1. Personal Responsibility
What’s wrong with today’s youth?
A myriad of reports, conferences, projects, articles, discussion and legislative effort have
been aimed at this question. Our society is concerned students don’t learn enough in school, are
lazy, can’t think independently, drink too much, take too many drugs, lack sexual morality, lack
honesty and don’t want or know how to work.
As an educator, I heard the causes from every angle. It’s the school’s fault; it’s the kid’s
fault; it’s the parent’s fault; it’s the government’s fault. And it’s all true. All of us in the two or
three current mature generations are to blame. Our children are a mirror of ourselves.
Throughout history there have been innumerable influences upon youth. But their
strongest influence comes from the adults around them. If we reflect back, it’s people that
influenced our lives. Not things such as a TV, in style clothing, a car or the latest movie. Not
entities such as a school building or the government. But people. We all sought to be like and be
recognized by people we respected. After all we were just kids; we didn’t know any better. We
needed models to help us learn how we were supposed to act and behave.
As parents and adults, we can expect our children to work harder or act better than we do,
but they shouldn’t have to. What we did isn’t what’s important, it’s what we do now. It may be a
hard reality, but we cannot say how bad it is teens drink and then go out for a couple ourselves.
Young people don’t find any validity in double standards. As long as we drink we are tacitly
saying it’s all right, regardless of what we may say. What we do overwhelms anything we may
say to our children.
The same concept applies to every characteristic we wish our children to possess. We
can’t expect our children to treat each other with respect when they hear us talk about a co-
worker behind his back. We can’t expect our children to resist drugs when we don’t. We can’t be
upset when our children cut school when they have heard us call in sick and go skiing. We can’t
expect our children to do homework, if we never bring work home from our jobs. We can’t
expect our children to put out extra effort for an A instead of a C if we do as little as possible at
our job. We can’t expect our children to want to go to school when they hear us grumble every
morning about having to go to work. They can only think complaining is what they’re supposed
to do and a career can’t be much fun.
The same applies to moral conduct. The fact they are younger is not a sufficient
argument. It wasn’t when we were that age. They are men and women, just as we are, especially
in their own minds. It’s hard to convince a student of the value of morality if his mother had
another “uncle” visit last night. I once had a single father tell me he solved this problem by
taking long weekends at the lake with a female friend. I often wondered what his high school
aged daughter thought he and his “friend” were doing up there… a fish census? How can he
expect different behavior from his daughter?
Being an example also applies to honesty. What our children see us do carries with it a
connotation of correctness. If we get back too much change at a store and don’t do anything
about it, how can we be disturbed when our children steal a candy bar? Either you’re honest or
you’re not. We can place higher expectations on our children’s actions than or own, but we can’t
be upset when our children don’t meet those expectations.
Educators are not exempt. We can’t expect our students to meet deadlines if we don’t. If
the “I didn’t have time” excuse is valid for us when we don’t get their work back or tests graded
by the next day, why isn’t it valid for the students on their next assignment? We can’t be

2. disturbed if they are tardy to class if we come to school at the last minute and leave as early as
possible. We can’t expect them to support our activities in the classroom if we never go to their
basketball games or choir concerts. We can’t be disturbed by their dress when we don’t dress
like professionals. We can’t be disturbed about their language and disrespect when we go into
the teacher’s lounge and act the same way behind closed doors.
No one is exempt. A student may happen to overhear a stranger while walking
downtown. But even what strangers say or do has an effect. We all must be role models, whether
we want to be or not, if we expect our children to exhibit the behavior we desire. It may be hard
but we don’t have a choice.
- Bryan Whiting feels most of our issues are best solved by personal responsibility and an
understanding of non-partisan economics rather than by government intervention. He
recently retired after 40 years of teaching marketing, entrepreneurship and economics.