Walter S

I'm sure kids aren't as active and fit as when I was a child. I was just walking down Stone Mountain and I passed a woman, stopped with her boy who looked to be ten or so. "Common Timmy we need to go down the mountain." Then "I caaaan't. I'm too tired". More back and forth and then "think how nice the air conditioner will feel when daddy meets us with the car" etc.

When I was a kid my parents drove a black Volkswagen with no a/c. We were spoiled by an electric fan in the back seat that my father rigged up.

Roody

We didn't even get an electric fan in the back seat.

Artkansas 

Sure, I'll slam an entire generation of people based on the behavior of one.

It should be observed that Timmy is doing more than Daddy is.

Cyclosaurus

No kids ever whined about anything in my generation, dagnabit!

P.S. Get off my lawn!

rhm

Oh, I wouldn't let one spoiled brat child color my impression of a whole generation. Anyway, my cohort was just as bad. Doing a hike like what you describe when I was the age you describe (this puts it in the Nixon administration) I remember seeing a kid my age having a tantrum just like you describe, and his father pointed out my sister and me as the paragon of toughness as we walked by. I, meanwhile, was wondering if a tantrum like that would have gotten me out of this hike, which was not my idea. I concluded it wouldn't work. Otherwise I would have tried it for sure.

Mobile 155

They can be different I guess.

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Sixty Fiver

A customer (and old co-worker) came to my shop to get his son's bike fixed last Sunday as they had planned to go mountain biking and the shifting had crapped out... a shifter cable had jammed in a ferrule.

The boy is 12 years old and kept asking if he could wait in the car (and play on his phone), he did not want to pay attention to the work I was doing (there was a lesson in this) and the whining and rude comments were enough that I had to speak up.

He had questioned why he had to watch and learn anything when I was getting paid to do this...

I told him that the only reason he was getting his bike fixed early on a Sunday morning was because his dad was my friend, that this was my day off, and there wasn't any charge so he needed to stop his complaining and pay attention or this would be the last time I worked on his bike.

He was rather attentive after that and his dad made him pony up $10.00 of his own money for the tip jar.

Sadly, I have run into too many kids that think that you just pay people to fix things (with your parent's money) and have no interest in learning any skills.

Conversely, there is a young kid who comes into the co-op who is all of 12 or 13 and he is a bike fixing Jedi... he keeps his entire family's bikes rolling.

EastCoastDHer

Yep. Kids these days are total bunch of wimps. Worked retail all my life and even worked in a local school system. Kids expect everything handed to them. No more of that thing called a work ethic. Growing up I learned you work until it's done and then you play or rest.

I remember my junior year in high school we had this fitness test. It was time for pushups. My brother and I had anticipated this the year before and we made a pack "Let's show them how black belts do it". We trained like crazy partly because we enjoyed the pain, we enjoyed the challenge and we enjoyed the idea of besting all the top varsity athletes. On testing day the last test was pushups. We listened to the voice on the tape repeat "up, down". By the time we reached 30 we were the only two left. We kept going. The tape ended. Our coach asked if we were done. We looked up and said "Not even close, play the next side until we tell you we're done". He listened. The second side ended. We had minutes until the bell rang for class to end. Coach asked us if we were done again. "No, rewind it!" So he did. The class groaned, afraid they would miss the next bell. We got through the majority of the next side when the bell rang. The class began to walk towards the door. "We're not finished, you're all waiting until we finish" we shouted. Coach let us finish the tape. Someone asked why we were holding them up, we replied "We want you kids to know how black belts do pushups the real way." We got up when we were done and asked coach "How any did you coun?" And he said "Gee, all of them?" We let him know we had counted about 274. He admitted he was impressed to which we informed him "Thanks, but we do 500 every morning together". Nobody really picked on us after that. Twins, gotta love them!

Walter S

Sure, he's just one kid and kids whined before too (I was in a big family where whining did not work).

But I observe similar dynamics regularly. Children are very sheltered now. They're indoors playing video games. When I was a child I was outside playing in the woods, riding bikes, playing frisbee, etc.

There are exceptions naturally. But I still see a marked trend.

Marcus_Ti

Part of it is that well...the woods are gone.

End of town where I grew up was adjacent to one of the major Monarch butterfly migration forests. Was on the edge of school property and was an amazing day-trip during class by science teachers, every twig was covered with a Monarch. That forest and its habitat were completely bulldozed and replaced with suburbia 20 years ago. Now if you want to find forest to play in or just look at, you have to drive a good 1-2 hours (only serious road cyclists would cover the distance in reasonable time riding a bike).

The streets are filled with adult yahoos who cannot drive but have a license, so not wanting kids riding in the streets is a rather legitimate fear due to how badly and carelessly people drive.

cooker

A bunch of old men ranting - these kids nowadays! It's an old refrain - I simply call it the old man rant.

If they are wimps, its because their parents don't let them do anything.

These parents nowadays!

Walter S

Yeah, it's amazing how fashion conscious the young ones are now. I grew up in the sixties and neither me nor most of my friends gave a hoot what brand of shoes or pants or jacket they wore. All that stuff is expensive. My parents bought discount no name stuff and we didn't expect different. Makes parenting expensive because it raises the cost of making your child feel adequate among their peers.

wolfchild

I think our schools are partly to blame due to the lack of physical education and physical training and a complete lack of discipline... When I was in elementary school and then high school, physical training was something that was compulsory and everybody had to participate, the only way to get excused from it was if you had a note from your doctor. Discipline was harsh at times.
I remember being involved in track and field events, strength calisthenics, gymnastic classes. We also had cadets where everybody would have to march and learn a military style discipline. Yes we even had target shooting with live ammo and yet there was no gun violence. I also walked and biked to school everyday. Good old days.

Walter S

Maybe. But maybe we as a society are trying to make the world a little too safe.

I had fun teenage years growing up at Savannah Beach, GA. Me and my friends had free reign of the island from one end to another. We rode bikes or walked everywhere. It was about a two mile walk to the main beach and I did that and walked home many times with zero supervision. I had a job for a while sweeping up the pool hall after it closed, which would keep me out late. I know from talking to and watching other parents today, that my situation would warrant family intervention or something.

People say the world is more dangerous now. I don't think so. There were perverts driving around trying to pickup kids for sex when I was growing up. But we knew how to recognize trouble and stay away from it. Don't get in the man's car for example. Go to a public area. The same risks were there. But now they've been hyped to death on far more tv channels than we had back then (3).

Walter S

YES!!! I had to participate and sometimes didn't want to and thought the whole thing was dumb. But things like that are among a number of important character building activities full of important lessons that make us all more than we are otherwise. We build confidence as children (or don't). And then that shapes our vision of the world as adults.

Above all, physical fitness is important! At least in a basic sense. Not everybody is an athlete.

Artkansas 

In the sixties, it was in Jr. High School that I became aware of all the clothing ads on the radio. Lee, HIS, Botany and other brands. In High School, I wanted to look good to attract the girls. It's nothing new.

wolfchild

When I was in high school we all had to wear uniforms and boys were required to have short hair. Fashionable clothing was for after school or for weekend fun. The bike locking area on the school grounds was always full and those who rode bicycles to school did so while wearing school uniform.

plumberroy

There is some truth to this But handing them everything with out having to work for it is a bigger problem.
At 12 or 13 I picked beans all summer (twice a week ) to pay for a pony and saddle . At 16 I baled hay and straw de tassled corn caught chickens (carrying 8 chickens at a time from truck to cage or vice versa) trapped muskrat in the winter gathered eggs or any other job I could find outside of flipping burgers Dad always knew of a place I could work when I said I wanted something . Now they want a living wage with out having to learn a skill or trade

Rowan

In many ways, treats have become the norm, rather than what they originally were meant to be, something to be revered and enjoyed as a reward.

But truly, it's the parents' fault. The kids are reflections of their parents' attitudes, mores and behaviours. It's been a gradual, incipient change through several generations. Dare I say it, two factors are at play here -- prosperity has created its own problems, and the lack if a world war since the mid-1940s has provided a security that people take for granted. That has to a degree resulted in the "every child wins a prize" ethos.

However, and this is a big one, there are still children who are dedicated, intelligent, have an affinity for work ethics and are well-adjusted. Which suggests there are still some dedicated, intelligent parents out there who also have an affinity for work ethics. I am sure most people here have access to sports grounds where juniors rock up every week, and of course, the Olympics are a pinnacle of achievement for generally young kids who have shown dedication, incredible skill and resilience.

And, just what are the grumpy old men going to do about it, except reminisce about their glory days in the sun?

lasauge 

I don't buy it. The kids in my neighborhood of townhomes are always outdoors playing, running around, and riding bikes when the weather is nice and they're not in school. I see them outside pretty much everyday when I arrive home from work or go out in the evenings to run errands. And if I have a bike in the workstand while my garage door is open, I regularly get polite requests for air/mechanical assistance, and I field lots of curious, honest questions about cycling in general. Maybe I'm just the weird grownup in the neighborhood who knows about bikes, but in my experience there's lots of interest among the youngsters in the possibility of getting to ride your bike to go places (much more fun than riding/driving a car!) Also, I work in a bike shop and can confirm that new kid's bikes are still big sellers, and old ones are often brought in for repairs, so apparently not every childhood has been reduced to endless hours looking at a TV/computer/phone.

If children (and their parents) these days aren't outdoors as much, or walking or riding to go places as they did in past decades, that's not because human nature has changed: it's because people live in places like my city where automobiles are the dominant lifeform, and if you're not in a car, you're treated like a second-class citizen. The culture of fear that defines the modern concept of parenting certainly doesn't encourage kids to be active or independent, but realistically, letting kids be active and independent really isn't safe in many places, because as a society we decided/acquiesced to the idea that making sure automobiles can travel swiftly without hindrance is priority number one in our public spaces.

Rowan

I will go further. Machka and I make it a point to attend the end-of-class performances by two of the dance schools in our city. This is where physical talent for kids from the age of 5 through to 25 are on display. Some of them are OK, but quite a few are magnificent and will carve out careers for themselves.

We watch "So You Think You Can Dance", and whether you like it or not, we think it's another great demonstration of work ethic.

And when we go to the theatre here, there are a lot of young people who putting in nice to great performances. We went to a presentation of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and the college kids in that were magnificent, especially a girl whose voice was simply angelic.

We wandered past a trio of jazz players on a street corner in Victoria, BC, a couple of weeks ago. These were kids and we just had to stop for 15 minutes to listen, their talent evident in spades. The mother of one of the kids was in the background of the crowd, and had lent her support by organising printing of T-shirts for the trio.

Further, schools and colleges everywhere are turning out kids who are going on to be professionals in medicine, the law, accounting, let alone developing IT businesses. It's not such a big leap to suggest the next generation will be doing the same thing.

I am just using these examples to show that kids are doing OK away from sports as well.

B. Carfree

I grew up in an upper-middle class suburb. I'm a boomer. I had friends who died of overdoses in middle school, one who killed another while high on bad drugs, several who died in car wrecks and a host who chose not to go to college even though it was either free or nearly so. Frankly, I think parents today do a decent job of shepherding their kids through the hazards of adolescence and childhood compared to what we had with our plethora of siblings.

As far as the Millennials go, I think these kids are awesome beyond my wildest dreams. When my son was age nine to fourteen he was more than happy to go on our fourteen mile family walks several times per week when we lived in the coast range; 700 feet of vertical gain in the first mile with never a complaint. He taught himself Japanese using the internet, a tool his peers use as natives, which led directly to my being granted honorary grandpa status by a wonderful Millennial woman from Japan. Sure, he spends a lot of time on the screen, just as his friends do, but they are mostly either writing code for programs they are creating or studying math or history. Like most of his Millennial friends, he has no license to drive and will never get one. When a friend got married a hundred miles away, he simply asked me for a decent route to get there by bike.

The Millennials are so far ahead of where we were it's scary. Maybe that's why so many old people spend so much effort dissing them. And let's not even broach their noteworthy lack of racism and homophobia, two trends among them that are already changing the US.

cooker

Wow, no 'old man rant' from Rowan - I'm impressed!

Walter S

Parents absorb fear from the mass media and spoon feed it to their children before they're old enough to talk. So by the time a child is potentially out and about in the world, they've usually been indoctrinated into this same mindset and feel overwhelmed by the idea of autonomy.

CliffordK

Apparently the FATHER had skipped the lesson when he was younger.

Unfortunately I have very few memories of working on bikes with my Father... But lots of memories of working on bikes as a kid. I think because by the time I was 10, I was doing essentially 100% of my bike maintenance by myself.

I'm trying to remember when I built my first wheel.

I don't think I built one between ages 15 and 18. I did build one at age 18. But, there probably was at least one before age 15.

My 8 yr old nephew is paying close attention to anything I make or repair. But I'm not sure how much he does with my brother... obviously some things... but....???? One certainly doesn't want to squash the curiosity.