There is a huge downside of giving kids free things: they usually don’t appreciate them. In California, we continue to offer tons of free services to people and we have no tax dollars left to continue doing so. The state is broken. Schwarzenegger is not a Republican and he’s not a Democrat either. To be truthful, I am not sure what he is. He tried to infuse a business model into California and it didn’t work. So now that the state is hemorrhaging, who on Earth would want to be Governor? I can’t imagine why anyone would.
In schools, kids that meet criteria are given a free breakfast, lunch, after school daycare, dental procedures and an array of other free services and things. While I am glad to see people getting the services they need, I am often not glad about the attitudes I hear. Stuff like: “This food sucks.” is uttered as commonplace. In my opinion, this sense of entitlement travels with many kids into adulthood when they feel the state owes them a home, income, children, and health care. Perhaps a middle ground is worth considering.
Tonight I was in the grocery store and someone was using government script to pay for junk food. Then they paid cash separately for a 12 pack of Budweiser. This is nothing new in the grocery store I shop at. When will scenes like this cease to be? Can they continue indefinitely?
At this rate, California has to either stumble upon financial riches or stop enabling a culture of entitlement. I am not sure free stuff for kids is the worst offender. People should start to accept responsibility for getting their needs met. In my opinion, we should teach our kids that services like the ones I have mentioned and those like it are privileges to be thankful for and not taken for granted.
As teachers we should teach kids to compete more. What good is giving a child something for nothhing? That doesn’t happen in business. In the President’s recent stimulus packages for companies, Ford declined what was offered to them. Many other companies accepted the dollars and now are still unable to pay any of it back. Ford, on the other hand, is now selling more than any auto maker out there and I say they deserve the success!
We need to stop being afraid of a child “feeling hurt” about a bad grade or about not winning a race. A generation of entitlement puts self-esteem above accomplishment. Life doesn’t always “feel good” and you can’t always win. In many ways, the culture of entitlement has brought us to a place where we can’t afford our mental mindset. That being that all people should never feel like they have lost and all people should be provided the rewards of accomplishment whether they accomplish something or not.
2 Comments
We have entitlements like free breakfast, lunch, and after school care in our state, too. I haven’t been in a public school lunch room in many years (since fourth grade!), but I’m sure things have changed. My mother worked in the grocery business for decades up until about three or four years ago. She made the same observation as you – some (not all) people can afford cell phones, beer, cigarettes, but they can’t afford groceries.
Many times people are brought up “in the system” and they really know how to work it. They don’t know a different way and couldn’t think of things being any different. They may even be afraid to TRY to be independent…who knows.
The thing is, if you try to take away some of these entitlements – such as school lunch and breakfast -all kinds of politically-connected groups will get their backs up and start screaming at their elected officials. What if a child goes hungry because their parents are too poor or too lazy to feed them breakfast or pack their lunch? If the school does it for them…why should they go to the expense and bother?
A sticky situation indeed and I’m glad I’m not California’s Governor! ;)
(Off topic, but I have a page of just education links separate from my blog, if you’re interested.
http://miazshomeschoollinks.blogspot.com/)
Great comments Mia and thanks for the links page as well!