Spare Us, Grandparents Of The Future
If I had to choose, I’d rather talk to grandparents than parents. I’m sure the fact that I’m a grandfather myself — albeit a relatively young one at 52 — has a lot to do with it.
Today’s grandparents represent the last generation to rear children according to tradition as opposed to New Age psychobabble. They tell me stories, these venerable elders of ours, of the way “it” used to be and still can be. If we’d heed their stories, that is.
One of the more consistent things grandparents tell me is that although a certain level of rivalry between siblings is nothing new, the almost constant bickering, name-calling, tattling and even downright fighting typical of today’s siblings is new indeed. This makes grandparents sad, because the siblings in question are their grandchildren.
“What’s going on?” they ask. “How could things have changed so much in so short a period of time?”
I have a theory. But it’s one most grandparents aren’t going to like, because if I’m right, today’s grandparents are part of the problem. My theory: The force driving most sibling rivalry is greed.
Today’s parents, with more than a little assistance from grandparents, turn their children into greedy little materialists by buying them toy after toy after gadget after game after vehicle after gizmo, beginning before they’re born and lasting forever and ever, amen.
Because today’s parents feed the narcissistic spark that resides in the heart of every newborn, it grows into a flame, then a fire, and then a raging inferno. By age 4 or 5, the typical child is infected with King Midas syndrome — he’s a greedy little hoarder who can’t share unless forced to do so.
When I was 5, I had five toys I could call my own. Most people my age report between none and 10. According to our parents — today’s grandparents — we didn’t fight much over toys. That’s pretty much a cause-and-effect thing. To paraphrase a line from Kris Kristofferson’s country-rock classic, “Me and Bobbie McGee,” when you ain’t got much, you ain’t got much to lose.
In which case, sharing is not a problem.
But the more material things you acquire, the more likely you are to resent it when someone else acquires something you don’t have. The more likely you are to feel the other person’s good fortune isn’t “fair.” The more likely you are to be jealous, envious and covetous, and those are the themes around which today’s high levels of sibling conflict spin.
Take note, parents. Stop buying your children so many things. Stop throwing fuel on the fires of narcissism and materialism. At a certain (relatively low) level, “things” become a drug that anesthetizes the spirit. Make strong your children’s spirits by making, and keeping, them “poor.”
Now, need I repeat myself for the benefit of the grandparents in the audience?