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January 2007  Frisco, Colorado

The guy who manages our building has to deal with them daily. Jim has to deal with them often. And I have run into so many of them in the last few years that I have developed an understanding of why they are who they are. I have compassion for them because I think I know what happened to them.

My generation has raised a generation of orphans.

I know that is a broad statement and I hope it doesn’t offend you. If you belong to my generation and you have raised solid kids please, exempt yourself from that statement and take pride that you have equipped your children to live in a civilized society.

I’m not quite sure how we did it but the generation that was bearing children during the 60s, 70s and 80s has missed some major points in our child rearing techniques. Maybe it’s because we were a rebellious generation that didn’t want to raise kids the way we were raised. Maybe it is because so many of us had to parent without spouses or extended family help. Maybe we let the orphans parent themselves while we were busy getting ahead or just plain getting by. Or maybe we just got lazy and turned the responsibilities of parenting over to teachers, coaches, and the orphan’s peers. Whatever the causes, we have missed the boat on this one. We have left a generation of orphans in our wake.

You can see them everywhere. They are the young adults who never got lessons in common sense. They are the kids who never learned gratitude, never learned courtesy, never learned the Golden Rule. No one ever taught them the things we learned when we were children. “Be nice to your brother, Tommy.” “Don’t forget to say please and thank you.” “Put that back where you found it. It doesn’t belong to you.” “How would that make you feel?” “Pick up after yourself.” “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, you need to apologize.” “Play fair.” “Share.” “Do the right thing.”

Here in Frisco our building manager deals with orphans who pool their resources to rent a small condo while they spend time on the ski slopes. Building rules don’t apply to these kids who are busy trashing the unit. The manager has been inside their place several times because they often leave water running in the tub or a toilet running and when he mentions the problem to them they give him blank stares as if they can’t comprehend why these things would be a problem.

Jim runs into the orphans on the jobsite often. Like the guys who can’t pick up after themselves then step off ladders only to twist an ankle on the debris on the floor. Or the kids who come to work and have to borrow tools or warm clothing just because they partied too late and don’t remember where they left their stuff. Jim occasionally has to explain why he can’t give the kid credit for the half hour he was late to work and the half hour it took to gather enough stuff to do his job. Some of the orphans are appalled that the boss is angry when he finds them chatting on their cell phones instead of working.

I see orphans every day and it saddens me because I know that they aren’t really to blame. My parents (and my friend’s parents) were my first and very best teachers. My Dad taught me that you give your employer your best. He pays you for a job and you give him his money’s worth. My Mom taught me common sense and that we should be kind to people, no matter what color, what social status, what they look like. And both of my parents taught me gratitude and courtesy and to treat others as I would want to be treated. They taught me so many things that my teachers, my coaches and my peers never could.

It hurts me to see the orphans mock and belittle the weaker members of our society. But then I realize that they have the pack mentality of children that had to raise themselves by pretending that they were bigger and better than most and that they weren’t afraid of anything. It hurts me to see them have to learn common sense and common courtesies the hard way. But most of all it hurts to see that these poor orphaned children are now struggling to raise children of their own. Without role models and guidance they are trying to learn what it really means to be a parent. They are a resilient and independent bunch and I’m hoping that they will rebel against their own upbringing. I think they have the capacity to nurture the little ones they are training to be human beings. And there is the possibility that they will learn from our mistakes and take back the responsibility to raise their own children well. That is my hope.