It’s true, I’ve been terribly remiss in my duties around these parts as of late. Life caught up with me, pinned me down and gave me a giant wet willy. So I had to go cry it out for a bit.

Or, I’ve just been swamped doing wedding stuff. But since Andrew told me I can’t write about that anymore, I’ve resorted to making up stories about what’s been occupying my time.

Really, not much has been able to spark my interest enough to ramble on for a few paragraphs either. Not until last night, at least. This one is courtesy of MTV.

I fully confess to indulging in some sappy, terribly fatty MTV drama once in awhile. I blame it on the fact that I never watched 90210 as a kid. But past Laguna Beach and I start to get sick. But while half listening last night, My Super Sweet 16 came on and I caught an episode.

OMG.

Ok, it’s not like I haven’t seen it before, but perhaps with all that [unmentionable event] stuff going on lately, I’m hyper-sensitive to this pervasive attitude of entitlement. But seriously folks, why are we raising a generation of kids who say crap like “I totally deserve this party that cost more than my parent’s wedding?” We are taking the worst part of Cribs (the envy-inducing, drooling at someone else’s fortune part) and mixing it with addictive soap-style drama in a dosage administered directly to teens. It’s bad enough that kids naturally at this age start testing the boundaries of what makes them adults, calling shots, etc. But show them an instruction manual on how to turn 16 and be bitchy, catty, snot-nosed a**holes who scream about “demands,” “rights,” and “what they deserve” — and you can bet your ass that other kids will start emulating it.

I’m not dumb enough to believe that MTV is brainwashing kids. But I’m also not naive enough to think that the crap they’re watching on TV isn’t going to teach them a manipulative lesson or two.

Perhaps it’s the paternal part of me. Perhaps it’s a twinge of guilt since I was raised very comfortably in suburban America. Maybe these kids are just universally a bunch of jerkwads. Whatever the case, this show makes me violent.

The attitude of “I deserve” is so foreign to me. I have absolutely no idea why some people grow up thinking they deserve nothing, and those that claim they deserve everything. Is it soley in how you’re raised? However, you would think that by the time someone has worked hard jobs to make ends meet, grown up to be a responsible adult, that they would see that life is not a pre-ordained gift line where some people just get more gifts because they’re more “deserving.”

I guess in the end, it’s just the ostentatious flaunting of it. People have always been materialistic, uppity and petty. Teenagers especially. I suppose it’s just the grandstanding of this show that highlights and almost celebrates the way these kids act that makes me physically sick to my stomach.

I’ve got no answers, but I hope this show is off-air if I ever have kids that reach 15+ years of age. But I guess that’s assuming a lot, including the fact that I haven’t mangled them for messing with my music collection. I’d give them something to ‘deserve’ then…