I’ve grappled with this issue for quite some time. I’m still not sure there is a conclusive answer to this question, but the following is an article I recently wrote on the topic for Kansas City Parent Magazine:
Entitled Children
Our 13-year old son’s cell phone was initially meant for calling home if baseball practice was cancelled, but has morphed into one cool gadget he carries with him everywhere, except, incidentally, to baseball practice where “it might get lost”.
Cell phones are just one of many entertainment options my generation did not have growing up, such as round-the-clock TV programming of every flavor, video games, personal music players, and social networking sites. According to most parents, their kids don’t view these things as privileges but as basic human rights they are entitled to.
Should this sense of entitlement be cause for alarm? Or does voicing concerns merely make us sound like our own parents thirty years ago? Continue reading
Desperate Mothers 