Kay Hymowitz has a long and very interesting article in City Journal entitled, "It’s Morning After in America," in which she argues that the "Millenial Generation" (kids born between 1981 and 1999) are more Jimmy Stewart than James Dean:
Yet marketers who plumb people’s attitudes to predict trends are noticing something interesting about “Millennials,” the term that generation researchers Neil Howe and William Strauss invented for the cohort of kids born between 1981 and 1999: they’re looking more like Jimmy Stewart than James Dean. They adore their parents, they want to succeed, they’re optimistic, trusting, cooperative, dutiful, and civic-minded. “They’re going to ‘rebel’ by being, not worse, but better,” write Howe and Strauss...
Fed up with the fallout from the reign of “if it feels good, do it”—not only as it played out in the inner city but in troubled middle-class families across the land—Americans are looking more favorably on old-fashioned virtues like caution, self-restraint, commitment, and personal responsibility. They are in the midst of a fundamental shift in the cultural zeitgeist that is driving so many seemingly independent trends in crime, sex, drugs, and alcohol in the same positive direction.
Read the whole thing; it's very interesting. And while Hymowitz notes the changing trends in parental discipline and education in schools, she leaves out a growing trend that I think has a lot to do with producing more level-headed kids and more tightly-knit families: homeschooling. It's an odd admission, because Hymowitz does notice that parents want a more traditional and character-based education for their kids:
A 1999 Yankelovich survey found that 89 percent of Gen Xers think modern parents let kids get away with too much; 65 percent want to return to a more traditional sense of parental duty. “Character education” is hot in school districts across the country—as are the Girl Scouts, because, as official Courtney Shore told the Washington Times, “parents and communities are returning to values-based activities.” Today’s parenting magazines do a brisk trade in articles with titles like ARE YOU A PARENT OR A PUSHOVER? GET A DISCIPLINE MAKEOVER AND TEACHING YOUR CHILD RIGHT FROM WRONG.
"Character education"? "Values-based activities"? Sounds like a lot of the current motivating factors behind homeschooling to me.
Posted by kswygert at April 14, 2004 10:25 AM