Seriously.

Courtesy of my fiancée:



I don't get it. Hating your parents and christmas for not getting a car or an iPhone?

Is it just me, or are expectations and their reactions way above what is reasonable?

While I did have expectations for Christmas presents from my parents, I wouldn't lose it over not getting what I wanted. Nor would I expect a bloody car.

If I didn't get it, I'd simply work, save and buy what I wanted afterwards.

My family is well-off and I have sizable financial resources, but even from my perspective it seems excessive. Isn't it the thought that counts for Christmas presents?

What's your take?

 

Would you say it depends on culture? I can see how individualistic cultures breed that kind of attitude from kids.

From what I've seen in Japan and Germany (more communalistic countries), the kids often don't worry about Christmas presents and rather go with the entire experience of it. In Germany there were some that reacted beyond mere disappointment.

In Australia and the US (very individualistic countries), I've seen/heard of many teenagers lose their shit over not getting that awesome iPod (back then), iPhone, iPad, iYoMomma from their parents. Even knew of a couple who swore they'd murder their parents.

This year is the first time I heard of kids expecting a car. I was amazed.

 

Bloody hell. I read through that list of comments and could not believe my eyes that NoOne had done a comment to question the culture. It was not just one or two who were getting 'spoilt bratty' ... they were all having a genuine 'condolence' meeting. It freaks me out to think what it would be like to actually sit in a room and have a conversation with any one of them.

I've always had zero tolerance for child abuse. My heart has to go out to the kid who is stuck with that ugly Black iPhone./sarcasm

 

First World Problems (TM).

...

Why's it gotta be black?

 

it hardly seems shocking that middle-class kids in their mid-teens might be a bit self-and-commodity obsessed. it seems to come with the 16 year old boojie-kid territory, kinda in the way that spending a whole lot of time playing x-box massacre games does except less creepy and disturbing.

 

I'll try to step into some shoes ... OK ... Bright red LED digital watches and Texas portable calculators. Those were the big things when I was 15 or 16. platform soles, too. Oh, and Loon flare pants. We did not have independent income, and were getting and not getting various combinations of those items on birthdays and fete days. I'm trying and failing to find anything like the shoulder-to-shoulder surge of 'my parents suck' in my memories of conversations among my peers. The good and bad commodity news (I got it/I didn't get it) would pop up and surprise us ..... 'BOO' ...... but at no point did it seem more important to us than, as Remixer says, " the entire experience of it."

Plan9 I think mikaela tori's black/white iPhone comment at the top left of remixer's image hit me especially hard, because, worse than the others, it wasn't even about whether she had something or not. She already had it in the first place. Like you say, "First World Problems (TM)." Heck .. I made myself sick of myself with my first world 'Which Toaster?' quest a couple of weeks ago, so I can't talk.

 

My issue lies with that overblown reaction of theirs, and with several expectations of a car as a bloody Christmas present.

 

o well you know how on-line bluster can go, yes? people who are perfectly meek and nice in meat space can get all aggro and stupid behind the safe anonymity of an online format. then you've got the 140 character limit on twitter. it's hard to be terribly articulate with 140 characters. then you've got the developmental space it seems like these kids are in. then you've got whatever sociological and/or personal and/or contextual factors contribute to obnoxiousness enhancement. then you've got the poor, deprived dears all heartbroken and carless after their unfeeling bastard parents didn't shell out the way their imaginary duplicates indicated would happen. or something.

 

I guess the brat with the white iPhone never heard of sleeves or skins...

Parents have this really nasty habit of being unable to say "No, we don't have that kind of money" because they might look bad or make the little angels angry. I really am of the opinion that many of these parents over compensate for their own lack of time that should be spent with the kids by smothering them with material crap.

But when the poorest community in the nation still has denizens with cell phones and Nikes, this shouldn't surprise anyone.

 

The times they are a changin'--not for the better but isn't that what each older generation says about the younger?
Technology, social media in particular, amplies hugely a person's audience so every dumb, arrogant utterance is heard 'round the world. Of course 'people', not just teens can have huge senses of entitlement. Spelled out in text like that it's pretty hideous.
For sure a first world problem but a problem in that in their minds it is a huge big deal--which is a symptom of the bigger problems (over-inflated sense of entitlement, etc.).

 

I'm not having kids, but if I was... you can bet that my heartlessness toward superfluous gifts would create a helluva human being.

 

Yup. I'd bet they were just vying for attention and not having asked to be born into such wildly connexionist times where the popular culture demands that they be ceaseless generators of content (the more incendiary the better), I can't say I blame them. I still remember how small my world was when growing up. I'd go so far as to bet my Scarface mountains of coke that those posts are no more indicative of what those kids actually think and feel about their parents or their gifts than the bullshit we spouted on the playground well before the internet was in everyone's pocket.

With that said, fuck my parents.

 

Future Occupy Wall Streeters. Entitlement with a capital "E."
--- merged: Dec 28, 2011 3:36 AM ---
Where does a sense of entitlement get you? Well, look at the Occupiers. They came, they shouted...they went home with nothing. These crybabies whimpering about their lack of iPhones need some perspective. Ship them all off to Africa for awhile so they can understand how much they truly have.

 

spoken like one of those uninformed fox news bots. you know, the demographic that confuses watching rightwing disinformation with something that has reference to the empirical world. of course there's no problem of distribution of wealth. neo-feudalism is conservative freedom. the wealthy are your natural betters. your role is to submit and approve. of course there's no problem of plutocracy. it's natural that your betters would run the state in the interests of capital. your role is to submit and approve. o no, the problem is some imaginary Problem with the Youth who are, of course, far less salt of the earth than the fox news demographic. but we are all far less salt of the earth than the fox news demographic. we might know more about stuff like the actually existing socio-political situation, what the occupation movement actually is, and so on. but informing its viewership about the world is not job one for fox, and knowing about the world is not job one for its viewership.

 

Like the posters before me, I think the kids exhibited in the OP are spoiled brats with a sense of entitlement. I'm not sure how fox news ties into that. By the way, I get my news from The Onion. I'm also a member of metafilter where I first saw the OP.

 

His comment on Fox News ties into your remarks where you connected those spoiled brats and their self-entitlement to the Occupy movement.

 

Yup, this is a paramount problem with the younger generations. Nobody has ever clearly demonstrated to them the difference between "want" and "need," or properly defined the word "gift" for them. I can tell you, growing up in the Levite household, that level of stupid ingratitude would've gotten me grounded hard for a week, at least.

Not that this surprises me in the least. The last Jewish high school I taught at, the kids were heavily from wealthy families, and were spoiled, entitled, and had absolutely shocking lack of values when it came to sharing, gratitude, selfishness, and giving to others. And from my colleagues who teach at Christian and secular private schools, where the kids also skew wealthy, I have heard exactly the same is true.