Parental Rights in Public Schools

On today’s show, it’s a battle of Generation X versus millennials versus Generation Z as ...

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On today’s show, it’s a battle of Generation X versus millennials versus Generation Z as Sarah and David shout, “You kids get off my lawn!” But before the cultural rant, they explore parental rights in public schools, discuss the mixture of church and politics, and talk about the Kyle Rittenhouse case and the law of self-defense. Then, and only then, does Sarah lament “kids these days.”

Show Notes:

–TMD on ‘gain of function’ research

–NPR “The Johnson Amendment In 5 Questions And Answers”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Amy

    I live in Knoxville but am out of town this week or I would absolutely be at the live recording this week! I hate to miss it!!

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    Ethan Cordray

    As much as I'm critical of generational discourse, I do think that Sarah has a pretty good insight that bosses are more sympathetic to their own kids' generation than to the interstitial generation that works for them.

    But I still think this has a lot more to do with managerial class consciousness than with generations.

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  3. AHenry

    Fascinating to hear a Millennial complain about Gen Z. The Gen Zers are saying the same things about Millennials that the Millennials said about Boomers who took the hint and are laughing all the way into retirement to let the kids fight it out.

    Thanks for FICA.

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    Nate Swanson

    Concerning the conversation about the Johnson Amendment, could a congregation's (or a denomination's) endorsement (or other advocacy on behalf of a specific candidate, initiative, etc.) threaten an individual congregation's eligibility to serve as a polling place? Recognizing that state laws will differ, it seems like such endorsement or advocacy could impact that possibility.

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    George.Skinner

    It's interesting to listen to Sarah exhort the work ethic of millennials. I tend to agree, but it's not without problems. A recurring challenge has been getting them to stop at "good enough" and move on to the next item instead of spending twice as much time trying to achieve perfection. If you're working on a consulting job when you're paid for the deliverable, efficiency is key. A related issue has been an aversion to risk because of an almost neurotic aversion to the potential for failure. The good news is that people learn to deal with these things as they mature.

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      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      You’re spot on with both points. Especially aversion to failure. Huuuuge problem.

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  6. DJ

    Re: Gen X, Millennials etc. Back in the early nineties Gen Xers were called slackers. There was even a movie called Slacker. Then we started commercializing the internet.

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    Julie from Texas

    I have never been so angry at a Dispatch podcast episode than when the generation conversation took place. Not only was Sarah out of line bashing Gen X and Gen Z the way she did, but David put up hardly anything of a defense for our generation! For such a smart and well-trained lawyer, David, you could have done way better.

    I'll give it a shot myself then:

    So we're obsessed with work-life balance? Try being the latch-key kid generation and then explain why we might be that way. You think we don't work hard enough? Maybe you didn't watch how many of us worked our butts off and got virtually nothing for it, because the Baby Boomers had already taken every place at the table and refused to give an inch. You think the Millennials are so awesome at everything? Maybe that's because they've been catered to for their whole lives with a gazillion articles, consumer marketing, research, and more all targeted at them. Meanwhile, Gen X is all but forgotten. (Remember the CBS news story of 2019 that literally ignored us? https://twitter.com/RicoGagliano/status/1086881150197362688)

    In actuality, I think there are a lot of Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers who are absolutely wonderful and a lot who are lazy or jerks. Talk about the similarities and differences among generations, fine. But pitting generations against each other stinks.

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  8. Brendan Lynch

    This is Gen Z slander and I will not stand for it! Especially disappointed that we had no representative to stand in our defense, something that's normally a cornerstone of our justice system.

    But seriously, I think there's a couple things missing from the conversation. I'm not convinced that lazy/tuned out students is a new phenomenon. I wouldn't know from experience but students not reading the syllabus seems to have been a running joke for years. As an alternative hypothesis, it's also worth remembering that way more people are going to college than ever before, and so it's possible (though not necessarily true) that the growth is happening at the bottom of the class, so to speak.

    Something else that didn't come up was I think my generation has a certain boldness, a certain distrust of institutions, lack of respect of authority, etc. etc. It's probably rooted in the environment in our pre-teen and teenage years. The more politically inclined would probably point to politics as the cause (electoral college, filibuster-enforced gridlock, gerrymandering, etc.), more class-oriented might point to the 2008 crash (okay, end of elementary school for even the oldest of us but still), you could probably argue that the growing online-ness of our existence has just made us less empathetic and so more bold as a result. I think that turns into a willingness to do potentially stupid things, but it also has made us more cynical that people in power actually know what they're doing!

    Assigning the CEO of your company a task in Slack? I'm sure Gen Xers and Millenials had similar thoughts, they just weren't so brazen (and/or lacked the software that enabled it). Asking for Juneteenth off? Yeah, we all want more holidays! Just a question of if you'll actually do it. Personally, I've quite directly challenged the President of my college in the faculty meeting (students had a limited role in faculty governance, I was lucky enough to be one of them) for some crap that, frankly, did not make any sense. Just last week, when a senior manager of another team joined my own global team's call to talk about changes affecting my team that were largely the result of significant attrition in their own team, I was the one who actually asked what that manager was doing to sort things out in their own house. Would a 22-year old student or a 23-year old junior employee from another generation have thought the same thoughts? Most likely. But would they have the cynicism/lack of respect for authority/brazenness/courage/whatever-you-want-to-call-it to actually do it? Perhaps not.

    In short, and call me cheugy for saying this, but ok boomers.

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  9. Ted

    The generation story drove me nuts. First, all “generational” research is BS (there is a ton of research on this point). Second, when the NYT does a “story” on this, it isn’t a generational story but it is what small number of several upper West Side, elite school, elite job people are experiencing. No fly over people interviewed. No normal job people. No non-elite college grads.

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    TDit

    Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed TWO people and wounded another. There was not one "decedent" but two. Ya'll are usually good with details, but this was a pretty big miss.

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