Growing Up By Proxy (Bulldozer Parents and GenZ)

[mountaineer]

Mr. M and I just returned from a weekend retreat with the president of my alma mater. He described what the current crop of college students - GenZ - is all about, and that included the challenges of dealing with their "bulldozer" parents.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Growing Up By Proxy

    Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child’s path to success, so they don’t have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities. – NYT

Snowplowing, more appropriately known as bulldozing, is a large reason why millennials, and now the GenZ cohort, are having trouble in life and at work.

A third of millennials fail to even make it through their three-month probation periods. It appears when left to their own devices as young adults a great many of them fail to make the cut.   ...

    ‘Of the reasons for failing, 62 per cent is poor performance, 50 per cent is absence, 25 per cent is lateness and 30 per cent is gross misconduct.'

...     Experts say that members of Gen Z, born starting in about 1997, also show a striking lack of resiliency. Micromanaged by parents, teachers and coaches since they started school, they’re more sheltered and less independent than previous generations.

So it’s not just parents anymore. There’s an entire fleet of bulldozers out there, prepping the ground for youngsters before they’re allowed to take their first step into the real world; a team of enablers willing to scorch the earth if necessary to pave the way.

No matter how well-intentioned, removing all obstacles in order to provide short term protection results in psychologically fragile children who don’t know how to survive as they’ve never been required to develop coping mechanisms, never been left to their own devices to work through a problem. ...

Read the entire article at MOTUS Mirror


“Here I am in my very important House hearing wearing my ‘I’m 29 years old
and know way more than you old farts ever will’ face.”

[thackney]

Mr. M and I just returned from a weekend retreat with the president of my alma mater. He described what the current crop of college students - GenZ - is all about, and that included the challenges of dealing with their "bulldozer" parents. Snowplowing, more appropriately known as bulldozing, is a large reason why millennials, and now the GenZ cohort, are having trouble in life and at work.

A third of millennials fail to even make it through their three-month probation periods. It appears when left to their own devices as young adults a great many of them fail to make the cut.   ...So it’s not just parents anymore. There’s an entire fleet of bulldozers out there, prepping the ground for youngsters before they’re allowed to take their first step into the real world; a team of enablers willing to scorch the earth if necessary to pave the way.

No matter how well-intentioned, removing all obstacles in order to provide short term protection results in psychologically fragile children who don’t know how to survive as they’ve never been required to develop coping mechanisms, never been left to their own devices to work through a problem. ...

I have a plaque, carved in stone that has stayed at the bottom of the stairs for many years.  The kids, as they went to and from their bedrooms, saw it every day.  It says:

Prepare the Child for the Path, not the Path for the Child.

Our family has lived this their whole life.  My kids are amazed at how incompetent most of their peers are in basic life skills and decision making.

[Sanguine]

This is so true. Let me tell you about my niece.  She's about to start college. I hope she figures it out.

[mountaineer]

My kids are amazed at how incompetent most of their peers are in basic life skills and decision making.

That's the bottom line. Some of these young people seem to maintain an emotional age well below 12.

I'm so proud of my niece. Today is her 23rd birthday  - she has a very good paying job as a project manager for a major grocery chain (soon to be promoted and will double her salary) and bought a house a few months ago. She was homeschooled and graduated college at age 20. I suspect she - and your children - are relatively rare.