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By Cíntia Reinaux
A brilliant text written by Rubem Alves* uses a metaphor to explain why parents should be a bit more strict with their kids. Alves jokes that parents today wouldn’t be able to stand Michelangelo. They would say, what does Michelangelo have against marble?
Alves states, “…he had something against marble, because inside that marble was Pietà. Where would Pieta be if Michelangelo hadn’t been so tough on the marble?
My conclusion? Education is art. And nothing is more counter to art than leaving raw material exactly as is. Those who do that aren’t dreamers or artists. Feelings of guilt sprouting from motherhood and fatherhood often turn into Jello. A rock is still a rock. We need to know that love is hard.
Many people discuss the “trophy generation.” More and more, young people are rewarded, but not because they necessarily deserve it. On that note, Elaine Brumm** nails it when she writes, “doing something for the merit eliminates the equation…” New generations seem to not notice how hard life is and how much work it takes to obtain what you desire. Even if you work extremely hard, there will always be something which is simply out of your reach.
It’s rather preoccupying how much new generations seem to learn, very early in childhood, to systematically guilt others for their own failures.
If a kid get bad grades, he or she will often blame the school or the teacher. And that same kid grows up to be the employee who will blame his or her boss or external factors as an excuse for a stagnant carrer. And yet how could it be any other way?
Generation Y is perhaps one of the most promising generations that has emerged in a while. Expert multi-taskers, bathing in technology, with enormous cognitive capacities. Yet, these same skills are also the ones which get this generation labeled as: superficial, immature, egocentric, impatient, and anxious.
It’s as if all this potential hasn’t been properly channeled and cultivated. Of course, we couldn’t hope that young people would get to the workplace completely ready. Yet, how could they reveal their Pieta if they never learned to use a hammer and a nail?
And so, a rock is still a rock. I don’t think it’s too late. With a little strength, discipline, and help from elders, we will teach them to use the tools they need.
*Rubem Alves is a psychoanalyst, educator, theologist, and Brazilian writer. This is an excerpt from her book “Sobre o Tempo e a EternaIdade”, Ed. Papirus, 1995, págs. 37 e 38.
**Eliane Brum is a journalist for Revista Epoca. She describes the generation of self-deserving individuals in the text “ “A era dos adultos infantilizados” published on Nov 16, 2009.
Cíntia Reinaux is 25 years old and feels so proud of being from Pernambuco. She seems to be a great sister and her patience is always completely tested by his brother, a Gen Z. She is an administrator who loves Human Resources and, in her free times, she likes to tell stories about her adventures in Canada, from where she has recently returned, on the blog http://reinaux.wordpress.com.
