Attitudes of Young People and How It Reflects on Society

I am amazed at how people act (in general). I do not think our society is improving, no matter what others say. We need some serious candid assessments, attitude adjustments, and inner healing.

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In this blog, I’m addressing our young adults. Perhaps it is just where I live, perhaps not—I’ve heard the laments and frustrations of other adults who live elsewhere.

I work a part-time job, but it’s my own business that I began the summer of 2005. Before that time, however, I worked several retail jobs part-time. Because I didn’t want much responsibility at the evening/weekend job due to my full-time job and other stress in my life, I usually worked for young people—young enough to be my children.

I was just amazed at the lack of professionalism. Now, don’t get on my case: I was not expecting them to act like adults who have worked their whole life. No, the point is that they have never been taught that you have to be different in front of customers. They have not been taught about respecting others (as in, the real meaning of respect). Moreover, even when I—an adult with obviously more life experience—tried to suggest, inform, or instruct them, they just didn’t want to hear it and blew me off.

I’m tellin’ ya, folks, I think they were all vying for a spot on the Jerry Springer Show! I’m not kidding. I believe they have all grown up watching Jerry Springer, thinking that kind of behavior is normal—rather than outrageous behavior for the sake of entertainment (and that’s good fodder for a future blog). In front of customers, they would: answer their cell phones while at the register, talk and laugh in a loud voice with their friends with their backs to the customers, or constantly talk about the “drama” in their lives, their “baby’s daddy” and how badly he’s behaving, and so on.

Again, do not take this as some irresponsible generalization. I am not saying that all young people are disrespectful or act inappropriately at all times. The point is that far too many of our children are growing up thinking that “it’s all about me” or something similar. It’s as if they have no concept of how to treat or deal with other people. While we are all unique and important in the eyes of God, at the same time, we are all small cogs in a very big wheel. The world does not revolve around us.

This does not reflect well on us and our generation. What are we teaching our children? Now, I realize that young people always have a lot to learn. I can see that in my children. I look back on my own young adulthood and see how wrong and naïve I was back then. Nevertheless, that’s not an excuse for today’s young people to walk around like drama queens and Joe Cools, thinking they can do whatever they want and still be entitled to anything they think they deserve.

It’s quite sad, really. Take a good, honest look around you. We have raised a generation of completely self-centered kids that expect everything to come to them immediately, and that they’re entitled to everything just because. There are some good apples out there, but we have a high percentage of young people that are in for a very rude awakening when they grow up—or shall I say, wake up—and see things in reality.

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Copyright © 2006, J. C. Catlin.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (1874-1963)
During his “Mountain Interval,” 1920

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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