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Repost @victorrasuk #helicoptering 😁🚁🚁🚁🚁 #victorrasuk

Convenience is the only positive to what’s going on in the microwave. It changes the molecular structure of your food, and pretty much everything made to be cooked in the microwave is total crap nutritionally speaking. But even knowing this we still use it. Honestly wouldn’t you feel safer having your child use it over the stove or oven?? At least until they are older anyway.

an amazing tripartite sanctimommy in one topic!

#nobody tell this silly bitch about the Maillard reaction or caramelization #grocery store people #convenience = death #helicoptering #things that don't work that way for 200 #shit portland mamas say

Give Us Today Our Daily Entitlement Programs (4 of 5)

Below you will fin Part 4 of 5 in a series on Entitlement. Click here for the first in the series

Part 4: Helicoptering our Children into Indulgence and Apathy

It is amazing how many young (and old) adults I know, whose parents experienced the sting of 'want' and provided everything they could for their children; yet when these children 'mature' they lack the character and determination of their parents. "Boomerang-ers" as some magazines have dubbed them, are children returning to live with their parents in their 20's, 30's and even 40's. This is coupled with the statistical delay in adolescents...usually lasting closer to 30. This is all compounded by the phenomenon of helicopter parenting - parents that follow their children around, doing everything for them and sheltering them from the stings in life. I was in a conversation with a friend last week and he told me HR departments are now trainning employers for helicopter interviews...this is were parents actually accompany their adult children to an interview to coach them through it!

It is no wonder why we are a stunted generation. One of the biggest reasons for this delay can be linked to entitlement. (For a harsh, and coarse, critique of this...see the blog "Are You Raising a Douchbag?") Call it welfare, call it handouts...but the same problems we see in 30 year-old children, incapable of caring for themselves and becoming producers instead of consumers is the same dynamic at work with the systemically poor classes of America. In fact, just yesterday I was in a conversation about helicopter parents (those who hover) coming with their children to help on job interviews! The main difference dividing them is a systemic one; while 30 year-old silver-spooners have advocates and avenues to help them crawl out of the pit of perpetual dependence, the systemic poor do not. In fact, I would argue that the way our system functions and the attitudes of many civil servants feed the problem of perpetual dependence.

I think Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) on 30 Rock put it the best:

"We are an immigrant nation. The first generation works their fingers to the bone, making things; the next generation goes to college and innovates new ideas; the third generation…snowboards and takes improv classes.” - Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock

Obviously there is a balance that needs to be struck between self-determination and provision. I grew up in an impoverished neighborhood and had to fend for myself many a time. Knowing the pain that such a struggle entails I wish the best for my children (as most parents do). We always want to do better by our children than our personal experience. The problem is...sometimes this feeling extends down to the minutia of discipline and entertainment...and we seldom differentiate between "I'm not going to make my children feel the sting of working at 14 and going to school" or "I will never let my kids be malnourished the way I was" and "I will never reprimand my child and make them feel bad about what they did" or "It sucked not getting to go to Chuck-E-Cheese once a week for dinner...my kids will have a better life".

Such attitudes, whether we own them or not, prevail. These dispositions reinforce the fact that as a society what we value as the "good life" is not much more than material gain. If you look at the Declaration of Independence's clause regarding "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and contrast it with John Locke's treatise (the inspiration for our great document) "Life, liberty and the pursuit of property" you might understand quickly that we have a legacy of defining happiness and wholeness through material possession. This may have something to do with the rationale behind parents working over time, taking second jobs and unnecessarily being dual income households at the expense of time with there children.

We define happiness by the capacity of our bank accounts...not the quality of our relationships.

Let's be clear here - when this happens we are literally saying (in possibly the most concrete of ways) "I value a new VW or iPhone more than my children." I hate to be so blunt and provocative...but unless we find our selves in true financial need of taking more hours or two jobs or daycare for the kids so we can both work, this is the statement we endorse. So it comes down to "need" - I do not think having two Jet Skis counts as need...enrolling you kids in 8 extracurricular activities does not count as need, insisting you buy all of your furniture at the Pottery Barn does not count as need.

The clearest solution here is a revaluation of what we value...at every level. If we do this for our own families we will vote and write legislature this way. Secondly, remembering the reverence and wisdom of 30 Rock, we must find a healthy balance of providing for our children while refraining from indulging them. I truly don't want my daughters growing up in the same neighborhoods I did or mixing with the colorful characters of my former association...however, I know that if I insulate them and try to feel pain, failure and defeat for them instead of support them in it I will be guilty of setting up another instance of dependency and entitlement. Perspective seems to count a lot here...both in parenting and economy. If our goal is comfort, we will always carter to and shelter our children; we will always use cash injections, corporate welfare and "handouts" to shield us from the sting of failure (as in failed banking institutions, failed corporations and failed social systems that do things like...spending more on correctional institutions than higher education) instead of learning from mistakes and pursuing the path to maturity. The goal then must be MATURITY - not comfort of happiness. This is the problem we face in churches across America today...we want to cater to peoples needs, not produce mature disciples that look, act and talk the way Jesus did. After all, isn't that the goal of the whole thing? Colossians 2:6-7; Ephesians 4:1-19