Modern American youth may be "richer, better educated and healthier than any other generation, but many are emotionally, morally and spiritually deprived," says William Muehlenberg. They lack manners, fellow feeling, and due respect for authority. They are often isolated, and in despair, as parents pursue ecstatic capitalism, spending long hours at the workplace as if it is the arena of all meaningful achievement and validation in life. Adults don't guide them into communities of shared meaning and shared values. The individuality of the child is celebrated. Children are encouraged to "find their own way," while pop culture lures them with enticing fantasies and corrupting influences. It's cool to be "tough," to display an "I don't need nobody" individualism, while underneath they are hurting and needy.
That's the message of "Liberation's Children: Parents and Kids in a Post-Modern Age," by Kay Hymowitz, Contributing editor of City Journal, and a Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow. The book's page on Amazon.com is interesting. Hymowitz's "fundamental axiom is this: that all (good) child development depends on a transmitted morality based on self-denial and self-discipline. The only way to achieve these is not to depend on the 'inherent' capacity of children to develop these, but, instead, on powerful, care-giving, available adult(s) who decline to take shortcuts, and who take moral stands in their lives."
Tucker Andersen writes in a review of the book: "Somehow we as a society have not accepted the fact that the greater the freedom in a society, the greater is the need for a firm personal internalization of the agreed upon moral precepts and shared cultural values which are necessary for the society to effectively function."
In his review, Muehlenberg observes that Hymowitz's chapter on tweens "makes for chilling reading. Children between eight and twelve are effectively being robbed of their childhood and preadolescence. They are being forced to become teenagers prematurely. Much of this is due to the tremendous pressure of popular culture, advertising, consumerism and mass marketing. Kids today are heavily targeted by the corporate world, urged to get the "look" and all that goes with it. The worst thing for a tween today is not to be cool. And the ones who make a financial killing off our kids (and their parents) are determining what is cool."
"Thus every ten-year-old wants the look, even though it may mean forcing young girls to look like prostitutes. Cosmetics companies, clothing manufacturers, the music industry and fast-food conglomerates all conspire against our children, promoting shameless hedonism and individualism. The hooker look is in, and common values and decency are out."
"Absent parents, powerful peer pressure, and a greedy and rapacious corporate culture makes for a bad mix," Muehlenberg observes. "Kids as a result are growing up in a moral and spiritual wasteland."
"Today's children are groping for values in a world that promotes work over family and self-expression over love," says reviewer Madelene Towne.
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