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Book Talk & Exchange of Views
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Disproportionate number of adults reading YA books?
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I have yet to read Harry Potter as an entire series. I started the first book but have not progressed much.
Sjm wrote: ...I don't know that the author you cited would disagree with me. There's nothing in that article that supports that theory. I'm also not sure what it is that you're disagreeing with about my statement. Do you disagree that you were once 20 and naiive or that the younger ladies could benefit from a little dose of tolerance from those of us who are now older and wiser? I am not at all sure that tolerance on my part would benefit the younger ladies, which you seem to assume. Any benefit would seem to be dependent on them actually being cognizant of the fact that I'm 'tolerating' them in spite of their shortcomings. Since the great majority of them feel they have no shortcomings, I fail to recognize where the benefit comes in.
I also understood you to say in your original post that we should "help" them. I am not their parent, teacher, guidance counselor or therapist, and therefore I assume no obligation to help them.
I believe that one of the points made by Brooks in the article is that these kids have perhaps been helped too much. He used the words 'supervised', 'monitored', 'tutored', 'coached' and 'honed', all of which I interpret to fall under the umbrella of 'help'.
Many college administrators and professors have written articles and expressed their concern over the past several years regarding the hand-holding that these kids (and their parents) expect the kids to get in college. Some admins actually had to hire full-time assistants just to hand-hold the parents.
In my opinion, all of this fawning has resulted in a self-centered attitude of expectation that is out-of-sync with how the world actually operates.
I am in business. My job is to operate that business in a way that is good for the business, its customers, its shareholders and its employees. In my view, anyone that I hire is supposed to help me to do those things. I am not required to help them become better people--surely this is what parents are for.
And yes, I'm sure I was an a**hat and quite annoying in my 20's (although I was not naive). There are some (like you I'm sure) who think that I still fall into that category, so perhaps you'd like to swing some of that tolerance you like to go on about my way? Maybe it will benefit me.
Patricia Sierra wrote: "Of course, only Brooks can give the definitive answer. I was hoping you'd share your opinion/interpretation."I don't think his suggestion is as bizarre as you seem to think it is. I know many middle-aged folks who would jump at the chance to do exactly what Brooks suggested (which is not to say that everyone would). I would probably be in the group who would love to go back.
As to my interpretation of his most "supervised generation", I think I answered that in my response to SJM on this board topic.
I very much agree with dumbing down. They are brainwashed to WANT - and to GET - not to DO or EARN.They are perfect little consumers wanting everything and expecting to get it with minimal effort. Now that the economy has tanked - they're forced to cope in an increasing stressful world - with no coping skills.
I pity the poor things.
Irene, when those middle-aged folks are poised to jump at that chance, I wonder if they realize they'll be giving up their memories, many of their relationships, and all that has been gained through their life experience if they complete the jump.Maybe I'm just lucky, but the young people I meet don't resemble those that you and K.A. are running into.
Claudine wrote: "Kathleen, I agree with you."Thank you -- I was afraid I was going to get flamed.
Irene wrote: "In my opinion, all of this fawning has resulted in a self-centered attitude of expectation that is out-of-sync with how the world actually operates."I have noticed this too. I see it often in reviews left for books in which the reader complains about a book because it failed to cater to his/her preferences. One of the things that I think has been exceedingly harmful to literary maturity is the requirement that some readers have for books to follow a formula (the one that annoys me is the Happily Ever After ending for some kinds of books -- or characters having to be a certain age.)
Books should take you on an adventure in which you get to experience lives you might otherwise never know. It is pure narcissism to require that books follow a proscribed formula just to so the reader won't experience anything they don't like.
Irene wrote: "And yes, I'm sure I was an a**hat and quite annoying in my 20's (although I was not naive). There are some (like you I'm sure) who think that I still fall into that category, so perhaps you'd like to swing some of that tolerance you like to go on about my way? Maybe it will benefit me. "Gosh, I don't even know where or whether to begin to respond to this. You sound angry.
You also seem to be reading some kind of animosity into my statements that isn't there. I'm arguing a point. I disagree with you, yes, but I'm not your enemy. My statements have been respectful, and I have already exercised tolerance with respect to your comments here.
I'm aware of the trend towards hand-holding by parents. One of my best friends is the registrar of a major university, so I hear all about it. Plus I was recently a 'mature' university student witnessing the phenomenon first hand. I don't think the students that are being escorted through school are being done any favours and that's unfortunate. I pity them also.
However, like Sierra, I have met many wonderful, hard-working, level-headed young adults and I prefer not to lump them all under the same self-absorbed umbrella. There are a large number of older adults standing under that umbrella, despite having been given the gift of time and experience. I'm not convinced that this is any different than it has ever been.
Kathleen wrote: Books should take you on an adventure in which you get to experience lives you might otherwise never know.That's exactly how I've felt about reading ever since I learned to do it. Each book is an open door to a world different from the one I know. The writer invites me to participate in the adventure, and I do so by reading. If I'm lucky, I'll luxuriate in some well-turned phrases along the way and by the end I might feel like I know a little something about the writer. As we used to say in the sixties, "It's a trip!"
As for you, don't you dare hide in a cave, we need you here. (The Bay of Fundy...I like you already)
But why r u purple?
Irene
Patricia Sierra wrote: "Irene, when those middle-aged folks are poised to jump at that chance, I wonder if they realize they'll be giving up their memories, many of their relationships, and all that has been gained throug..."Practically speaking, what you're saying is true. But are we really speaking practically when we're talking about traversing time? I don't think Brooks specified what we'd be giving up other than all our money.
Believe me, I have often struggled with this thought--how much would I give up if it were possible? All my money...I'd do it in a minute. All my relationships? That's a tough one. All my memories/experiences? Probably not.
As for the young folks I run into, I live in a very large city across the street from a fairly large college, so I run into a lot of them. I also attended college in my late forties, early fifties, where I was virtually surrounded by them.
Of course I understand where they're at, but that doesn't make me any happier when one of them parks in front of my 'house' and proceeds to empty all the fast-food cups, boxes and bags, beer and soda cans, Arizona tea bottles, and other assorted garbage out of their car onto the sidewalk. I've had quite a few chats with the little buggers over that.
Irene wrote: "But why r u purple?"I dunno. I was on a beach in the Dominican Republic and it just seemed appropriate....
Andre Jute wrote: "Yesbut. Irene, would you like a small side bet that if you two were to write for the YA market, Sjm will sell more copies because her readers will claim she understands them better."
Why would I even be interested in such a bet? If she's a writer and she's happy appealing to the YA market, good for her.
But who cares? I thought this was a general discussion group. Nothing in your intro states that it's exclusively for writers, book promoters, etc. And I thought no one was supposed to get special treatment here...you jumped in pretty quick to defend her. Do you think she needs defending that badly?
'She' is not a writer. I'm here because of my interest in books and in promoting those authors whose works have inspired me. I think Andre, like me, will tend to stand up for those who are being unfairly called out. He stood up for me, as I have tried to stand up against the generalizations being made about young adults, just as I would stand up against any other form of discrimination. It's not about special treatment. It's about fair treatment and respect.
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Go back to 22 and discover it all again? Now that sounds like an exciting journey.
I'm way more interested in going forward...
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Yes. Going forward rather than reliving it.
Andre, I don't ever want to relive my 20s, even to gain new experiences. I wouldn't be the same person.
On the youth of today issue....I have two young children, 10 and 8. I see parents constantly holding the hands of their children, doing their schoolwork for them, making their art projects and other projects. I don't do that and my kids are marked down for their own style. I get the impression that teachers here think parents are responsible for taking over the work that their children are supposed to be doing in order to get what passes for an education today. Children who are barely passing are pushed through for various reasons to the next grade barely able to write and read comprehensivley. I compare myself at their age and cannot help but wonder where we (and this is a major generalisation the world over) have gone wrong? At 8 and 9 I was reading books far outside of my comprehension level (based solely on my age and not my understanding of complex thought processes that authors put into adult like books). I was reading books out of the adult section at the local library where neither one of my children would dare to venture today. Not from a lack of trying to instill new ideas into them on my part. They are just not ready emotionally to face the adult section like I was. We mollycoddle them, we tend to push them behind us so that they don't have to experience life until we as parents think they are old enough. We hide behind things like understanding gays and lesbians, life and death would be so bad for them. We deprive them of the will to live life after they have matured into young adults and then wonder at their selfish attitude towards life in general. People 10 or 15 years younger than me (will be 42 in Feb) seem to think that life owes them rather than they owe life.
And we let them get away with it.
As an example, when I had a job before becoming a parent (I am a sahm at the moment, have been for 10 years), I would never have dared think that the company owed me more than my salary which was at a competitive enough level. I worked my arse off because that is how I was raised. You worked and put in much effort in order to not only gain the experience but in order to work for promotions and bonuses. Nowadays, it is assumed by someone in the late 20s early 30s category that not only are you owed a salary, but you are owed that salary even if you don't bother putting in the effort.
Younger people are even worse, they tell you upfront that they will not get out of bed for x amount of money and even though they don't have the qualifications to justify a higher salary, they don't care. They want it all and they want it all now regardless.
This is a huge generalisation and there are many people who fall outside of this I am sure. It just seems sometimes that the more you talk to older people about their younger colleagues, the more you hear about those cases than the more mature harder working person.
Claudine, I know what you mean. I have also always had a strong work ethic, but this has set me apart my whole life, not just these days. I have often worked beside people who did the bare minimum while I put in the extra that I felt was needed. We got paid the same amount, they went home and relaxed while I stewed about the work still to be done... Maybe they had the right idea?It's tough to know sometimes how to prepare our kids for this world. The other day my son's friend punched him in the face (both of them are around 4). I breathed deeply and stayed calm while the boy's mom and I helped the two of them to work through it (we didn't solve the problem for them). I did that rather than get hysterical or make a big deal of it thinking it was a good lesson for them both to come back from the confrontation and still be friends. When I can I let my son do for himself and make his own choices. We've already had an issue at his preschool where his teacher was disappointed in him for colouring his duck a different colour than instructed. I'd rather have a kid that challenges the norm. That might make life difficult for him in the early years (though hopefully not with my support), but his ability to think for himself and live independently will serve him well as an adult. At least that's my theory...
My opinion? The way kids turn out is largely a roll of the dice. In my family, three kids were reared in the same environment by the same parents, yet we turned out vastly different. I see the same thing in my daughter's family, and in the families of my friends and other relatives. Which is not to say that parents shouldn't do their best, of course...
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My opinion is that we try too hard to create a zero-risk environment for our children. They are spoilt by over-protection. Very hard not to spoil the child, especially if you have only one, as so many couples now do. There is a sense in which we have become too good at parenting, which seems to me to verge on the inhibiting, if not yet on the stifling.
I, too, had only one. She turned out so well, sometimes I think we aren't related.
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You're the one who cares, Irene, who's posting about it repeatedly. Sue doesn't need defending: she's making you look shrill. I'm being perfectly consistent in not giving the newbie, you, special treatment.
Andre Jute wrote: "There is a sense in which we have become too good at parenting, which seems to me to verge on the inhibiting, if not yet on the stifling. "That is what I find to be the challenge, Andre. How can I be present for my child without getting in the way? We do seem to focus on doing it all 'right', maybe especially us older moms who think we ought to know better, and it takes a conscious effort to relax and let the kids struggle and figure things out for themselves.
I've often thought that in our efforts to do a better job than our parents did, we just create some new problem. Ah well, awareness has to be at least half the battle.
Someone once said we should allow our children to be bored, and I thought that very good advice. There's a great deal of creative and problem solving skill that develops from moments of boredom.
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As an enfant terrible, you're such a failure, Kathleen. No one here is outraged, everyone agrees with you!
I keep hoping to see the lashback to the politically correct society starting, and I keep being disappointed.
That time when America had enough well-educated engineers to go from nothing to a man on the moon inside ten years is within living memory, so the people responsible for the decline of American education are probably still alive — and should be hunted through the streets and strung up from lamp posts.
I might add that effectively making Spanish the second official language of the United States was a retrograde step. E pluribus unum works best in the presence of full comprehension between all parties, which is clearly impossible when they speak different languages, which come with different social and other assumptions.
I never wanted to do a better job than my parents did, Sjm. They were great. I would have been happy to have done half as well as they did, but I doubt I reached even that mark.I agree that boredom can be a good incentive for kids to find their way into something interesting.
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Of course I know a great many lovely artists, great human beings. But some of the nastiest, most unreliable rotters I know are also artists of some kind or another. One of the most unpleasant little shits I know, who'll be the model when I want a character who is a real user in a novel, is a writer. And his children have all turned out wonderfully well-mannered, agreeable, responsible members of the community.
There's no justice in this world!
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My maternal grandmother could not bear to see anyone idle. If she saw a child just sitting, she would demand, "Where's your book?"
I don't buy the theory that people don't have time for "big" books because most of the most popular books are huge -- Harry Potter, Diana Gabaldon, Stephen King, etc. are massive tomes. I don't buy the theory that contemporary adult literature is boring because I read a lot of it and while, yes, there is a fair amount of crap out there, there is some phenomenal literature being produced.
I understand the aversion to long, excessively explicit sex scenes and yet "romantica" and erotica sells by the gazillions.
This is going to piss a lot of people off but I see a huge trend toward the dumbing-down of America. Light, fluffy, silly, don't-make-me-think-too-much. We now have some of the most pathetic educational test scores in the world and I don't see that changing any time soon. We are an intellectually lazy society and proud of it.
There -- now I'll go back in my cave.