Little Tyrants
Over at the Neozine, Keith has been talking about raising infantiles and myspace. This tragic news story out of Mesa, Arizona brings them both together in an unbelievably horrific way:
Hughstan Schlicker, 15, called 911 on Feb. 6 and told the dispatcher he had just shot his father in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun.
Schlicker said he often spent entire days on MySpace and couldn’t cope when his father cut off his access to the site.
“It felt like I was stabbed with a knife and it went straight through and … no matter how hard I pulled, I couldn’t pull out the knife,” Schlicker said, according to an interview transcript in the police report.
What can you say about this story? Children seem to be becoming increasingly demanding, self-centered, and focused on instant gratification. They have X-Box Live, constant updates on their myspace, and a smorgasbord of microwavable meals at their disposal for consumption. They switch girlfriends and boyfriends, do drugs, are loud and obnoxious, beat up each other, and generally act “ghetto”. If they can’t have what they want when they want it, well they just might kill you.
Am I being uptight? Admittedly, I was an obnoxious teenager too. However, I knew my limits. My frequent smart aleck comments would aggravate teachers, but there was definitely a line that I knew I shouldn’t go past and was afraid to cross. Today’s kids seem oblivious to any such boundary and I have heard stories that cussing out teachers is now common place at my alma mater. In my frequent trips to the public library I’ve truly been shocked by how vulgar and disrespectful children are. I’m constantly asking myself, “Was I like this?” After witnessing kids making out with each other in plain sight in the library, swearing and yelling at the top of their lungs, then spilling out into the parking lot to strangle and punch each other, my conclusion is things have definitely gotten worse in the suburbs.
During a recent lunch with Christian high-schoolers, I was appalled to see trash nonchalantly thrown around a Taco Bell parking lot almost as if it was a god-given right for these kids cause others to clean up their mess.
At one time, this was outrageous!
This dilemma is something I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately. Surely, I wasn’t the best child, but my parents taught me the value of hard work, working towards something, commitment, and loyalty. Mom and Dad aren’t perfect either, but it is due in large part to their self-sacrifice that I am able to model similar behavior towards others. I did not realize it at the time, but my father did me a great service when he taught me not to be a taker and that instead I needed to offer the world something. Do parents teach these things anymore? What happens when I have kids? How can I teach them these things?
Kids today are “little thieves” controlled by whims and feelings. One minute they want something to the point of obsession, the next they have forgotten about what seemed crucial just seconds ago and have moved onto the next thing they desperately need. Worse still, they offend, break, and destroy with little regard for people’s feelings. Call them on it and they’ll give you a typical smart-ass answer or pretend like they don’t know what you’re taking about. Hold them accountable for their actions? Well, that’s laughable.
Sounds like something straight out of Love Ethics:
Thus, Infantiles are highly sensitive to how others affect them, but have very little sensitivity to how they affect others. This is why quarrels between children escalate: they cannot understand the perspective of the other child. Because they feel the correctness of their own view, their feelings escalate until they win. They can grow violent because they feel the right to use force to get their way.
The real tragedy is, they might just regret it later:
During the interview, Schlicker portrayed his father as a loving man who only wanted the best for him and who used to take him on hunting trips.
Thankfully, there is hope for children and parents through biblical teaching. It begins with teaching children thankfulness and demonstrating that significance must be earned, not taken.
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March 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
My own children have been raised in a culture of easy street - where the economy for the most part has been ever increasing. Most children and young adults today do not understand necessary sacrifice for mere survival like many who lived during the depression or even during the 70’s. The future has always promised to give more.
Parents who mean well give and give to their children with expecting little contribution from their kids - as a result these kids do not have significance and never learn how to love - how to give love - never learned to sacrifice.
Their young lives are filled with activity and experience - but there is little substance - only consumption of things and experiences and other’s emotions.
Parents want what is best for children - economic status and professional success are the crowning achievements desired by parents for their offspring. False significance is esteemed.
The focus is on achievement - these kids may have amazing IQ’s and academic records, but they are relationally stunted - even regression is a possibility. Many children grow up in broken and unloving homes - homes relationally devastated.
This was my own background. It has been a mountain to climb - to unlearn what I was taught - even now - having gained such understanding and insight from the Lord - it is not natural for me to think in the relational realm - to give love and to imput significance to others. These are steps of faith. Those steps of faith are what give me hope for that which is yet unseen.
Parenting in today’s culture has become treacherous - in a culture where love has indeed grown cold. It is such a battle to teach gratitude - some personalities seem to understand it easier than others - this is what I have seen in my own children. Regardless of personality, all of them must learn gratitude.
March 26th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Now, I am very grateful for all this, but at the time I didn’t realize how much I was recieving. I took it for granted and actually spent most of my time still focused on what I didn’t have. In other words, I didn’t live in the real world. I was shocked to get out on my own and find out that everything cost money (a lot of money!) and that the bills keep coming! In the past few years I have had to deal with car repairs for the first time- something I should have been learning long ago!
March 28th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Dig that picture. How the hell do you find those things?
But both you & Lisa are clearly invaluable allies in the “war against selfism” we need to wage in the modern era, if our kids are to survive long or happily. Lisa, teaching that gratitude may never be fully possible as long as the kids are at home, I think. But teaching it will be something that’ll stick in their craw, and they’ll certainly come back to it later. That’s the importance of Permanent Love Values.
March 28th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
March 28th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
My parents helped me believe in myself and work through problems, but they also contributed in some way to my false belief I should be honored just because I was me. As I’ve said before, I so bought into this I just believed that I would graduate from college and be handed a unique, fulfilling, and prestigious career making mounds of cash.
As for my pictures, I shall never reveal my secret. I love to look for images that fit my story WAY more than I even enjoy writing the story. I think I’ve even written a few things so I could use some pictures I liked!
April 9th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
But then there is the other side……
Children need discipline, and my god, even in my limited experience with them I know that they push and push to see where the boundaries really are with any adult in charge. A poorly child develops into a taker, not growing out of the infantile stage. They get carried away with their selfishness and are all the more prone to winding up with the kind of calloused heart that Paul warns of in Ephesians 4:17-19 because their own selfishness knows little limits. What really trips me out is the fact that the evidence seen with children is overwhelming: people are, indeed, not inherently not good but inherently evil. I absolutely agree that gratitude must be learned and practiced with sincerity in order for kids to get outside of themselves and see that they don’t deserve anything (but hell), especially when they possess demanding attitude.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:08 pm