Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled- and More Miserable Than Ever Before by Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D.

Okay, so according to this book, I am Generation Me. Not sure that I agree with it.......

Generation Me's are born in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. They are the product of parents who wanted to make sure they had so much self esteem. They were taught it's more important to like yourself and put yourself first over anything else. This has then created young adults that can't hold jobs because when they don't rise as fast as they think they should (because they think they are so wonderful), they just quit and move home. While our generation is much more tolerant toward race and sexual preferences, we still do have a ways to go.

Where I agree with this the most is in a school setting - where a child's failure is based on the teacher, not the child. Parents will go to any length possible to make their children only experience success, never adversity. Then when these kids go into the real world, they don't know how to work for something and are continually asking Mommy and Daddy to bail them out and fight their battles for them. I see this daily where I work. A child refuses to do an assignment, so the teacher sends him to study hall. The parent refuses to support study hall because after working all morning (though he didn't, or he would have his assignment finished), he deserves a break and not be made to feel bad.

Parents are so bent on being the child's friend and letting the child dictate what happens, they don't let the child learn how to function in a structure. Again, I refer to work..... a student who is clearly failing needs to be retained. In meeting with the parent, their argument is that the child told them they don't want to be retained and started crying. So the parent fights against the retention because they don't want their child to feel bad. Do they understand how bad the child will feel moving to the next grade when they won't be able to complete any work? (No, because it'll be the teacher's fault that the child can't do it.)

It's hard to say some of these things because some of these kids are parented by my peers. But children have to experience adversity and failure in a supportive family environment so they can handle it on their own. Otherwise, kids will never get married (or marry 4-5 times) and live at home forever. I can't imagine how hard it is to parent, but I can tell you it's a blessing that I'm not a parent. My skills are definitely suited for other areas.

This was a great read which will evoke a lot of feelings and opinions. Highly recommend it if you are in your 30's........

Mo's Review:
"Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before" by Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D., (2006, 277 pages): 4 out of 5 Stars