LDS Freedom Forum

It’s graduation season; after leaving a commencement I couldn’t help but notice kids graduating with college associate degrees before finishing high school. As much as I admire this, as a parent in the thick of raising teens I’ve noticed a trend towards perfection within LDS youth that raises concerns for me.

I’ve lost track how many times my kids are turned down to spend time with LDS friends because the grades arent A’s, the kid has too many chores or work to do, or the kid hasn’t practiced an instrument or sport long enough. It seems spending time with friends has become a reward for perfectionism (at least among the ones I know)

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for teaching kids to work hard. I just come from the perspective of having a child survive cancer. The connections she makes in life brings far more joy and outweighs accomplishments esteemed by others.

With that in mind, am I missing the boat here that we can and should expect more out of our youth ....Or is anybody else wading alongside me on the sideline of lowered expectations?

I'm with you. I'm gradually coming to appreciate mediocrity more and more.

Most the stuff we have kids do is fake, and for status or image. Do stuff so you can get a good grade, or a badge, or rank, or praise, or likes, or be a doctor or leader or whatever.

When I was a kid, we got the neighborhood together and played baseball out in the hayfield or pasture (hopefully missing the cowpies). Now kids have to be in a formal league, with uniforms, and coaches yelling at 8 year olds, and tournaments and traveling all over, and trophies and award ceremonies.

You couldn't just go camping,, you had to keep checking squares and getting badges and rank in scouts.

School throws information at kids to get grades, but they don't know why they're learning it. Mostly to pass some test, so they can go to college and often get a fake degree and debt.

Mostly about status and money. I once worried about my kids education, but eventually didn't care. They will learn when they need or want to - and they ended up being top students in college, though my 2 daughters haven't used their degrees.

Anyway, you would think with all our technology and luxuries, we could relax and enjoy life more, but seems we're still competing against each other for status. Not the vibe I got from Jesus.

I'm with you. If any sense of happiness or any opportunity for fun and relaxation is limited to a reward for an impossible to achieve perfection the a generation of very dysfunctional and miserable kids are being raised.

If someone can handle it, that is fine. But if you don't have time for friends day after day, year after year, then in ten more years the adrenals will be burnt out and the person will be useless. It isn't right to run faster than you have strength.

Parents are too busy too. It's no wonder so many marriages suffer. I have a hard time making it to relief society because it's scheduled during the evenings when my husband is home.

I don't know how other parents do it. I just stay home with my kids and let them play outside. On a lucky day we get to go to the park. But it takes me 4 hours a day just to finish the house cleaning. How do other people fit dinner in when there are activities after school and in the evening? Where do people get time to do the housework when they are so busy?

It's also hard to find kids in the neighborhood to play with, which means you have to schedule time to drive to have friends over. And everyone is so busy it is hard to make it happen.

People are becoming superfluous due to extreme efficiencies in the production of everything they consume and increasingly artificial metrics are being used to gauge people's worth, as they become increasingly worthless to the system. I've been thinking about this lately, considering my own kids' futures.

1) Commodities are needing fewer people to produce them.
2) Real wages are declining, leaving less money for most everyone.
3) Lots of well-paying jobs revolve around the facilitation of outsized capital transfers on behalf of people who'll never see the money being spent in their name (healthcare, mortgage, insurance).
3) Higher education is a phony construct that teaches socialism under a capitalist umbrella, as people borrow money to play the game, in hopes of getting a good job. And today the schools are mainly getting money from Federal student loans, not people's own money. The customer can't afford their product.

I think it's a little weird how the church tells people to get the most education they can, since the world is so competitive. This promotes a scarcity mentality that the Law of Consecration is supposed to overcome. It's like they're all on board with the Babylonian survival paradigm. China is highly competitive using academic metrics and we are becoming more like them. The whole system seems to be about gating WHO is going to have an easy life.

Chip wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 12:45 am People are becoming superfluous due to extreme efficiencies in the production of everything they consume and increasingly artificial metrics are being used to gauge people's worth, as they become increasingly worthless to the system. I've been thinking about this lately, considering my own kids' futures.

1) Commodities are needing fewer people to produce them.
2) Real wages are declining, leaving less money for most everyone.
3) Lots of well-paying jobs revolve around the facilitation of outsized capital transfers on behalf of people who'll never see the money being spent in their name (healthcare, mortgage, insurance).
3) Higher education is a phony construct that teaches socialism under a capitalist umbrella, as people borrow money to play the game, in hopes of getting a good job. And today the schools are mainly getting money from Federal student loans, not people's own money. The customer can't afford their product.

I think it's a little weird how the church tells people to get the most education they can, since the world is so competitive. This promotes a scarcity mentality that the Law of Consecration is supposed to overcome. It's like they're all on board with the Babylonian survival paradigm. China is highly competitive using academic metrics and we are becoming more like them. The whole system seems to be about gating WHO is going to have an easy life.

You make a lot of good observations that I agree with. However...we have to live in the world until the Lord returns and living the Law of Consecration is a way’s off.

I have to disagree with some of these observations. My Grandchildren and their friends are the most amazing generation I have ever seen! They can now graduate High School with the ability to
go into a career because they can achieve it while in High School. My Granddaughter worked in a dental office during school, served a mission after graduating and came home ready to start a job as a dental hygentist with most of her training in place. Almost ALL of my Grandchildren have served Missions, as have their friends, of whom they have many. They are well rounded and capable, a chosen generation who walk uprightly before the Lord in a world of so much filth, i.e. drugs, perverted lifestyles, crime, etc.

22 trillion in debt with no end in sight. Them associate degrees ain't gonna cover it. Better get to work, kids! We're sending you a massive bill soon.

I totally agree, but it's also the world out kids live in. If they are going to graduate without huge amounts of debt, they need to get scholarships. It's also harder to get into BYU than ever before. Not PC, but especially if they are white kids. This generation is growing up with 50% minorities, and if the white kids aren't perfect they aren't getting the same scholarships their parents did.

The associate's degree thing is actually pretty awesome. My AP high school courses were harder than the ones I took at Community College, plus then I had to take a test and hope the college accepted it as coursework. BYU makes you get a perfect 5 on the AP tests to get out of pre-req classes, where most schools will accept a 3 or 4.

The associate's degree classes take the place of the high school classes and are not that hard for a 16 year old. It's not like you're that much smarter at 18. It halves the time to your bachelor's degree in most cases, for free.

I wish we lived in a world where a bachelor's degree was a bonus, but unfortunately, it's become the new high school diploma. If you want to have a white collar job and join the middle class, you need one to open the right doors. Now, I encourage my kids not to be English or Art majors of course.

I also think trade jobs like surveying, construction, dental hygiene, mechanics are all very great careers for those who are more mechanically minded but don't want to sit in a classroom all day for 4 years.

Everyone needs some kind of certificate or degree these days.

Maybe follow Spencer W. Kimball's advice, and President nelson's example, and learn Chinese?

We've looked into this heavily for my kids because we have no money to help them with college but it really is only for certain personality types.
It's not even the time constraints. My neighbor kid is doing well with it and still manages to have goof off time.
The main concern no one talks about is that these kids HAVE to pick a major their first semester in college. Most people change majors at least once. If they do, those credits won't count for anything because they already have their elective credit (major dependent, of course).
Then they have to take all the prerequisites that aren't offered for associates degrees. Did you know the only English classes offered are for liberal arts majors? Not sci/tech majors?
My kid is interested in mechanical engineering but would need an extra year just to get all the prereqs not offered by the associates.
So my opinion now is that it's worth it to take calculus, health, history, art and such out if the way ones senior year (because high school classes are a joke), but not the entire associates degree. And I'm encouraging my kids to avoid college completely and check into applied technology school until they know for sure they want a college degree.
Edit: dumb autocorrect fixes

Chip wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 12:45 am It's like they're all on board with the Babylonian survival paradigm.

Hmm... It's almost like they have been since 1890...

The church used to tell people not to put their kids in public school, in Brigham's days.

jsk wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 3:12 am

Chip wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 12:45 am People are becoming superfluous due to extreme efficiencies in the production of everything they consume and increasingly artificial metrics are being used to gauge people's worth, as they become increasingly worthless to the system. I've been thinking about this lately, considering my own kids' futures.

1) Commodities are needing fewer people to produce them.
2) Real wages are declining, leaving less money for most everyone.
3) Lots of well-paying jobs revolve around the facilitation of outsized capital transfers on behalf of people who'll never see the money being spent in their name (healthcare, mortgage, insurance).
3) Higher education is a phony construct that teaches socialism under a capitalist umbrella, as people borrow money to play the game, in hopes of getting a good job. And today the schools are mainly getting money from Federal student loans, not people's own money. The customer can't afford their product.

I think it's a little weird how the church tells people to get the most education they can, since the world is so competitive. This promotes a scarcity mentality that the Law of Consecration is supposed to overcome. It's like they're all on board with the Babylonian survival paradigm. China is highly competitive using academic metrics and we are becoming more like them. The whole system seems to be about gating WHO is going to have an easy life.

You make a lot of good observations that I agree with. However...we have to live in the world until the Lord returns and living the Law of Consecration is a way’s off.

This is LDS Freedom Forum. That's not what Joseph taught or what's taught today:
https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrines-of ... 5?lang=eng

harakim wrote: ↑April 29th, 2019, 4:00 pm

jsk wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 3:12 am

Chip wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 12:45 am People are becoming superfluous due to extreme efficiencies in the production of everything they consume and increasingly artificial metrics are being used to gauge people's worth, as they become increasingly worthless to the system. I've been thinking about this lately, considering my own kids' futures.

1) Commodities are needing fewer people to produce them.
2) Real wages are declining, leaving less money for most everyone.
3) Lots of well-paying jobs revolve around the facilitation of outsized capital transfers on behalf of people who'll never see the money being spent in their name (healthcare, mortgage, insurance).
3) Higher education is a phony construct that teaches socialism under a capitalist umbrella, as people borrow money to play the game, in hopes of getting a good job. And today the schools are mainly getting money from Federal student loans, not people's own money. The customer can't afford their product.

I think it's a little weird how the church tells people to get the most education they can, since the world is so competitive. This promotes a scarcity mentality that the Law of Consecration is supposed to overcome. It's like they're all on board with the Babylonian survival paradigm. China is highly competitive using academic metrics and we are becoming more like them. The whole system seems to be about gating WHO is going to have an easy life.

You make a lot of good observations that I agree with. However...we have to live in the world until the Lord returns and living the Law of Consecration is a way’s off.

This is LDS Freedom Forum. That's not what Joseph taught or what's taught today:
https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrines-of ... 5?lang=eng

I don't follow you...I read the lesson and I don't see any disconnect between what I said and what is taught. I said we have to live in the world...which we do. We have to work in it...we have to associate with all types of people. But we can and should live Zion principles in our homes and families. What are you getting at?

jsk wrote: ↑April 29th, 2019, 5:55 pm

harakim wrote: ↑April 29th, 2019, 4:00 pm

jsk wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 3:12 am

Chip wrote: ↑April 27th, 2019, 12:45 am People are becoming superfluous due to extreme efficiencies in the production of everything they consume and increasingly artificial metrics are being used to gauge people's worth, as they become increasingly worthless to the system. I've been thinking about this lately, considering my own kids' futures.

1) Commodities are needing fewer people to produce them.
2) Real wages are declining, leaving less money for most everyone.
3) Lots of well-paying jobs revolve around the facilitation of outsized capital transfers on behalf of people who'll never see the money being spent in their name (healthcare, mortgage, insurance).
3) Higher education is a phony construct that teaches socialism under a capitalist umbrella, as people borrow money to play the game, in hopes of getting a good job. And today the schools are mainly getting money from Federal student loans, not people's own money. The customer can't afford their product.

I think it's a little weird how the church tells people to get the most education they can, since the world is so competitive. This promotes a scarcity mentality that the Law of Consecration is supposed to overcome. It's like they're all on board with the Babylonian survival paradigm. China is highly competitive using academic metrics and we are becoming more like them. The whole system seems to be about gating WHO is going to have an easy life.

You make a lot of good observations that I agree with. However...we have to live in the world until the Lord returns and living the Law of Consecration is a way’s off.

This is LDS Freedom Forum. That's not what Joseph taught or what's taught today:
https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrines-of ... 5?lang=eng

I don't follow you...I read the lesson and I don't see any disconnect between what I said and what is taught. I said we have to live in the world...which we do. We have to work in it...we have to associate with all types of people. But we can and should live Zion principles in our homes and families. What are you getting at?

Somehow, I misunderstood what you were saying. That is correct, but I think we can also live in Zion-like communities. I thought you were saying that was not possible until Jesus comes.