Gen Z cops a lot of flack for being snowflakes – and they are. Many of them can’t cope with life. Any speech or idea they don’t like is offensive, criticism is insulting – and they can’t hold down a job.
It’s not entirely their fault, though. A large part of it is the way they’ve been raised and educated.
This masthead reported earlier in the week that, according to an industry survey, three-quarters of American companies have been unhappy with their Gen Z employees, and 60 percent are sacking newly appointed university graduates within a year.
The biggest complaints were that young workers were unprepared, unwilling to complete a full work day, wanted to start late and could not communicate properly.
The Daily Mail also quoted recruiter Tammie Christofis Ballis, who said young people were now suffering from “interview anxiety”, including being afraid to pick up the phone to a potential employer and even taking their parents along as moral support in interviews.
That doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. Mental health has far more care and awareness than it did a few decades ago – and rightly so – but the pendulum has swung so far that any kind of uncomfortable experience is a major issue.
Kids are no longer taught resilience and are stripped of all responsibility.
There is no danger in life. All the fun equipment has been ripped out of playgrounds out of fear that a child might hurt himself or break an arm.
They aren’t trusted to leave on their bikes in the morning with mates and return when the sun comes down – they must be in sight at all times.
And when they are out of sight, they’re now often tracked via an electronic device.
Those devices have become a poison – enslaving kids to a digital world instead of the real one.
Is it any wonder they can’t communicate properly when a large portion of their interactions are no longer verbal or face-to-face?
The concept of winning and losing has been dispensed of in favour of everyone receiving a participation medal.
Junior sporting leagues no longer keep scores or ladders. There are no finals – just the “fun” of having participated.
But that’s not the real world. There must, in all facets of life, be winners and losers.
Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail. But if you don’t learn how to deal with that at a young age, then of course it will seem like the end of the world when you’re a young adult.
Winning in your football competition or the school sports day teaches that effort and hard work are virtues.
It also teaches sportsmanship and how to appropriately handle success.
Losing demonstrates that you can’t succeed all the time and how to handle the sadness of failure.
Moving out of your parents’ home at 18 was once a right of passage – now it’s a daunting proposition.
My grandfather left school at 14 to become an apprentice butcher, which wasn’t uncommon in his day, in part to support his family.
I’m not suggesting that children should be yanked out of school and sent to
