Many families can only offer the humblest of support, i.e., roof over their heads and shared sustenance. I benefitted from the military draft and the GI Bill over my lifetime. I think many young people would benefit from a couple of years volunteer service.
Rob, I respectfully disagree. I understand your perspective from a position of deprivation or for those of modest means. However, I think you are not fully aware of the dangers of privilege, which has its own pitfalls. There are children who are given every advantage to get started in life and squander it. They feel no sense of duty, only entitlement. To continually rescue self-indulgent adults from failure to launch is enabling a person to remain immature. It is destructive to character.
It can be. I am personally a big believer in the third generation curse. But parental assistance in and of itself is not destructive of character. Rather it is the nature and extent of the help that determines if it is character building or character destroying. We have all seen spoiled toddlers. We see spoiled adult children too. But that is not new. It is just more available to the middle classes now. You know, the class of participation trophies and helicopter parents.
I concur that parental assistance in and of itself is not necessarily destructive to character. It depends on the context in which it occurs and also on the nature of the help offered. In psychology, there is a concept known as the neurotic rescue triangle, which is a victim/rescuer model of helping, versus the empowerment triangle which is more of a creator/ coach model of assistance.
Complaining of an unfair advantage from parents trying to make their kids lives better is another piece of the program to make everyone equally miserable.
By the same logic:
- I won't eat healthily because others aren't eating healthily.
- I won't exercise because others don't exercise.
- I won't make good decisions because others don't make good decisions.
- etc.
Do your best damn it, for yourself and your children. Don't block others, but you aren't obligated to stifle yourself because others fail to try.
Thanks for this clarity; there’s a generally good presumption in American culture that the only success is the earned one and that assistance from family somehow detracts from that. The nepotistic exceptions don’t prove a rule that family shouldn’t help; otherwise what’s the point of working so hard as a parent? It is character formation that is critical.
Many families can only offer the humblest of support, i.e., roof over their heads and shared sustenance. I benefitted from the military draft and the GI Bill over my lifetime. I think many young people would benefit from a couple of years volunteer service.
Rob, I respectfully disagree. I understand your perspective from a position of deprivation or for those of modest means. However, I think you are not fully aware of the dangers of privilege, which has its own pitfalls. There are children who are given every advantage to get started in life and squander it. They feel no sense of duty, only entitlement. To continually rescue self-indulgent adults from failure to launch is enabling a person to remain immature. It is destructive to character.
It can be. I am personally a big believer in the third generation curse. But parental assistance in and of itself is not destructive of character. Rather it is the nature and extent of the help that determines if it is character building or character destroying. We have all seen spoiled toddlers. We see spoiled adult children too. But that is not new. It is just more available to the middle classes now. You know, the class of participation trophies and helicopter parents.
I concur that parental assistance in and of itself is not necessarily destructive to character. It depends on the context in which it occurs and also on the nature of the help offered. In psychology, there is a concept known as the neurotic rescue triangle, which is a victim/rescuer model of helping, versus the empowerment triangle which is more of a creator/ coach model of assistance.
Complaining of an unfair advantage from parents trying to make their kids lives better is another piece of the program to make everyone equally miserable.
By the same logic:
- I won't eat healthily because others aren't eating healthily.
- I won't exercise because others don't exercise.
- I won't make good decisions because others don't make good decisions.
- etc.
Do your best damn it, for yourself and your children. Don't block others, but you aren't obligated to stifle yourself because others fail to try.
Thanks for this clarity; there’s a generally good presumption in American culture that the only success is the earned one and that assistance from family somehow detracts from that. The nepotistic exceptions don’t prove a rule that family shouldn’t help; otherwise what’s the point of working so hard as a parent? It is character formation that is critical.
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