Re: Hurricane Bertha

Joerg <notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:Jn4fk.18017$N87.14630@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

JosephKK wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:03:07 -0700, Joerg
<notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:25:05 -0700, Joerg
<notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

bill.sloman@xxxxxxxx wrote:
[...]

Right wig commentators make a great fuss about the "dependency
culture" which is a myth, and ignore the damage done to the
children of the poor by inadequatesocial security.

I have seen dependency or entitlement mentality first hand in the
Netherlands. Kids saying openly "Why should I apply for a job?
Then I have less money in my pocket that I do on welfare. It would
be stupid." That did it for me and I packed my bags.
Not much help really, i am seeing it now in US youth. Where would
you go now?

Yeah, I also see that here. The problem are more the parents though,
pampering their kids like you wouldn't believe.


Not just that, it is cultural, more extensive and pervasive than the
average parent can cope with. It is even hugely challenging to very
good parents. I have many good friends with troubled teens.


Same here. But when you watch really closely you can detect where and
how the family structures have already fallen apart even in affluent
families.

Not meaning to be a buttinsky, but, WHy is it that people always seem to
think "affleunt families" are some sort of idyllic perfect things? Peopl
eare poeple. Havin gmoney doesn't "make" one person happier, or better,
or more well-adjusted, etc., than another. Yes, money [pays for the
necessities - duh. But someone living in a 5000 sq ft house, and driving
an overpriced car, is not automatically "happier" than someone living in
a 1500 sq ft house who drives a Mini-Cooper or a 6 yr old basic Saturn.

Sometimes, having lots of material wealth is *not* a good thing for a
family, becasue it can easily leadtoselfishness, which in turn leads to
isolation, which in turn leads to emotional/family problems. Too often,
parents try to buy their children's love, when the fact is that lvoe is
not a function of how much money is thrownat someone, but rather, of the
time one spends wiht them, the kindness and consideration and patience
one treats them with, and other such non-material things that involve,
not things, but *personal interaction*.


A classic example where I saw trouble coming (and boy did it
come):

a. They don't eat dinner as a family.
b. Kids constantly on cell phone or in front of TV.
c. Kids tune out surroundings, don't even recognize who visits.
d. Parents don't really know how kids feel.
e. No family trips on weekends.
f. No religious beliefs.

Why is trhat a :prerequisite" for having a loving gfamily? Some of the
most miserable, hateful families I've personally known were ultra-
religious. And it's obvious that religeon does not automatically
inculcate a respect for human life, never mind non-human life - how much
torture and killing has been done in the name of religion... Also,
spirituality is not the same thing as religiousity; it's like love and
sex - best when one has both together, but it's enturely possible to have
either on its own: they are different things. One can be spiritual
without adhering to this or that set of religious strictures, and one can
be very religious yet not particularly spiritual.

Sorry but I react to that because I've too often seen religion cited as
some sort of panacea for any and all social ills, when it actually can
cause as many as it purports to correct.

g. No planning.
h. Kids never participate in chores.
i. ... and so on.


All of the above indicate a lack or emotional engagement and personal
involvement. You have to put a lot *into* children. In a sense, they're
and investment of time and emotional energy, as well as *thinking*.

People don't like to see their own faults, which not only means that they
tend to lay blame everywhere otehr than on themselves, but also, it means
they cannot work towards self-improvement. The only way to improve
oneself - and the means intellectually *and* emotionally *and*
spiritually - is to recognize that one is *not* perfect, that one does
haev faults, and that those faults can at least ameliorated, although
many can be corrected. Patience, for example, can be cultivated - it
doesn't mean one will *never* become angry or frustrated, but it does
mean that one will be less wound up and therefore ableot both enjoy life
more, and have more joy to offer others.

Here is another fact - your Self is like a garden. If you want ot have a
bountiful harvest of flowers an dfruits and vegetables to share with
others, that garden has to be tended: weeds need to be pulled,
destrcutive insects picked off, the soil cultivated and aerated and
fertilized. Far, far too many poeple are so dang busy merely being
busy, that they deplete their own soil, and the harvest they can share
becoems increasingly poor.

Unfortunately, children are the most vunerable to that depletion - when
someone is so busy being busy that they can't, or won't?, spend "quality
time" with their children, teaching them things first-hand in an
initimate, warm, secure setting, the children grw up emotionally
malnourished. And that isn't somehting that can magically be "fixed"
after they becoem teens. The teen years are hard even in the best of
circumstances, but when that child is emotionally malnourished, it makes
those years so much worse.

Children are not like pets who can be crated at night and left her and
there while the parents go out to play. They take commitment and
gawdawful hard work.

But few people want to admit that they play harder than they work, eh?
ANd how many people actually honor their commitments, the promises
they've made? When they do that to adults, it can be shrugged off as
"so-and-so is just a jerk". But when one breaks one's
commitments/promises to a child, that child *can't* just shrug itr off -
they don't have the developmental capacity, or the experience, to do
that. Liek ti or not, that is most commonly trh root of "troubled
teens" - in reality, these kids weer torubled *children* pretty much all
along; it just becomes more obvious when they hit their teens, because
that is also when they start developing a sense of independence
("rebellion").

The biggest problem, based on what I've observed, heard, and read, is
parents who are inflexible, and/or don't want to admit they're imperfect
and would benefit from additional assistance and/or education concerning
child-rearing. Or parents who *talk* on and on about how involved they
are, but who are, in practice/reality, not very involved at all. Too
many people see having children as "something you're suppsoed to do", and
thus, it gets done grudgingly, which children do pick up on; children
hear, and are cut by, every utterance of "you're so stupid", every fripe
about "if I didn't have you kids, I could have had [insert silly material
item of choice]", every time a parent tells someone "don't have kids,
they just ruin your life". THese are the same people who will kvetch
abou thow they "jsut don't understand" why their teens aer "acting out",
when they've "given those damn kids everything they ever asked for".

What kids *really* need, they don't know how to ask for, but parents
should knwo enough to give - loving guidance, true caring, concern for
their emotional well-being as well as shelter and other material things,
praise for the things they do well and help with the things they struggle
over, the security of knowing that they *are* cared for.

Unfortunately, as is true in so very many other aspects of today's
society/culture, form counts for far more than does substance, so it'
s"supposed" to be sufficient to tell everyone that you care, without
having to do what is required to *show* it.

THat is one of the major factors in the failure of so many sorts of
relationships today, from friendship, to partnership/marriage, to
chldren, to business, to politics, and so on. More and more poeple talk
the talk, but don't want to be bothered with walking the walk.











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