Quote Originally Posted by Chubminnow View Post
Ain't none of us the men or women that our parents were...and likewise...ain't none of our children the same as us either, especially when it comes to work.

Personally I feel each passing generation goes down a notch or two...This doesn't hold true across the board for every person, but generally speaking I think it's true.
I agree with you there. I think it's just a general apathy that most kids have. My own are included in that statement regardless of the many butt kickings it earns them. Few of us are as hard as our parents and I doubt that they were as hard as their parents.

A friend and I were unloading a mattress and box springs at the house yesterday afternoon. We were finishing our beverage first, sitting on the tailgate of the truck. My daughters 17 year old boyfriend pulled up to the house and sat in his car, windows down, radio loud, obviously texting and looking up every once in a while to watch us. We finished our drink, unboxed the mattress and box spring and lugged them upstairs. When we came back outside to put the boxes on the curb the kid was standing at the door about to come in. He asked if I needed any help. I told him that I didn't anymore and he proceeded into the house to have my daughter help with his homework and eat my food. It was several minutes before my friend asked how long I thought the kid would have survived around my old man. My answer was "Not long."

This is a boy that is strong from "working out" but can't lift two cinder blocks at a time and doesn't even know what a cinder block is for that matter. He does good in school and plays football. His single mother works two jobs so he doesn't have to work at all and just bought him a new car. But because she works two jobs she is never home so he is always at my house.

At that age I milked goats, fed horses and dogs before school, worked tobacco, carried hod all summer and could do anything with a tractor that a grown man could. If my old man asked for a 7/16th wrench I d@mn sure better not have brought back a 1/2 inch. And this wasn't that long ago. I hated it then but now I thank God he loved me enough to knock some sense into me.

What are these kids going to do when they turn 18 and are set loose on the world?

It's everyones fault, parents, teachers, the government and I'm afraid the only way for things to get any better is for them to get a whole lot worse. The only thing you can do is try to instill good values and real world skills and knowledge into your own children an children that you have the opportunity to mentor and hope they will do the same for theirs.