The White House recently released a report where they labeled the youngest generation the “Homeland Generation”. A storm of speculations hit the internet soon after. How could the U.S. government choose such a paranoid and xenophobic-sounding epithet? Was this a creepy joke? Some claimed the...
The only other generational topic receiving as much attention as the young Generation Z or Homeland generation is the Millennial parenting cohort raising them. Still held back in life by economic setbacks and lengthy educations, Millennials are nonetheless a family-loving generation and will eventually go for the...
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="499"] Source: DoctorDisney[/caption] Spoiler alert ahead! It's obvious, Disney has fallen in love with a new meta-theme: Wronged, cold-hearted, lonely woman unearths apocalyptic forces that overtake her kingdom, but is also the only one who can break the spell. But only after she rediscovers...
In America there is a sweeping shift in values towards more family diversity and we are starting to see this reflected in commercials for consumer goods. The shift reflects cohort changes (effects isolated to single generations) as well as period effects (change over time in an entire population)....
It's been a while since I wrote about gender issues so today I'll harness International Women's Day to give a few forecasts that will affect women of the Homeland generation, or Generation Z, which is a more widely used name. I chose to describe the...
Miley Cyrus sporting a less raunchy style[/caption]
What can Barack Obama and Miley Cyrus learn from Karl Marx this past week? Maybe they should take to heart a famous quote where he says that the second time a tragedy comes around, it comes as a farce*. That's true whether you're following the footsteps of Madonna or George W Bush.
Were anybody seriously "shocked" at Miley Cyrus' VMA performance? Underwhelmed and disappointed, maybe. I get that people are tired of a sexualized pop-culture where female artists turn to twerking and groping and self-subjugation to male co-performers. I get the fatigue that follows the trite and oh-so-predictable scheme of innocent teen-star turning adult by means of shock performances or other crazy-looking antics. But shocked? In many ways Miley is in the same boat as Lance Armstrong. If predecessors push the benchmark impossibly high (or low) to meet or beat, you've got to go to extreme lengths to be noticed. How in the world is a has-been-Disney-star like Cyrus to compete "shock-wise" with all the Madonnas and Britney Spears out there? Maybe she would have done better choosing a completely different strategy.
Children who grow up in the typical fourth turning crisis era are extremely over-parented. The New Silent/ Homeland generation is no exception. I think there are various reasons for this trend and they are often driven by fear of the future. Parenting has become a market place for many conflicting theories and they all thrive on fear and insecurity. If parenting philosophies are our currencies, our children are the investment objects. And when it comes to our own flesh and blood, there is no such thing as second best.
In the early 2000s the attachment-parenting trend accompanied by the theories of Dr. Sears started to make encroachment into the American middle class. The philosophy of attachment parenting is based on attachment theory in psychology. Since infants become attached to adults who are sensitive and responsive in social interactions with them, a close relationship with parents, mostly the mother, has to be fostered to optimize the child’s socio-emotional development. This includes extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping and positive, non-confrontational forms
Do you have a tween at home? A kid grown tired with your pre-packaged, PG rated stuff, yet who’s still too young to be allowed to choose products and entertainment for themselves? Well, guess what – they’re making their own choices and you’re not the only...
Compared to the countries we increasingly compete with in this globalized world, American educational test scores stink. Everybody knows it and everybody is getting busy looking for culprits and solutions. Which can only result in one thing: nobody can agree to what the cause is. We don’t challenge our kids enough! We challenge them too much! Teachers aren't held accountable enough! Teachers spend too much time with accountability standards, so student time suffers. We get frightfully wooed by ruthless Asian tiger mothers and we begrudgingly confess our kids are turning into lazy slobs because we don’t drill enough violin practice at an early age. And then we let out sighs of relief as soon as Finland becomes the country in vogue. Laid-back Finland, with their school kids loafing around their classrooms in slippers after entering school at the advance age of 7, all while making top PISA scores. And without even undergoing the rigor of standardized testings!
