npr | A new study holds up a mirror to America's parents. A surveyed
10,000 middle and high school students in 33 different schools around
the nation about what they thought their folks cared about most: that
they achieve at a high level, that they are happy (defined as "feeling
good most of the time"), or that they care for others. Almost 80 percent
of youth picked high achievement or happiness as their top choice,
while about 20 percent selected caring for others. The survey also shows
that about 80 percent of kids themselves rank achievement or happiness
as most important, paralleling what they believe their parents value
most.
Mari Brennan Barerra and Joel Barrera are your
quintessential do-gooders. They both work in the public sector, sit on
multiple nonprofit boards, volunteer at a soup kitchen, and even picked
their church because it was the one most committed to community service.
Not surprisingly, they also say they have made it a priority to raise
their kids to be caring and contributing.
If their daughter,
Mila, 15, had to say whether her parents cared more about her being good
to others or being successful, she says it'd be close, but she'd have
to say "good," she hedges.
Her brother, James, 13, however, doesn't hesitate.
"Successful," he says.
How
does he know? Because achievement in school is what his parents nag him
about, and reward him for, the most. For example, they let him quit
volunteering at the soup kitchen when he didn't like it, but he gets no
such pass on schoolwork. Similarly, Mila says, her parents got really
happy and took her out to a nice restaurant for dinner to reward her for
getting a B instead of a C.
"It's one of those things people
say, like, I really want you to be a good person, like that's my main
thing," she says. "But deep inside, it's like, but I really want you to be successful."
Rhetoric Vs. Reality
Rick Weissbourd's
at the Harvard Graduate School of Education published the study.
Weissbourd says the results reveal a "rhetoric-reality gap" on the part
of parents. In other research, parents have claimed that they value
caring above all, but that's not what kids are internalizing.
"Kids
are picking up on these mixed messages," he says. It could be little
things, he says, like letting your son inflate his community-service
commitment on a college application, or not asking your daughter to
reach out to a friendless child on the playground.
"I don't
think parents realize that these messages are drowning out other
messages about caring and equality and fairness," Weissbourd says.
The
study doesn't necessarily point to a decline in morality among young
people. Still, Marvin Berkowitz, a professor of character education at
the University of Missouri, St. Louis, says the results are troubling.
He references a Teddy Roosevelt quote: "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
