I adore Jamie Lee Curtis. She's smart and great and I thought she was the best thing in A Fish Called Wanda and I want her and Christopher Guest to come and hang out with me and be snuggly. (By the way, we here at Babble take turns stalking her and going through her garbage.) She's also a mom with opinions and a HuffPo pulpit, and the whole Paris Hilton debacle has made her reflect on how we parent as a culture. She points the finger at parents of the generation who wanted to be friends wth the kids, and claims that in all this, we may have neglected to teach children right from wrong. As a result, we've got "omnipotent children running amok or sitting amok as they watch TV and play electronic games and shop on eBay." But she's not self-righteous: she points the finger at herself as well.
I am deluded that my attempts at being liked and loved by my
children and friends with them -- all at the same time -- were going to
result in "well raised children." We were the generation that would
take the job of raising our children and turn it into... PARENTING. We
were the generation who applauded every move they made. Every step they
took. "Good climbing, Brandon" was our hue and cry. We were raised by
people who didn't "understand" us and now we don't "understand" why our
children are so messed up.
Now, she may be right, and the encouraging, lovey "you are so great, honey!" blather in the absence of any real lessons in ethics hasn't really done the children any favors. Personally, I think it is too soon to tell how this generation will turn out. But I do think you can't exactly use the behavior of Hilton, Spears, and Lohan as representative of anything generational. The moms in those cases are a real special breed, and there's always been misbehaving, spoiled celeb kids with a sense of entitlement, probably for as long as we've had social inequity. It is quite possible that Jodie Foster is the only child star to have ever escaped relatively unscathed, and if you shake any rich family tree going back a bajillion years you'll find brats who have yet to suffer a consequence.
Still love Jamie Lee though.
