r/HonestHotTakes • u/bigpicklefann • 21h ago
Millennial parents should be taking more heat for the literacy crisis because their kids are the ones who can’t read.
People complain about IPad kids as if the children procured the IPads themselves and also act as if there isn’t an adult in the house who could… take it away from them.
They act like kids simply just don’t read because they don’t want to, but I think it’s that a lot of parents just aren’t caring to teach them or read to them.
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u/Vorathian_X 21h ago
My sister is a professor at a large university, she told me that about 30% of her incoming freshmen are working at an 8th-9th grade level.
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u/RandomIDoIt90 21h ago
That’s Gen Z. Raised by Gen X. My niece is the youngest Gen Z and she is still in highschool.
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u/Sorry_Blacksmith_429 19h ago
Ive been saying it all week and have gotten a lot of downvotes and hate comments. But Gen Z (Born between mid 1996 - 2010) is the first generation in like a hundred years that are scoring lower on standardise cognitive and academic tests, and are less intelligent then their parents, at least according to neuroscientist Dr Jared Cooney Horvath. Around 2010 is when laptops where introduced in the Australian classroom, and attention and overall scores fell as the years went on.
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u/Rare_House9883 13h ago
I wholeheartedly believe that technically is the biggest issue in schools today, which I say as a gen z, class of 2018. I was a good student, with good grades blah blah blah, but I learnt like fucking dog shit when we were using technology. In high school I took French and we were forced to use duolingo and listen to French music on YouTube every lesson, in science we often just watched educational videos and 90s science cartoons, and it was worse prior to high school. Intermediate was almost exclusively done on laptops, we were a trial school for rolling out laptops, tablets, and even iPods, and while we met standards I don't think we retained much. Honestly I feel let down, I'm a smart person but I feel like my potential was stunted, I don't even know how to describe how odd it feels to know we were essentially a failed experiment and now we're just stupid adults.
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u/Sorry_Blacksmith_429 13h ago
Yeah I wasn't in year 10 when they came out, our year was the first people to get them from the government for free. My sisters the following year had to spend $800 each. Every class I just fucked around on YouTube and shit (this was around 2012ish)
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u/Rare_House9883 13h ago
It's crazy is it not? I genuinely don't know what they expected, teens are notoriously lazy and prone to taking advantage of a situation, it's just a stage of life everyone goes through. Eery previous generation was smart enough to make sure they provided rigid structure, then suddenly a whole generation was suddenly given almost no structure, no guidance, and almost total freedom. It backfired, badly.
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u/Vorathian_X 21h ago
I wasn't directing that at any generation, just what my sister said about her class this year. And it really shows regardless of generation there will be idiots.
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u/Wonderful_Shower_793 6h ago
Not all Gen Z were raised by Gen X. I’m an elder millennial with 19 and 17 YOs. Just saying.
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u/RandomIDoIt90 6h ago
Yes there is always overlap. Next time I will add all the nuance. I’m a millennial raised by Gen X from a teenage pregnancy. Most millennials my age had boomer parents.
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u/handsheal 11h ago
My gen z kids still know cursive
And can read
Handwriting skills are the ones that are most lacking
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u/RandomIDoIt90 8h ago
There’s a lot more than the handwriting they are struggling with.
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u/handsheal 7h ago
For sure Really meant of the reading /writing area
Comprehension is a whole topic of its own
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u/Natti07 21h ago
I had grad student recently who quite ltierally told me that they had zero idea how to do the skill practice assignments and didnt connect with their group because they "never did this before" and didnt know what to do. Ok 1. News flash, if you already were an expert, you wouldnt need this class. And 2. Possibly try reading the contents of the chapter and/or any desired web resources and actually trying to follow the instructions a little bit.
Like the one assignment truly is not complicated. It involved simple math of multiplying and adding. You could do it without even reading the chapter.
Its genuinely alarming. And I dont understand how this person is a graduate student.
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u/Big-Employer-3275 21h ago
No one is talking about how the kids who can’t read are often children of the kids who couldn’t read when we were younger. The literacy crisis is not new.
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u/kristaanne09 21h ago
My kids can't read, and I'm a millennial. However, they're too young! Don't forget about those of us that didn't have kids till our 30s.
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u/StupidSexyFlanders72 20h ago
Haha right? Millennial 30-something here with a toddler who obv can’t read yet but spends half the day bringing books over for me to read to him.
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u/wolfonweed 21h ago
Millennials are the first generation where two working parents is the standard and expected norm.
boomers have received already 256% of the taxes they put in, and will likely suck down a lot more in the next decade or so. The entire economy is running on the productivity of the Millennial generation, the most productive generation in the history of the country.
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u/TightBeing9 21h ago
My mom was a single mother who worked fulltime and she found time to read to me every night for ten minutes. Dont make excuses like this, if you have time to have kids, you can make time to read to them 10 minutes a day
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u/Dennis_enzo 13h ago
- Personal anecdotes mean very little when talking about societal issues.
- Ten minutes of reading to your kids does not guarantee that they will be good readers. It's a little bit more complex than that.
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u/TightBeing9 7h ago
Just like general statements don't always account for individual cases. You're putting your kids behind in life if you don't prioritise reading skills. 10 minutes is better than none and will improve their vocabulary and listening skills. Nothing will guarantee they will be good readers but there's no excuse for not even trying
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u/MissLadyLlamaDrama 10h ago
Okay, well go blame gen x then. They're the ones who have the most gen z kids. Not milennials.
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u/TightBeing9 7h ago
Taking responsibility isn't that hard
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u/MissLadyLlamaDrama 7h ago
For what? My kid is three and can already read above her age level. And that is because we had the privilege of sending her to a good daycare. Something most milennials, and now gen z, can't even afford to do because of what boomers and gen x did to the education system.
Like I said, gen x is the predominant parent generation of genz. Not millennials. And gen x dodges any accountability for anything like the plague and are the most conservative of any generation as well as the generation that ushered in no child left behind and revitalized abstinence only teaching for their kids. So, yeah. Whenever they want to take responsibility for somehow turning out worse than their parents instead of blaming everything on boomers and milennials like their generation contributed anything to society other than fascism, the rest of us will be waiting.
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u/Oishiio42 21h ago
Well, we take heat for everything else, why not this too. Just pile it on
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u/Expensive-Peak-9696 21h ago
If the shoe fits.
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u/Electronic_Sky_207 21h ago
It doesn’t. Because millennials ruined the shoe industry.
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u/troopersjp 21h ago
I heard that millennials eating avocado toast is the reason why no more shoes are made anywhere in the world anymore.
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u/Oishiio42 21h ago
It's just frustration with a collective problem being channelled into scapegoating a demographic and individual choices. There are a lot of factors that have gone into the literacy crisis, but pointing the finger at poor parenting just isn't backed up. There have always been bad parents in society - if that were the main factor for literacy rates, it would be a constant.
Like hell, Gen X are pretty much defined by negligent parenting (ie. latchkey kids, commercials reminding parents they had children, etc.), and their literacy rates were fine. It's not a parenting issue.
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u/Acceptable-Bat4534 20h ago
So what are other reasons?
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u/Oishiio42 20h ago
How we run schools, which isn't just admin decisions but also political decisions that impact things like class sizes, funding, no child left behind policies, removing programing for disabled kids, book bans, etc.
Rise of short form content decreasing attention spans and excessive screen time is one of them. This is partially a parenting issue, but it's way more complicated than that and it's reductive to just blame parents. It ties into other societal issues too, such as socioeconomic conditions that require parents to spend less time with their kids, a broader lack of a "village" previous generations of children had, lack of affordable/accessible children's and youth programs, lack of third spaces.
Shift in expectations for parenting. Very low tolerance for children to exist or behave like children in public, as well as many places where children playing outside their home without an adult will result in calls to police and CPS. Doesn't directly impact literacy, but it does impact how much screen time kids get, which then does.
And of course the big one is covid. Children missed a lot of critical development during the pandemic, and there have been long lasting impacts both in terms of that, as well as children now having lost parents, grandparents, etc. or who have parents that have been disabled or became chronically ill from it. Even many people that didn't experience such losses are still economically recovering.
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u/Few-Interview-5291 20h ago
The education system stopped teaching kids how to read by sounding out letters. Instead they used “Balanced Literacy” and “Three-Cueing”. Kids were taught words based on pictures, context, or first letter. Kids are not taught how to read and schools had the audacity to tell parents not to “force” their kids to sound out letters, saying to “let them guess”. Yes, let kids guess how to say words in a language infamous for having inconsistent rules. Whatever could go wrong?
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u/Acceptable-Bat4534 20h ago
I was taught Iike that and so were my siblings lol.
My daughter is being taught phonetically and it really fucking confuses me. She got all these rules and im like wtf is this. Like I learned what a nasal a is now.
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u/funkyskateboard 21h ago
what else do millenials take the heat for?
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u/Select-Ad7146 21h ago
RIP: Here are 70 things millennials have killed | Mashable
19 Ways Millennials Ruined Everything - by Robin Wilding
18 Things Millennials Killed Off in the Last 10 Years
20 Things Millennials Have Totally Ruined, According to Boomers - Back in Time Today
Here Are All The Things Millennials Are Killing, According To Olds
Everything.
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u/XaevSpace 21h ago
Infamously tons of low quality articles were all the rage claiming some practice that millennial ruined/killed off.
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u/TheSerialHobbyist 21h ago
To be fair, we millennials are getting old enough now that all the blame/hate is shifting to Gen Z.
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u/No_Yard9104 21h ago
In fairness, very little of that happens. It’s hard to throw blame when we’re too preoccupied with the questions, “what is happening?”, and “what the hell is happening?”
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u/TheSerialHobbyist 21h ago
I dunno, I see a lot of millennials doing to gen z what older generations did to us. Makes me sad.
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u/kiranerysplease 20h ago
yeah just proves that it's all cyclical and millennial are not more righteous than the boomers they criticize. somehow it's different when shitting on Gen z, because they feel like it's deserved 🙄
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u/Oishiio42 21h ago
Everything from the housing crisis caused by our avocado toast habits to killing the paper towel industry.
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u/kimjongmatic 21h ago
Well they need The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.
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u/lonelyneglected 21h ago
My kid is 3 years old lol who are you talking about
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u/MissLadyLlamaDrama 10h ago
My kid literally just turned three last month.
I have no idea why people are so obsessed with blaming milennials for the gen z illiteracy rate, because most of gen z have gen x parents while Milennials are having gen alpha kids. Mostly because gen x and milennials didn't immediately start popping out babies the second they graduated high school.
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u/Wonderful_Shower_793 21h ago
I mean, baby millennial parents were part of NCLB. A lot of them are functionally illiterate.
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u/Electric-Sheepskin 20h ago
People don't talk about this enough. No Child Left Behind was a good idea, in theory, but it should be taught as a master class in unintended consequences.
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u/phantom_phanatic 20h ago
No Child Left Behind would be good… if they actually tried to help students reach the level of their peers so they're not “Left Behind”. Instead they just push you through.
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u/Rough_Ian 21h ago
Not a parent, just a millennial. I see parents even younger than me sitting their kids down with their iPad baby sitter/pacifier. I’m disappointed in my cohort too. I thought we’d be better. But I’ve found it’s better to focus on the problem and those actually causing the problem rather than calling out everyone in a group regardless of their behavior…
Otherwise you just sound like a Boomer ;D
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u/TightBeing9 7h ago
Same, I commented her how there isn't an excuse to not even spend 10 minutes a day reading to your kids. And there came the excuses. It's pathetic. Why have kids if you can't spend a few minutes a day working on a life skill. I refuse to accept any excuses for it
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 21h ago
true, they gave their kids screens to shut them up but no child left behind takes some blame as well
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u/PortugalPilgrim88 18h ago
You say these like they happened simultaneously. Millennials were the kids in school during no child left behind, not the parents.
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 18h ago
indeed but mostly not for their earliest years and iphones, tablets etc. werent really a thing until even the youngest of us were teens.
even computers werent everywhere so the attention spans hadnt been destroyed and at least they had a better start
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u/bigpicklefann 21h ago
Oh 100% agree that’s the other huge factor
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u/MissLadyLlamaDrama 10h ago
Do you think the factor that gen x is actually the predominant parental generation of gen z is relevant? Because most gen z kids do not have milennial parents.
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u/Grand_Journalist2136 21h ago
well, yes and no. a lot of the blame can also be placed on right wing governments and their policies, like "no child left behind". an illiterate population is an obedient population.
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u/TeenyTinyDawg07 21h ago
Fuck you. Most of us don’t have kids yet. It’s Gen X’s dumb ass kids.
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u/Background_whisper 10h ago
Some millennials have kids as well, some in the gen Alpha generation. Both gen X and millenials aren't doing much in the way of educating their kids, unfortunately.
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u/Time_Award3158 21h ago
If you don’t read to your kids all the time when they are between the ages of 6 months and 6 years, then there are things they will never ever get about reading. If you let them have an iPad/screen during that window, double fucked.
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u/strangelove77 21h ago
As a millennial myself - we make for awful parents. There's this need from us to want to make our kids our friends first and then their parents second. It fucks everything up.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 21h ago
Just parents*. That includes boomers and (sadly) GenX. More than half of Americans read at or below 6th freaking grade. GenZ is also making kids now, too. So there’s new dumbasses in the pipe
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u/Lazy-Ad-7236 21h ago edited 20h ago
Blame the whole language scam. If you haven't listened to sold a story podcast you should.
It really hit home with me. My one child was able to learn to read very easily. The other needed to be taught all the rules. FFS why does OUGH have what six different sounds! Lets be honest, English is pretty complicated. If my second child had been taught with whole language they would have been lost.
Funny thing, my kids spell better in Spanish. Makes sense because its all phonics pretty much.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 21h ago
If you consider that half of Millennials started school during NCLB and are half-illiterate, are you really that surprised?
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u/MissLadyLlamaDrama 10h ago
Yes. Because milennials arent the ones raising gen z. That eould be gen x. The generation responsible for bringing the NCLB shit to the US.
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u/Raspberry_Geist3991 7h ago
Really late Millennials had some really late Gen Z's (I went to a rural school, so a disappointing number of my classmates had babies as teenagers/senior year/and immediately out of high school). Also, Gen Alpha is old enough that we can see that they're literacy rates are distressingly low for middle/early high school aged children, but, that is a result of having less literate parents as a result of bafflingly brain-dead laws such as NCLB.
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u/MissLadyLlamaDrama 6h ago
Unfortunately, not just a rural thing. Millennials actually had a huge spike in teen pregnancies around the time the Bush administration decided to revitalize the Regan-era abstinence only shit. In my state they actually had to start filing pregnant students into the "delinquent" schools where they could recieve childcare while in class because so many girls were falling behind. I think this is probably also why millennial parents are more likely to have kids with large age gaps. I think my graduating class alone had 5 couples that had kids or were going to have one soon. They were the ones who didn't drop out or fall so far behind they had to go to the "delinquent" student school.
So I wouldn't ever say they don't exist. They just aren't the majority because most millennials waited to have kids until they were in their late 20s/early 30s. So that just ended up creating a larger gap between them and their kids than older generations.
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u/writingcat1993 21h ago
I partially agree because of screen time at an early age( the why it is bad is below) and i think reading for fun is less encouraged now(but is more because of genz and not millenials).
The school system has gone from teaching phonics to balanced literacy or whole language. This taught kids to guess words based on context clues or pictures trather than actually decoding letters to learn how to spell and read the word. This did not teach children how to read properly. Schools are starting to return to teaching phonics but reteaching how to read, especially older children, is going to be difficult.
Misleading report cards due to schools giving good marks or passing marks for effort and participation rather than showing how much the kids actually know.
Economic demands keeping parents working longer hours and away from their kids to try to help them with homework or establish a habit of reading.
Tech companies also have engineered highly addictive algorithms targeting children.
Lastly, a generational shift in habits which is attributed much more to gen z. One of them being a decline in reading for pleasure at home and reading being viewed as more of an academic chore.
Parents are partially to blame but kids go to school to learn most of everything. It is hard for parents to know if their kids are succeeding when report cards are filled with good grades from just being present in class.
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u/TiredTwinWrangler 20h ago
Eh, it’s not like boomers take any responsibility for giving us the participation trophies. We’re just blamed for receiving them.
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u/Expensive-Peak-9696 21h ago
It’s true. And it’s the baby boomers who caused the millennials.
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u/Sparkle_Dish2126 21h ago
Why are the boomers responsible for millennials’ mashed potato brained, r3tard kids?
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u/ausmed 21h ago
Because a lot of boomers raised their kids in this authoritarian 'kids should be seen and not heard' kind of way. They were forced to eat things, told to stop crying, ignored and expected to look after themselves all the time, and their parents got uncomfortable if they felt anything so they grew up feeling neglected and ignored.
They have children thinking 'i won't ever let my children wonder if I love them. I'll make sure they know how much I love them and care about their feelings, and will give them attention and respect their wishes.
Them we get a generation of kids who are over catered to. But who's parents are equally scared of their kids feeling anything because they were never taught how to manage negative feelings. It's the circle of life.
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u/kiranerysplease 20h ago
at what point will millennials take responsibility and ownership over their own actions lmfao. their shifty parenting is still somehow boomers' fault? ok. why don't we just keep going down the list of previous generations
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u/dumbass_777 21h ago
sort of agree. they are also the parents that teachers are complaining about not making their kids do homework or anything productive at home. or even defending their kids when they don't wanna do schoolwork.
but of course, it's not all of them
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 21h ago
A large chunk of the literacy issues stem from a switch from phonics to the “Whole Language” method of teaching reading. Long story short, the “Whole Language” method sucks and a lot of millennials and Gen Z were taught with that method and it makes it damn hard for parents to reinforce good reading habits that they never learned themselves.
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u/BigMikeSRT 21h ago
Boomers did it, they were the first generation of me over we.
Millennials are the ones caught holding the bag of their 50 reign of stupidity and selfishness.
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u/Claudeadolphus 21h ago
It’s unlikely they will care about taking “heat” considering they don’t even care to be good parents.
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u/CMDR-LT-ATLAS 21h ago
Better parents than boomers or gen X'ers could ever be. At least my children are in elementary and running Linux and messing with docker and other whatnots. They also can read really well for their age group in elementary.
My youngest can properly seat in an AM5 CPU and apply thermal paste correctly. All while correctly identifying belladonna and knows not to touch it and can correctly pick produce at the store better than most shipt shoppers.
My children are fine Choom.
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u/Claudeadolphus 20h ago
Yeah well when my kid was in elementary, he was installing and configuring ISA cards with jumpers…. And he is legally blind.
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u/Grand_Journalist2136 20h ago
right, but can they identify themes and symbolism in text? can they explain why some characters say one thing and then act another way? can they grasp why antagonists make the choices they do? the ability to read is only one part of being literate.
and op never mentioned the ability to do these other things, as amazing as these skills are. this is about their literal and functional illiteracy.
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u/CMDR-LT-ATLAS 20h ago
My Choom, we read the King in Yellow together (I own a hard copy) due to a Minecraft mod/video they got exposed to. They aren't at middle school reading comprehension, but they understand more than their peers.
Your but do they understand argument is a hilarious and failed take. Just wait, leviathan is next, followed by Brave New World and many more good books I have in hard cover format. Let's also glaze over my children being able to utilize blender and learning how to make STL files for their 3D printing leisures.
So yes, they understand more than you dude. They'll be at a higher literacy level before they reach middle school.
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u/Grand_Journalist2136 20h ago
how is asking if they're functionally illiterate on a post about reading a hilarious and failed take?
additionally, you know nothing about me or my literacy skills.
and i see you keep bringing up things that op didn't mention. seems like your kids got their functional illiteracy from you. maybe put down the cyberpunk 2077 and start learning media literacy skills, "choom".
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u/kiranerysplease 20h ago
this is so embarrassing for you just stop...trying to humble brag about random shit your kids know that has zero to do with subject at hand 😂 i feel bad for them
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u/ROU_Misophist 21h ago
Parents have been shit for a long time. Millenials aren't worse than previous generations.
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u/DariaYankovic 21h ago
Schools are lying to them by giving their kids all As.
I tutor students, it always starts with "My kid is really smart, all As!" so they don't understand why their high schooler cannot tell you what a verb is or find the slope of a line.
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u/ChaosAndFish 21h ago
When one talks about the literacy crisis I do think it’s important to remember that it’s a decline back to the levels of Gen X/Boomers not some incredible new low. Basically we gained for a couple decades and have now given back those gains (which totally does suck). I don’t say this to say it’s not a problem just to say that a lot of the people bemoaning “the kids these days” and “the state of public education today” did no better than the ones they’re criticizing. As a Gen Xer our literacy numbers were no better and a whole mess of us were knocked up at 17 so…glass houses and all that.
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u/CloddishNeedlefish 21h ago
I think blaming one group when all the factors like school systems are also failing is a little shortsighted. The literacy crisis is not new and had been building for a long time.
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u/troopersjp 21h ago
My understanding that a lot of the literacy crisis came down to a shift away from teaching phonics to teaching whole word reading. But also that people have now realized this was not a good idea and phonics are making their way back into education.
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u/rarareed 21h ago
Gen X really gets out of these generation wars unscathed, doesn’t it?
Young Gen Z and elder Gen Alpha both have very real literacy problems too - guess what generation their parents belong to.
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u/kornchippy 20h ago
I always swore my third grade teacher was a psycho of an old lady. She was so much more strict and on like a different kick than all the other teachers. Even the other teachers thought she was nuts. To this day there is so many things she taught me that i still remember. Stuff she made us memorize stuff it seemed like nobody cared about but i use those tools everyday now. I wish i could somehow let her know that. Im old af now and shes gone though.
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u/Hookedongutes 19h ago
Well in my defense, my son is only 15 months old. If he could read, he'd be a prodigy. He pretends though.
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u/xSwampxPopex 18h ago
The education system is more to blame than anything else. I agree that parents need to be accountable but there’s also only so much that they can do.
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u/SeaworthinessLow6636 17h ago edited 17h ago
My kids can read fine John John, maybe put down the room and board catalogue long enough to ask them a question
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u/Andra_Ingensbarn 16h ago
I see a lot of teacher opinions in real life and on Reddit. “Blame the parents” is not, and never has been, a hot take. It’s the default position.
It’s more complicated than that and I am not saying some parents aren’t to blame. However, the standard position has ALWAYS been that parents take the most heat for this. Giving them more heat would solve nothing, it never has.
What is the expected consequence of giving the parents more heat?
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u/Dennis_enzo 13h ago
I'm a millenial parent and my kid can't read. Sorry. Then again, he's 1 year old so I'm not sure what I did wrong.
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u/DandDNerdlover 11h ago
I've met more grown adults who have trouble reading then children. Adults in their 30s-60s. Its really sad.
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u/necessarysmartassery 9h ago
I mean, I'm a millennial, my kid is on screens all the time, and he can read just fine? He's reading at a 7th to 8th grade level at 8 1/2 years old?
Screens aren't the problem.
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u/AxlHound01 8h ago
If the parents didn't read then the kids won't read. Its like bad food, smoking, and drinking. Tends to be a generational lifestyle thing.
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u/Complete_Sir5299 8h ago
My main issue is that millennial's are thirty to fourty-five years, their kids are going to be twelve to twenty-seven. Some of these kids may be children of millennial's, but a large part is going to be from the younger generations. While I'm not well informed enough about education to speak on that end of things, I can say a bit on the sociological parts and anecdotally on my own experiences. The social zeitgeist doesn't have a bright outlook for the future of humanity and that's going to affect children, parents, and teachers. Technology companies also have a vested interest in making technology as accessible as possible so reading is made less necessary. I, myself, have never actually interacted with an illiterate person; I'm sure they exist but if social media is to be believed, I've should've ran into more than a few by now. I'll admit, I've seen a few people try to get through college courses solely using AI and watching them drop out is simultaneously funny and disheartening.
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u/DarkFantasy3421 3h ago
It’s crazy work blaming an entire generation like a lot of us aren’t out here trying to actually parent our kids. My kid fought HARD about learning to read. You know what I did? Made his little ass sit with me every single night and practice until he could read. Then got him a subscription to ABCmouse for a few months to really solidify that new skill. I still worked with him on it but we used the subscription in tandem. Now, he’s reading like a champ and asking questions and constantly wants new books. Because I DID NOT raise an iPad baby. Generalizations suck man.
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u/nicemarmot47 21h ago
Yawn
Seriously, aren't millennials old enough to have seen this before about at least two other generations?
Waah waah the kids don't want to do schoolwork and their crappy parents won't force them. Tale as old as time
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u/Grand_Journalist2136 21h ago
while this is true, studies have shown this new generation of students is the first one to be dumber than their predecessors. i don't think millennials are entirely to blame, but i definitely think they aren't blameless either.
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u/nicemarmot47 21h ago
What does "dumber than their predecessors" even mean? Who is "studying" this and how is it even possible to make a direct comparison?
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u/Grand_Journalist2136 21h ago
it's based on literacy and numeracy skills, i believe. i think they collected data over years at similar ages. i'll try to find the one i saw! i see how my phrasing feels ridiculous but it was easier and faster to phrase it that way.
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u/LeaveGreen4412 21h ago
bold of you to assume we could afford to have kids during that time period. my kid is 1 and he recognizes letters, go complain to the genx-ers who had geriatric pregnancies
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u/iamrecovering2 21h ago
I am a Gen Xer who had 2 boys 17 years apart in age meaning one of those was geriatric. My sons read or read, because of them is gone, just fine.
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u/Silver_Middle_7240 20h ago
I feel like more of the heat should be directed at the educationist who promoted natural reading theory over phonics despite no evidence it provided better results, and stuck with thst position for 60 years as reading scores fell.
You can't fairly claim parents for trusting experts when it comes to how to teach children.
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u/Nofanta 21h ago
They would never admit to doing anything wrong. Just like boomers, they think they’re smarter than all generations before them and will never take responsibility for their failures. It will always be someone else’s fault.
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u/Caelfe2 21h ago
Almost as if the whole species has always wanted things to be someone else's fault?
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u/Nofanta 21h ago
lol many generations were not like that at all
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u/Caelfe2 21h ago
Why? Because they blamed other races, nationalities, political groups, or religions for all of their problems instead of different generations? Oh, wait, even in ancient Greece they were complaining about "kids today."
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u/Nofanta 19h ago
Nope, they just worked hard and thankful for what they had.
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u/LeaveGreen4412 21h ago
how does it feel to be dumb enough to buy into generational thinking? humans in pompeii drew dicks all over and wrote “Augustus was here” on walls. Cave writing on the ceiling dating back to before the creation of rome reads “this is really high”.
All humans throughout all of time are the same stupid. you just think you are the exception when you are the norm
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u/InevitableFox81194 21h ago
Nope. Not this millennial.
I raised a Gen Z child who is addicted to reading, and even reads books in a multitude of different languages.
But then im european and believe this is mainly a US issue.
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u/Expert-Bet7630 19h ago
Ah the usual millennial deflects of criticism are all over this comment section:
“No that’s actually the boomers/Gen Xers fault.”
“Actually that’s due to current politics”
“Well the Zoomers are more stupid”
I swear millennials TRULY cannot take any fault or accountability
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u/MonicaLewinskibidis 8h ago
Because millennials are literally not the main generation who birthed Gen Z. Try Alpha
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u/RedLegGI 21h ago
Am I doing it wrong, because all of my kids can read?