Like millions of Americans, I have been touched and inspired by the story of Randy Pausch and his national bestseller, The Last Lecture. Randy recently lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, but not before leaving behind a powerful legacy to his children and poignant insights for the rest of us. His Last Lecture, as described on the jacket cover, is about “the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others and seizing every moment.”
Randy has strong advice for our kids…
On a recent return trip from Boston to Austin, I picked Randy’s book up in the airport bookstore. I’d nearly finished it by the time we landed. I immediately passed it on to The Husband and The Tall One is next in line.
In addition to asking adults to rethink their lives, Randy has strong advice for our kids who haven’t yet entirely started living theirs. The following is one of my favorites:
No job is beneath you.
The Tall One is sixteen and will be returning to school in the fall as a junior. He’ll also be joining the work force for the first time. He’s not thrilled with this news. Like most kids, he’d rather we shove an envelope of money under his door and let him be. But understanding this will never happen, he’s resolved to get a job. There’s just one problem: He doesn’t want to start at the bottom.
To date, we’ve been unsuccessful convincing him that sixteen-year-olds have limited options.
So naturally, I cheered out loud in my coach seat when Randy addressed the “growing sense of entitlement among young people today.” The Husband and I have often wondered about this; where does this attitude come from? In our case, The Tall One is surrounded by educated and career-minded adults, yet our strong work ethic seems to have skipped over his generation. I don’t get it.
Our strong work ethic has skipped over his generation.
The Husband and I go back and forth on how much we should ride the kid. Trying to instill motivation and humility is exhausting work and to be honest, there are many days when our fatigue wins out and we say– Forget it! Let him fail or succeed on his terms.
Randy calls this giving up.
“When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you,” he writes. I would never want The Tall One to come to the realization that his parents had thrown in the towel– that we no longer believed in his potential.
So, enjoy the final three weeks of summer, Tall One. After that, I suggest you brush up on your hospitality and coffee-making skills. You’re going to have to work hard for that corner office.
And you can thank Randy for that.
Tags: Hyperion, Randy_Pausch, The_Last_Lecture
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Wow. Wow. Wow. You have hit home with me. We are going through the same exact thing with my stepson. The problem for me is that I am the only one riding him. It seems as if his other parents expect less and less of him as he delivers less and less. When he does poorly his other parents fall back on saying “he’s a boy” and shrug it off as if it’s just to be expected from all boys. It’s become a crazy situation. I worry about his future since he has so little drive. I’m really tired of being perceived as the evil woman who enforces grounding. I actually told him few weeks ago that he is lucky that I didn’t give birth to him because he would be grounded most of the time and that his little brothers and sisters will be if they do the things he does (or doesn’t do). I’m worried about him and can’t figure out what to do. I don’t want to give up on him.
Why should we let our sons- step or otherwise- slide? It’s our responsibility, isn’t it, to raise men– not little boys? We do them a disservice if we don’t at least try to prepare them to be the kind of men we admire– competent, independent, hard-working and grateful.
IR
Parents and society have created this, and few people admit that it is a problem. I see it at school all the time – parents who do “anything” for their “little girl/boy”: excuse them from school at their whim, do their hw for them (seriously), buy them everything they ask for as well as stuff they don’t, and the biggest one…they let them talk to their parents disrespectfully and they never get punished for anything. Everything is always someone else’s fault, and it is the parent’s that tell the kids that.
Very few are ever forced to take responsibility for anything, and the ones that are take on too much including raising younger siblings and working to feed the family as well as a full load of AP classes to try and get into college.
Somewhere there has to be a happy medium, but parents aren’t looking for it because *most* don’t see it as a problem.
Izzy Rose you are so right on and thank you so much for bringing up this subject of many of the teens today feeling privilaged. There is a book out (that I have yet to read, it is on my list) about this subject and it is called “The Price of Privelage”. I am drawing a blank on the authors name, but I have read a number of her articles and she talks about this very same thing in regards to todays teens. Thanks again for making us think.
Dear Izzy: I remember an older colleague recommending to me that the best thing you can do with a stubborn child is to do what you can and then leave them alone. I loved that notion, because I was tired and defeated, but I came to realize it didn’t work for her and it wasn’t the best thing in my case and with my step. You have to hang in there and that’s hard work. But if you are lucky one day you finally emerge from some really cruddy times and you have an honest, loving relationship with this kid you wanted to so desperately toss back to her mother.Have faith.
Susana Juanita
Izzy, I think I will be going out to buy that book! I thought it was just my 16 year old! Right now the big struggle is school, she will only do home work for teachers that she deems worthy! She is very excited that her math teacher this year “knows more than she does about math”! We keep telling her, your “stupid” teacher can still fail you for not turning in your super easy homework, so why not do it!
When I think back to “best practices” when my 16 yr old was a baby, it’s no wonder that they feel such a sense of entitlement. We were very concerned about self esteem and never criticized or corrected too much for fear of damaging fragile egos, as well as a multitude of other over indulgences. I don’t know if that was such a great plan………
oh please, all of you wonderful sweet ladies – tell me i have found the help i need! i am engaged to a wonderful man with a 14 year old daughter. she’s basically a good kid and i genuinely care about her and want to do what’s best for her. I have no children of my own, so i’ve had to go from zero to one hundred (or fourteen) almost instantly. Between the daughter trying to play me to get around her parents, the father being in denial about his little girl becoming a woman, and the mother deliberately undermining the father’s ability to parent, it’s making me more than a little overwhelmed…and that has me wondering if shouldn’t wait four more years to marry him. i’m still trying to figure out where i fit into all of this – when i have a right to step in and say something and when i have to step back and let them work it out. the father, daughter and i will be living in the same house in a month. i’m tempted to move in first and change the locks.
i know i love this man and i truly want to be a positive part of his daughter’s life. i just don’t know how this all works. if anyone out there can share their advice (other than hold the vermouth and make it dirty…) or could share their story, it would be appreciated more than you know. (and exactly how much you know). many thanks!
Izzy, you are right on about Randy Pausch’s book. He’s got a whole slew of awesome stuff in there, and my stepdaughter made her way through it with the tissue box. It’s an inspiring book that we can all get something out of.
Wish we still lived in Austin so that I could attend your stepmothering events…