HAHA awww that’s awesome that they want to be friends with you.
That’s interesting! I get the impression that you’re able to both question authority and respect authority when the time calls for either.
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My undergrad uni implemented mandatory first year writing bc companies were complaining about the lack of written communication skills from hires coming from the school.
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I respect authority when I consider them an authority on something.
With my advisors, I usually don’t feel qualified to question, or at least feel the need to put in an unnecessary amount of qualifiers.
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I have lost interest over the past two weeks in posting as much as I have in the past, but as an admitted long-time boomer basher, this thread hits home (surprise). I am also a Gen X basher, but to a lesser extent, even though I am a late Gen Xer or late millennial, depending on what year is the cut off for each generation, and whether we consider if someone born in a certain era could even partake in the culture of the time.
I have half-jokingly said to some friends and family members similar statements. A few times I have said to them that they should open up old photo albums from the 70’s to 90’s and take a look at the schleps with women in them. One friend who thought of it for a moment, started laughing, and said, “Yeah, even pretty women!” One time when my late-boomer uncle was bashing young men these days, I responded, “Let me tell you. Most of you guys would be toasted on the sexual market these days. Pretty much all you guys had to do was wear your Champion sweatshirts, Lee jeans, and shell-toed Adidas, have a job, and not be insane!”
A big grievance I have is for boomer parenting, and now as a parent of two children, looking back, I believe I can reasonably conclude that the parenting of many was outrageously stupid and that they likely were the first generation to make permissive parenting and making an embarrassment of the family name by undisciplined, disloyal and untrained children acceptable. They really were the first to accept loser behavior. Many actually appeared to have no qualms with allowing their daughters to be in stupid and dangerous positions. You know, because, “How else are you going to have a relationship with your children?” “You have no control of who your daughter marries. It’s her choice and who she loves.” “Once they turn eighteen, they can do what they want to do.”
Boomers went along with several things that hurt families and in turn their children, the succeeding generations they call soft, lazy, and spoiled. This can take on a huge discussion in itself.
They also are a generation obsessed with the individual, and believe that no matter what societal forces are pressing down on an individual, he or she still has the ability to move mountains. Hence, they have a libertarian view on economics and employment and romanticization of the self-made person. “Did you ever hear of the story of Jane/Joe Blow. S/he lived in a homeless shelter, studied and did homework on the train, had an abusive family, often went hungry, and now owns numerous businesses and is a gorillionaire. See, it’s all about what you put into it.” Never mind some wealthy boomers set up their children to be anything but self-made.
Even to this day I am amazed by what some boomers tolerate from their adult children, behavior and actions that one could reasonably think warrant estrangement or a smack across the face.
I can go on and on about boomers—what I wrote is here is just the tip of the iceberg—but much of the cultural and societal rot we have to absorb today were set in motion by policies put forth by the Silent Generation and they were subjected to enormous scientific brainwashing growing up.
Perhaps I shouldn’t hammer down on them too much as I am the beneficiary of a boomer who spoiled and still spoils me and have boomer in-laws who bend over backwards of me, my wife, and my children.
Maybe I’ll add more later, but I don’t wish to be that annoying.
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My wife and I joke (in private) that as long as we avoid the ways we were fucked up, then the kids can choose their own fuckery. Just make a conscious effort to prevent generational trauma.
Agreed. And it’s gotten worse. Using AI for that has made it way less user friendly also.
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I see it as needing to be a balance. I know grew up with a few people with overly strict parents, and that can also backfire. I think perhaps the gender of the child matters? I know one family that had very strict parents. The son (one of my two best friends) is super successful. One of the daughters is estranged. The other two daughters are nice people, but certainly don’t follow the teachings of the parents (which are devout Catholics). They are close to SJWs, identify as they / them… My cousin is also an example. Very strict parents. He rebelled hard. Got into drugs. Been to rehab a few times. He has turned his life around though now, and is a business owner and has a family.
Mine would be too haha. I remember reading that spelling / grammar is not all that indicative of intelligence. What I read, may not be true, but I like to believe it is lol. It is certainly important for not looking like an idiot. I will read all of my emails back to myself and edit them before sending, because I know it is a weakness I have. I can do math and figure out tough problems, but spelling is a problem.
I wouldn’t say I am a good writer, but I am better at that, than something like a spelling bee. There are things with punctuation that just don’t stick in my memory, like how to use the “;”.
Writing is something I try to improve. I can see some people can express their ideas more efficiently than I can. I am verbose in my writing. Probably to make up for not being able to express what I want to efficiently.
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I had a friend back when I was like 12 or something. Her parents willingly and openly let her go to high school parties with drinking and no parental supervision.
I’m sure she made some fully coherent and consenting decisions that she never regretted.
I thought it was ridiculous when I was a kid. Now I cannot come to a conclusion except that her parents fucking hated her.
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I’m a pretty good writer, but I’m definitely a typo magnet.
I don’t necessarily think grammar typos are an indicator of skill or intelligence but for me, typos are an indicator of an overall tendency to neglect details despite my best intentions. This has had major implications for my work elsewhere (linear algebra and statistics, mistakes in data analysis etc)
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I agree that too strict is bad, and too lenient is also bad. I’d be willing to bet if we looked at demographics of school shooters >75% of them were raised by single mothers (who are notoriously lacking in discipline).
I think the tools used to parent children should be different between boys and girls. Like I said before, I would never want my daughter to feel it normal for the man she trusts and loves the most, to put hands on her. But if/when I have a son, he must understand that the world is a violent place (that doesn’t mean merciless beatings, but occasionally a boy needs to be put in his place the way a man would be in a man’s world).
Ultimately, I boil down my parenting strategy to:
Teach your kids how the world should be.
But give them the tools to succeed in the world we live in.
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Before i became an adult they were my parents and disciplined me and my siblings when necessary
When i became an adult they were still my parents when it came to me needing advice and also became friends
I will say that children have some autonomy over what they learn from their parents and it’s not 1:1 with what the parents intend
For example:
My mum always stressed how important maths was. I hated it and didn’t persist. I regret that a lot now and it’s a struggle to catch up
My dad wanted to teach me to be more relaxed , but what I got out of that was that I never want to be with a man like him or my brother
This is more of an individual difference, but I have a tendency to take things too far. So they had to learn not to impose too many rules, especially when it’s incentive compatible. They strongly regret their anti relationship rhetoric for example
I guess it was a bad analogy.
This is what it’s supposed to be but its currently not. The climb is significantly harder than it needs to be for the vast majority of folks (the average portion of the normal bell curve distribution).
Oh, I don’t believe the government in it’s current state can do this
Right, which is the opposite of what I am saying. No child left behind ended up punishing schools that both doing well and those that were doing poorly. It was basically the antithesis to what was and still is actually needed in terms of education.
We (as in the country) can either drive the outcome up or down. Everything done to this point has driven it down. Including but not limited too: bad school funding schemes, basing education off standardized testing, treating teachers absolutely horribly.
Because our current government is not “for the people” its for the people who line the politicians pockets. This is not party exclusive. There is no incentive allow anyone to be better/smarter because it threatens the power structure.
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Brutal educational degradation all over I’ve read about in the past year.
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yikes, less than half in KY are on grade level in either subject.
Nothing will be done though, an uneducated populace is easier to control.
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What I’ve noticed is that for every major social problem that talking heads keep yammering about, including those which plague young men today, almost no one speaks of societal solutions and instead focus on individuals, in many cases offering individuals solutions that most cannot apply (eg, “Don’t want your kid to be subject to violence or poor teaching? Shell out a quarter million-plus for private schooling.” “Having a hard time as a disillusioned and alienated young man? Start your own business! Be more alpha!”)
My suspicion for this is that setting things in the right direction involves harsh measures and taking away the grift and fun from or even emotionally hurting some people and will remind the American public that their conceits are a bunch of bullshit from the start.
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You should watch Chris Williamson’s recent podcast episode with Mary Eberstadt. She said that the Sexual Revolution was a revolution of human subtraction.
Male spaces, gone. Boys working alongside male family members, particularly physical stuff, mostly gone. Education has a female flavor. Abortion literally deletes people. Widespread divorce subtracts not only spouses from homes, but most from one side of a family, deleting family alliances and bond with other people.
All this leads to young people not knowing how to manage themselves, decreased confidence leading to decreased tolerance for adversity, lack of knowledge about how to care for kids, and anti-social behavior and poor life skills, including poor coping skills.
She said in all but one case of mass shooting incidents she reviewed only one shooter was from an intact home. All others had broken homes with one writing about his feelings of loneliness and alienation and how he felt no one cared about him. Obviously his cope was deadly.
I will state firsthand that a broken home with constant turmoil, yelling, arguing, and almost nothing but cold dictation can 
infuriate a boy or young man. Couple that with going to a highly populated school of over 4,000 students in which he feels like a number and we are looking at a bad combo. It inspired deep anger and apathy. My grades would be inconsistent, scoring high on some difficult tests, and doing poorly at other times not because I was incapable, but simply because of intentional neglect and spite. My reasoning, warped as it was, was that because my small world (home, school) seemed to not care about me, then I’m not caring for it. “If people are uninterested in me, then why should I perform? F— them!” Looking back as a 44 year old with a family and more than enough people who love and care for me and a mature mind, that doesn’t seem like a kid cut out to withstand tough times, or even care to.
PS: I am not staring this for sympathy because I don’t need it. It’s only to give my perspective added on to what I’ve said in this post and thread.
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As long as you feel the same way about subsidies and tax abatements, etc. for corporations, I agree.
I would add that almost everything has an inverse and planning for flexibility is crucial to entrepreneurship. Nobody starts as a diversified conglomerate with budget balancing investments across economic cycles, but Keynesian policies are fairly predictable by design and should be accounted for when “opening shop”.
Taking full responsibility of opportunity and inherent risk is part of ownership and a ten year plan for ups and downs, including when and how to leverage outside investments and third party loans if necessary, is solely the responsibility of the owner. It’s not government or societies responsibility to come in and create favorable conditions or eliminate overhead costs.
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I would make the argument that in many cases letting these kids in to the good schools would ultimately wipe out good schools, not create equitable equity. A little cold but I don’t know if there is a perfect answer for weak links strengthening chains.
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