Maybe it’s the weather or coincidence, but recently, 3 women in my acquaintance have reported issues, 2 pretty serious, resulting from a common cause: mothers spoiling their daughters rotten and getting bitten in the backside as a result.
At least, this is the explanation which the mothers, or friends of theirs, offer for behavior that seems on the surface to be totally off the wall.
Like, a woman in her mid-twenties who’s been driving an unregistered, uninsured car – on company business. Or a 17 year old who is so hostile to her mother, including threats of bodily harm, that in-patient psych was required. Or another teenager who “doesn’t get it” when her unemployed, single parent Mom tells her there’s no money for cosmetics, fancy clothes and other luxuries.
It seems odd to be hearing about so many incidents in my limited circle of intimates, especially involving girls/young women. Bad behavior by children is not something generally discussed among acquaintances, so I can only surmise there is a whole lot more of this happening that I haven’t heard about.
There’s no question, things are harder for the young people than when I was growing up, and the consequences of youthful mistakes are a lot harsher.
Also, these particular incidents do reflect naivete, self-absorption and an unwillingness to deal with reality, and none of these are especially unusual in young folk, especially when limits haven’t been set by their parents.
To be honest, I find myself stymied by reality more often than not these days, and frustrated to the point of occasional depression with events that impact me personally being out of my control.
I have the advantage of being able to cope better than these younger women, and maybe that’s the advantage of age and experience: not necessarily succeeding, but coping.
Back to the issue of setting limits: this seems to have been difficult, especially for the 3 mothers in the psychodramas described above.
Changing times aside, it’s easier to play the martyr and gripe to your husband, if you have one, and your friends than to put the effort into learning how to communicate effectively.
Similarly, it’s easier not to fight male chauvinism in the workplace and fight your way to a decent-paying job.
I don’t know whether women today are more overloaded with care and responsibility than in the past. They certainly have less time to spend with their kids than their own mothers probably did. For working mothers in particular, most of whom are stuck in office jobs, there is so much energy-draining BS that goes on in the course of a day, that these women don’t want to deal with more of it when they get home.
The fact that young people are so infantalized and catered to by the culture generally doesn’t help. Adolescence has been extended, pitting the natural instinct for independence against societal customs that keep young people from real responsibility. And once they are on their own, the American worship of “independence” rather than the support of extended family pushes them into financial obligations and social situations which, if not dealt with competently, can have long-lasting ill effects.
So, our young people grow up in a consumer-driven fantasy, ill-prepared to deal with the actual world.
Spoiled? Maybe. But it seems more, to me at least, to be a matter of not being given the right survival skills and education. That, plus the absence of any effective resolution of the anger which I think simmers in young people who are being pushed into an increasingly competitive world, with less and less hope of succeeding.