"Have you considered your future, Archie?"
"Have I considered my future? Well, lets see... I was top of my class in junior, secondary and sixth form college. I was first violin in the school orchestra, captained the girls' volley and football team, was head prefect, woud've been head girl if it wasn't for a dirty campaign run by Katie Clark, which I refused to lower myself to. I volunteered for community projects, helping disaffected youth and disenfranchised elderly. Ran a breakfast and an after-school club, got 15 A to A-star GCSEs, and five A-star AS and A2 levels. I worked at an ethically-sourced cocoa bean plantation in Costa Rica in my gap year. I was the first student from my school to be awarded an unconditional offer to study politics, psychology, and sociology at Cambridge University, which is where you find me now. Do I sound like someone who has not considered my future?
"So what do you want to do?"
"I don't know."
Dialogue excerpted from The Lazarus Project, season 1, episode 5.
"So what do you want to do now?"
ReplyDelete"Have three kids. Be a full-time mom. Help build the next generation of happy, healthy humans."
Very physical work; nearly all manual labor. Work is never done, so no time off. No pay, no promotions, no awards or recognition. No matter how hard you work, any mistake will be on your permanent record. And if there is any adultery, illness, or other unexpected challenge, you'll have to take on another - this time, paying - job with no or limited experience and therefore lower wages to cover expenses.
DeleteI'm reminded of my Irish Catholic grandmother whose last child--last of eight, my mother--was born at the beginning of the Great Depression. My grandfather died the same year my mother was born. He was essentially murdered in an easily preventable industrial accident. Common for the time. The compensation was $100. My grandmother went back to working in a shoe factory, using skills she learned as a child laborer. The eight kids kind of raised each other in the slums of Boston.
DeleteChris, I think about how my grandmother would relate to your paragraph. (Also my mother, who had ten kids.) It seems as if sacrifice is increasingly seen as the province of fools. My grandmother would see such a world as a wasteland. Devoid of meaning.
Y'all driving your kids nuts with all this nonsense. Your making them do all this adult stuff as teenagers instead of letting them play.
ReplyDeletehttps://bsky.app/profile/ksvesq.bsky.social/post/3luiig2b2tc2q
Forcing kids to run a charity with $356.34 collected from family to get into college is just bonkers.
But why oh why don't boys know how to hang with girls?
"My parents told me not to waste time on learning how to cook. I can always just Uber Eat dinner if I'm hungry. They say it's much better to spend my time on doing extra homework." - actual quote from a high-school junior.
And then you're surprised that they complain about mental issues.
100% agree. It's assumed that incessant, ubiquitous competition in all things (what this is really about) brings out the best in us. Few consider the possibility that competition is bringing out the worst.
DeleteGonna smile for a moment that we agree about something. :-)
DeleteIt's weird. First, people teach their kids to be kind and to share, and then it becomes a merciless rat race against all their peers.
BTW: It would also help if adults simply admitted that a lot of the competitive stuff that kids prize themselves on - "I was top of my class in junior, secondary and sixth form college." - is in fact not that competitive and very much a bit random. Top of your class, sure but only because you guessed one multiple choice question on an exam better than someone else - that's not achievement. Or because you did sort out to apply to some award and the #2 didn't because he was dumb enough to think that collecting some extra money for his charity mattered.
Another example: Awardees get awards. Once you get one, it's much easier to get another because your resume looks better. Even if the first one was uncontested. I judge at high school science fairs, and every year I get to hand out some awards that can only be awarded to one kid because the conditions eliminate all other kids "Must be a junior not working in a team in this category". And it gets even weirder when there's awards that have no requirements at all. I.e. the jury can do whatever the hell they want. What competition?
And it gets worse when you factor in regional privilege. Some kids have access to fancy places because they happen to live next to them. Much easier to get an internship at the NIH if you live in Bethesda MD and some lady across the street works at NIH than when you live in Wisconsin. So now you're better because of where you lived?
Let kids be kids.
All true. The game is rigged in such a way as to promote competition, but at the same time ensure that the essential hierarchical structure remains intact, requiring that winners be largely predetermined. I'm perennially amazed when winners look down on the poor and simply claim they win through hard work, while the poor lose due to bad decisions. A culture of competition worship makes delusions associated with the game all the more credible, when they should be deconstructed, debunked... It's one thing to occupy the upper rungs of the hierarchy and quite another to believe you "deserve" it. The oppressor can be the oppressor and still embody some shred of honesty, humility and shame. None of this is new. What strikes me as new is the degree of disconnect. The degree to which we've been collectively suckered into thinking competition is good for us. As if it isn't actually cooperation that glues us together. I expect the ruling class to promote competition, given they're guaranteed to win. But everyone else? Terrible mistake.
DeleteRelated:
Deletehttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/
"So what do you want to do?" - have some kind of job where I do not have to work too much physically, make the job be somewhat interesting, make and save money so I have enough to retire on.
ReplyDeleteDream on.
DeleteI did pretty well in High School. When my class counselor asked me what I'm doing after graduation. I told her college (having had that subject crammed down my throat by my parents). Then she asked what subject. I didn't have a clue. I'm 73 yoa now and still don't. Never had a "push" mentally. I was interested in lots of things, for a while. Got bored fast and easily. That counselor administered a couple of tests that were to tell you what you'd be good at. I remember these at the top, forest ranger, mathematician, math professor.
ReplyDeleteI've drifted between jobs my whole life. Most of it was being in the aeronautical fields as a "mechanic" or inspection.
My dad was driven to do night school to get an engineering degree for years after he married my mom. He told me several times that he has always wanted to be an airplane designer and worked hard to get there. He worked for Boeing for over 30 years. I have always been very jealous of people who are driven that way. It wasn't so for me.
I heavily identify with your experience. Same. Many interests, never a "career." Must be nice to know ones vocational Dharma. Path. I get the envy angle. On the other hand, there may be more freedom in confusion--albeit perhaps more pain.
Delete