Heroism and Entitlement

    I found the articles and discussion of the princess and superhero culture very interesting today. From my perspective, we have to get our kids to understand that they're not entitled to anything. I feel like that's one of the biggest problems with our American, and possibly the world in general, society because when the future generations keep regurgitating this idea that we need to be idolized and glorified for no good reason at all, then the positive work ethic that our parents and grandparents generations epitomized will be gone and laziness will dominate, although you could argue that that might have already happened.

    When I was a kid, I loved playing with superhero action figures. Batman was easily my favorite, but I also liked Superman, Spiderman and others. Batman was the most appealing because he had the most interesting villains. The Joker, Two-face, The Riddler, Catwoman, and others were just as appealing as the hero was and I still feel that way today. I think that provides an interesting link to our discussion because there's a risk of kids not only wanting to be like a superhero, but also trying to imitate the behavior of their respective villains. When The Dark Knight came out, everyone seemed to idolize and take massive delight in Heath Ledger's Joker, myself included, more so than the seemingly heroic deeds of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne/Batman. What does that say about a society that finds a terrorist that kills people and blows up buildings without flinching more interesting and exciting than someone standing up and protecting our interests and lives? Possibly not much good.

    On another note, my three year old niece gets spoiled rotten and could be classified as getting the princess treatment. She's a sweet girl at her core, but she gets very bossy and undisciplined like the girls talked about in the articles and in the videos. I don't want to tell my sister that she's raising her child wrong, but I fear that my niece will go down a road where she feels entitled to everything and wants to do things not because it's good for her, but because she just can. It seems to be a very slippery slope for parents to make their children feel special but also disciplining them and teaching them to respect others and treat others as well as they perceive themselves to be.