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Originally Posted by stewie i can remember a few times where i'd be out playing with my friend who lived down the street...would play wwf on an old matress we found in an alley, we carried it into a forested area at the top of the street (our fort was in there) and we would fight on it...few times id get cut up from being thrown off and landing in the prickle bushes, start bleeding, come home 6 hours later and my mom would have to wash me down cause i had so much dirt stuck inside the cuts...
my cable went up to chanel 38...and i didnt have a nintendo..i was allergic to pollen, yet i have 2 dogs and 4 birds, being around it so often im fine with it now.
kids get fucking babied now |
Yeah, and I used to have chores. Like actual chores...like we're stacking wood...for 8 hours. Hope you didn't have a Saturday planned.
My sister's kids, and her step-kids(7 total) were going insane with games. She had just lost control on it. So she snapped. Bring me every machine in the house. In the closet it goes. First one that gets smart and sneaks it out when I'm not here watches me sell it. The kids can now ask to play a game. I don't know, I still get freaked out when I hear a 7 year old describe how he's going to kill a character on screen with a head shot. Not cool in my world.
I don't know, I'm not a parent so all I can do is watch from the sidelines, but when I watch her husband taking his kid(not hers) to future shop to line up to buy some game that was just released that night to be waiting for a store to open...at 10 pm..on a school night...dude, give your head a shake! You may be going for parent of the year on coolness, but what are you really teaching the kid? I remember I had to be damned near dead to miss a day of school. Oh, he'll still go, but he'll be a zombie while there.
And my head being snapped off when I asked that question showed me we were a little defensive on the subject.
I personally don't think surrounding a child with a personal best buy is really adding to his/her life in a positive way. It sounds hokey, but surround him with books.
I had it lucky when I was a kid, that I grew up in a place that was like my own personal stanley park, without the rules. My idea of fun was being outdoors and gone. Today we are rowing down the river, tomorrow biking back to the old mines, and the next day riding for 2 hours to get to the closest town. Stay inside and play video games? Are you high?
Hell, my parents worst fear was that if something bad happened, they wouldn't know where to look. ...did you think of asking where I was going? They never did...the fact that they made me aware of the problem was enough to know that if I was going beyond my 'usual' haunts, then I'd instinctively leave a note. They trusted me.
From my helping around the house, when my dad left when I was 16, I was ready to go. I'd helped with every task over the years, so I did it. I remember being outside(we had a wood furnace) splitting wood while the snow was actually coming down. I knew to pick smaller pieces that would be dryer. I knew where the ax was, and how to use it. And I fucking plowed through.
I don't look at that as a "poor me" or anything of the kind. I look at it with pride. To this day, I'm a "get it done" person. So I could still give a dman to have the newest game, or biggest tv or newest whatever. I take pride in "this thing was junk, and I got another year out of it. Sweet!"
To relate us back, I think of all these parents that go around and coddle the shit out of their kids until they are 21 and then release them out to the world...are you nuts? Chores aren't punishment, they are training for life. If the kid can't learn to stay away from nuts at 12...they are going to be nuts at 20. This is where we get stupid people in their 20's...we train them to be that way from 10.