HICKS: Some belated
parental advice to protesters
By Marybeth Hicks
-The
Call it an occupational hazard, but I can’t look at the Occupy Wall Street
protesters without thinking, “Who parented these people?”
As a
culture columnist, I’ve commented on the social and political ramifications of
the “movement” - now known as “OWS” - whose fairyland agenda can be summarized
by one of their placards: “Everything for everybody.”
Thanks to
their pipe-dream platform, it’s clear there are people with serious designs on
“transformational” change in
Yet it’s
not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question, but rather the
fact that I’m the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial
life lessons that the protesters’ moms clearly have not passed along.
Here, then,
are five things the OWS protesters’ mothers should have taught their children
but obviously didn’t, so I will:
• Life
isn’t fair. The concept of justice - that everyone should be treated fairly -
is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was founded.
But justice and economic equality are not the same. Or, as Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.”
No matter
how you try to “level the playing field,” some people have better luck, skills,
talents or connections that land them in better
places. Some seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others
play the modest hand they’re dealt and make up the difference in hard work and
perseverance, and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in
the
• Nothing
is “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free”
health care make you look like idiots, because colleges and hospitals don’t
operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for
your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood, and the 53
percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.
While I’m
pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that are not free:
overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash hauling, repairs to
fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food that inexplicably
appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens. Real people with real
dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.
• Your word
is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are
advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. Loans are made
based on solemn promises to repay them. No one forces you to borrow money; you
are free to choose educational pursuits that don’t require loans, or to seek
technical or vocational training that allows you to support yourself and your
ongoing educational goals. Also, for the record, being a college student is not
a state of victimization. It’s a privilege that billions of young people around
the globe would die for - literally.
• A protest
is not a party. On Saturday in
• There are
reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your
tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings
and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of
nonconformity isn’t a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college
graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and
face the problem. It’s not them. It’s you.
• Marybeth
Hicks is the author of “Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the
Left’s Assault on Our Families, Faith and Freedom.”
Find her on the Web at www.marybethhicks.com.
Reprinted with
permission from The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/18/hicks-some-belated-parental-advice-to-protesters/