I am PROUD to be Generation X!

Luckily, I do not fall into THIS category of Gen X'ers, who are a total bunch of fools.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30585984/

It absolutely sickens me to see parents who coddle their infants into this sad form of toddler narcissism, which can only be blamed on their parents. When those poor kids arrive in kindergarten and join a school environment, that behavior often gets labeled as hyperactivity, ADD, ADHD, ODD, or any number of mental health disorders, when really it all boils down to awful parenting from the get-go. It's all downhill from there. :(

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it can be turned around, but it is up to those same parents who caused the issue to take back the reigns and FIX IT FOR THEMSELVES! Have you even heard the phrase, "You made your bed, now lie in it"? I think that applies here. Of course, the real problem lies in getting the parents to realize that a problem even exists in the first place.

True story....

I am the mom who said to the vice-principal at one of my children schools last Friday (I'll withhold the name to protect the guilty!), "Go ahead and suspend _____ if you have to! If the behavior has warranted that punishment, I have no problem with that. It is high time that ______ learned that it's not going to be tolerated by YOU or by ME. If it affects _____'s permanent record, so be it. This is the fourth time in less than 10 days that we're having this conversation." The sad thing is, that I actually had to say this to the guy! (And no, this particular child did not end up suspended after all.)

I think this sort of parenting has molded our school system to fear these parents, as they're calling teachers and administrators, complaining that little Johnny or Janie isn't succeeding in school....HEY! Wake up, idiot! It's probably because your kid isn't applying themselves, not because the teachers not doing their job right! God forbid your kid get a bad grade on a test- why should the teacher give them a chance to do it over again?! Does your boss give you a chance for a do-over on a big presentation for a client?! Um, no. Maybe, instead of you handing them a wad of cash (because they sure didn't have to earn it by doing chores or anything constructive! *gasp*) and dropping your 11-yr-old off at the mall with his/her friends (why would a kid that young need to go there alone anyway?!), they could have got some studying done, actually learned the chapters and maybe even *GASP* ACED that test?!?!?! We are supposed to be prepping these kids for adulthood here. That's what human parents do. We're not raising our kids like wolves in the woods, where it really doesn't matter how one treats the others and survival of the fittest is the name of the game.

On the other hand, I am also the parent who, at the other child's school, has repeatedly gone to bat with that administration over their SERIOUSLY lax policies on bullying. I will wear out my tap-dancing shoes when it comes to protecting my children from something of which they are the victim. I will go to hell and back to be sure they are safe and secure. God help the other person who's on the other side of that coin, going up against Momma Bear, protecting her cubs! LOL I will not allow someone or something to hurt them in any way, if I can help it. I find it impossible to see how parents cannot delineate the difference between what behaviors belong to their children and that put them in a negative situation, and those that are created by others and leave them in a negative situation.

Maybe I just paid closer attention to my parenting manual...you know, the one they gave all of us when we left the hospital with our babies?