[dead]
A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
31–40 of 727 posts
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#32Selfishness and Narcissism are IMHO the driving force for many of these estrangements.
It's just more of the same from the Boomers, or the Me generation. They people who fully embraced the Me generation raised a group of children who make the me generation look like communal hippies.
I work with people who are difficult at work because of their self centered view of the world, but when I listen to them talk about their families I am horrified by what they expect, to and from family members. I suspect that these people are a joy at work because nobody will tolerate their selfish behavior, so they need to behave.
Almost to a person these difficult people have limited interaction with their children, initiated by the children because of the parents toxic self centered nature.
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#33The world became big and complicated while the older generation was already fat on their success. It's very hard for a 55 year old manager of a small town bank to understand his daughter literally will not have the same opportunities he had as globalization eats all of the small town opportunities. She'll almost certainly have to move to a city and probably utilize computers all day, get a serious education in an eng…
I know middle-aged managers of small town banks. They are encouraging their children to take their careers completely differently.
You might see the entitled “just walk in and apply” from someone who worked their way up into an insulated position at a large Chase branch, but you won’t see it in a modest position in a small town that directly encounters dozens of struggling people every week.
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#34They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver... Philip Larkin. You ought to give credit when you quote something like this.
I honestly thought most people would recognize it. It just reads so well as a prose comment, that I didn't want to spoil its beauty.
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#35I don't think parent-child relationships were fundamentally better in the past, just read some Dickens or George Eliot or Henry James and you'll find plenty of agonizing both ways.
The article headline suggests there's a "shift" but doesn't really go into enough detail to explain why a shift from relationships based on duty to relationships based on fulfilment would fuel estrangement. A little more data on that would be helpful.
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#36Wonder how much of this is driven by social media and the internet today. The word 'Toxic' is just thrown around now and everything is 'Toxic'. Its a word that has ceased to have any real meaning but virtually every behavior that used to just be normal every day activity is Toxic. Everyone has flaws and no one has all the answers. Parents are just people doing the best they can and for the most part making what they think are the best decisions in the moment while struggling with everything that everyone else struggles with. Children want to put their parents on a pedestal and assume that all decisions; and any harm caused was intentional. There are of course bad parents and bad people and I don't mean to discount the effect that those people have on their kids. Social media is quick these days to tell you that your parents are narcissists when in reality they are just distracted trying to figure out what happened to their lives and trying to get by. At the end of every day I look back and see choices I made that were probably not great or see where I ignored my kid as I was trying to get something done for work. These things pile up and then are focused through the lens of the internet and suddenly you are a bad parent.
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#37The world became big and complicated while the older generation was already fat on their success. It's very hard for a 55 year old manager of a small town bank to understand his daughter literally will not have the same opportunities he had as globalization eats all of the small town opportunities. She'll almost certainly have to move to a city and probably utilize computers all day, get a serious education in an eng…
> It's very hard for a 55 year old manager of a small town bank to understand his daughter literally will not have the same opportunities he had as globalization eats all of the small town opportunities.
I am 50. I make good money as a software developer in an agrarian community of 50,000. I have 4 children with one left at home.
It IS (and has been) very clear to me that my children are having a harder time enjoying the same opportunities I have. Which makes me profoundly sad and frustrated. The comforts and excess I do enjoy, can't offset that, as much as I am willing to try.
So I'm not sure what the conclusion you're reaching here is? Are you saying that bank managers (and other moderately successful/wealthy people) are inherently self absorbed?
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#38>Estranged parents often tell me that their adult child is rewriting the history of their childhood, accusing them of things they didn’t do, and/or failing to acknowledge the ways in which the parent demonstrated their love and commitment. Adult children frequently say the parent is gaslighting them by not acknowledging the harm they caused or are still causing, failing to respect their boundaries, and/or being unwil…
The younger generation get social value by being the saddest person in the room.
Sometimes, their stories are rightfully so and deserve our help. other times they reframe their lives negatively just to win the social game of their generation.
Once they reframe they start to believe thier own narrative creating a vicious cycle.
The older generation, has their own problems in arrogance and ignorance, but they cant even fathom a society of young people who would compete on suffering.
The disconnect will grow.
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#39As someone that was raised in a highly religious home, I have to wonder how much of estrangement has to do with the younger generation's abandonment of religion. Go to nearly any church and you'll see the primary demographic is older individuals. In my younger days, it was quite a bit more even. Millennials and Gen Z have dumped religion and with it a lot of the social norms. For example, homosexuality. Most Millenni…
I grew up in Ireland and it was still very conservative and religious back in the late 70s to the late 80s of my youth. We only legalised divorce in 1997!
But since then there has been a sea change in attitudes. Marriage equality, abortion on demand, an openly gay man as premier. Little backlash against migrants even when the economy tanked in 07-08. But this did not cause much in the way of estrangement. Indeed I have seen the older generations change too, not just put up with things.
I can only speculate as to why. I think partly because people started to travel and see how things were better in other more enlightened countries and imported those values to Ireland. Life was also improving for most people as an amazing rate which leaves little reason to look for people to blame for things. The church destroyed it's own standing by being totally uncompromising in its attitude to change and covering up abuse.
I believe Ireland also looked on in horror at American politics descending into a complete shit-show with scant respect for the principles it once stood for. You must understand that up till the 90s most Irish thought the USA was the pinnacle of western society. We still hold great affection for the people in general and artistic culture and landscape but the toxic politics, uncompromising religious attitudes and so on are something we view as having held us back in the past and once we abandoned that or at least compromised we made progress.
Anyway, this is just a bit of a brain dump of one point of view. Take it as it is ;)
Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those who might not know the reference this is "This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Larkin
A little more digging finds that it was written in 1971, so echoing in a sense other comments on here that this isn't such a new observation
But "the verse" in question refers to the Old Testament: