And So Went Nurturing

Mom and dad abdicated their responsibilities, refused to leave behind their own childhoods, continued playing sports and dressing poorly and not practicing personal hygiene. Mom and dad have been replaced by a plethora of nihilists from Hollywood and MTV, criminals, and -- at best -- nannies.

Dads are weakened and cower under two generations of unbounded and inappropriate female aggression. Moms are lost in their confusion over what they innately know to be their responsibilities versus the unceasingly aggressive stridency that the women's movement has taught them must be their behavioral pattern.

Lawmakers and educators struggle to revive failing educational systems across the US. Businesses and labor unions are concerned that job seekers -- even those with college diplomas -- cannot function in the workplace. This is a crisis that will cripple American productivity and disable our nation's ability to compete globally.

A group of states organized by New York are developing a "work readiness" credential. Advocates of this superficial abstraction contend the credential will certify prospective employees' understanding of the importance of "soft skills" such as punctuality, an ability to accept supervision, and desire to work in a group. Michael Kauffman, an executive at Anoplate Corporation, a small metal manufacturer in New York said, "You'd think people would know to call in sick when they're not coming to work, but that's not always the case. We're having many more problems than in the past getting people who understand what it means to work in an office or a factory."

Chicago Public Schools' Office of Education's "To Careers" wants the state to join the national project. Program director and former Maytag Corp. and Motorola Inc. executive, Jill Wine-Banks, joined the city's school system mandated to incorporate "work readiness" skills into high schools. She says 60 Chicago high schools with about 55,000 students have started using short videos and workshops in classes to discuss negotiating with co-workers, speaking to clients and following directions.

At the Washington, DC-based National Association of Manufacturers, Phyllis Eisen says that schools should focus first on the three Rs, now known as "hard skills," without the newly identified "soft skills." Employers reported that 32% of job applicants possessed inadequate reading and writing skills, 69% lacked basic employability skills including reading with understanding, speaking clearly, actively listening and resolving conflict.

Mom and dad are dead. The nurturing, loving and caring of children, teaching right from wrong, appropriate versus inappropriate, is lost. What was thought to be natural parental instinct to train, nurture, and make sure that their children developed into successful adults, died over a generation ago. Today's parents simply pop out babies, perhaps hire a nanny, but more commonly desert their kids while they go out into the world of easy and phony accomplishment, working on quasi-unproductive jobs. Today's young adults, the parents of today's kids, are themselves products of two generations of parental abdication. The uncaring and inability of people to accept responsibility results from kids witnessing their parents failure to accept their responsibilities. Our two youngest generations validate these facts. They were not taught responsibility and saw their parents get away without accepting their responsibilities.

Soon our latest generation of irresponsible, juvenile-acting young adults will be armed with "certificates of work readiness" awarded by another bungling bureaucracy. Then they can do as they do when armed with driver's education certificates as they drive through red lights and stops signs and speed on streets and highways. Soon they will disrupt offices, fail to cooperate with coworkers, and not show up for work, yet demand a raise in salary.