This is in response to Richard Rhyner’s letter from April 3, “Our kids are lazy.”
There are many, many young people who are not lazy, who go to school and work jobs, perhaps help with family members and within their communities. It doesn’t feel very nice to classify across the board that our future is in trouble because our kids are lazy.
Yes, our society has certainly changed, and the advance of social media and technology has its challenges in how it shapes and affects our youth and all people. It does have both positive and negative impacts and it comes with discerning for oneself how much to engage and what to engage in; couple that with being an adolescent makes that more challenging and especially with it readily at our fingertips. That said, many youth have used this technology for positive purposes; for instance, in promoting charitable endeavors.
Perhaps Mr. Rhyner has some positive suggestions on how he might guide or mentor our youth to encourage them to find their path and contribution to the community around them.
Besides, it’s not just “kids” who could fill those entry-level jobs at fast-food restaurants. Anyone who needs to step up for themselves could start there, and even move up to management positions and in turn foster an environment to recruit our youth.
I just thought it was rather unkind to lump all kids as being lazy. We could all do better at times.
— Trish Koldeway
Anchorage
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