Are our children 41% lazier than they were 10 years ago?

[kpete]

Do you Social Darwinist/Randians really believe that's the case? Do you have any evidence to back it up?

Even if you want to make the absurd, ridiculous, amoral argument that all or even most children living in poverty really do deserve to live in poverty (I know, I know, just hold that thought), then that must mean that 41% more children deserved to live in poverty in 2010 than did in 2000.

'Cause if not, then maybe you'd have to entertain the notion that maybe children and, by extension, people who live in poverty don't actually "deserve" to be poor. And maybe you'd have to consider the idea that programs like, say food stamps or Medicaid or free meals at public schools so that low-income kids can learn rather than focus on being hungry (one of Limbaugh's favorites, just click on the link above), aren't simply "rewarding bad behavior" or some other such right-wing nonsense. And maybe then you'd have to entertain the notion that goodness and wealth do not actually go hand in hand in the real world, and that poverty does not, by definition, signal the immorality of a person.

In other words, maybe you'd have to open your eyes.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/26/1102752/-So-You-Think-The-Poor-Deserve-Their-Poverty

[kemah]

1. We are creatures of our environment.

Technology has changed this world for the best. When you compare your teenage days, I am 65, with today's teenagers, we had black and white TV, four stations, no computers, no video games, So we spent more time outdoors playing real games. We had to walk to school. No fast food restaurants.
Women had no microwaves, most did not have dryers, had to cook, no fast food restaurants.
So technology has altered the environment and we just adjust to it.

[Brickbat]

2. Which was...kind of not the point of the OP.

[Quantess]

3. Yeah, article isn't talking about physical laziness.

For that part, I would say yes, children are physically lazier, as well as adults.

But, are poor kids poor because they are lazy?

[HopeHoops]

4. Not in OUR house!

[pinboy3niner]

5. You just keep crackin' that whip

Hell, I know I'm at LEAST 41% lazier than I used to be, and I'm working on topping that.

[malthaussen]

8. Yup, whenever I think about exercising I have to go lie down.

I think the biggest revelation for me over the past, oh, 30 years has been due to the fact that RW idiots are opening their mouths more and more. I used to think that all people were reasonably intelligent and reasonable, because those who weren't mostly didn't get much publicity. The biggest change I see in my lifetime is now morons have a mandate.

-- Mal

[HopeHoops]

9. Yeah, but I feel bad. The eldest's boyfriend is in the Army...

... He came out and I yelled, "PRIVATE! Drop and give me 20!"

He did and planted his palm directly on a honey bee just as I said "watch for bees". It took some hydocortizone cream and some Benadryl later. I feel bad. I'm leaving soon to take him out to Hooters (just for the T&A), but I still feel bad. We have clover all over the yard and I'll wager we have more honey and bumble bees than the entire rest of the neighborhood combined because we're one of the few that don't poison the lawn. I haven't seen this many bees in at least five years. They obviously know where to come.

[NNN0LHI]

6. No they are not

My employer who paid top union wages and benefits had to generally hire 200 employees to keep one or two.

That was in the early 1970's.

Don

[FarCenter]

7. It's a silly premise because it is the parents' responsibility to provide for their children

The proper question would be "Are our parents 41% lazier than they were 10 years ago?"

[Faux pas]

10. They been getting lazier since the invention of video games.

[seabeyond]

11. son averages 55 miles a week in runs. not to mention all the other stuff he does i wont list.

other son is in a two hour work out session right now, for all the summer.

neither watch tv.

lots of basketball outside. youngest, baseball with the net.

no.

[Odin2005]

12. My generation has also been accused of "Narcissism" because we dare...

...expect a just society in which we can earn a decent living in.

I think they are demonizing us Millennials as a way to get older generations to support brutal crackdowns against those "lazy Occupying college students". They think that they can destroy our self-esteem the same way they did it for Gen-X.