Today’s youth react to college admission differently from what their parents did, Tom Batink and Chuck Ayers’ comic strip recently shows.

Monday, June 25, 2001

Today’s youth react to college admission differently from what their parents did, Tom Batink and Chuck Ayers’ comic strip recently shows. Crankshaft’s grandson, Max, receives notice of acceptance and this causes his mother fondly to reflect on years ago receiving hers. The first frame in each strip is a flashback for the mother and the second is the boy’s equivalent attitude.

Finding a Kent State letter in the mail, she exclaims: "Oh, I hope I’ve been accepted!! I’m so nervous I can’t stand it!!!" With equal excitement and all the nostalgia, she finds his: "Look, Max. There’s a letter from Wilmington College!" Reaction: "Oh?" When she opens hers, she screams: "Yippee! I’ve been accepted at Kent!!" Seeing Max has been accepted, she asks if he, too, is excited. "I guess" The flashback shows her rushing to complete and return the forms. She now urges Max to respond, and without looking up he asks her to do it for him. She phones a girl friend: "I’m so excited I can’t stand it!!" Max receives a phone call asking "what’s new" and he replies, "Nothin’ much." She rushes to her father: "I’ve been accepted by Kent State!! Isn’t that great!?" She asks Max if he has told the good news to his father, and the boy looks blank and says, "About what?"

Funny? Of course. Kids these days are like that: it’s hard to get them excited about things like that. "Crankshaft," however, is one of the more profoundly insightful into human nature. The second layer of truth is far from funny. It’s tragic.

Crankshaft’s daughter was the first in her family to enter college, and she had worked hard throughout high school to qualify. She applied fully expecting to be rejected. When the university accepted her, it was one of the biggest thrills of her young, uncertain life. She gained a strong sense of acceptance and being affirmed as a person. She entered college with a sense of being honored softened by gratitude for a singular opportunity.

Not so Max. Max is today’s youth, and he takes everything as a matter of course. Every time he wanted something, he demanded it and his parents bought it. If he didn’t want to do something, he refused and his parents did it for him. The modern curriculum specialists judged that reading, writing, and arithmetic are too traditional and prescribed interesting stuff like aimless field trips and pointless sensitivity groups. If he thought a school assignment was too hard, he protested and the teachers gave him an alternative form. If grade inflation didn’t get him promoted, he was quietly allowed a social promotion. Max will enter Wilmington College with the same casual, indifferent attitude, and he will expect the same indulgence on which he has existed the first eighteen years of what should be a life.

A scandalously common characteristic of today’s youth is they assume they are entitled to anything they want, protest loudly if denied, and take everything for granted. They don’t say "please" and never "thank you." Just "Me" and "gimme."

Wallace Alcorn’s column appears Mondays.