Stand up straight!

The other day I drove by a couple of young teens slouching along the side of the road, shoulders bent, backs swayed, pants deliberately shoved down to cling desperately to the slight curve of young hips. Every nuance in the posture of the young people screamed disrespect, contempt, calculated boredom.

No doubt pursuing his ambition to be a Fortune 500 president.

So very very cool.

So very very tragic.

Our children are allowed to spend inordinate amounts of time and energy learning to shuffle, to slouch, to mumble and swear, to ape the mannerisms of the losers and the posers and the felons in society. How does mimicking the actions of an ex-con prepare you for a good life, much less a happy one? Instead of using the idyllic time of adolescence to develop and practice the characteristics of success, they are all diligently struggling to bury any normal attitude of youthful exuberance under a crappy haircut dyed like a Bozo the Clown wig, or collecting tattoos in what are known as "sleeves."

This is our fault. OURS. The adults in the room. From parents to educators to relatives to next door neighbors - these children are our fault. We are standing by and allowing our children to destroy themselves, to poison the precious enthusiasm of youth, to immerse themselves in a culture of nihilism and indulgence and impulsivity.

If it feels good, do it.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

And no one says a word.

In school we have abandoned posture, most reasonable dress codes, and virtually all language restraints. We don't even have penmanship class anymore, for crying out loud! What, exactly, IS being asked of our children that would actually require them to exert a character-building level of self-restraint and discipline?

Nothing.

Not. One. Thing.

Parents have lost control, and then threatened schools with lawsuits if anyone dares to regain that control. If I can't control my own kid, you sure as hell aren't going to! So there!

But there is great, deep tragedy in all this. These children will often mature into adults who, even if they pull it together enough to find a job that keeps them off the streets, will spend their entire lives angry, threatened, feeling cheapened and disrespected even as they cheapen and disrespect themselves and everyone around them.

What a terrible waste.

So what should we be insuring these kids learn?

 Grit. True grit.

And posture. So stand up straight, for pity's sake!

Our kids need to get tough instead of just act tough. They need to learn the importance of throwing their shoulders back and holding their heads high. They need to believe that they have earned the right to hold their heads high.

But you can't do that if everything you encounter is supposed to indulge you or simply be fun. Self-respect doesn't come from watching Sesame Street, even if learning to spell does. Self-respect comes from doing things which we believed were too hard for us before we accepted the challenge to do them...and then learning that we can grow to be larger than the challenge.

So yeah...I blame Sesame Street for the collapse of society.

For lots of reasons.

Let's count them...HA! HA! HA! HA!