Kids these Days

What’s the problem with kids today? Back when I was a kid, there was a song by a guy named Mike Douglas. “What’s the problem with kids today?” I hated that song. I swore that if I ever grew up I would never attack kids or look down on them. Especially not just because I could drive a car and do all that other adult stuff. The other day I was talking with a national journalist and college professor. He told me about his students and their profound lack of passion. Like me, this journalist grew up in the 60’s of the Civil Rights movement and Woodstock. We both remembered sharing a passion for changing the world, or at least complaining about it. Today’s students, he lamented seem only passionate about making a living, nothing else. I’m sure that is not universally true. I know a lot of kids who have a deep passion for faith, family and freedom. But there is a lingering question here. If we teach the majority of our kids that they are nothing but material accidents of evolution and that they have no divine spark, nor is there any such thing or thought in the Universe, should we be surprised that so many lack a passion to change the world? After all, if we are just all the result of a cosmic accident, why try changing the world or even changing your socks? Ideas have consequences, our kids become a whole lot like what they are taught. And what we accept in a culture, we teach.