why do we do this?
I have 5 kids, ages 23 (almost) to 2. Two of them are teenagers now.
I have noticed they spend a lot of time- especially the boy- watching people do stupid things on YouTube.
Why do people in our culture want to fill their heads with such images?
What happened to wanting to find people to emulate?
When I was young I idolized Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio. I read "We Were There when Grant met Lee at Appamattox." I was inspired by Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln, whose pictures hung on my wall. This was not uncommon among my age group.
Now kids want to ride skateboards off a roof, or a wagon down a highway, and put it on YouTube. They watch American Idol.
We are all crabs in a bucket, wanting to tear down our heroes, hoping to see someone else be silly on national TV, or hear about the depraved or sociopathic. We even focus on the failings of our leaders, dead or alive.
If we all feel better about our failings because "everybody's human," who do we look to for inspiration?
I long for the days when we didn't insist on knowing about the failings, and instead focused on the accomplishments.
I hope we will return to applauding the greatness in leaders in time for my children to be inspired.
