HB: Educate Your Children

Look: I'm not a parent. I don't know if I ever want to be, and even if I do one day cross that bridge, it'll be when I know I won't royally fuck up some kid's life. People give me this weird side glance when I say that, but think about how much work it takes just to keep a house plant alive. Now imagine having to take care of that weird Piranha-like alien plant from "Little Shop of Horrors." Next thing you know, you're feeding it Steve Martin and stuff just gets way too out of hand.

I digress. I grew up around some awesome parents who seemed to really have it together, and it just doesn't seem that hard to tell your kid not to be stupid or rude. But oh, no, no... this just doesn't exist in the vast majority of households if these kids are close to talking to their parents the way they're attempting to talk to me.

As I've noticed via my job as a school photographer, children of today don't understand basic directions. They cannot mimic movements, they cannot tell their right from left, they cannot process words as items that have meaning. They get angry when you tell them what to do nicely, and angry when you tell them what to do in your Hulk-iest voice.

I'm not really blaming anyone because there are so many people to blame. It could be parents, it could be "Jersey Shore," but whoever or whatever it is, is making this new generation alarmingly unintelligent and entitled as hell.

I don't know if it's because we had cooler video games (looking at you, Goldeneye) or we just read more books, but I feel like all of the people I grew up with were thousands of times smarter than the little assholes I snap photos of every day. If I hear "I want a BLUE background," "Tilt my head which way?" or "The red feet?" one more time, I'm gonna throw the unlucky thing into a library, sans food and water, and leave it there until it has raised its IQ at least 10 points.

It bothers me to know that as a whole, these miniature humans are going to have a say in the government one day. Hell, one of them is going to be president, and he or she won't even know which pen to use.

Disclaimer: this, as all my hatin' do, does not apply to the awesome children I have the privilege of having in my life, but let's be honest... that's few and far between. Read a newspaper, yo.