I've become my father

[Suilleabhain]

Or as I said in the other thread "The descent of mankind"

I'm late Baby Boom, late real Baby Boom, 1953. Now I think I saw baby boomers being from the early 0's. I remember when you tuned radios to stations and there was one phone, one car and one working parent in each household. Before jets and before color TV. When you got test patterns on TV at night.

My father said it would happen.

I attribute it to sports, technology and education.

Sports used to be an after school activity that kept you bust out of the house so mom could cook dinner and keep you from getting fat. Now its required in school from pre-k to post graduate. High school sports are on cable TV. You go to college, dumb as a stump on sports scholarships.

Technology, the great double-edged sword, gave us this media for us to network, improved efficiany, put us on the moon. It also took away every entry level clerical job, manufacturing job, allowed for faster travel and transmission of disease, and created a generation of fat ass kids who just want to sit in front of a screen, can't get off of texting and are generally anti-social. Families used to sit around a table for dinner and talk.

The arts and music started as banging logs for a beat and making cave drawings and advanced to the masters of paint and sculpture as well as Mozart and the lot. Only to revert back to crucifixes in glasses of piss and rap.

Everyone is entitled. Kids don't want to wait tables to start a living, they'd rather Occupy. They can't divide numbers without a computer. Hell, they can't work a cash register that isn't button programmed or picture programmed. I had a store clerk who didn't know what a dozen meant. But, they want their techno-toys and their designer clothes and every other piece of crap that they never earned a dime to pay for. I worked my first job at 13 and never stopped.

The young guys I work with never read Shakespeare in 16 years of school. Humps can't find the USA on a world map.

We are living in Bable, pre-tower collapse, and if you don't understand that analogy you're in trouble.

Maybe its just localized here in the metropolis, hope so.

[Doc]

Maybe its just localized here in the metropolis, hope so.

No it's not. You've done a very good quick synopsis of the state of the world. Every point is true. It's good to recognize that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, but understand that there is absolutely nothing that will reverse or solve any of it. All we can do is just watch it all happen.

[hunter49]

I agree 100% . If people can't use technology they can't do it! Give someone $5.00 & 3 cents for a $3.00 & 3 cent bill & they tell you, you over paid & don't know how to make change! Drives me nuts. I know kids (adults) 26 y/o male has never cut a blade of gras or shovled a flake of snow. & his 30 y/o sister just got her first part time job 1 yr. ago. But they both have masters degrees. Ask a 12 y/o old to cut grass & they want $20.00 bucks or they say your crazy. Seems If they can't sit at a key board they won't do anything. and the list goes on!

[Elmo]

That is all due to upbringing. My dad was a hard a**. I was mopping floors when I was 9 and started working for him when I was 12. My day was I reported to school. Came back and did my home work. Once done with home work, I reported to him and he had me perform various jobs. Then I went to bed. Weekends, I in the baseball field hitting line drives and snagging fly balls. During the winter, my dad got a snow blower. His name was Elmo. And if I didn't do any of this, I got my a** beated. The kind of beating other parents would call the cops on. But guess what. I love and respect my dad and I think I turned out all right.

I really think the greatest downfall to this society is child services and the crack down on child abuse. Now, the most you can do is send your kids to their room...you know...where the playstation is at but who needs a playstation, they can do everything with their mobile phones now.

[nyslowhand]

No one to blame but ourselves!

Every generation wants a better life for their offspring than they had.

So it has finally evolved into today's society.

Top that off with a few over zealous lawyers or family rights activists bent on changing the world in their eyes - and here we are!

We've become an entitled society concerned with convience of life and amassing worldly possessions.

Bet you'd have a had time finding a teenager willing to work for less than $10/hr. I know I did!!! Several refused to work at all!!

Of course there are still a few of the traditionalist around whose basic concerns are family and happiness.

[Suilleabhain]

Gents, my dad was the same, never needed to raise a hand, just throw the look and you knew you were walking the edge.

Yeah everyone wanted to make a better life for their kids until the point where the kids don't want a life. They just want to exist.

This global economy is bull sh*t and I work in finance where you are soppused to eat and sleep the value of the global economy.

All it means is that jobs are fluid and go where the labor is cheapest. Technology has made it so some illiterate in some mud puddle in the 4th world can do the job that US labor created and trained skilled workers for. And when someone farts in Bulgaria the US markets drop 500 points.

We rebuilt Japan from the war to where they made trickets and junk and let them take our steel, auto and electronics from us. We let China take everything else.

Hooks are tied in the Philipines, phones are answered in India, cash bleeds out to Mexico and Central America. We export our food, meat, fish, raw materials and they give us grief in return.

Screw foreign aid, we have people all over this country that need to be helped first. And foreign aid to China? Why does China need a foreign aid package, they practically own us.

My last, and will be the last time I set foot there, in Mexico I went to exchange Pesos for Dollars at the desk when I left. No, we don't let Dollars out of the country. We'll take you Dollars for Pesos at the hotel but won't do the reverse when you leave.

[Suilleabhain]

I'll add some foresight example. My brother was a sheet metal mechanic. He's on a job one day and a boss comes around leading a bunch of Japanese with cameras. He's showing them how to build a building. They ask my brother what he's doing, he says I don't know, they tell me to put these screws in this metal, I don't know why. When they left the boss came back and said what the hell was that about. My brother said, you teach them and in 5 years we'll be out of work.

[Deerthug]

That is all due to upbringing. My dad was a hard a**. I was mopping floors when I was 9 and started working for him when I was 12. My day was I reported to school. Came back and did my home work. Once done with home work, I reported to him and he had me perform various jobs. Then I went to bed. Weekends, I in the baseball field hitting line drives and snagging fly balls. During the winter, my dad got a snow blower. His name was Elmo. And if I didn't do any of this, I got my a** beated. The kind of beating other parents would call the cops on. But guess what. I love and respect my dad and I think I turned out all right.

I really think the greatest downfall to this society is child services and the crack down on child abuse. Now, the most you can do is send your kids to their room...you know...where the playstation is at but who needs a playstation, they can do everything with their mobile phones now.

I was raised the same way minus the beatings. All my dad had to do was look at me with a glare and I high tailed it just like a whitetail to my room for the rest of the night. Nowadays we have to threaten to take away electronics - tv, Xbox, computers, phones, iPod, iPad and the like. But it works - one warning and then good bye electronics.

[hunter49]

Same with me ,dad said do this do that and you did it ! He would leave notes to do jobs after school and we just did them no qusetions asked. We would help the neighbors do chores and dad would say "don't you take any money!" worked our a$$ off for nothing. But we knew how to work hard and respected anyone else that did.

[Suilleabhain]

Respect! Another word that makes me nuts. My nephew wore an Oakland A's hat everywhere, everytime. Right thru dinner. How many times you go to a wake or a funeral and have people walk in like they just left the gym. Or go to a wedding without a jacket. I'll burn before I go pay my respects without wearing a suit. Have some simple respect for the family. Not saying a guy stopping off on his way home from work, mind you. And a cell phone on the dining room table during dinner. Give me a break. and it goes both ways. My wife needed air in her tires. I told her if they don't charge you, give the guy a ten. She said the owners son came out, no problem, stopped what he was doing and aired her up. He got 15.

[nyantler]

No one to blame but ourselves!

Every generation wants a better life for their offspring than they had.

So it has finally evolved into today's society.

Top that off with a few over zealous lawyers or family rights activists bent on changing the world in their eyes - and here we are!

We've become an entitled society concerned with convience of life and amassing worldly possessions.

Bet you'd have a had time finding a teenager willing to work for less than $10/hr. I know I did!!! Several refused to work at all!!

Of course there are still a few of the traditionalist around whose basic concerns are family and happiness.

And I would be one of those traditionalists... although I always want my kids to have things better than me... I want to do it by showing them how not to make the mistakes I have made... probably the biggest problem with parenting now days is that parents try to be their kids friend instead of their parent... now that my kids are in their 20's and on their own... I can be their friend knowing they are on their way to being productive, responsible adults... and they are very appreciative for their mother and I helping them get there.

[Elmo]

My butt whoopin's were well deserved. Like when I was caught cutting school, etc.

[Doc]

Respect! Another word that makes me nuts. My nephew wore an Oakland A's hat everywhere, everytime. Right thru dinner. How many times you go to a wake or a funeral and have people walk in like they just left the gym. Or go to a wedding without a jacket. I'll burn before I go pay my respects without wearing a suit. Have some simple respect for the family. Not saying a guy stopping off on his way home from work, mind you. And a cell phone on the dining room table during dinner. Give me a break. and it goes both ways. My wife needed air in her tires. I told her if they don't charge you, give the guy a ten. She said the owners son came out, no problem, stopped what he was doing and aired her up. He got 15.

Damn! So far you're hitting all of my pet peeves.

[Suilleabhain]

Read a column today, 20-somethings in Italy, Greece and Spain went back to reunite with friends to see how they were doing career-wise. Well they all were doing nothing, not for lack of trying. They were unpaid interns, living at home....

Well when you major in Human Biology, Art, etc etc etc

None of them and not one person i know says I can't get my first entry level job in plumbing, welding, electric, carpentry. They are all DJ's, Duh I don't know what I want to do, I'm a pro-ballplayer.

Being a waiter or waitress is out of the question.

I worked deck as a mate through high school ... weekends, holidays, all summer 6 days a week. When I quit college my dad let me bum around for exactly a week. Then he came home from work one day and said shape up at the dock tomorrow, I got you a job. Three weeks of that and I had a real job.