Addressing Millennials' Parents

Addressing Millennials’ Parents
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
October 20, 2019

This is an open letter to the parents of our precious snowflake millennial children undergoing their four year campus indoctrination at the hands of liberals and socialists. 

And this comes in just a nick of time as these millennials will be storming our gates in about a month for Thanksgiving break, armed with dirty laundry, and sanctimonious opinions about how our generation is one step below Hitler, as they have all the answers. I’m in no way invoking the Holocaust, about which millennials know very, very, little, but if I used the name of Mao they may get offended.

I am going to offer my fellow parents some key budget savers as we go forward this school year and into the future. Trust me - you’ll thank me sooner rather than later. And quite frankly, it is vital for us to take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the apocalyptic onslaught of a potential Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren administration. Yes, we all just collectively shuddered while allowing that thought to sink in.

Since my own children rarely, if ever, read my columns, this will come as an enormous surprise to them upon their return home for their Thanksgiving sojourn. To be fair, I love my daughters to incomprehensible levels. That said, I’m still trying to figure out where I went wrong and failed them as a father based upon their dangerous political beliefs. On the other hand, they are excellent students and are working hard in their studies and jobs to pay their way.

While on the subject of Thanksgiving, here is money saver number one: for those millennials who have some irrational objections to this great American tradition, that’s fewer servings of all the goodies we enjoy this time of the year. Don’t believe in Thanksgiving, don’t eat. “No soup for you!” Or turkey, stuffing, yams, corn bread, sweet potato pie, etc.

For the next money savers, it’s important to remind our ungrateful millennial offspring that their fervently held beliefs reek of hypocrisy. Take their car keys. They support the banning and elimination of fossil fuels. Assuming they are not driving the electric cars they demand this country mass produce, they should not be driving the cars so many of us bought for them. Also when you take their keys, you can remove them from your auto insurance plans. At their ages, that’s a huge savings.

Cut off any tuition/room and board payments you might generously be making. After all, they have more faith in government making their student loan debt magically disappear, than they do in mom and dad who raised, nurtured, fed, clothed, and love their children. These millennials support the untenable promise that their college debt will be cancelled. Now here’s the damning aspect of this horrible plan. The one-third of the population who attend college, and will be earning bigger salaries, by far, on average, than the two-thirds of the population who do not attend college, actually expect those two-thirds to foot the bill for their student loan debt. 

Just remember, there’s no such thing as government money, therefore, when the likes of Sanders and Warren make such outlandish propositions, what they are actually saying when they tell their fawning minions their debt will be wiped out, is that we the people will be strangled with the more than $1.52 trillion in student loan debt. No one forced anyone to attend expensive private colleges and universities. No forced anyone to take five to six years to graduate, and I’m not talking about engineers and other worthwhile academic pursuits that will actually allow the graduate to earn a real living upon graduation. Our millennials don’t need our help; they can rack up all they debt they want because Big Brother is picking up the tab.

While your children are wasting your money studying The History of Lesbian American Presidents, The Science of Diversity in the NHL, and/or The Psychology of Free Speech in the NBA, remind them that their sanctimony does not exist in a vacuum.

What also does not exist in a vacuum, is your millennial’s belief in socialized medicine. So, for our next money saver, parents, since your children support the insane program of Medicare for All, that will bankrupt the United States - as determined by independent and liberal economists, as well as the liberal IRS, remove them from your insurance policies. They don’t need to remain on your policy until age 26; government will take care of them as the proposals from Sanders and Warren call for the absolute elimination of all private healthcare and insurance.

This last item won’t save you any money, but it shouldn’t cost you any more either - a zero sum game. Once again, this will be an important teaching moment for your millennial children who support open borders and granting automatic citizenship to illegal aliens. Since they feel strongly about this, give to more deserving illegal aliens your children’s bedrooms that they count upon when home from school.

And while your children are home next month celebrating whatever they celebrate as the rest of us give thanks for living in the greatest country on G-d’s planet, to ensure the quietest Thanksgiving table in history, ask your millennial children to defend their political and social choices. Wishing you and yours an early happy Thanksgiving.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He and his wife have two daughters currently in college.

Twice as Thankful This Chanukah

Twice as Thankful This Chanukah
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
November 20, 2013

For the first time in our lifetimes Chanukah commences on erev Thanksgiving, to note it as we in the Jewish community would say. While this intersection is indeed rare, it is worth noting the similarities between these two holidays that have become so over-commercialized as to have virtually lost all original meaning – giving thanks to G-d.

Giving thanks to G-d, albeit for different reasons, is what grateful colonists in a new land did and what the People of Israel did as well. Colonists who traversed an ocean to seek new freedoms, among them, religious, and Israelites who fought a war to retain their religious freedom gave thanks for the gifts bestowed upon them by G-d.

In Judaism, we actually celebrate a thanksgiving in late summer-early fall, with the observance of Sukkot – giving thanks for the gathering of crops as well as the thankfulness for G-d’s protection during the 40 years in the desert/wilderness.

Our American Thanksgiving celebrates the long journey escaping religious persecution in search of religious freedom; thanking G-d for the miracles of surviving the harsh winter of 1620-21 and the eventual prosperity. The premier celebratory feast, organized by Governor William Bradford, lasted three days, included 53 colonists and 90 Wampanoag Indians. They enjoyed swan, duck, goose, venison, turkey, shellfish, lobster, stuffing, corn, and pumpkin.

Chanukah, meaning dedication, observes the victory in war by the Israelites led by Mattathias, father of the Maccabees, in the second century BCE, around 139 BCE. The Maccabees defeated the Antiochus-led Syrian-Greeks who also failed to Hellenize the Israelites. The Maccabees-led Israelites fought for, and won their religious freedom.

Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, is a minor festival on the scale of Jewish observances, lasting eight nights and eight days due to the other miracle – that of the oil lasting eight nights when it was expected to barely survive one. The two miracles of the victory over a people with presumed greater military might and the longevity of the oil are praised in prayers of thanksgiving to G-d.

The menorah (candelabra) is lit each of the eight nights by adding a new candle, thus brightening, not dimming the light, as the lives of the Israelites became brighter with the rededication of the Temple.

Today, Jewish people around the world light the menorah in celebration and thanksgiving for the “great miracles that happened there,” to quote the letters and their representations on the dreidl enjoyed by children and even adults alike.

And while gift giving is a modern Americanized addition to the celebration of Chanukah, (an unfortunate secularization of Chanukah) it is important to tell the story every year so that it is never forgotten, as well as enjoying the traditional treats of potato latkes (pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) – fried in today’s representation of the miraculous oil.

This year, on the 150^th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln declaring the Thanksgiving holiday during the height of the Civil War in 1863, incorporate American Thanksgiving with Chanukah and enjoy pumpkin-cream sufganiyot along with potato latkes adorned with cranberry applesauce, or even butternut squash-sweet potato latkes.

I am thankful to be an American and just as thankful to be Jewish. Let us give thanks to G-d for the gifts He has given us, and let us say, Amen.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.