An Army of Normal Folks - What Are We Going To Do With These Kids?

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

For our latest Shop Talk, Coach Bill shares a fascinating perspective about these "ragged kids" coming up.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, I'm Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks and this is Shop Talk Number 15 being pre-recorded while Alex is on vacation. I'm here. I'm not on vacation yet. But we're pre-recording. I know, you said while I'm on vacation. Well we're pre-recording so we can air while you're on vacation. I've only got my four kids with me, it's not really a vacation. That's true, four kids with vacation.

I hope your kids don't hear that. You just said your kids are work. What a butt. They should hear what you say about your kids. My kids are work. They were work. Well, they remain work. They think they're adults and they're just expensive vultures.

Anyway, we're talking about kids today. Shop Talk number 15. What are we gonna do with these ragged kids? Right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Is that actually what we're doing? Yes, it perfectly did. It is a perfectly did. It really is what we're doing.

I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast, There and Gone. It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. Did they run away? Was it an accident or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle,

not for Richard. He's your son, and in your eyes he's innocent, but in my eyes he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come. Do, do, do, do, do, do. We all know what that music means.

Is somebody getting coronated? No, it's time for the Olympics in Paris. The opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Games is coming on July 26. Who are these athletes? When are the games they're playing? You may be looking for the sports experts to answer those questions, but we're not that.

Well, what are we? We're two guys. I'm Matt Rogers. And I'm Bowen Yang. And we're doing an Olympics podcast? Yeah, we're hosting the Two Guys Five Rings podcast. You get the two guys, us, to start every podcast, then the five rings come after. Watch every moment of the 2024 Paris Olympics beginning July 26th on NBC and Peacock. And

for the first time, you can stream the 2024 Paris games on the iHeartRadio app. And listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. This month, we're bringing you the stories of athletes. There's the Italian race car driver who courted danger

and became the first woman to compete in Formula One. The sprinter who set a world record and protested racism and discrimination in the US and around the world in the 1960s. The diver who was barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian American woman to win an Olympic medal. She won gold twice.

The mountaineer known in the Chinese press as the tallest woman in the world. And the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman to compete at the Olympic Games. Listen to Wamanica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Shop Talk Number 15. What are we going to do with these ragged kids? Hey everybody, welcome back to Shop Talk number 15. What are we gonna do with these ragged kids? Boy, I've had it. Lisa and I had four kids in four years. That means Lisa was pregnant with a one-year-old,

a two-year-old, and a three-year-old. Can you imagine being pregnant and pushing a shopping cart with three kids in diapers through Walmart? Means she got the looks. That also means they were five, six, seven, and eight starting to play sports. And that also means they were nine, 10, 11, and 12. And that also means they were in a freshman, a sophomore, junior, and senior, which also means when they went to college, we had four in college at once. They're expensive, raggedy kids that don't appreciate anything, that

are entitled and spoiled and they drive me crazy. We tried. Lisa drove a Suburban because you have to drive something that big when you got a bevy of children and they all got a friend and she carried a wooden spoon in her purse and Lisa could drive that Suburban down the interstrate doing 70 and pull that wooden spoon on her purse and Lisa could drive that suburban down the interstate doing 70 and pull that wooden spoon on her purse and she could still reach a thigh in the third seat of that suburban. It was a phenomenal feat. We don't believe in abusing our kids obviously but there were times where whoopings were right and that's just how we came up and we tried. We taught them right from wrong. We did everything we could and despite it,

I just think they and their generation are with all their phones and social media just media, just they're really just as a title to title and kind of spoiled and gosh, social media and everything just makes them want everything right now. Whatever happened, go to the library and taking the time to drive to the library, go get a book, research something, look it up, write it down, go home, do the work. I mean, the whole idea to one of our kids of spending a day to write a research paper is ridiculous because now all that information is at your fingertips. You can write a research paper in two hours and there's a thousand examples like that of why this generation just expects everything now, now, now. Quick, quick, quick.

Because that's how they grew up. And I think that's led to a, man, just a weird sense of stuff that I can't even understand. Plus, video games and sitting and watching TVs and eating bonbons on the couch with a controller operate nothing but your thumbs. Go outside and play hide and go seek or kick the can, go skin your knees, get sweaty, get lost, do something. I remember Lisa used to lock the door. She would kick the kids out in the summer and lock the door for three hours so they couldn't come in

and made them drink water from the water hose, God forbid. You thought they were going to turn green and die. Water hose? It tastes like rubber. It doesn't taste like water from the bottled water. You don't need bottled water. Anyway, stupid kids, I don't know what we're going to do. So I want to read you a quote. We defy anyone who goes about with his eyes open to deny that there is as never before an attitude on the part of young folk which is best described as grossly thoughtless rude and utterly selfish. I couldn't have written it better. Aristotle, fourth century BC said that. First century BC, these youth, they do not foresee what is useful. They squander parents' money.

That was Horace, first century BC. So let's go to maybe closer to time. The free access which many young people have to romances, plays, and novels. The free access which many people have to romances, novels, and plays have poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of a promising youth. 1790. From the Blooms Grove Family Memoir. The free access with which many young people have cell phones, TV and video games has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth.

In the 1790s it was romances, novels and plays, today it's TV, video games and whatever else. That was 1790. 1925, whole daily mail. Probably there is no period in history in which young people have given such empathetic utterance to a tendency to reject that which is old and to wish for that which is new. If you were a hundred years old, they were talking about you. Parents themselves were often the cause of many difficulties. They frequently failed in their obvious duty to teach self-control and discipline to their own children. That's a Portsmouth Evening News, 1936.

If you're 90 years old listening today, they were talking about you. What really distinguishes this generation from those before it, as it is the first generation in history to live so well and complain so bitterly about it. That was from the Leeds Mercury in 1940. If you're 75 years old, they were talking about you. They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder.

They have no heroes, no anthems, and they have no style they call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is shorter than the zap on a TV dial. The Washington Post, 1993. If you're 45 years old, they're talking about you. 45 years old. They're talking about you. Last one that I'll share with you if I haven't made the point clear enough is this. Here it is. Young people are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life nor have they experienced the force of circumstances. They think they know everything and are quite sure about it, but of course are wrong. Time magazine,

2001, if you're 30 years old, they're talking about you. Friend of mine turned me on to a show called fear not. And in that show, they talk about things that the public is obviously often fearful of that most times media is trumped up from one side or the other and we get fearful and we react in that fear by pulling back into our cocoons of safety and not being willing to get out and get into things. With that in mind, I want to say this about my kids.

I fear not. Literally, as I've just read for the last 2400 years, starting with Horace and Aristotle all the way up to 30 years ago with Time Magazine, we adults have decided that the generation coming behind us was going to be absolutely doomed because they rejected what we did in lieu of what was new and exciting in their youth. And I guess I need to challenge you to think back to when you were young to remember that you had that excitement, that youthful inexperience that often leads to entrepreneurship, and you didn't know what you didn't know but thank God you didn't because that allowed you to explore and learn and

grow and sure we all made mistakes coming up and we all did stuff that infuriated the generation in front of us but we ended up alright and so will my kids and I have to be reminded by Horace and Aristotle and Time magazine and everybody else that even though my kids drive me nuts they're wonderful people and I love them and they're bouncing off the curbs of the interstates try to figure out their way in life but ultimately like I did they'll get it right. So what are we going to do with these ragged kids? We're gonna love them and we're gonna watch them and ultimately we're

gonna follow them because they are our future and the past tells us that the future is gonna be fine. So fear not. I'm Bill Courtney, this is Shop Talk number 15. I look forward to talking to you next week. And next week I would love to talk to you about something you want to hear about. So if you have a fundamental or a tenant or a societal idea or norm that's bugging you or that you love or even a current event that maybe Shop Talk might be interested in spending 15-10 minutes on, please like me anytime at Bill at NormalFolks.us and I'll respond and if I think I have anything to add to

it, we'll record a Shop Talk about it. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. I'm Belen Yang. And we're doing an Olympics podcast? Yeah, we're hosting the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast. Watch every moment of the 2024 Paris Olympics beginning July 26th on NBC and Peacock. And for the first time, you can stream the 2024 Paris Games on the iHeartRadio app. And listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all-new podcast There and Gone.

It's a real-life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck, and vanished. A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. But which victim was the intended target and why? Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal

podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all new story of of Betrayal. Justin Rutherford. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover to hide behind. Detective Weaver said, I'm sure you know why we're here. I was like, what in the world is going on? Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.