Off The Cuff

A New Book Out…A “How To” For Young Adults

Posted by: From Arkansas in Are You Kidding Me? on Sep 03 2008

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I thought I had seen and heard about everything. I was wrong. There is a new book out by a couple of Canadian ladies who discovered that their children, some grown ups, did not know some of the more basic things in life. Frankly, this shocked me and then got me mad. I cannot believe that parents would actually allow kids to grow up so spoiled that they learned nothing of how to take care of themselves after they left home. Of course, the new statistics state that nearly half of college students go back home after they graduate. That makes more sense now. The truth is that I can see where the parents have let the kids down by not teaching them things they need to know just to survive in the world.

The thing that makes me so mad is that these ladies are making dollars now with a book of “How To” they should have taught their kids years ago. My kid is in her thirties now. I taught her to be independent and able to deal with life for herself. I am a member of a forum that talked about this very book. For one thing, the book teaches young adults…YOUNG ADULTS…how to wipe their butts when going to the bathroom. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Even the worst parent on the planet gets it across how to do that!!!! They are taught how to wash their hands too. One of the author’s kids thought they could survive on chicken wings and beer. He actually got scurvy. Know what that is? It’s a vitamin deficiency….C specifically. They had to learn that a person needs vitamin C or get really sick. He did……get sick. Then he learned. A hard lesson.

When I was young, I was taught how to cook, clean my room and dust furniture as well as learn to iron clothes for my father and mother. Soon after I got out on my own, I learned much more how to clean a house, care for a family. It comes with the territory or so I thought. But today’s young adults and teens are not taught most of these things. One person on the forum talked about their teen girls staying at their two friends’ house. The mother there was shocked that the older visiting girl put her dishes in the sink. That had been standard procedure at home. Mom at that house told her that her daughters not only did not put dishes in the sink, they screamed for mom to do it…..and she did it. That right there is the biggest problem. The parent doing the work the kid should be learning.

So this book, which I will not give the title to because I think that it’s just plain disgusting that it is even necessary, also teaches how to boil water, what a cookie sheet is and a whole lot more. It touches on managing finances and tying a Windsor knot for the guys who never wear ties unless they’re the clip on type. Perhaps some of the information is truly needed but isn’t it a crying shame that parents are not teaching such basic things like how to cook or take care of their allowance money. One of the authors of the book blamed it mostly on parents being Baby Boomers. WRONG! This is about parents who are so busy that they cannot take the time to teach their own kids how to survive in a world that is going to take them down if they do not learn these things.

Now before you get all up in the air about things, I also know that there are parents out there teaching these things to the kids but the kids do not want to hear it since their friends don’t have to learn tis stuff. Sometimes the parents are NOT to blame. And I do not want to even go there regarding the school systems in this country. It is not all about the parents but they do have some responsibility in all this. As long as the parents teach the basics, if Junior does not want to listen, then it’s all on Junior when he gets out there in the big world and does not have a clue what to do with his skid marked shorts on wash day.

When I noticed that the woman wanted to blame lack of time and the Boomers generation in general, I got mad. This woman did not teach her own children how to survive and is now making big bucks trying to teach other people’s children on the same subject. If I were those kids, I would be pretty mad at mom, wouldn’t you? Didn’t have time to teach the kids but now has plenty of time to not only write a book but time to market it as well. Uh huh. That dog won’t hunt. Are you kidding me?

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