Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 17, 2014

Alex also started her own company when she was 14 years old.-GT will never pass up an opportunity to take a shot at the self-esteem movement.

If the daughter was a son, would we be reading this?

All the best to these young, resourceful entrepreneurs. Was Sam one of them?

Sigh. I love Doonesbury but Garry Trudeau seems unable to write teenage characters without having them act abrasive at best and totally spiteful at worst. Jeff was a nice kid who turned into a massive jerk once he hit his teens and has stayed that way ever since, Alex become arrogant and somewhat ruthless, and now sweet, innocent Sam seems to have joined the dour, sneering teenage club. I realize teens have that reputation and go through that phase, but seriously, not ALL of them do. Not by a longshot. I just get tired of seeing the Doonesbury kids all follow this same trajectory, albeit in different intensities. (Alex may be off-putting sometimes, but Jeff is just an unrelenting jerk.)

Self-esteem – fine if its valuing yourself for who you really are and what you can actually do; less good if its just a sense of entitlement without putting the graft in.

So glad he’s picked this topic, it’s one of the things that makes me climb the walls. You canNOT be “anything you want to be”. With my hand/eye co-ordination, I was never going to be a sportsman, or a surgeon, and i wojuld have been very unhappy if I had insisted on trying to be.If there is something you are passionate about, there is normally a way for you to be involved. If you have a passion for healing but no aptitude for medicine, you can be the administrator who ensures the medics have the wherewithal to do what they do. If you have a passion for theatre but can’t act, you can be on the stage door. Most people are going to end up in ordinary jobs (by definition). That doesn’t mean they have failed, but if we keep telling them that they can make their daydreams real, they’re going to think they have failed when their dreams fail to materialise.“A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine: who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine.” George Herbert

“This could lead to a highly educated daughter.What were we thinking?!”

So let’s see…

We have 1 vote for “it’s all about gender,” and 1 vote for “it’s all about class.” Sorry to break it to you, but it’s just not. Some things are about neither, and this is one of those things.

When I was a high-school teacher, the U.S.-born kids I taught (a slim majority) generally thought and felt like Sam, at least through Sophomore year. Then, there’s a change.

Ever wonder why “whatever” is the most common word in their vocabulary? It’s how they protect their self-esteem. When you’re used to getting a trophy for showing up, anything that doesn’t go according to your fantasies is a challenge to your self-esteem. So you say “whatever” to show/create your disdain for the thing. Something you have contempt for can’t effect your self-esteem; mission accomplished.

One of the worst things at that (public) school was the wrong-think among the teachers and administration about self-esteem: THE TRUTH IS: if you create it by lowering the bar until the kid can fall out of bed and be over it, it’s extremely fragile, and cannot survive the inevitable collision with the real world, which leaves the sufferer a mess. OTOH, if you create it by giving the kid difficult things that are possible, it’s resilient, and a source of strength once (s)he enters the real world. (I see this clearly in my daughter, currently at her first-choice college, BTW. She NEVER says “whatever,” because she doesn’t have to: she doesn’t have an extremely fragile self-esteem to protect.)

Still no Cornell…

Self esteem ends at the front door.

I recall my father telling me how much they needed truck drivers after I came back from the Navy. Nothing wrong with truck drivers, but this was after I told him I was going back to college.

He much be reacting to the cost of a prestige collage education. How can he and his wife afford it?

No, you cannot be anything you want to be. If that were true for everyone, it would imply that everyone has equal potential That’s simply not true. Remember that the line “…all men are created equal…” continues to qualify what that means in terms of rights and liberties. What IS to be striven for is everyone’s equal liberty to try to be what they want, The message for a kid should be, you’re only five feet tall, so it’s going to be very hard for you to become a professional basketball player. But if you want to try, try very, very hard, so that, if you don’t make it, you know it wasn’t for lack of trying. And Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, 5’3", was NBA drafted and played 14 seasons. .And there are a lot of things a kid can want to be that are doable but require being a detestable sort. Knowing what’s worth wanting to be and what’s not is as important as knowing you can go for it. .

If she can figure out how to pay for MIT, she qualifies to go there.

Sad when folks think the rich are monolithically colluding to get everybody else.

Some but not all?Most?43?The very richest?Some amorphous mass of PLUTOCRATS whose secret rule is proven by the imperfections of life?All ills must be part of their master plan — droughts, heat waves, blizzards, tsunamis, AIDS, the common cold, President Obama’s election, Presidents’ Bushs elections?Most important of all: the poor state of mental health treatment

This strip has political influnences and bad stereotypes. Here’s the problem: I HATE BOTH OF THOSE THINGS!!!!!!!

I remember the self esteem movement very well—it was pathetic when parents would say Good Job if a kid picked his nose. On the other hand when a kid actually did do a good job, there was often scant praise which did indeed hurt self esteem; went through that myself!

“Plutocrats and the oligarchs with them want a different kind of USA. One we are developing into from a behind the scenes and some of it up front.”.And you know this because you have a copy of their secret agenda?.“Yes. The Middle Class is shrinking, our losing control of the govt the richest and most powerful is a fact.”.And yet we still have the power to put people in office or not. We just don’t always bother if we are satisfied..“Our mutating into a dangerous empire is also happening.“.We are mutating into an empire at the same time we are withdrawing from influence in other nations and China and India are growing in power?Or are THEY in on it too?-“When you control the only two parties and fill them with like minded people only their two choices are given us. How you win is to own the casino.”-So you believe the PLUTOCRATS and OLIGARCHS wanted Barack Obama elected to office?Of course you do.And you believe the PLUTOCRATS and OLIGARCHS wanted John McCain to run against him?Of course you do.

And you believe the PLUTOCRATS and OLIGARCHS wanted Mitt Romney to run against him?Of course you do..To think otherwise would be to believe the PLUTOCRATS and OLIGARCHS aren’t really in control..Many good minds are wasted to uncured mental illness. It is a shame the PLUTOCRATS and OLIGARCHS don‘t put more funding into fixing the situation.