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Chicago never wants for controversy.  The city abounds with it in all areas: politics, police misconduct, gang killings, a pending teachers strikes, an increasingly unpopular mayor.  A couple of weeks ago,  I could barely finish wiping my tears over the collapse of my beloved Chicago Bulls basketball team,  when a spring training episode erupted in controversy centered around the White Sox. Because one of the Sox's designated hitters with a big contract, was called out by the general manager for bringing his 14-year-old son to work every day, this indignant player opted out of a lucrative contract and quit!.

 Chicagoland immediately began to take sides on this issue.  The scenario was that this home-schooled youngster was brought to work by his father every day.  He had his own uniform with a number, his own locker,  his own spot in the dugout, and was a daily presence during practice work outs, something his father was under the impression was OK.   Although most of player's teammates remained silent about the issue one of them vehemently sided with him and vented his displeasure with the black general manager of the Sox.  This quickly became a topic of conversation throughout the city. Local black talk radio was blowing up about this incident having racial over tones. speculating that the white player and his white ally had issues about the black general manager flexing his authority.  

Local fans were equally vocal. The issue of a professional being allowed to bring his child to work everyday, sparked TV Evening News surveys which were overwhelmingly against the player.  And the idea that this father would forfeit  millions of dollars in unpaid salary to protest not having his way about his son, was looked upon with disbelief.  Almost everybody thought the player was stupid for walking away from all those millions. When the story went viral, even my guilty pleasure talk show host, Wendy Williams, weighed in saying some parents are too indulgent and she and her audience  agreed that a parent bringing a child to work every day was unfair to co-workers.  Her assistant spontaneously piped up, confessing she actually hated being around all kids but her own, something I suspect a lot of people secretly agree with.  Talk show host, Bill Mahr, in his take on this subject went her one better, by saying he hated being around all kids, period.  LOL

This brouhaha is yet another example of a growing breed of parents who, because their worlds revolve around their children, think everybody else's world should, too . Colleges say that incoming freshmen classes have been so pampered and sheltered by their hovering "helicopter" parents that these kids have no concept of how to cope with the real world. They expect everything to be handed to them and done for them and are steeped in feelings of entitlement. There are even reports of helpless young women in the dating pool lamenting how few skills their equally helpless boyfriends have; they can't change a tire or a fuse and when it comes to fixing things around the house, their knowledge is limited to replacing dead batteries in the remote.  Another favorite gripe concerns youth sports, where participation trophies are handed out to all members of both winning and losing teams so no one's little darling will have to experience the agony of defeat. tsk-tsk 

 IMO, coddled youngsters  immersed in a Wi-fi environment, do not bode well for the real world of the future. Except for the Artificial Intelligence machines that are waiting in the wings...

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