Age of P-F members?

[rob_s]

I find that one of the keys to child rearing is understanding the difference between “hurt” and “damaged” and “killed”. Both in terms of physical body and the psyche.

I’ve been known to say “I just don’t want them to end up whining on a sofa somewhere when they are 40, blaming us for everything wrong with their lives”.

[UNK]

Raise kids the way you were raised and Id say they will be fine. Mine never got computer games or social media. They played sports rode their bikes had household chores and never got an allowance. Last I checked they were doing ok.

[rob_s]

I’ve had reason and occasion to consider some of the ideas discussed in this thread and in the discussion that starts here offline, and I’ve had a bit of a personal revelation.

We need to stop letting people off the hook.

When we “label” millennials, or any other generation for that matter, more often than not we give them excuses not to perform. Simon Sinek (who I’ve come to fucking hate) has a viral video about Millenials and it’s all about how it’s not their fault, and it’s even not their fault that they can’t get over the fact that it’s not their fault... we gotta stop that shit. Fault or no fault, out your fucking big girl on ties in and do the work. Have a value. Show worth. Nothing else really fucking matters, frankly.

To my example in the other thread where they dug the ditch for the Haitian lady’s mangoes, stop enabling her to do nothing. Or, if she insists on doing nothing, forget her. Maybe go spend that ditch money on a school so we can fox her kids and grandkids. We can’t let her have one excuse after another why she “can’t”. Maybe she actually believes she can’t, but more likely, particularly after a path to “can” has been laid out, those reason’s aren’t really why she can’t, they are reasons why she WON’T.

boomers with their “I can’t understand technology” nonsense and then we let them off then hook for it. Fuck that shit. If there’s tee times, tides, fishing reports, or titties in that phone (or even if all you do is get on Facebook to gloat over how much cuter your grandkids are than your cousin Ethel’s) you miraculously figure it out. If you’re still drawing a paycheck you better get with the times. I don’t care if you’re 22 or 62. The real reason you “can’t do” technology is that you never kept up with the incremental changes and you probably should have been fired for it a long time ago.

And now we have Xers aging into that same mentality. I see people that are younger than me that need help setting up a gotomeeting for Christ’s sake.

Black, ADHD, Hispanic, Chinese, woman, gay, trans, left handed, albino.. whatever the fuck. Yeah, you probably face some challenges that the tubby middle-aged white dude doesn’t or didn’t. But you know what? No matter what your challenges, there’s someone else that faced them and BEAT them. Maybe it’s not your fault, but what you do with it is. And even if you fail, that’s nobody’s problem but your own. At some point you just have to acknowledge that you can’t be 4’-2” and 300lbs and play in the NBA. You just gotta own that shit and the the best you can.

All these riots and unrest, that’s a product of people being told they are DUE. That they are OWED. Both sides, BLM, Antifa, and the capitol rioters. You ain’t owed shit. Whatever your challenges, you gotta overcome them, and take that on for yourself.

So, on topic of the thread a bit, I’m over the whole “generational” thing. However true the stereotypes might be, they just blow up in our faces and manifest as excuses by the people wearing the labels. Fuck that. Do work.

[Cory]

I’ve had reason and occasion to consider some of the ideas discussed in this thread and in the discussion that starts here offline, and I’ve had a bit of a personal revelation.

We need to stop letting people off the hook.

When we “label” millennials, or any other generation for that matter, more often than not we give them excuses not to perform. Simon Sinek (who I’ve come to fucking hate) has a viral video about Millenials and it’s all about how it’s not their fault, and it’s even not their fault that they can’t get over the fact that it’s not their fault... we gotta stop that shit. Fault or no fault, out your fucking big girl on ties in and do the work. Have a value. Show worth. Nothing else really fucking matters, frankly.

To my example in the other thread where they dug the ditch for the Haitian lady’s mangoes, stop enabling her to do nothing. Or, if she insists on doing nothing, forget her. Maybe go spend that ditch money on a school so we can fox her kids and grandkids. We can’t let her have one excuse after another why she “can’t”. Maybe she actually believes she can’t, but more likely, particularly after a path to “can” has been laid out, those reason’s aren’t really why she can’t, they are reasons why she WON’T.

boomers with their “I can’t understand technology” nonsense and then we let them off then hook for it. Fuck that shit. If there’s tee times, tides, fishing reports, or titties in that phone (or even if all you do is get on Facebook to gloat over how much cuter your grandkids are than your cousin Ethel’s) you miraculously figure it out. If you’re still drawing a paycheck you better get with the times. I don’t care if you’re 22 or 62. The real reason you “can’t do” technology is that you never kept up with the incremental changes and you probably should have been fired for it a long time ago.

And now we have Xers aging into that same mentality. I see people that are younger than me that need help setting up a gotomeeting for Christ’s sake.

Black, ADHD, Hispanic, Chinese, woman, gay, trans, left handed, albino.. whatever the fuck. Yeah, you probably face some challenges that the tubby middle-aged white dude doesn’t or didn’t. But you know what? No matter what your challenges, there’s someone else that faced them and BEAT them. Maybe it’s not your fault, but what you do with it is. And even if you fail, that’s nobody’s problem but your own. At some point you just have to acknowledge that you can’t be 4’-2” and 300lbs and play in the NBA. You just gotta own that shit and the the best you can.

All these riots and unrest, that’s a product of people being told they are DUE. That they are OWED. Both sides, BLM, Antifa, and the capitol rioters. You ain’t owed shit. Whatever your challenges, you gotta overcome them, and take that on for yourself.

So, on topic of the thread a bit, I’m over the whole “generational” thing. However true the stereotypes might be, they just blow up in our faces and manifest as excuses by the people wearing the labels. Fuck that. Do work.

As someone who detests most of my own generation because of their excuses, I can't like this enough.

[UNK]

My daughter is taking her AP English class at the dining table. I heard her talk about kids that told their parents and the parents actually submitted to the kids. Also kids screaming at their parents in public. I had kids late in life but WTF. I cant even fathom.

[BehindBlueI's]

[RoyGBiv]

It's hard to be the "bad guy", the "No" parent. Now that my kids are in college and beyond, I think they are more appreciative of being raised by parents who made them responsible for earning what they got ( #Adulting ). But, when they were younger and watched their friends get liberties and handouts from their parents that they did not get from us, there was not a lot of appreciation or understanding /understatement. Watching my kids now, as young adults, seeing them out perform their peers in terms of "owning" the things they do.... eases the "bad guy" guilt quite a bit.

I remember as a kid, the standard answer to my whining "But John is allowed to do it", was, "If John jumped off a building would you do that too?".... Simpler times.

[rob_s]

It's hard to be the "bad guy", the "No" parent. Now that my kids are in college and beyond, I think they are more appreciative of being raised by parents who made them responsible for earning what they got ( #Adulting ). But, when they were younger and watched their friends get liberties and handouts from their parents that they did not get from us, there was not a lot of appreciation or understanding /understatement. Watching my kids now, as young adults, seeing them out perform their peers in terms of "owning" the things they do.... eases the "bad guy" guilt quite a bit.

I remember as a kid, the standard answer to my whining "But John is allowed to do it", was, "If John jumped off a building would you do that too?".... Simpler times.

We spoil the shit out of our kids...

with experiences.

When it comes time for holidays and gifts, they rarely know what they want but not because they already have all the toys they want but because they value the experiences we provide for them.

yes, to a degree the house we live in, cars we drive, TVs we own... that's all nicer than maybe some of their friends families (and not as nice as others) but I'm not living in a hovel just to prove a point!

This past weekend my oldest had a friend over to the house and I overheard her telling her friend all about a couple of the national parks they visited on a car-camping trip with my wife early last year. Not in a bragging way, and not in a asshat way, but in a pretty sweet kind of matter of fact way of just sharing with her friend.

We are lucky enough to be able to provide those kinds of experiences for them. I *hope* that we're setting an expectation for them that they will come to think of as the baseline of their way of life and standard of living and only want to improve from there, while also understanding all the hard work that leads up to that tent at the base of some rock in the desert for two nights.