The Wimp

Overdependence is the disease of the upcoming generation, and pandidactism must prove to be the cure. Today I listened to a fairly interesting discussion on the cost of overdependence on KRCL's RadioActive. It featured Hara Marano, author of Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, a Career Services Executive from the University of Utah, and one of the directors of the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Marano's book centers around the concept that over-parenting has turned today's generation of recent college graduates into fragile "hot-house orchids," incapable of handling the blows of adult life. According to Marano, parents have become snow-blowers seeking to remove every obstacle from their children's lives, over-praising said children to the point that children manifest delusions with regard to their own capabilities. Often, children are also deluded by excessively high promises of the blessings of higher education. Furthermore, even after leaving the nest, children are heading to college with cellphones, "the new umbilical cord," in their pockets. It could be said that children expect all of the benefits of a properous life without the responsibility to take ownership of that life.

Now, take note, this is my generation we're talking about here. It surprised me when all of the callers-in (at least during the segment that I listened to) were recently graduated males in their twenties who whole-heartedly agreed with Marano's perspective.

Even more surprisingly, I too agree with her to a certain extent because, while I am a pandidact, I could probably also be accurately described as a recovering wimp. I feel fairly entitled. I am absolutely convinced of the fact that I am remarkable enough to outstrip not only my colleagues but my superiors in terms of personal accomplishment and to do it pretty quickly. I have had a terrifically difficult time dealing with the hard-knocks of life, partly because I depend so heavily on my parents for support. And, up until recently, I have made little effort to take ownership of my own life or my own learning. I, like an unfortunate number of my peers, feel torn between what I wish to learn and what my society and my parents see in my best interest to learn. Note - my parents haven't necessarily done anything wrong, but I have definitely made a choice to be excessively dependent.

Marano indicates that over-dependence on parents manifests itself in children's yearning for security, especially in the job market. I have to chuckle whenever someone even mentions job security in today's market as a matter to be considered, for it seems that even the most secure of us have a very tenuous hold on our positions.

But there is another issue at hand here, that has somewhat to do with parents, but more to do with education. Parents are obviously our first educators, and most of us become very dependent on them for understanding, to the point that we even call home for wisdom long after we have jettisoned ourselves into the cruel world (not that asking for advice is wrong - it's just the way that it is). Parents, when we turn about five years old, gently untie the apron strings and allow us to become dependent on the school system. Now it is the teacher that must answer all of our pressing questions. And after we have graduated from school we transfer that dependence to our college professors and guidance counselors and expect them to proffer the needed advice to propel us through our college careers. In fact, when professors are too busy to offer office hours, or when we have to battle for professors' attentions with three or four hundred classmates, we feel jilted somehow - not only because we paid for that attention, but because someone who we perceive as having a duty to care for us has failed to do so. It could even be said that we feel - what's the word? - entitled to this attention. For, in our minds, we could not possibly attain educations without professors' help.

So the challenge of children who become over-dependent on parents is exacerbated by over-dependence on professional educators. In our growing-up years, parents and teachers often promise that, upon graduating high school we will be left all alone to be tossed and buffetted by the cold winds of a cruel and very real world. But what do we find instead? We are deposited into another, only-slightly-less-comfortable world of university education with proxy-parents ready to stand in. Don't get me wrong - I don't think that the lone road is the best way to learn to deal with the harshness of life, but I also think that popping from pamperer to pamperer probably just turns us all into a bunch of babies.

So if, according to Marano, children of the latest generation are failing to take control of their own lives, it very well may be because they are utterly failing to take control of their own educations.

Okay, so how do we take control of our educations? How do we shed the "hot-house orchid" stigma? If one wishes to prevent over-dependence on a system, must one sever oneself from that system?

I believe that de-wimping ourselves must begin with pandidactism. We must first determine that which we wish to (and perhaps ought to) learn, and then set about learning it, entirely of our own devices and out of no sense of duty to parents or professors. But let us not be lone wolves in the harsh reality of our current situation: let us surround ourselves with an army of friends and mentors whom we may both teach and receive teaching by so we can make this march together and profit all the more.

Ought we to wean children from the tender benevolence of parents? Yes. But such a weaning requires first that children learn to take ownership of their lives and their educations. It requires that children learn to accept themselves for themselves and to love that which they love simply because they love it. It also requires that we teach children to learn from all - the world, their peers, themselves, the stirring masterworks of ages past and present, and, sure, their parents and their teachers. But learning is not enough. The fulfilling life requires that children, in turn, teach and build their community. We must also teach the hard-won skill of educating others if our children are to learn at the level of which they are capable.

Is this a lost generation? I don't think so. A little troubled, perhaps, but not entirely lost. There are answers to these questions, if we will but accept them. And maybe, if children can learn from the mistakes of their parents, they can build a future where all learn and all teach all - a future worth owning.