Hey, I thought the whole generation was there!!

 

I'm anxiously awaiting more responses from Vintage, but I'm not sure if I agree with you about it being constant. If anything has been constant, it would be the "rate" of decline, as IMO our society has conditioned itself to continuously try to out-do itself.

As Lainey opined earlier, the topic of financial earning was taboo for her generation, yet today many choose to flaunt what they've got (regardless of if they can afford it or not). So in her eyes, there has been a decline.

The reason I asked this question HERE in Vintage is because I'm hoping to get a bigger perspective from my elders. If not, I would've posted in Off Topic and gotten a whole bunch of "dont be a HaTeR!" comments.

I do however agree with this comment, and frankly, it scares me.

 

I teach teenagers and know that their view is very materialistic, until they hit the workforce. I "teach" them things that I would have thought their parents would have told them. I do not let them compare grades in my class and tell them that they coud be fired at some companies for letting others see their pay stub. I tell them I would go down to the dealership and just sit in the S2000 for four years and that waiting until you can afford some things makes it SO exciting! Of course they can't see it at this point, but hey I do what I can. You see many of our young are raising themselves so to speak and honestly don't have a clue.

 

I agree with you and Lainey - I think all of the values we grew up with are going down, and it doesn't appear to be slowing down any. We have become a society where all people (especially young) want the best, and fastest, costs be damned. It's going to be a scary place in the next thirty - fourty years when the current young generation has nothing in savings except their Ipods

 

I don't agree - our parents might not have approved of what we were doing but they still tried to instill a sense of worth.

 

I have observed, as quoted by FastLady, that many kids are raising themselves. It really concerns me, so much of lifes common sense is passed on during day to day living, from one generation to the next. This requires that the generations spend lots of time together, with the television off, talking and doing things together. Its during these times that managing money, when to speak, what to say, what not to say etc are taught.

Hang in here i heart, you will get lots of good responses.

 

And we had to work for whatever we wanted. Nothing was given, so we didn't leave the house expecting to do anything other than work for what we wanted.

I paid for my own driving school, class ring, and most personal expenses once I started earning babysitting money. At 15 I had a job on the weekends.

I did the same with my son when he was growing up, he had to work for what he wanted. We loaned him small amounts of money in his teens, which he paid back, and I co- signed one car loan. After that he was on his own.

From what I can see my daughter in law was raised the same way. As far as we can tell, they do not live above their means. We've helped them in small ways over the years, but it was never expected or asked for.

 

Anyway, to answer your question, I think most people lack humility. I'll leave modesty aside as I am not sure if we are talking about clothing or status.

I think this has all flowed from progressive parenting. Pop psychology taught us to praise our children and encourage them. It has reached a point where no child "fails" anything and every child is told they are great at everything. The result is SURPRISE kids who think they are great.

But I wouldn't worry too much. After they leave the protection of mommy and daddy, they are in a world of other "perfect" people who will be happy to tell you kid why they don't measure up.

 

This is an interesting thread DB8 and I really don't know the answer. It does seem to me as though the concept of 'Delayed Gratification' seems to be alien to a lot of younger people. Then again, I still remember when I was in HS and College and I pretty much wanted everything right then as well. It wasn't until I served in the military and then got married that I really 'grew up' in that sense.

As for all these 18 year olds with brand new S2K's.. they may as well be aliens. I work with lots of graduate students and over the past 15 years thier overall work ethic has gone down and their sense of entitlement had gone up, of this I am pretty certain.. I tend to engage them in discussions about their career choices and paths from time to time. These are mostly PhD students and postdocs so they are hardly a representative sample, but they do seem more materialistic and less humble every year.

Of course I could just be getting stodgier

I was just thinking today that I would quit posting in S2000 talk altogether due to the fact that all to often I wind up in a flame war because some kid less than 1/2 my age with 2 weeks of S2000 ownership 'knows' that he's 'right' about something. When all I was doing was attempting to do was offer some helpful or perhaps even sage advice. The population of snotty, ungratefu, immodest, and unhumble S2KI users seems to be growing exponentially.

Just my .03 (we do have some inflation you know)

 

Perfectly said