Are we raising a generation of nincompoops?

[uncommon]

>>>>> snip

By BETH J. HARPAZ
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Second-graders who can't tie shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who've never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.

Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?

Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter "literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else."

Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her "kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger."

>>>>> end snip

more at http://www.wtop.com/?nid=104&pid=0&sid=2063747&page=1

Interesting article - it starts off mostly just making this woman sound like a horrible parent (and frankly, that seemed apt to me -- teach the girl how to use a damn can opener for pete's sake) but then it delves into the negatives (and positives) that technology is having on the day to day usefulness of the youngest generations.

I see this to some degree even in my late-20s-into-30-somethings age bracket. My SO lacks many life skills that I take for granted because he lived a very comfortable life where his parents did many of these things for him and he was left to his own devices (pun intended).

Imagine my surprise when we moved in together and he didn't know how to hang a framed photo on the wall. The day I taught him how to do an oil change was quite amusing (and most people don't do those, but it's still a good skill to have).

Technology is important - but those basic skills are still necessary for long term survival of the species.

[AlinPA]

1. Yes.

[uncommon]

2. I agree. My daughter is 6 years old an she can tie her shoes, dress herself, wash her hair,

brush her teeth, grab a small snack from the fridge, pour a glass of milk, etc etc etc.

I find it troubling that people don't give their kids some measure of accountability from early childhood.

I am constantly explaining how to do simple things to her and why we do them so that she will be well prepared for her adult life. I think this is the minimum parents should be doing.

[HillbillyBob]

3. Can't use a can opener, she should have taught that before

all those things I learned before I was 4 or 5.
Then again I was talking very well by 6 months. Potty trained by 2yrs, started learning to read when I was 4.
My dad taught me how to change oil or a flat tire by the time I was about 10.

[Hannah Bell]

4. No, but the ruling class is conducting a psyops campaign, & this article is just one more bomb

in their continuing war on the people.

[uncommon]

8. I have to disagree. Although I think it is without question that there is a legit class war going

on right now, I think there is a legitimate failure of parents and schools to teach these kids life skills.

I've seen it, and it's not imaginary.

[Hannah Bell]

10. i think there is a legitimate attempt to blow stupid things up into crises

in order to denigrate the people & justify more surveillance & interference.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

14. And it isn't even "legitimate."

[uncommon]

16. You really think it's "hype" that kids aren't learning basic life skills?

It's true. I personally know people even my age who are like this due to being pampered in their early ages.

I see this with younger kids and teenagers every day.

There is no need to spy on them to keep this from happening - just teach them.

[pipi_k]

57. Not sure what parental failure to teach life skills

has to do with the justification for more surveillance and interference...


Does this mean there's some sort of evil entity out there that's trying to justify spying on people in their own homes for the purpose of ensuring that parents are teaching their kids how to use can openers, do the laundry, and hang up their coats, etc.?


As far as "denigrating the people" goes, that sounds a whole lot like it would be a Class War against the poor. What might be closer to the truth is that poor kids would be more able perform basic life skills. No privilege...no servants to do things for them like rich kids would have.

[MineralMan]

5. Where did that mom think her daughter would learn to open

a can? At school? Maybe the current generation of parents are nincompoops. That seems as likely to me.

Hey! Parents! Teach your children stuff! It's your freaking job!

[we can do it]

24. +10 Its Always Someone or Something Else's Fault When Anything Happens

[MineralMan]

27. So it seems. I know I've taught several kids how to read an

analog clock. They're always grateful to learn that. In fact, most kids are glad to learn almost anything, so I try to teach something to every kid I come in contact with every time I come into contact with them. It's fun.

I think I'll teach the 12 year old boy a couple of doors down how to rake leaves efficiently this year, and pay him handsomely (for a 12 year old) for raking mine. :rofl:

[a la izquierda]

53. Best response!

When I was a kid, not all that long ago (the 80s), this is what my day looked like: I got up, got washed and dressed, made my bed and got breakfast together if it didn't involve the oven. Once I could reliably use the oven without burning the house down, I made breakfast for my sisters. We didn't have a microwave until I was in my teens (the 90s). So, I knew how to operate non-hurting equipment in the kitchen, make my bed to my anal Italian mom's standards, and get myself presentable for school. By the age of 7. How was this glorious wisdom bestowed upon my fragile little brain?? My parents and grandma. Big fucking deal.

As an aside, some kids don't know how to do a lot of anything these days, except be incredible dolts. Yesterday, in the middle of lecture, a student's cell phone goes off (despite multiple written and verbal requests to turn off the damn phones during class). The kid sits front-and-center. He pulls it out and starts texting away. The other students around him looked amused. See, if this had been my first rodeo, I'd have been nervous and befuddled, probably losing my place in my notes. I didn't even react yesterday.
But he had a surprise in his email inbox last night.

[CrispyQ]

6. I read an article a few years ago that a lot of young people can't read a standard clock.

If the time isn't displayed in digital format, they can't read it. What was really interesting was the study found that people who can read a standard clock have a better sense of the passage of time, because we can see time 'divided' into halves, quarters, sixths.

I don't know if the part about better sense of time is true, but I do know younger people who can only read a digital clock. :wow:

[JerseygirlCT]

7. I saw this up close and personal a few years ago

I was waiting outside the auditorium for my son. A young lady stopped me and asked me for the time. "Quarter to three" I said. Blank looks. More blank looks. "Um, 2:45?" "Oh! Thanks!"

No clue. Unless I put into digital format for her, she couldn't manage it. Guess it's good I didn't show her my analogue watch!

[Catshrink]

51. I saw this with my students earlier this week

During an activity, I asked them to record the direction a compass needle moved as clockwise or counterclockwise. Huh?

[MineralMan]

9. Yah, and they don't understand rotary dial phones, either.

I play a trick on kids who ask me if they can use the phone. I send them over to the antique oak wall phone in the Kitchen. I converted it so it has a rotary dial on the front panel. Once I show them how to use the rotary dial, I leave. Then I come back to see them try to figure out that they have to talk into the microphone on the box while they hold the earpiece to their ear. It's a zany laff riot, I tell you.

[EFerrari]

11. How many generations now of two income families, aka,

juggling child rearing. About two or so?

A lot of people in my family one gen ahead of me know how to do almost anything. In my generation, out of 20 cousins, there may be two of us that can make clothes, wire a circuit, grow anything out of the ground, plan meals or jump start a car. Part of it is that the family became more affluent after we learned all that stuff and part of it is just the way we are bent as individuals.

[DirkGently]

12. Largely parenting, I suspect. A friend's kid was "waited upon" by a well-meaning mother. Can't do

the simplest household things like cooking a meal or cleaning up. Learned helplessness, essentially, although I'm sure our cushy high-tech world contributes.

[SpiralHawk]

13. TeaBaggers (R) of Tomorrow

Keep 'em squatting in front of Fox, and this will continue to snowball till the inevitable planetary FAIL caused by the Freeper-Teabagger-Republicon Cabal of Ignorance & Hate.

Agggghhhhh !

[lightningandsnow]

42. Why, thank you.

:eyes:

As I explained below, I couldn't tie my shoes or write until almost the age of 7 due to a fairly severe fine motor delay. I am very progressive and am currently studying at a top university.

Are some people poor parents? Sure. However, some people have invisible disabilities which mean they do not acquire skills at the "expected" age.

[pinboy3niner]

15. "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt...

...for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L.
Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277
(1953).

Bartleby.com
http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html

There is some dispute about the origin of the quote; the above is one view.

Seems the conduct of the young being found alarming by their elders is an age-old phenomenon...

[uncommon]

18. This sounds like normal child behavior - but not having basic skills handed down is an entirely

different matter.

If that unruly chattering child can't balance a check book or do a load of laundry or cook a meal or open a damn can of soup when they are 18, that is a major social issue.

[Kber]

26. +1

And their hair styles are awful!

:)

[Bonhomme Richard]

17. No. The last generation raised nincompoops. We are........

now seeing the results.

[caraher]

19. And even the brightest kids

have no idea how to use a slide rule.

[hughee99]

21. And that would come in handy if some amazing set of events

brought them into contact with an actual slide rule.

[GoCubsGo]

41. No kidding.

I was never taught how to use a slide rule, and I'm pushing 50. On the other hand, I CAN do basic math without a calculator. Lots of people half my age can't even do that.

[hughee99]

44. I'm on 40's doorstep and I've never seen one in person,

just pictures. I have an engineering degree from a good technical college, took a lot of math classes, and the workings of a slide rule never came up once.

[Greyhound]

47. I'm far from a kid and have a BS that requires some heavy mathematical lifting,

but I not only don't know how to use one, but have been awed watching my grandfather use his to do some calculations (he was an engineer) faster than I could possibly have done it on my computer.

[caraher]

49. I wasn't worried that they can't use 'em

I played with my father's slide rule when I was a kid, but I'm no expert either. It's just funny how skills deemed essential change and that the loss of some of them are viewed as a sign of the decline of mankind.

Now get off my lawn! ;)

[Hello_Kitty]

20. Technology is one thing. I'm sure most of us couldn't operate a horse drawn buggy.

So I'm not too bothered by kids and teens not tying shoes, dialing rotary phones, or reading traditional clocks. It's the coddling I see parents that drives me nuts. I know people who have their adult progeny living with them and they do EVERYTHING for them. Make their appointments with doctors, plan their college class schedules for them, intervene on their behalf for every need or jam they get themselves into. I know teenagers and young adults with absolutely NO responsibilities in the home or for any aspect of their own lives.

[old mark]

22. At the start of the 20th century, great changes in technology made it necessary

for people to learn to deal with electric lights, electricity itself, automobiles, and thousands of things that had not been common or even existed a few years before.

Same thing now. The set of things people need to know to live is changing dramatically, and in another ten years many of the skills mentioned above will be gone from common usage...the kids are not nincompoops - they are the future, and we are old timers.

mark

[hughee99]

23. Most of these "critical skills" are things that can be taught in minutes

if the need arises. You don't need a three week class to learn how to use a can opener, address an envelope, or even do laundry, you can teach someone to do this in minutes, or if no one's around, you can google it and get instructions.

I'm more concerned with deficiencies in reading comprehension (like the kind you'd need to follow "googled" instructions) and critical thinking.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

25. KIDS! AAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWGGGGGG! KIDS!

[pinboy3niner]

56. "What's the Matter With Kids Today?" (Bye Bye Birdie)

A blast from the past (song begins at 1:17):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns

[Ikonoklast]

28. "We" aren't raising a thing. Some people are poor parents.

If the above-mentioned woman has a bunch of stupid kids that can't function or do basic mechanical or physical tasks, maybe she needs to look in the mirror for the reason.

[MineralMan]

29. I remember the year I turned 12. My father gave me the responsibility

for the lawnmowing. We had this ancient gasoline-powered reel mower, with an incredibly balky engine. So, before I started taking on this chore, my dad said, "Let's fix the engine on that lawnmower." What he meant, of course, that I'd be fixing it with him giving me directions. My father, an auto mechanic by trade, walked his clueless 12-year-old son through the process of completely disassembling the old engine, giving it a new set of rings, main bearings, a valve grind, new points, and a thorough cleaning, inside and out. I then reassembled it, again with him talking me through all the steps. Lo, and behold, it started on the first pull. Took a spring afternoon to do it, and I learned the names of every part on that engine, how to use the hand tools a mechanic uses, and learned that the job was actually a very simple one.

I also took a lot of pride from the job, and happily mowed the yard for the next five years, until my brother turned 12, and the entire process got repeated with him.

This is what parents do. This is how we learn. My mom taught me to cook the same way, and how to iron my own clothes, balance a checkbook (hers), and all that good stuff. When I left home at 18, I was fully equipped to go it alone. I learned how to learn, too, and how to teach, in the process. Not all parents can teach how to rebuild a lawnmower engine, but all parents can teach what they know. Those who do not do that fail as parents, in my opinion.

[GoCubsGo]

37. I'm working with a kid this summer who's 23, and never cut grass

I think his father hired out someone to do it. Hell, my next door neighbors have two sons. In the 10 years I've lived here, I never saw either of the boys do a lick of yard work of any sort. Dad does it all Odds are that none of them know how to cook. I've run into a number of 20-somethings that can barely even handle frozen dinners. Another that I'm working with didn't know that you aren't supposed to put metal in a microwave oven. Or, that you should get your oil changed every 3000-5 or 6000 miles. Or, that you should wash your bed sheets every week, not once every six months. The stuff these kids don't know is stunning. Yep, as others have already pointed out, it's their parents that are the nincompoops. Fucking scary.

[RadiationTherapy]

52. Yaawwwwn. Who cares? You are merely fulfilling your prejudices.

Rotary dial phones? Lawnmower repair? There is so much to learn about the world. We all hope that parents are taking the time and doing the best that they can, but your specific, condescending, and topically meaningless anecdotes do not contribute any solutions.

[WolverineDG]

30. the kids aren't stupid; their parents just did everything for them

& never taught them how to fend for themselves.

dg

[Dappleganger]

31. We have four and have tried.

Granted, some with a degree of success and others not as much. They can all do their own laundry, iron their own clothes, treat a stain. Three can sew up a hole in the seam or pocket (the youngest one not yet). All of them can make a meal with some degree of edibility. They know how to clean a kitchen so it at least looks grandma-clean (how you clean before grandma comes over!).

Three completely fail at cleaning bathrooms (one is quite proficient at it). All four know how to cut grass, weed, use the hedge clipper and edger. They all have no problem walking or riding their bikes to the corner gas station to pick up a gallon of milk or bread on their own. They all have bank accounts, the older two have checking/savings/cd's and balance their books online. I don't think they know how to write a check (they use online payments for everything or debit cards). The oldest son can change a tire and other basics, the oldest daughter relies on her daddy to do it. Three kids are proficient with shooting and cleaning arms (training at the range plus doing it with us). All of them know how to bait their own hooks and catch a fish.

The bus situation does concern me but that's because we have no local system except in the city nearby, and it's quite limited. They've been on both DC's and Philly's mass transit and seemed to do fine, however. Typically we teach it by this method: watch me a couple of times, I walk it through with them doing, I watch them do it then they do it on their own.

[GoCubsGo]

39. Your kids know a lot more than many their age

I know several who can't do half to all of the things you mentioned. That being said, I understand why your daughter has Daddy change tires. I know how to do it. The problem is, they use those air wrenches when they rotate the tires, and I don't have the upper body strength required to loosen the nuts. Thank goodness for AAA.

I like your attitude about "watch me". That was how my dad did things, too. Consequently, I can do things like replace an electrical outlet or re-pack a faucet valve. Dad made us help him with EVERYTHING.

[Zephie]

32. See: Idiocracy

If anyone here hasn't seen it, you should. It sums up the future that we're headed to perfectly.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

[Initech]

35. I seriously wonder how long it's going to be before someone makes a recliner-toilet like in the movi...

[fishwax]

33. the kids are alright (and using a can opener isn't exactly an essential skill)

I think the article is wrong, both with respect to how much kids these days can do and with respect to how much it matters.

[Toucano]

34. Survival of the species?

Really? Hanging a photo on the wall is a necessary life skill for the survival of the species?

Most examples cited in this article are simply the use of common tools.

As the need for those tools diminishes they become less common and knowledge of their practical application is sure to wane. Why should someone know how to address an envelope if they never send a letter?

How many people living in the developed world would know how to use a butter churn? Boot hooks? An abacus?

Still, it's hard to believe we are at the point where a can opener has lost it's practical application.

A young person's inability to use a clothes hanger hardly threatens human survival.

[REP]

36. It's lacking the insight to figure out how to use a clotheshanger that's unsettling

It shows an unwillingness to attempt the unknown, no matter how simple.

[GoCubsGo]

38. Especially when...

...they most likely already have a closet full of clothes hanging on clothes hangers. Seriously, if you see clothes hanging on hangers all your life, yet you still can't figure out how to hang clothes on a clothes hanger, you have a serious problem.

[petronius]

45. I'm very skeptical of that claim - I suspect it's more likely that there has never been any

particular reason for the kids to use the hanger. It's easier to throw the clothes on the floor, and eventually mom swoops in and makes it all better. If there were genuine costs associated with not using hangers and hampers, or benefits linked to doing it, I suspect the kids would have the clothes hanger worked out in no time...

[lightningandsnow]

40. This is ableist.

It took me a long time to learn how to tie my shoes, and I couldn't use a manual can opener until my mid-teens.

I have non-verbal learning disorder, and as a result, my fine motor coordination is severely delayed.

No amount of yelling at me would improve my coordination, and, believe me, my parents tried.

The author of this article never considered that some children have less-than-visible disabilities that make tasks involving manual dexterity difficult.

[ncteechur]

43. Based on the ages of the teabaggers, we have nincompoops for a long freaking time!!!

[Roland99]

46. Doesn't surprise me a bit.

heading for the type of society we see in those post-apocalypse movies where, afterward, no one knows how to do anything.

[Greyhound]

48. Idiocracy. A bad film accurately charting our future.

[Saphire]

50. There are a lot of smart, talented kids out there, too. Don't think this represents

the majority of kids.

[MadHound]

54. To some extent we've been doing this for the past fifty-sixty years

There's always been this segment of kids who don't know how to do practical things. I was floored one day when I was sixteen, riding with my buddy. He had a flat on his car and was in a panic, he didn't know how to change a flat tire.

It was even more amusing, a few years back, watching some fraternity and sorority kids helping to build a Habitat for Humanity house next door. More than one didn't know how to effectively wield a hammer.

Every kid growing up needs to be taught certain basic, hands on, mechanical skills. How to use basic hand tools, the basics of mechanics and the like. Otherwise they are simply unprepared for life in the real world.

[NuttyFluffers]

55. but can these parents open their prescription meds, use a computer, or operate the remote?

i know, there are a lot of mollycoddled youth out there. but remember, they are a product of their world. the skills they learn will be the ones they are exposed to. if shoeing a horse is important, then humans will learn to shoe a horse. if operating a remote control and buying everything their little hearts' desire online is important, then they'll learn about remote controls, computers, and shipping & handling costs.

skills fade in and out of usefulness because they are completely dependent upon the context of one's life. read that line again if you feel the need to share some pointless anecdote. this unnecessary, albeit entertaining, article is merely an effort at division and fear between the generations -- and it's been going on for ages, especially by status quo trying to keep the masses divided. don't we ever get tired from the same old tricks? we all need each other and our diverse range of skills; if otherwise, the "no man is an island" trope would have no purchase.