The Perfect Storm
"Here is the truth: The opposite of perfection isn’t imperfection. The opposite of perfection is normal."
That is the point of my humor column this week in the Chesterfield Observer, and I offer LOTS of funny examples... :-) Below is an excerpt, or you can read the entire column at the Chesterfield Observer web site.
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The Perfect Storm
OK, I’ll say it. We have lost our collective mind.
A perfect example is... well, any program on what used to be called The Learning Channel, but is now TLC, which I think stands for Totally Lost Control.
We’ll skip for now how disgusting it is that parents will put their kids on national television programs like “Toddlers & Tiaras” or “Dance Moms” and somehow try to say they are doing it for their kids.
OK, I can’t skip that totally. If these parents were around in ancient Rome, they would have tried to get their kids a spot on the next episode of Christians v. Lions on the Colosseum Network. The only things these parents (and TLC) are doing for their kids is permanently damaging their well-being and their ability to function as normal adults when they grow up.
But back to how these kidsploitation shows perfectly illustrate how we have lost our collective minds. On the shows, the parents and the teachers drill into their kids the expectation that they be perfect. Meanwhile, the parents and teachers spend half the show cursing each other, waving their index fingers from side to side, doing that head/neck-bob thing, and telling the camera what’s wrong with everyone except themselves.
It is this dichotomy of expecting perfection from others while ignoring our own imperfections (or, even worse, beating ourselves up for our own imperfections) that has become a hallmark of our society.
We push our kids to take all the right courses, and get great grades, and do all kinds of activities so they can get into the right college (as if there is only one right college) and so they can have the right career (as if there is only one right career, and as if they will have only one career). Then we wonder why our kids are so stressed.
Read the rest of this column here!
And if you like it, please share it!!
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To get the latest in news & making fun of the news, listen to the Constant Crisis News & Opinion podcast, hosted by Chuck Hansen and Hamilton Holloway. "Poking fun at a world gone nuts." That's the podcast tagline. It's not just some random sentence I decided to type. Just so you know.
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