Costanza Miriano

(AUTOMATIC READING)
Some time ago, on a frosty winter morning, in Perugia, I met a group of middle school kids. They were running in a forest – come me, moreover -, regardless of the rain, of the cold, splashes of mud. As a mother I was shocked, then I remembered that throughout my adolescence, and actually for life, I did it too: catch cold, get wet, welding, run between roots and overhanging branches; my scarred knees testify to this, but anyway I survived.
Immersed in those memories, when I saw my old track coach in the rain, I couldn't help but violate the first commandment of running – never stop for any reason in the world, not even in case of broken limbs -: I had to hug him and have a word with him. As, I had confirmation of what I have been thinking and saying since I became a mother, and that is that today's kids have a tolerance to fatigue that is enormously lower than that of previous generations. At certain times, to tell the truth, I had the doubt of being a victim of the disorder that afflicts me a bit’ all adults of a generation, the syndrome “earlier” (In my time, life was hard, in my time, yes, people studied), and which sometimes leads me to exaggerate the harshness of life in my clumsy educational attempts (I never left leftovers on my plate, I was always setting and clearing the table, I made my own bed: Boys, that's not really exactly true, but they are called white lies).

CURRENT PERFORMANCE LOWER THAN THE PAST
But what my coach told me confirmed it for me, in a concretely measurable way, what I was saying. Among the guys on his team, at the same age we were thirty years ago, current performance is much lower. And the stopwatch gives objective data. This is confirmed by the fact that the minimum requirements for access to national athletics competitions have been raised. World records, It is true, they get lower and lower, but the mass of practitioners – ever thinner, at least in Italy – at a serious competitive level, runs slower on average, jump shorter and lower, throw closer. Except that we are not supporters of Darwin's theories, However, here we are not talking about the evolution of the species, but simply a cultural fact. Boys are more sedentary, they have less desire to move and work. E’ an objective fact, to deal with.
The cause? I don't know, probably a series of elements. Meanwhile, overly protective adults: my coach would sometimes leave us somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and told us to go to a town twenty kilometers away. It goes without saying that cell phones didn't exist, nor browsers, nor saline supplements. The farmer was asked the way (without stopping, screaming in a hurry), and if it was very hot perhaps he was asked for permission to drink from the hose he was watering with. If you fell, you got up and moved forward to stay attached to the group, otherwise you were lost. Our parents didn't even know where we were, and the coach was waiting for us at the finish line with the stopwatch (and in any case it had always taken us too long). The criterion for determining whether you had trained well or not was vomiting: if you felt the urge, then you had probably trained enough. My parents were only interested in me keeping my average high in school, they didn't worry too much about whether I got cold or hot: as long as I was healthy, it meant I could do it.
THE ILLUSION OF TECHNIQUE AND HYPERCONTROL
Today's parents hyper-monitor their children's health and every movement: everything must be sifted through their filter, in the illusion that technology, the information, economic well-being can protect these children and then teenagers from everything, since the womb, with pregnancies continuously examined (except to eliminate children if they are sick). Parents have the same protective attitude towards school: the professor is the enemy, not the ally, obstacles must be removed, fatigue avoided. Queries are almost always scheduled, so that the guys, if they want, they can study just for that day, or in any case limit the effort as much as possible. When I protested, a teacher explained to me that she is forced to do so in order to have someone at the test: the alternative is for everyone to justify themselves. “I promise you that if you refuse the justifications and puts 2 I don't protest to my son. Postpone, fail if necessary. I am with you whatever you decide to do”. The teacher looked at me like you look at a green elephant in a staff room.
What are the causes of this epochal change?? In addition to the inability of parents to impose or tolerate fatigue, frustration, it limits, even the suffering at times of their children, I would also add other elements, like the consumption model in which we live immersed, and the culture that comes with it (arouse false needs and convince us that it is necessary to satisfy them all, even quickly), and the enormous weight that technology has in our lives, and much more in those of our children, digital natives. In short, it is increasingly difficult to detach them from the sofas, from the beds, from all the horizontal surfaces on which they would instinctively lie down if they could, if through that thing in their hand they can see everything, light, communication, exchanging a mass of information that previous generations did not even imagine possible.
A PROBLEM OF SENSE
But at the bottom of it all, the problem is a problem of meaning. E’ the model of man that is proposed to us by all the channels that form our consciences: the culture, the information, the school, entertainment, communication, and also, we have to say it, part of the Church. We are immersed in a culture that considers man as not in need of care, redemption, salvation. E’ the culture that considers all internal movements worthy of approval and justified, we live in the swamp, where everything is soft, editable, plasmabile, negotiable, adjustable. Fatigue is an objection: if you find it difficult to do something, it's not good for you. While for centuries literature has also given us images of heroes who made dangerous journeys, they faced challenges, they bet – and sometimes they lost – life in risky trials, in order to achieve the goal, books today, i film, the stories that populate our imagination tell of small pleasures, small satisfactions, comfortable warm kennels that we set up to live in. Unfortunately, even in many areas of the Church a friendly Christ is proposed who pats you on the back, and essentially ratifies your life and your choices. Forgetting that the life of a Christian is a struggle, a militia in which blood is also sweated, sometimes. On the contrary, if it doesn't happen, if you don't play it all, it means that Christ is not everything for you. A fight in which the enemy is first and foremost internal: it is our sin, which comes from our responsibility and from the wound of original sin. I know this is old-fashioned talk, which to some ears sound as absurd as letting kids run in the mud in the freezing rain, but eternal life is at stake, and if we don't fight anymore we'll get much more than a low fever (who then never comes to run, trust me!).
Note from BastaBugie: to delve deeper into the reasons for the current situation, you can read the following article
MILLENNIALS: AN IMPATIENT GENERATION, AND FOR THIS DISSATISFIED
Kids today are lazy, social-dependent and incapable of achieving true gratification (VIDEO: who are the Millennials)
by Nadia Ferrigo
http://www.bastabugie.it/it/articoli.php?id=4861