Oh, that makes me crazy. I take such pride in having paid for all of my big purchases in life and in having a nice savings account. I love being able to pick up the check with my parents when I visit and I can tell they take pride in it, too. I can't imagine being so dependent without having had some life-changing event to have caused it. That is just not in my blood.

My brother didn't have to suffer the health food kick. He got chips! I resented that.

However, I think that was just a case of Too Much Work.

You could tell him, "What can I do about it? I'll send you an email that says, 'Do the work. Study for the midterm.' Then you can forward the email via an email time machine to yourself at the beginning of the semester."

I think my response was along the lines of "I'm worried about it too, given that you flunked the mid-term, etc., and are just contacting me about this now."

What makes it worse is the U's administration can be completely spineless about backing up their own student policies.

This. With the above student, the first question would be "Did you talk to them about the problem?" "Did you let them know they were missing work?" Etc.

I was born in 61 and I don't feel the slightest sense of community with Gen Xers.

Had to take some managers workshop hooey last week, and were told that the GenY like to be called Millenials. And require, uh, special handling. More guidance, more mentoring, more babysitting, basically. Fun.

This. With the above student, the first question would be "Did you talk to them about the problem?" "Did you let them know they were missing work?" Etc.

Which is why 2 pages of the syllabus end up being a nearly lawyeresque description of policy. It's ridic.

Maybe I'm just way too compliant, but I was always "them's the rules, break 'em, take the consequences." Which I sometimes did, deliberately.

So these people who require special handling - do you pay them or do their parents pay for babysitting services?

I wonder if it's not so much randomly letting kids know there special, but sheilding them from consequences when they fail or things don't go their ways.

Sue, that's terrible. I'm so sorry.

I've had to skip and skim a lot. It's been an...eventful week.

I, too, thought there was a generation between baby boomers and Gen X (I am definitely Gen X, born in 1973).

Sometimes I think the entitlement in a college setting also comes from the "The customer is always right." thinking, and the marketing thing where you state everything in the positive. I think because people are paying for school, they think they are entitled to A's, but really they are entitled to a good education. Sometimes the higher ups are so scared of parent's being mad at them, or suing, or spreading bad word of mouth that they encourage you to be OK with the grade grubbing. This has happened to me with my costume lab a lot of times. I had to give a B to a student who used to come to class drunk!

but I was always "them's the rules, break 'em, take the consequences." Which I sometimes did, deliberately

This! Sometimes you haven't written the paper. And you have to decide if you stay up all night and turn in something crappy, or turn it in the next day and take the letter grade off penalty, or whatever the story is. But one of my roommates was always arranging extensions and shit. Pissed me off. I was like "yes, you've been sick, and yes, you're busy, but...like the rest of us AREN"T?"