By: Curt Williams, Founder & Executive Director
Like many of you, I have spent time watching the rioting, looting, arson, and violence that is sweeping many cities with some seriously mixed emotions.
On one hand, I cannot tolerate for one second police officers abusing their authority, and I am horrified by the lives that have been lost. Yet, on the other hand, I know too many amazing law enforcement officers to condemn them all.
Then, I see those who gather to peacefully and rightfully protest these actions, demanding true and lasting change. Yet then I see their protests being hijacked by a cabal of sociopathic anarchists and insurrectionists who have not likely ever felt true oppression.
And this is where I have formed an opinion.
Having an opinion does not mean that I am right, it simply means that I think that I am right on the given subject. In this great country of ours, it used to be a celebrated right to have and express an opinion, even if it was completely lame. At least you had the right to communicate your opinion without being threatened or having your business burned down. Today, people lose their jobs because their opinion does not line up with the ever-changing morays of today’s culture. Free speech is no longer free.
I have never been one to back down from a confrontation, even when it was quite wise to do so. I still believe in the God-given right to free speech. So, here let me risk it all by offering an opinion of my own; this opinion is not necessarily the opinion of my friends, family, or my dog.
It is my opinion that what we are witnessing on our televisions and online, each time we dare to turn these devices on, is simply the second generation of poor parenting coming home to roost.
We are seeing the predictable results of the participation-trophy generation, where we fretted over self-esteem (like it was available at birth and could then somehow be damaged) instead of rewarding hard work and achievement. In a misguided effort to level the playing field, we have sought to handicap the intelligent achievers and reward the mediocre, the less talented, and the lazy. In an insane move, we have even sought to take the fruit of hard work from achievers and give it, without merit or effort, to those who are idle and unproductive.
We told kids how they were wonderful and could achieve anything they wanted in life, which are two long-held and oft-repeated lies. The truth is, kids are evil. We are all born evil. We are intent on self-first living until redirected by strong parenting. Plus, you cannot be anything you want to be.
You cannot even be all that you work to be. Failure is a guarantee in this life we are living.
An uncoordinated girl should not believe that she can be a ballet dancer just because she wants to be. A short boy should not entertain visions of success in the NBA, as he is more likely to win two states’ lotteries in one day. YOU CANNOT BE AND DO JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT IT!
So then, these spoiled and entitled children grow up into spoiled and entitled young adults and one day it hits them… I am not getting all that I deserve. They look around at others, who have worked hard and achieved, and they say, “Why do they get to have that nice car? I want that car. And why do they get to have that house and that job and that family? I want it and it’s not fair that they have it and I don’t.”
They are then exposed to Socialism by elitist professors and on obscure websites produced by some 23-year-old in his mom’s basement. This sounds like heaven to them; it sounds so fair. It sounds great, just like it did to all the despots who preached equality yet never submitted to the demanded equality themselves. These childish adults offer us a great deal: “In this wonderful utopia, we can demand what you worked for and you have to give it to us, because we deserve it.” They take to the streets with a nightly temper tantrum and hijack a peaceful, legitimate and critical social discourse for their own benefit.
This is bad parenting coming full circle. It has been too easy for the mega-rich yet behind-the-scenes power brokers to drop a match into the tender of discontent that parents have produced.
Each night we get to witness the ultimate result of a society that stopped rewarding success, stopped recognizing heroism, and ended the elevation of innovators.
Now, if you succeed in business, you are a part of the “patriarchy” and what you have toiled for must be broken up and handed out to the cabal like a dump-truck load of participation trophies. And what is so obscene about this current crop of young people, is that they truly believe that they deserve what you work for with absolutely zero investment of their own.
Welcome to 2020, where a virus stopped our economy, but there will be a cure or a vaccine soon. There is, though, no cure or vaccine for millions of spoiled adults who believe with religious zeal that our way of life is standing in the way of all that they deserve.
I can see, and it is my opinion, that there is only one way out of this. It will be through a radical change in the way we raise, teach, and influence our children today. We must start immediately to teach the rewards of hard work and achievement. We must teach that failure is the very best teacher, and parents must STOP hindering the natural course of failure in their kids’ lives.
I have written a book. It may very well be the first of many. If you are still wondering, it is not a sweet book with watercolor illustrations. It is titled, “White Knuckle Parenting, Raising Extraordinary Kids by Countering the Culture” and it is now with an editor. I cannot wait for it to be finished and available. There will be some (many?) who will decry it as harsh, but I hope that you will be the judge. I do not think there is a harsh word in it, but I do believe that it is direct. It is a briefer read because I did not spend a lot of time or waste a lot of words trying to make it palatable to the entitled, but for parents earnestly seeking to raise world changers, I hope this will be a valuable resource.
Stay tuned, and I will let you know when it is available. And thank you for not burning down my house.
