Arnold Schwarzenegger warns America may be raising a 'generation of wimps'
Topics: Arnold Schwarzenegger, News
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: The Howard Stern Show / Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Topics: Arnold Schwarzenegger, News
Is the new generation turning soft? Well, one muscle man is betting that they are.
Throughout the years, there has been a lot of back and forth regarding whether the generations are slowly but surely becoming more fragile.
There’s not much evidence to suggest it, other than facing less struggle and wars throughout their lifetime.
But Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone on the record to claim that future generations in America are too sheltered.
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The former bodybuilder spoke out about how if young people are continuously coddled, that the nation will be ‘creating a generation of wimps and weak people.’
Schwarzenegger, who used to be the governor for California, went on to say that struggle creates strong people.
He said on the Howard Stern Show: "You can only strengthen your character and become a really strong person inside if you have resistance, if you fail, if you get up again and if you work hard.”
The 76-year-old claimed that the more ‘struggles’ someone had in life, the more they are likely to succeed due to it building resilience.
But he then went on to say that society is too sensitive and considerate of young people’s feelings.
He told Stern: "Anyone that tries to baby themselves and pamper themselves... it’s over. You’re never going to get there.”
Schwarzenegger suggested that the younger generation learns how to 'accept pain, misery, and discomfort’, so that they are able to be ‘tougher’.
There were good points made, but maybe it’s being presented in the wrong way by the wrong person.
For instance, he went on to talk about the struggles of first-generation Americans and how hard they worked to build a life from nothing.
He said: "Is it people that slept in? Is it people that were wimping out? This, ‘Oh, I want to feel good. Oh, I want to be comfortable.’ No."
"This is where ballsy women and men that went out there at five in the morning and got up, and they struggled . . . they fought . . . they worked their butts off," he explained.
"That’s what made this country great. And so now let’s continue this way."
Though the actor went on to explain that it’s still ‘nice’ to be considerate, but that the goal was not to ‘over-baby the kids’.
"Let’s go and teach kids to be tough... go out and do sports... to struggle... and go through this kind of painful moments sometimes."
Maybe the strong man is on to something, or maybe he was brought up in a generation that rejected feelings and created a culture of ‘suffer in silence’.
Who knows?