Good morning.
I
had an illuminating email exchange with a faculty friend about the 1960s and
what that era wrought. He served as an
enlisted man (who "enlisted in order to get in on my choice of time, not
theirs"). That's an unusual
combination of experiences for one person—enlisted Army, later faculty—and it
made for a perspective one doesn't often find.
My friend began by writing (in
response to what I cannot now find—gmail searches don't work perfectly) that
the "60s changed everything, little
for the better, in my opinion." I
disagreed, and observed that what the 60s did bring was advances in the civil
rights movement and feminism. I regard
both of those as an increase in the quality of civilization. Some of the other stuff from the 60s is
forgettable (although I do look back on some of the 'rock' music with fondness—stuff
Elliott laughs at as quaint)."
My friend demurred, to some extent. "The good stuff about the 60s is easy to
remember, because it was imaginative, creative, and fun. It was also the transitional period to the
Two Cultures—and I don't mean the Sciences and the Humanities—never to be one
again. [He is referring to what has
become the chasm between the left and the right in American politics.] Examples are too obvious (like the Viet Nam War
now being replayed by Ken Burns and the rise of the radical Right). . . . A major exacerbating factor was the end of
conscription, a social force of significance and value lost for 'good.'"
His last point was one that I've thought about since I
was of draft age. "I've sometimes
wondered if we indeed did not lose something important with conscription. We know who goes into the armed services
these days--and it's not our children.
[By that, I meant the children of upper middle class white professionals.] I don't know if serving with people from all
socio-economic classes would ameliorate the divide we see—but I would think it
could do no harm."
My
friend recalled that he had "served 2 years in the Army between 1st and
subsequent years of grad school. I
wouldn't trade them for anything. I had
a great time, with active and rollicking relations with the uneducated. The experience was an education for all
concerned—in the enlisted ranks (officers associated with officers, and that
limits their perspectives as well as experience): as good for the mostly-drafted privileged as
for the real enlistees. This experience tended toward the sort of social
homogeneity and shared understanding that came with service for many in WW2. Conscription went out all too easily, in 1973,
accompanied by a lot of sophistry. . . .
There is virtually no other source of inter-class relations in our
culture except in the work area, and it is rare there."
I had then and still have mixed views. I had a deeply personal interest in the
draft, as did most young men in the late 1960s and early 1970s. "The great virtue of the draft ending in
1973 was that it ended at the same time my college deferment ended. Had the draft continued, I could have ended
up in Vietnam--and not meeting you ever or writing to you now. (My draft number was low, 69.)"
My friend said "I meant that I'd have fared the
worse for not being in service. When I
did my advanced training, I was lucky to do very well, because we got our
choice of assignment according to how well we did: Florida (which I didn't want), Germany (I
took one), the rest Korea, poor sods!"
Under those circumstances, I wrote, my attitude might have been
different. "If I'd had Germany (or
the U.S.) as a choice, I wouldn't have worried or objected. But being sent to step on some Viet Cong
booby trap wasn't part of my life plans."
My friend said he understood—but.
I
get your point, but one aspect of the irremediable division begun in the 1960s
was that almost the only Americans who went to Viet Nam were the lower classes
(few officers were from the lower classes, with exceptions). The American
privileged didn't have to go. The thing
about the half-drafted military was that two classes normally separate learned
to relate to each other, learned from each other, and came to share concerns
and sympathies; to some extent they coalesced: they co-Americanized. In a half-drafted military, there are a lot
of smart and educated people who don't put up with the bullshit the uneducated
accept as a matter of course. Without
them, the military is ideologically and intellectually limited severely, not
much less by the officers than by the non-coms, and EMs. If more of the privileged had gone to Viet
Nam, they would very likely have shortened the war by resistance and complaint,
and saved a lot of lives that should never have been lost, no matter whose they
were. I very much resented the superior
self-serving attitude of all the privileged students who sat through the war in
comfort. They were not part of the
solution then and they aren't now.
I think my friend's judgment of those of us "who sat
through the war in comfort" is too harsh.
I had anything but a "superior self-serving attitude"; rather,
my sentiment was to feel deeply sorry for those consigned to service in
Vietnam. By the time I was
draft-eligible, in 1969, much of the country already knew Vietnam was a losing
proposition and squandering American (and Vietnamese and a lot of other)
lives. I could never have claimed
conscientious-objector status because I don't believe that all war is unjust (I
think we had to enter WWII to eradicate almost unspeakable evil), but I sure
didn't want to see my life end as a result of a militarily unwinnable and
politically and historically indefensible war.
So the draft deferment was a godsend.
The larger point my friend made, however, seems to me to
be a valid one. The mixing function of
the military has been lost and it may indeed exacerbate social/economic class
differences. It wouldn't have to be the
military that helped address the division; national service of any kind could
do so—and help the country at the same time.
* * *
For those of us with a few years under our belts, this
site is worth a glance.
* * *
During my career at the University, I spent 36 years in
Morrill Hall, the central administration building. In the course of my work, I had offices on
the ground, first, second, third, and fourth floors. (Not the basement or the fifth floor, which
is essentially the attic.) One of the more
pleasant offices was the one on the ground floor, which had windows looking
across to the Physics building. I was in
that office from 1983-1986.
Most days of most professional careers blur together over
the decades for most people, I suspect.
I can, however, vividly recall one day in the ground-floor office. At that time, the University's marching band
reported to me. I had two local
reporters in my office on January 28, 1986, interviewing me and gathering
information on a soft, variety-type article on the band. One of them either had a cell phone or a
pager—I can't recall which—but somehow he learned quickly that the space
shuttle Challenger had exploded shortly after taking off. They apologized and rushed out of my office
to get downtown to the newspaper's offices.
I don't believe the article about the marching band was ever written.
In one of those odd coincidences in life, on January 15th
Kathy moved into that ground-floor office that I occupied over 30 years ago. I can assure you that when I was in it, I
wasn't thinking that my wife would move into it an eon later.
* * *
Elliott and I got into a friendly
exchange about Baby Boomers versus Millennials, prompted by an article on the
website nextavenue. The gist of the
article is the claim that Boomer parents gave their Millennial children
everything and owe them an apology (the italics are emphasis in the original; I
changed the font just to set it off more clearly):
Growing up we never got the attention you received. Our parents made us responsible to go figure it out. That caused us
continual struggle and disappointment. We rescued you from all of that!
We mapped out your childhood with
endless activities, sports and entertainment. When you were toddlers, we decided
what hobbies and sports you would participate in. We were intentional enough to
select activities that fit our own passions
so we could help you gain proficiency and enjoy the journey while you learned and we participated.
Nothing was too great of a need when it
came to your success. Our lofty expectations only matched the potential we saw
in you, even if you didn’t see it yourself.
Perhaps, however, it is time for boomer
parents to take a good hard look at what we did:
--
We decided to give our kids everything we didn’t have, and rejected
teaching them some of the hard lessons we did
have.
--
We insisted our kids succeed and make us proud according to our expectations, no matter how much
tough-love parenting we overlooked to ensure that raising them was fun.
--
We behaved like drone parents, seeking out and removing obstacles and
adversity to their success. Like growing a palm tree indoors, we protected them
from the wind, fertilized them and kept the storms away.
Now we push them outside and expect
them to handle the gales of real life.
Elliott had a rather tart response:
I not read the whole thing yet but
yes, I think Boomers did a real disservice to our generation by pampering them
too much. Yes, your generation did little
forward thinking and left us with a crap economy and a horrific wage disparity
but I do think my generation has less ambition and perseverance. Whether that
is due to learned helplessness on account of said economy or due to ego
inflation via social media, I not know. Probably
combination. I expect social media
specifically will have a lot to answer for in the coming decades.
But there is definitely truth to
the point. Boomer generation likes to
accuse us of not having work ethic or strength of character. But we weren't the ones handing out
participation trophies to ourselves and removing scorekeeping from little
league. That was all you guys.
I demurred. The description of Boomers didn't describe
us. I also pointed out that the guy who
wrote the "apology" was making claims without data or research or
evidence; it's an entirely impressionistic opinion. While we have bequeathed some bad things to
the next generations, as I wrote a few pages ago, it's the Boomers who also advanced the causes
of civil rights (and I use the term in a broad sense: feminism, race/ethnicity, GLBT) for example,
which many of us think made the world a better place.
The more I've thought about, the
less I agree with the author of the article.
If there's a group that was handed more than previous generations, it
was the Baby Boomers! (I acknowledge
that the debate here is applicable only to a certain socio-economic class,
largely white, post-WWII, and that there are millions in the country who had
nothing to start with or give to their children.) My experience, and I think that of many of my
friends, is that in general we were given much, and to a certain extent what
we've done with our children is replicate what our parents did. His claims about what we (Boomers) didn't
receive doesn't ring true for me.
I'm also unpersuaded about the
supposed lack of ambition among Millennials.
Pew has done a number of studies of Millennials; their findings run
counter to the claim about the perceived characteristics of the group.
A friend of mine (my vintage and
SES class, with three kids roughly Elliott's vintage) wrote to me when I asked
about this take on Boomers and Millennials.
He wrote a marvelous essay in response, part of which read as follows.
First, speaking only anecdotally, I
think there are significant differences between the way I grew up and the way
my kids grew up that will have an impact on them. Having said that, I don’t think it is
universal and perhaps not even as widespread as I think, but I do think it is
significant. . . . I think the culture reflects some of the
things that seem to be true to me, even if I have not seen data. The culture did not come up with concerns
about “participation trophies” and “helicopter parenting” out of thin air. I believe those ideas come out of observed
behaviors that are common enough that they got noticed.
My friend went on to reflect on his
own experiences, both as a kid and as a parent.
--
When I was a kid, in the summertime, we often got on our bikes at 9:00
in the morning, returned for lunch, took off again and were home (most of the
time) at the hour appointed by our parents to be home. Where we were between home stops was not a
particular concern of our parents. We
could be at a friend’s house, the school yard, a park, the shopping center, one
of two fairly convenient wooded areas, or looking for a steep hill to see how
fast we could go. My kids never did
that. Everything was organized for them
by their parents, the city, the rec department or what have you.
--
When I was 17 my best friend and I went to Europe. Before cell phones, obviously. For six weeks our parents had no idea where
we were or what we were doing. . . . When
our son . . . was 17 he went to Europe with three friends. Two of the families required their sons to
call every evening and tell them where they would be the next day.
--
When I was a kid, if a parent was in the school building, something was
up. Today, the schools (at least in
Edina) are crawling with parents. That
is a good thing from the aspect that it helps with tight budgets to have lots
of volunteer help. But when [my wife]
was a paraprofessional at the school and my brother-in-law was a teacher there,
it was also true that parents can really screw up a curriculum if they are
overly worried about their kid and how he or she is faring during the school
day.
-- I am wading into dangerous
waters here, I know, but when I was a kid, there were bullies. We all knew who they were. The teachers all knew who they were. The parents all knew who they were. We learned to cope. I think bullying can get out of hand and the
kind of bullying that goes on on-line can be especially harmful, long-lasting
and even dangerous. But I do think that
there is something to be said for learning to toughen up, to deal with
confrontation, etc. Not sure where the
happy medium is, but given some of the zero-tolerance rules for what passes as
bullying these days, I think we have missed the mark.
Of course, every family is
different and it is dangerous to draw broad conclusions from limited data, but
I also don’t believe that I was given the kind of “coddled” upbringing that
many kids get today. My parents were not
the most strict parents in my circle of friends growing up, but they were not
the least strict either. By today’s
standards, I think they were extremely strict.
But it was not in the way of helicopter parents watching our every move,
it was in the areas of frugality, honesty, hard work (particularly at home),
personal responsibility and the like. We
had a lot of freedom away from our parents.
But if you used that freedom in a way that was not acceptable, it was
more than a little problem.
Where I part company with Elliott,
I think, is that I do not think that it has harmed the work ethic or character
of kids today. My kids and their peers
have great work ethics and strong character, for the most part. There are exceptions, of course, but there
have always been exceptions. I suspect
that in the past, those persons just sort of faded away into obscurity or
dependency. With social media and the
like, we remain connected with all sorts of people and perhaps notice those
that we used to refer to as ne’er-do-wells more than in the past.
Where we may see the result of the
“pampering” is not in the lack of work ethic or character, but in the lack of
perspective about the world they are moving into. Not to pick on Elliott, because he is not
alone in this by any means, but we did not fail in our duty to exercise
“forward thinking” and deliver him into a crap economy or horrific wage
disparity any more than our parents delivered us into the high interest rates,
inflation and over-priced housing that characterized the late 70’s. We may have been born into a community filled with much more race
strife, oppression of women, not to mention a draft, which might compare
favorably to the crap economy and economic disparity that we see today, but I
am not sure how much of that we blamed on our parents lack of “forward
thinking.”
We didn’t owe him any more “forward
thinking” than any other generation and there is no reason to think that we
were any more capable of that than the last generation, or than the next one will be.
Having now shared way more thinking
on this than I intended, or than you wanted, I am left with some ambivalence on
the topic. I still think that there is
way too little freedom given to kids these days and parents would do well to
back off. But I am not confident that I
can identify a deficit in the next generation that has resulted from it. Are kids less self-reliant? I can’t even really say that.
Of course I
wrote back to my friend, and told him that the more I read, the more I think
it's a mixed bag. I agree completely
with one of the reader comments on the original article; paraphrased, it was an
assertion that one should be wary about such broad generalizations for so many
people. I also agreed with my friend that
we didn't raise our kids in such a way that they don't or won't work or don't
have the right ethics or aren't motivated.
I haven't seen that in either Krystin or Elliott (if anything, with
Krystin, it was motivation on steroids; she always wanted to work!) nor have I
seen it in the children of my friends.
I'm sort of inclined to agree that there's perhaps some kind of
difference that we can see, but it sure is hard to tell (1) how widespread it
is and (2) what effect if any that difference has had. I think any differences in upbringing may not
have had that much effect in terms of living their lives.
We did let our kids have certain
freedoms that other parents didn't. When
you actually look at the data on child abductions by strangers, for example,
you knew that wasn't an issue. They were
more likely to get hit by a car than abducted if they were walking to a
friend's home. We didn't worry much
about that. And they played in the back
yard in the dirt and sand with neighbor kids—just as I did when little. The only programmed activities we had for
Krystin was sports—hockey and soccer—and that's because *she* wanted to do
them, not because we pushed her into them.
(I found the ice hockey fun and the soccer boring.) Elliott didn't like sports and the only
activity we urged on him was different art classes and tutors. We didn't have to work hard to persuade him
because he liked those things. (We did
make him go to a couple of summer camps.
But not after he made it clear he didn't like them. Krystin, on the other hand, loved them.)
Elliott agreed with my friend. "I didn't say we don't have work ethic.
I said your generation likes to accuse us of having no work ethic. I don't
think that's true." I told him that
I wonder who it is that accuses Millennials of not having a work ethic. Is this a broadside against the
generation? By whom? Again, acknowledging the SES of the circles I
move in, I've never heard any of my peers make any such claim. And I suspect the social scientists among
them would pooh-pooh it.
Elliott also agreed with my friend
about bullying.
I do however agree completely with
his point on bullying and think we (not me) are far too sensitive and have
little to no resilience hardship because of the pampering we've received. Between being told we're all special and we're
all winners and having parents hovering around all over the place like he
mentioned, we have far fewer opportunities to fall on our faces and pick
ourselves back up.
I part
company with both of them on this point, although where to draw the line
between the normal teasing that goes on with kids and bullying that's harmful
is not clear. It's also much easier to
take a "toughen up" stance when one is a white male—and in their
cases, physically good-sized white males.
Bullies don't typically pick on big, strong males. I have read only lightly about bullying in
schools, but I am sympathetic to the plight of students who are different in
some way who are bullied. The schools should
indeed take an active position to prevent it and visit consequences on those
who engage in it. (The consequences
could be educational, not punishment. I
don't know enough about the subject to know what works.)
I wonder how many times in history
the approach to child-rearing has changed.
(I'm still talking here about the affluent, of course--the poor in every
society in history works from birth to death, starting at a young age, except
in countries that have taken active steps to prevent child labor and that have
retirement plans of some kind. Even
then, the poor aren't probably giving a lot of thought to different approaches
to child-rearing.) How did affluent
ancient Greeks do it? Well-to-do
Romans? Medieval nobility? The middle and upper classes in Victorian
England? Wealthy Japanese and Chinese in
the 14-18th centuries? I
suspect, too, that with each change, the previous generation thinks the changes
are dreadful and will lead to the decline of civilization.
* * *
Tom
Jacobs, writing in Pacific Standard,
reported on research out of Syracuse University: "Your College Major Predicts Midlife
Health." What the research found
was that people who majored in business (the highest correlate with good
health), "architecture/engineering, biology/life sciences, business,
and . . .
communications/journalism" were in the best shape 25 years after
graduating.
The
fields with the graduates in the worst shape?
Those in psychology/social work and law/public policy. (However, the researchers identified the
health status of people who obtained a bachelor's degree but no more; I'm not
sure what "law/public policy" means at the level of an undergraduate
degree.) A third field or grouping of
graduates with worse health status were those in health fields, which of course
seems ironic. "Two majors are
particularly disadvantaged in midlife.
The odds of poor health are 1.9 times greater among psychology/social
work and law/public policy majors compared to business majors."
What
they also found, which is not a new finding, is that better health accompanies
higher levels of education. "All
college graduates, regardless of major, report better functioning than
non-graduates. We also find that
inequalities in midlife functioning across majors largely reflect differences
in human capital skills and financial returns in the labor market." ("Does college major matter for women's
and men's health in midlife? Examining the horizontal dimensions of educational
attainment." Social Science and
Medicine)
Drawing
on the American Community Survey—part of the U.S. Census—they had 667,362
people between ages 45 and 64 who obtained a bachelor's degree and no advanced
degree. That's a huge sample.
There
may be reasons for the correlations—and that's all they are, correlations, as
the researchers point out. Those who
come out of psychology "tend to suffer from 'high unemployment and low
earnings'; they also 'tend to score high on neuroticism,' which is
"robustly associated with poor physical and mental health." Many law/public policy graduates go into law
enforcement; health majors are often nurses.
They note that "both professions are high-stress and often entail
working odd hours, both of which can contribute to poor health."
They
looked at four "pathways" that could link college major to mid-life
health status, pathways that have been well documented in the research
literature over many years. First is
economic security (there's a large difference in incomes earned by people that
varies with their college major, which could be related to health status). Second is employment and human capital
(graduates in certain fields are more employable, or have a set of skills that
make them so, and jobs can bring resources that support health). Third is "psychosocial resources"
(in this case, whether one is married or not).
Fourth is geography (which "may be important because adult health
is shaped by area of residence and college majors are unevenly distributed
across areas of the country," one example being an urban-rural
divide). The authors hypothesize that
these four factors go a long way to explaining health differences across
fields.
Inasmuch as I have a spouse and a
son who both have degrees in art/art history, I was curious about the health
status of graduates in those fields.
They're in the middle of the pack.
In case you're interested, here's an
interesting graph on employment and income by major. (2015, taken from another study by a
highly-respected author who studies higher education enrollment and
outcomes.) People with degrees in the
arts (along with psychology/social work and humanities/liberal arts) have high
unemployment and lower incomes (no surprise to anyone, I suspect), but aren't
on the bottom of the scale in health status.
So people in the arts must have other kinds of resources to draw on that
keeps them in relatively good health in middle age. On the other hand, people in health fields
have high employment and reasonable earnings, so it's other aspects of the work
that are driving their comparatively poor health.
One reason
there may be considerable variance in the data is that college major in many
cases doesn't reflect eventual career.
As one of my faculty colleagues pointed out about a recent presidential
election (not 2016—maybe 2004 or 2008, I'm not sure), the four major-party
candidates for president and vice president had degrees in Philosophy, English,
and History (true, they also had advanced degrees, which this study
excluded). Kathy's degree is in Art
History but she does highly technical web work.
Krystin's degree was in History but she worked in grants
management. That story can be repeated a
million times, at least. It's an
interesting set of data, but I sure wouldn't advise any undergraduate to choose
his or her major based on predicted health status in middle age!
Gary
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