The Age of the Crybaby
We’ve gone from a country which bore the ‘The Greatest Generation’ to a nation of spoiled-rotten, entitled, crybabies.
Protests outcry constitutional violations. Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home orders. Conspiracy theories proliferate as substantiated proof. Memes proclaiming tyrannical oppression pepper social media platforms. Violent outbursts ensue after being asked to wear a mask. These are some examples of what inundates our news feeds. They are sentiments resounding the discontent of many who feel they’ve had their liberties violated.
Someone posted an image of World War II ration stamps on Facebook, revealing that he found some among his grandmother’s possessions. He explained what we’re enduring now is no comparison to what ‘The Greatest Generation’ lived through — The Great Depression and World War II, times of austerity spanning fifteen years. This man recalled how he never heard his grandmother grumble about the war years; she and her husband “buckled down and did their part.” He has a point.
My grandmother used to tell me what she experienced during ‘the war,’ as an American, and how families needed to ‘make do’ with what they were able to get. She told me so matter-of-factly as if it were no big deal. However, what she did relay to me, with a hint of pain in her voice, is that there were moments when she had no idea where her brother was and whether or not he would come home alive from the war. I had difficulty fathoming what it must have been like back then.
My mother-in-law recounted moments during the war in Italy; she cowered under a table, fearing for her life as a child because of raids. Some worried about going outside out of fear of what may rain down from overhead. Sometimes, they took refuge with the animals in the barns, away from towns, because it was safer than being in an area where the dropping of a single bomb could inflict mass casualties. I listened in a state of shock to think about the horror of it all. The bombings are the reasons why my mother-in-law is afraid of thunder to this day.
Fast forward to today, amidst a coronavirus pandemic. There are no missiles that are going to decimate anyone who chooses to go outside, but people have been dying by the thousands. At its peak, each person infected with COVID-19 could pass it on to 2–2.5 people, which is why we are faced with stay-at-home (aka ‘lockdown’) measures implemented by state authorities.
We are free to go out still, take a walk, enjoy some fresh air, and go shopping for necessities. We still have a vast selection of food and goods from which to choose. Although people continue to hoard select commodities for themselves, leaving nothing for others such as toilet paper, which continues to be an endangered item in many stores (ration stamps would take care of that).
Simple actions, such as wearing a mask, prove to be too much to ask.
People are tired of participating in the cooperative effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. Many want to return to their lives as usual and put an end to being told what they should do. They want to be free to do what they want, when they want, and how they want without being held to any accountability.
These are challenging times, indeed. We, as a country, are facing a crisis that most of us have never seen before. How have we been handling it? With selfishness, discord, and riotous bullying.
It’s shameful how people are behaving, whining, crying, bitching about their freedoms, and how the coronavirus response is ruining their lives. What happened to resilience and stoicism? Those are concepts seemingly forgotten to history books. The notion of ‘for the greater good’ has no meaning in many hearts; self-interest overrides compassion and empathy for our fellow human beings. Temporary measures such as refraining from our usual activities cause outrage. Simple actions, such as wearing a mask, prove to be too much to ask. The impetus for the enactment of social welfare measures benefiting the ignorant — unaware of the hardships that our country’s poor have endured for years or even lifetimes — was because of the fact that they also have now become affected. Nobody seemed to previously care about those less fortunate, deriding people who needed assistance until the once privileged are now getting a taste of what it’s like to be in the shoes of the less fortunate.
People are crying ‘tyranny’ and exclaiming that we are witnessing the death of liberty when the concepts of what those truly mean are lost. The imagery of those Japanese-American citizens — forced to endure living in internment camps — become blurred shadows of times superficially and so quickly forgotten.
Experts and officials ask us to stay in the comfort of our own homes. We have to experience a disruption of our daily lives and livelihoods, for a moment, until we collectively figure out how to manage the effects of this virus. We’re amidst a pandemic that has the potential to annihilate the segment of the population who understand what genuine hardship and sacrifice are. Could we not together graciously endure a momentary lapse in normalcy, rather than being obstinate and indifferent to others’ well-being? How shallow and callous we have become — and then have the audacity to cry, ‘victim.’
