later USF- whether the course was Theology, Ethics, Logic, Biblical Exegesis,  English literature, chemistry, physics, geodesy or celestial mechanics  - the onus was on the student to have the common sense (and intelligence) to know when to take notes and when not to. We had no Jesuit profs (or transplanted Yale profs at USF) giving us heads ups on what parts of lectures were note-worthy. Talk about coddling!  Don't believe me? Then take in this balderdash (ibid.):

"Students complain professors just don't understand how hard it is to write by hand."

Awww....give the little infants a sippy  cup. But a large part of the problem is that "a whole generation of students never learned to write in script and have entered college."

In 1964 at Loyola, this would have been cause to instantly pull an admission as unqualified because of basic incompetence.  I mean, writing in script - as for note taking in courses - was taken for granted as much as being able to use a slide rule in physics class, or using the Dewey decimal system in library research - say for a philosophy or English lit paper. In today's context it would be judged roughly the same as being able to use a smart phone.

So how  do today's little dweebs manage without laptops and someone telling them it's  note taking time? Evidently, there are loads of strategies including: "using abbreviations and getting  notes from  classmates with better penmanship". Also,  "recording lectures on cell phones.". . (Which, of course, means the notes must be transcribed later).

There are also ways to be granted an exception. For example, college faculties that disallow laptops will make exceptions for students with disabilities, and conditions such as dyslexia and dysgraphia (an inability to write properly). The problem with invoking these excuses is that faculty will be obliged (usually) to explain to other conforming students why there are 'x' exceptions. In that case, the students claiming the disability or condition are "outed".

This will lead students who might otherwise be tempted to get an excuse to think twice. Like a Univ. of Connecticut kid - Christopher Wojick - quoted in the article, e.g.

"The class was ridiculously hard to take notes in and I was thinking. 'hmm...do I have a disability?"

He acknowledged being close to "making something up" then "thought the better of it."  So is now toughing it out with his note taking. Good idea, at least he proved he wasn't a total wimp. (See also the terrific book, A Nation Of Wimps -by Hara Estroff Marano. She documents how  the current generation of college students are hobbled in their skills, coping abilities, etc. with helicopter parents to boot.

What should a high school student do today to prepare for college note taking? Easy, take a penmanship course or learn it on your own! An hour or so practice a day, and by the time the fall semester begins you ought to be proficient in note taking.


See also:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/


Excerpt:

When it comes to college students, the belief that more is better may underlie their widely-held view that laptops in the classroom enhance their academic performance.  Laptops do in fact allow students to do more, like engage in online activities and demonstrations, collaborate more easily on papers and projects, access information from the internet, and take more notes.  Indeed, because students can type significantly faster than they can write, those who use laptops in the classroom tend to take more notes than those who write out their notes by hand.  Moreover, when students take notes using laptops they tend to take notes verbatim, writing down every last word uttered by their professor.

Obviously it is advantageous to draft more complete notes that precisely capture the course content and allow for a verbatim review of the material at a later date.  Only it isn’t  New research by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer demonstrates that students who write out their notes on paper actually learn more.

Wait! College -Bound U.S. Kids Need Mommy & Daddy to Come Along?

"Emilio" - a Loyola freshman, ca. 1966, studies physics while his clothes dry in the laundry room of Biever Hall. He'd have been humiliated if his parents got an apartment near by so they could oversee his choices, study habits etc. (From Loyola Wolf, 1966-67)



Back in the 1960s we deemed it a badge of independence and honor to go off to college, and commence establishing our own persons and lives in the academic environment. You never remotely heard of a parent or parents accompanying the freshman - say to Loyola or State U. - and taking a rented home or apt. to be near the little dweezil so he or she didn't feel too homesick - out of sorts, or having less than optimal study conditions.  Today, it appears to be a trend, with super-helicopter parents following their charges all the way to the hallowed halls to hold their widdo hands and ensure every textbook is pre-bookmarked for later study. .

According to an AP report in yesterday's D. Post (p. 4E):

"Coldwell Banker, the real estate firm, first noticed parents making such moves in 2008 while compiling its annual College Home Price Comparison Index that ranked average home prices in more than 300 college towns."

Quoting David Siroty (a company spokesman) it was noted that agents had seen new home buys and rentals pop up around the country - always near campuses. Getting inside the numbers, they found that parents were the purchasers or renters, and typically set up home so little Debby or Bobby could come home to a nice din-din and home cookin' rather than have to eat that nasty cafeteria food.

Regina Santore, a Coldwell agent in Knoxville, TN, cited a case where she relocated one couple from a town 380 miles away on the western end of the state "so their freshman could live with them".  What ever happened to establishing one's independence which used to be something to be proud of when you were 18 - and leaving HS? Did one not "put away the things of a child" when s/he left the toys of high school behind? Apparently not any more.

According to Ms. Santore:

"They felt very strongly they did not want their daughter living on campus. They felt she would have a better study environment if she were with them."

Well, of course she'd have a better study environment! They don't usually call dormitories "zoos" for no reason! But the whole point missing this pair is that college isn't ALL about studying, it's also about learning how to negotiate interpersonal connections, interests and making life long friends.  In this case, one grasps that one might sacrifice a half a point GPA or whatever in the interest of more profound human goals. But given today's success freaks - students and parents - it's no surprise that has gone by the backboards. Better to grab that 4.0 and be a total douche than come away with friends - easier to just connect with virtual friends on FB. Sad.  But it elicits the question: What's behind the mollycoddling?

Hara Estroff Marano, editor-at-large of Psychology Today and the author, most recently, of A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, seems to have the answer nailed:

"But in a real sense, students don't really leave their parents behind. Their parents go to college right along with them — in their front pockets. That is, the parents are a speed dial away by cellphone. And the evidence is clear that students call parents and parents call students at an alarmingly frequent rate. This, of course, significantly reduces independence.

A student gets a C on her first paper? Instead of absorbing the negative information and figuring out how to resolve the problem or how to do better, the call gets made to home, where Mom or Dad solves the problem, often by calling the school administration. This kind of behavior is, sadly, commonplace today and is a mark of the lack of coping skills among students because all the lumps and bumps have been taken out of life for them until now."

Which is pretty much my take. Protect the precious little dears so they undergo a minimum of pain or travail. Keep them in an artificial cocoon to sustain their dependence as long as possible. Don't allow them to have to negotiate their way in an unfamiliar college environment.  God forbid!

This take is also supported by Linda Bips, college psychologist:

"Many of today’s students lack resilience and at the first sign of difficulty are unable to summon strategies to cope. The hardship can be a failing grade on a test, a cut from the team, or a romantic breakup. At the first sign of trouble many become unable to function and persevere. Often they even anticipate difficulties and their anxiety alone paralyzes them."

She then goes on to point out just how many incoming college students are on "meds" and writes:

"The number of students who arrive at college already medicated for unwanted emotions has increased dramatically in the past 10 years. We, as a society, don’t want to “feel” anything unpleasant and we certainly don’t want our children to “suffer.”

Bingo! The problem,of course, is that when they hit 29 or 35 they are still dependent little spoiled brats. Worse, they will lack any personal authenticity. Templates for narcissists as one psychologist put it.

As Prof. Bips also observes:

"The resulting problem is that by not experiencing negative emotions, one does not learn the necessary skills to tolerate and negotiate adversity. As a psychologist, I am well aware of the fact that some individuals suffer from depression and anxiety and can benefit from treatment, but I question the growing number of medicated adolescents today."

So kids are overly medicated because they can't handle too much reality and hence this also explains why they need mommy and daddy to tag along to even tell them when to take a dump. In the 60s, in our college days then, we took our lumps like the adults we one day wanted to be - whether from our profs or fellow students (including for 'Hell Week' orientation). The lumps taken helped us build character, personal authenticity (not just being part of a crowd) as well as reinforced critical thinking skills, i.e. when we engaged in sometimes animated 'bull sessions' in the dorms.

Today, the presence of parents neutralizes that critical first step to adulthood and keeps the would-be college student in a prolonged state of infancy.

Fortunately, at least some of the kids saddled with parental helicopters know which end is up and aren't overly enthused. This was uncovered by a Georgetown alum, Sheila Baker Gujral - who has interviewed prospective frosh for that D.C. school. She was surprised in the course of one interview when the girl replied that her parents didn't mind "living on the east coast or west coast" then adding "so I'm applying to those places". In other words, the girl was more or less resigned to mommy and daddy tagging along.

When Ms. Gujral asked if they were going to move wherever she went to school the girl responded "Yeah" but Gujral observed "she didn't look too happy about it."

Good! Because she shouldn't! Those parents, like the misguided others, are actually retarding their charges' ability to reach adulthood. If the parents don't know that, at least the kids should.

Narcissist Kids: The Biggest Products of American Parents

The article in the most recent TIME ('The Little Narcissists', Sept. 1, p. 41) is an eye-opener and also a source of terror - or should be - to those civilized citizens who dread the ruination of what remains of our nation by a bunch of sociopaths. While the article focuses on the young kid narcissists, it pulls no punches in projecting these to the dangers of full blown adult narcissists. These are individuals who believe they're the center of the universe and all its parts must revolve around their whims and desires.  And to achieve those ego-gratifying ends, they will exploit anyone they can. To quote the authors:

"We are all the bald man in the narcissist's world. Too often, the blow falls before we're quick enough to stop it."

True, but what IF it could be stopped when the narcissists are still small, say in the tyke stage. Then, perhaps the kid will not mutate into the adult narcissist and undermine all our efforts to consolidate a more humane society. To give a couple examples of adult narcissists contributing to the demolition of this country, look no further than Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly - each of whom is totally convinced he is the law of the cosmos - and all who challenge it are "terrorists" or worse, "liberals"! (O'Reilly's narcissism was actually instrumental in ending his English teaching career at Mgsr. Pace High School, which I once attended - though about 8 yrs. prior to O'Reilly's arrival!)

Compared to fifty or sixty years ago, there appear to be many more kid narcissists especially, and I attribute a lot of that to changed parenting practices. Fifty or sixty years ago a lot of what kids do today would never be tolerated. For example, the recent yucks on Thursday 2 weeks ago, when the anchors on 'Good Morning America' laughed at the letter of a 7 year old to her parents, demanding they "adjust attitudes" before she would deign to allow them to read to her at bedtime again. Are you kidding me? I asked wifey what her mom would have done if she'd have penned such a missive to her mom. She smiled, then said: "I would have been sent to my room and that would be after some good hard licks!"  

But middle class parents, especially seem to be prepared to let their offspring be the kings and queens of the homestead and dictate almost everything. We now know from many studies (e.g. John Chilton Pearce's 'Evolution's End') that the battle of wills commences much earlier than many parents believe. Chilton and others have indicated, and I've no reason to doubt based on years of observing interactions of young nieces, nephews with parents, caregivers - that it begins as young as two, maybe before. But certainly the test of wills surfaces often at the phase of the "terrible two's"

And so we had the spectacle of 2-year old Natalie Vieau pitching a tormented fit at being strapped into her seat on a Feb. 18, 2012 Jet Blue flight - demanding to be seated with mommy instead, see. e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/03/rugrats-on-planes-is-there-solution-for.html

Her determined exercise of will power got her - and her family -  kicked off the flight, with a cost of $2,000 to catch another.

Meanwhile, 11-year old Mark Garrity Shea mustered his own test of will against his mom, Ms. Brucie Jacobs, in 2000, when the two took off for a jaunt in Botswana. Young Mark had always camped in a tent by himself in his home environs of suburban Maryland and insisted he wanted to do likewise in the Okavango bush of Botswana. After all, what young man at the age of eleven wants to sleep with mom? That's the epitome of babyness, and Mark wanted no part of it.

Had this middle class mom thought deeply about it, she'd have realized the pair were not anywhere near a Maryland camp site, but in the Odavango...one of the last real African wilderness areas left, and certainly not to be treated as a zoo. But she didn't and so allowed Mark to be in a tent sleeping by himself.

She only realized her mistake some time later, after midnight, when she heard her son's frantic screams as he was dragged away by a pack of hungry hyenas.

Some lessons are simply learned too late, and way too painful! Had the mom established the parameters of her will many years earlier - maybe as young as when Mark was two (Natalie Vieau's age) - this might never have transpired. Mark would have understood at his mom's initial 'No!' that this is what she meant and it was no use pressing or pushing her to change her mind and let him camp out alone.

But according to studies disclosed in a 2012 WSJ piece ('A Field Guide to the Middle Class U.S. Family', p. D2, March13), this has now become the nature of the American middle class: perpetual wimps - giving in to anything their kiddies want, and worse, sometimes even acting as their slaves.

The study of interest was conducted by researchers at UCLA's Center on Everyday Lives of Families (CELF), and geared to 'in vivo' or real life observation, rather than in labs. The studies, using video cameras to record family interactions in middle class America, Samoa and Peru's Amazon, showed how widely children are treated across cultures.

In Samoa, for example, children serve food to their elders and wait patiently until these elders have had their designated selections and started eating before they eat. They can't come to a table and just lunge or grab at food like many American kids. In Peru's Amazon girls no more than 5 years of age are required to climb trees to harvest papaya, and must also help (along with the boys) to haul logs thicker than their legs to stoke fires.

In other words, these kids aren't waited on, they aren't treated like "pals" and they are not permitted to exercise their own wills other than in limited domains.

The CELF U.S. videos showed parents doing most of the house work and not asking any kids to help out - even to clean their own room. In one video scene, an 8-year old named "Ben" is shown sprawling out on a couch demanding his dad to untie his shoe, then when he does - to put the shoe back on and tie it up again. The dad complied each time like a trained chimp, whereas the first time I'd have tried a stunt like that with my own dad, he'd have asked: "WHAT did you say?" as he reached for a belt.

Thankfully, even this wimpy LA dad eventually reached his limit of being pushed when the kid then demanded the dad bring him his coat from the closet and the dad responded, "Get it yourself!" Wow! Rough, tough and hard to diaper, there!

The CELF videos trained on middle class American families also revealed that in 75% of the families, mothers  "gyrate around the house" - bouncing between kids, their homework, groceries, dinner and laundry. Is it any wonder so many American married women are totally neurotic and more than 70% can't get a decent night's sleep without a pill? Cripes!

And what about the kids in all this? You know, the same ones who at age 5 in Peru would be harvesting papaya by climbing trees and who in Samoa would be cooking AND serving the food to their elders? According to Dr Elinor Ochs, the anthropologist in charge of the CELF study (ibid.):

"The kids are oblivious to their parents' perspectives"

In other words, American middle class parents appear to be raising a bumper crop of narcissists and egomaniacs. And the likely outcome from them when they will, at some point - have to acknowledge another's will (even if it's just a demanding, no-nonsense physics teacher)? Well, either prison for antisocial behavior, or more likely, a borderline personality disorder which will follow them through life with endless altercations, job firings, divorces ....whatnot.

 Doing their cross-cultural analyses the CELF researchers concluded the reason for this state of affairs was for the tendency in U.S. society to focus on children, rather than teaching children to focus on others.

The other deleterious effect is on education, at nearly all levels.  Let's leave aside for the moment that the teaching profession  over the past thirty or so years, is less and less respected. I attribute a lot of this to an entrenched anti-intellectualism nascent in the country from the time soon after the Civil War. While detractors heap much scorn on "inadequate" teachers, few bother to look at the parents. As one Denver Post letter writer put it:

"Politicians and school boards are afraid to tell you the truth. After decades of passionate efforts to improve educational outcomes, success is still at the margins. So here is reality: We don't need school reform, we need parental reform. 

Yes, the dirty secret is that parents are the real problem and real education reform must start at home. But politicians won't stop pandering to the voters, finding it more expedient to lay it all on the schools."

This is more than a mouthful and bears close examination. The parents! Who would have thought? But if parents are indeed incapable of even minor control of their kids behavior - letting the kids rule them - why would anyone expect the parents would be able to make the kids invest in their school work? 

Besides, evidence shows that this parental -bred narcissism doesn't stop at elementary school or high school, but its effects can also be felt when the little narcissists enter college.  Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, the author of 'Generation Me', and co-author of "The Narcissism Epidemic" has  argued that freshmen of the current generation always heard they were "special", and told to single-mindedly pursue their goals. "Generation Me", she insists, is higher in narcissism and lower in empathy than previous generations. They are more likely to see themselves as singular individuals different from all others.

She adds that "today’s students will experience a jarring transition to college, leaving behind lives structured by adults for a free-form world where they have to make their own decisions. "

True! Because most never have lived authentically and independently, they will persist in their parental connection via phone, email or whatever other means Mommy or Daddy can assist junior on whether he ought to take a dump before going to chem lab, or take a chance on being late and.....getting the evil eye from the prof.

Meanwhile, Philip Babcock, an assistant professor of economics at University of California, Santa Barbara says:

"The data show that full-time students in all types of colleges study much less now than they did a generation ago — a full 10 hours a week less. Students are also receiving significantly higher grades. So it appears that academic pressures are, in fact, considerably lower than they used to be."

He also added:

"full-time students do not appear to be studying less in order to work more. They appear to be studying less and spending the extra time on leisure activities or fun. It seems hard to imagine that students feeling increased financial pressures would respond by taking more leisure."

In other words, in Bajan parlance, these Neo-narcissists are doing more "skylarking": Twittering, Facebooking ("friending") or other nonsense than hitting the books - and classes. The key question is how can they get away with it? How can they have so much free time and not pay a heavy price in low grades?

Hara Estroff Marano, editor-at-large of Psychology Today and the author of A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, seems to have the answer nailed:

"In a real sense, students don't really leave their parents behind. Their parents go to college right along with them — in their front pockets. That is, the parents are a speed dial away by cellphone. And the evidence is clear that students call parents and parents call students at an alarmingly frequent rate. This, of course, significantly reduces independence.

A student gets a C on her first paper? Instead of absorbing the negative information and figuring out how to resolve the problem or how to do better, the call gets made to home, where Mom or Dad solves the problem, often by calling the school administration. This kind of behavior is, sadly, commonplace today and is a mark of the lack of coping skills among students because all the lumps and bumps have been taken out of life for them until now."

Again, the message is that it is the parents who are the problem, as they were in elementary and high school.

The parents are always prepared to make every effort to cajole, threaten and abuse the professors or teachers so that little Junior or Missy doesn't have to get too many headaches over D -minuses awarded for sloppy work in physics, or chemistry or math.  As in the earlier school years, these parents reinforce the narcissism. Better the chemistry or math Prof gets reamed out, and little Dorian's grades changed -than his parents admit to having spawned a lazy loser.

This brings up another point of why it costs over $270,000 just to raise a kid today to the age of 18. As Bloomberg columnist Megan McArdle argued in a recent column, the reason for the inflated costs of raising a kid today is because of competition: every parent wants to outdo the others in getting little Jimmy or Suzy the best possible breaks and into the best possible schools. So they will pay for after school private dance classes, or special soccer training or art appreciation, and also sending the little narcissists on trips overseas "to broaden their perspectives". Finally parents will pay through the eyes, ears and nose to get  their charges those special SAT prep classes. Take all the extra BS away, and the cost of raising that kid plummets significantly to maybe $120k or less. (Oh, I forgot, this presupposes the parents leave out all the brand wear that the kid demands and just gets the little doofus proper clothing that fits.)

Sadly, the evidence shows that the American tendency to coddle kids and raise narcissist nuts isn't going to change any time soon. They are all too 'all in' on this losing wicket, and no amount ot talking sense will change their minds!

Meanwhile, the biggest worry that ought to terrify all of us is if these neo-narcissists survive childhood and go on to become tomorrow's CEOs - ready to underpay and exploit their workers - or mutate into arch-criminals, computer hackers and terror-attracted freakazoids who join the likes of the ISIS vermin. All different? Nope. As one therp put it interviewed on BBC America, the only difference between a nut that joins ISIS to be part of some dumb 'jihad' and a CEO that screws all his workers (as 'Chainsaw' Al Dunlap once did) is the direction of the sociopathy.

For one (CEO) there are monumental rewards in much higher salary and perks including company shares. For the other (ISIS -joining American) there is a sure death sentence by drone or other if his rabid ass is ever turned up.  The incongruities of life.