We recently blogged about how recessions might affect the mentality of people growing up in them. American Public Media’s Marketplace recently hosted a “Small Town Hall,” where kids were asked questions like “Should kids be allowed to have credit cards?” and “Has the recession changed your dreams?” One boy answered that he used to want to be a racecar driver, then he wanted to own a body shop, but now he wants to design energy-efficient cars. Why? He just thinks “it’s a really good idea.” [%comments]
Recession Kids
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After all the talk in the news over the last year about bankers bonuses I was expecting the story to end in the child wanting to be a banker. (from someone who wanted to be an accountant or lawyer as his parents complained about how much they cost)
Kids should be kids, and should be allowed to be kids. They can play house, but they shouldn’t be given a house. Kids mimic older people and, too often, parents think that means kids are ready to be older people – they aren’t, and it is the parents’ responsibility to tell kids they aren’t ready.
Recession kids? Great opportunity to rein them in – get rid of the phone, make them play outside, quit shopping, listen to music TOGETHER instead of every kid buying every song from iTunes for their iPod and iPhone.
I believe that recession kids are going to act different in the future. They will be more careful towards where and why they spend their money, be smart buyers. Recession kids know that the pot of gold is not infinite, so they have to choose carefully on what they spend on. Maybe the idea of opportunity cost will come to mind, a more extensive analysis of choosing what to buy than kids born in different times. This will not only affect their generation of kids, but their way of thinking may trickle down to their kids, creating a more wallet-conservative population that what it is today.
I believe that recession do affect the mentality of kids. Normally, kids who are rich tend to have much more imaginative ideas of what their future jobs would be. Most of the rich kids would say that they would be huge company owners, great economist, and other jobs that get them earn a lot of money. Poor kids tend to not really think that they would succeed in the future. They would say that they would just have a normal life and things like that. This is because of their economic background, if a kid is rich, they think of themselves highly, but if they were poor, they would not think of their future job as good as others would. In recession, I believe the kids would not imagine that they would be able to do great jobs or own big company, as they may have seen many big companies fail. Also, the kids would try to either not decide on work that are very good or, think of a way to help the economy, which might help themselves to. The kid in this case who said about designing “energy—efficient cars” was because if the economy is bad, by being able to create efficient cars, economically, you would waste less resources and money, which will help you economically. Also, I believe this is what he is thinking because in a recession, the best thing that could be sold are things that help you economically help you be able to save money, in this case a energy efficient car.
What caused recession? Why did it happen? All these questions can be answered by banks, credit cards companies, mortgage lenders and people who were not careful enough when they signed their credit card and mortgages agreements. Lending too much to too many who cannot afford to pay in a falling housing market about sums it up. The sub prime mortgage market went into free fall as a result.
For me personally I believe that kids should not be allowed to have credit cards because they do not know how to handle money, they spend it on useless things such as online games, buying song through iTunes, etcetera. This builds up a bad costume for kids because they are not aware of the money they waste. When money is easily available to someone they usually do not know how to spend it and so they waste it all. Just like kids when money is available to them they will waste it on buying every possible thing they can.
I believe that this recession had taught us many things. One of it is to use money wisely and not spend it on everything you want ending up in debt. Another thing that we could learn of this recession is that we should earn money. From this experience kids have learned to start saving money instead of spending it on useless things. This recession had affected the new generation now that they are aware of the mistake that had cause the country to be in debt. They are learning from mistakes that had caused this recession. To help improve current condition new generation had been taught to save money and spend them wisely. We want our new generation to help us improve this economy just as the kid said he used to want to be a racecar driver but now he wants to design energy-efficient cars because he knows that energy-efficient cars saves money.
If you get a chance to see the videos from “Small Town Hall” it’s quite surprising how kids responded articulately to these questions. It demonstrates how informed they are and the seriousness of the recession. I think the recession will make them more prepared towards the future. The recession has been an incentive towards the perception of kids of what they want to be when they grow up. It’s true what Makiw said about people responding to incentives. A classic example is the little kid that wanted to be a racecar driver, but the recession made him think of being something more productive, a designer of energy-efficient cars. When I had his age I dreamed of being an astronaut. The recession is positively affecting the kids mentality as it prepares them for the future.
If you get a chance to see the videos from “Small Town Hall” it’s quite surprising how kids responded articulately to these questions. It demonstrates how informed they are and the seriousness of the recession. I think the recession will make them more prepared towards the future. The recession has been an incentive towards the perception of kids of what they want to be when they grow up. It’s true what Makiw said about people responding to incentives. A classic example is the little kid that wanted to be a racecar driver, but the recession made him think of being something more productive, a designer of energy-efficient cars. When I had his age I dreamed of being an astronaut. The recession is positively affecting the kids mentality as it prepares them for the future.
Recession Kids! You have to love that one.
The other day I read an article about “Drone Kids”.
These are essentially children who parents died in bombings done by American drones. Most kids were interested in where there next meals is coming from. When asked “why?”, They said they were hungry.
I was wondering about the impact on the mentality of children who grow up in a war based economy?
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