Eureka

So… I had this beautiful epiphany that really hit me one day and I find seriously interesting. It's all about self esteem, and of course the radical feminist movement and what they have to do with each other. I think the approach that I am going to take in explaining this is the same route that my brain took to discover it. So, it all started when I learned exactly what self esteem is and where it comes from. If you have not read One. Gorgeous. Redhead. Go back and read it so that you know where we are in terms of where we get self esteem. A quick summary for those of you who have already read it, remember that self esteem means that you’re impressed with yourself. Not in a cocky or conceited way, but in a way that you respect yourself for the hard work that you accomplish. When you work hard at becoming a better person, when you work hard at setting and excelling in goals, when you work hard at serving and being kind towards others you will find precious, genuine, and untouchable self esteem.

Now, moving forward…

So, the Radical Feminist Movement, remember in this post how it brainwashed and bullied women into believing that being a wife, a mother, and a homemaker were no longer adequate and that unless they are working and bringing home a paycheck they are meaningless human beings? Well, as a result, good parents are hard to find. Women are far too busy with the full time jobs, the cooking, and the cleaning to be fully invested in good parenting. Fathers are either nowhere to be found because they humped and dumped, or they have minimal custody and don't care to spend what little time they do have in good parenting. Even those fathers who are in the home, usually follow the wife’s lead in parenting and typically the wives are too exhausted with all their other responsibilities that parenting takes the back burner. Therefore children are not getting parented anymore. Their parents are too concerned with winning the popularity contest among their children to ever use tough love. Their parents are too tired to stand firm and be consistent. They feel guilty about their lack of involvement that they hand over things like cell phones, iPods, cars, and endless unearned privileges with zero effort made on the part of the children to work towards them. The Radical Feminist Movement took the once important priority to be a good and responsible parent and threw it out the window. It comes last on a long list of far more important things.

So, this epiphany came to me one day while talking to a 13 year old girl. She mentioned to me that she has low self esteem, which was quite evident in her behavior. I thought to myself how sad this is. Yet it is not a surprise at all, in fact across the board I am sure at least 90% of young teens, especially teen girls, you will find low self esteem. Teens these days do not have good self esteem. Why is this I thought? Why is there this sweeping epidemic of low self esteem in our youth? I thought of times in our history and I don't ever recall a time where low self esteem was so prevalent. This is fairly unique to the current generations, beginning some 30 years ago. Why is this? I kept thinking. Why now? What is different now than 30 plus years ago? Why isn’t anyone able to feel decent anymore? Well, this got me to thinking of course where self esteem comes from and how it is obtained. Hard work right. Well, the young kids, especially those growing up as young teens now, know absolutely nothing about hard work. Hard work in school, hard work to earn things, hard work in relationships, hard work at being decent people, hard work in maturing, these are all relatively foreign concepts to our growing generations.

Hard work to buy things is one area where our young children know nothing about. When I was a kid and I wanted to buy something I used to have to earn the money pulling weeks, babysitting, walking dogs, lemonade stands, and all the other typical kid ways of earning money. I felt good about my accomplishments and felt pride in being able to make and manage my own money. As a result, I have had a job since I was 14, I have been financially independent for some time, and I have never been in debt. I have always take pride in my ability to earn and manage money. I have a sense of confidence that I will be able to provide for myself and that has always felt reassuring. Regardless of the low self esteem I had about myself, I have never felt low self esteem in a financially stable way. But I have always had to work hard to be able to feel confident in my abilities. These days I think it’s a combination of guilt and being lazy, but parents just pacify the whining and desires of their children to have expensive toys by handing them over. Requiring nothing in return-- not even good behavior. This leads to the attitude of entitlement, far from self esteem.

Hard work in school is another thing that is foreign to our teenagers. First and foremost, public education is not a challenge to probably 70% or more of our young people. I see this in the classrooms I visit daily. The work is not challenging anyone to work hard for their grades. Those who don't understand, those to whom it does challenge, give up quickly and get into trouble. Those who are lazy and not challenged by school, just sit around. I wrote a 154 page paper for my undergrad degree. (yea, I know I should have a doctorate with that thing.) I am done now but when I was writing it I HATED IT. It was hard. It was a challenge to my brain for sure. It was difficult to manage my time and meet all the deadlines that it required, but I felt good when I finished that sucker. I pushed myself academically, and now I look at the 15 page papers that my siblings are writing and just snicker at how easy they are. Point is, I felt great accomplishment in working hard in school. Not just getting good grades, because good grades in junior high and high school rarely correlate with working hard, but pushing myself academically I learned that I can do difficult things and that makes me proud of my accomplishments. I am confident and have self esteem in that area, because I worked hard to push myself through all the challenges I met in all 16 years of school.

I have always been a pretty selfish person. I am not sure exactly where that trait came from, but while I ponder that answer, I have been working very hard in my friends and family relationships to change that. I make much more of a conscious effort, I am aware, I apologize when I behaved poorly, and I know that one day I will be able to conquer this. This working hard to grow feels good. I feel like I am not just stagnate in my emotional development. Admitting my ugly trait is difficult, and apologizing for poor behavior is anything less than fun, but I can see the growth in my life, even just in baby steps and it feels good. This is another area where my self esteem is earned. Kids these days though, are never challenged by their parents to behave in a more kind and generous way. The very act of spoiling children, as I said, leads to feelings of entitlement, which makes people selfish and rude, unwilling to bend to help people out. People are never going to feel good about themselves as a person if they constantly act selfish and rude and act as though they are entitled. Yet another reason why our young people have such low self esteem.

The connection I have seen is that between poor educational challenges and lazy/guilty parents kids are no longer working for or towards anything. Without hard work, there can be no self esteem. People who accomplish difficult things earn the feelings of esteem that come with that. Kids unfortunately are being robbed of many opportunities to work hard and learn and feel self respect, admiration, and esteem.

So, all you parents out there, I would encourage you to provide many opportunities for your children to work hard and earn self esteem. Don't be lazy. Good parenting is hard. But as the Doc is famous for saying—Don't have ‘em if you won't raise ‘em. You brought them into the world—You are morally obligated to do the right thing by them. Don't just throw electronics and other privileges at them. All they learn is how to be entitled. Is there a bigger turnoff in a person? I can't really think of many.

I mean, remember this entitled nasty? Nuff said.