After the school shooting in Florida awhile back, my husband became engaged in a discussion on social media about gun control. He responded to a post a man made noting how frustrated the man was with the “thoughts and prayers” sentiments he kept seeing on social media in response to these senseless acts of violence. The implication in his post was that faith has nothing to do with the solution to these horrible acts of violence. Here’s my husband’s response:
“Guns have been around and available to every person in this country since it came to be. Why do you think that it is now that these shootings are becoming so prolific? It’s not our gun laws that are needing to be addressed here; it’s the morality of this country’s people. Laws won’t change a thing, as the people who perpetrate these acts are, after all, LAWLESS. If it’s not a gun, then it’s a car, knife or even a pencil as stated above. Drunk drivers have killed 100 times more people in this country, but nothing is being done…why?! The fact is that in American society today, there is too little value placed on human life, and Americans have had a complete lapse in moral judgment. Actually, this country needs God more than ever.”
I’m not interested in a debate about gun control, so please don’t go there; I mention it here to make a point. What I really connected with in my husband’s writing is the idea that morality is the thing that has changed since the early days. These awful things that are happening are senseless in that they don’t make logical sense. Instead, they are emotional acts borne out of misguided notions about how the world works. For instance, the sentiment of mass shooters seems to be that they have the right to hurt and kill other people when things don’t go their way or they get their feelings hurt somehow.
Any reasonable person knows that guns don’t kill people; rather, people kill people. Just like money is not the root of all evil; rather, people do evil things, and they sometimes use money to do those evil things. Similarly, I don’t think anyone would argue that bullying has contributed to the suicides of many young people. Words really do hurt, but the solution to bullying is not to take away the 1st Amendment that grants us freedom of speech. That would be ludicrous. No, the problem is not the rights and privileges granted to people; it’s the people themselves.
Guns have been around and accessible forever. Why now is there a near epidemic of senseless acts of violence such as mass shootings in places like schools, restaurants and even churches? And then a girl shot up a YouTube office in California because her videos were removed?! What in the world has happened? What’s changed? Where do people get the misguided notion that they have the right to take out their frustration on other people? I think it’s morality that has gone to pot.
There have always been bad guys who are morally corrupt and believe they have the right to do as they wish, regardless of the impact on others. I believe that it is this sense of entitlement that leads to perpetration and the violation of others’ rights.
Let me say that again: Entitlement is the problem.
Sadly, we now live in a culture of entitlement. The bottom line is this: People with a sense of entitlement believe it’s ok to hurt other people. Those who are entitled believe many other erroneous things as well, such as the world owes them something, things should go their way, they have a right to behave however they please regardless of the impact on others’ rights, people should treat them a certain way, they are better than other people and so on.
Guess what? The world owes you NOTHING. Not. A. Single. Thing.
Going through life with an “I’m going to get mine” attitude is ridiculous, selfish and delusional, for starters. There’s nothing to “get.” Instead, we should be kind to each other, we should treat each other with respect, we should have compassion toward each other. We shouldn’t hurt each other, we shouldn’t abuse each other, we shouldn’t bully each other. Unfortunately, not everyone lives by the Golden Rule, so the world doesn’t work this way. But if these or other such improprieties occur, it does NOT give us the right to hurt or kill other people in ANY form or fashion.
So, why now is entitlement so rampant? Why are we in such a moral crisis right now? A full discussion of this topic warrants an article of its own, but the contributor that’s most relevant to this discussion is the changing nature of human interaction, more specifically, parent-child interaction. Entitlement borne out of this dynamic has many sources, but here are a few:Children who are not taught manners. When you don’t teach your children manners, such as saying thank you, please, may I and so on, you are directly teaching them that people owe them things and they shouldn’t have to ask nicely or express gratitude.
- Children who have been sheltered. When children are sheltered, they are not exposed to the realities of the world until those realities are thrust upon them when they do enter the real world. When they enter the real world, it will not shelter them or protect them. They need to know that bad people exist, that there is evil in the world, that things aren’t always what they seem, that sometimes we fail no matter how hard we try and that they have to be cautious and learn how to protect themselves rather than expecting to be rescued or thinking they’re entitled to help. Your helicopter parenting is a set up for failure, so do your kid and all of humanity a favor and knock it off.
- Children who have been enabled and haven’t had to handle things for themselves. We all want our children to have it better than we did in some way or another, but catering to their every whim is setting them up for failure. That is, when we are gone or otherwise not available, our children have to fend for themselves. If we’ve always done it for them, they will become helpless in the world. The result is they don’t know how to survive failure and get back up, get on the horse and ride again, as it were. Teaching self-efficacy is one of primary goals of parenting. Enabled children become entitled adults, thinking that the world owes them something since they’ve always been able to get what they want from other people. Our kids have to learn the consequences of the real world—the earlier, the better, as the level of impact and potential pain increases exponentially with each passing year.
- Children who are not disciplined with rules, expectations, boundaries and appropriate consequences that are swift, consistent and relevant. When we don’t set children up to understand the consequences of the real world, we are setting them up to get their butts kicked by life and those in it. We are also not preparing them to set boundaries with others in their own lives, which can lead to them being taken advantage of or otherwise abused in countless ways. That’s a parenting fail for sure.
- Parents behaving badly. Children learn what they live. If children observe a parent mistreating a customer service representative or salesperson, talking down to another person, including the other parent, driving like a jerk or otherwise acting in an entitled way, they will believe this is acceptable behavior. Normal is what you know.
The question then becomes: How do we prevent these parenting failures and their resultant entitlements? Well, like many things, combating entitlement starts at home. Here are some ideas about how to accomplish this:
- Require your children to ask for things with a “please” and a “may I” and to receive them gratefully with a “thank you.”
- Teach them how to deal with disappointment in a graceful way, not an unkind or even rageful one. This involves helping them learn to take the perspective of another person or change their perception of a given situation. Essentially, we have to teach our children resilience by showing them how to reframe things that happen and move on, not let problems eat at them.
- Help them understand that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, that they’re not better (or worse) than anyone else, despite their blessings or lot in life.
- Train them on when, why and how to apologize.
- Teach them how to ask for forgiveness when they’ve hurt or wronged someone, even if they did so inadvertently or accidentally.
- Show them how to acknowledge the people and blessings for which they are grateful and how to maintain an attitude of gratitude even when things are rough.
- Teach them how to have empathy by making them part of humbling and awakening experiences, such as volunteering at a soup kitchen or shelter, to help them gain some perspective.
- Direct them in cleaning up after themselves. I know it’s easier to do it yourself sometimes, but you’re failing as a parent when you don’t help them learn to help themselves.
- Teach them responsibility by guiding them in completing chores as a member of the family.
- Engage them in experiences of kindness and generosity, such as helping a neighbor for free or donating their toys to children in need when they’ve outgrown the toys or don’t play with them anymore.
- Demonstrate saying “excuse me,” “pardon me,” or “I’m sorry” when you bump into another person, inadvertently cut them off while walking or have a near miss.
- Teach them accountability by rendering consequences when they behave in inappropriate ways. Don’t let them get away with mistreating people or property.
- Don’t behave in a way that conveys to your children that you are entitled. For example, don’t drive like you own the road. Do the simple things like use your blinker, avoid cutting people off while driving, get out of the left lane if people are passing you on the right and don’t lose your ever-loving when someone doesn’t drive the way you think they should.
- Teach your children good interpersonal skills. For instance, instruct them to look at people when they are speaking, avoid interrupting and be an active participant in the conversation.
- Avoid gossip or speaking negatively about other people when you don’t get your way.
- Model kindness by holding a door open for someone whose hands are full or even a random stranger as you are leaving a building and they are entering it. Say “excuse me” when you nearly hit another person with your shopping cart as you come out of an aisle. Say “pardon me” if you’re walking down a grocery store aisle and pass in front of someone who is looking across the aisle to the shelf on the other side.
You’ll notice that a lot of these things are just common courtesy. (I never said this was rocket science.) Unfortunately, however, common courtesy, like common sense, ain’t so common anymore.
If you don’t have children or yours are grown and out of the house, you can do these things with other children you encounter. I’ve been known to request manners from other people’s children, and I hope other parents do the same to my kids if they slip and forget their manners.
As I’ve said before, I’m personally waging war on entitlement. I’d love to have help, so please join me in working to eliminate the culture of entitlement in which we live by sharing this article. So many people indicated their hatred for entitlement after my last #thesecretlifeofapsychologist post, so let’s see how many of you are willing to fight with me and spread the word to make a difference. Godspeed!
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