Protecting the Free-Range Kid

[DrYouth]

You don't stand a fuckin' prayer if they ever figure this shit out, I never used this technique on me ol' pappy, but my brothers did, and they took him for a ride like Bonnie and Clyde.

I'll keep ya posted.
I have the senior teen years ahead of me yet.
So far so good.

My wife and I make a pretty good team.
If one of us is caving the other spells off.

Good cop, bad cop we alternate.
Keeps em on their toes.

[Smitty-48]

You don't stand a fuckin' prayer if they ever figure this shit out, I never used this technique on me ol' pappy, but my brothers did, and they took him for a ride like Bonnie and Clyde.

I'll keep ya posted.
I have the senior teen years ahead of me yet.
So far so good.

My wife and I make a pretty good team.
If one of us is caving the other spells off.

Good cop, bad cop we alternate.
Keeps em on their toes.

May the Force be with you, but the Maker help you, if they ever discover...

[Okeefenokee]

You don't stand a fuckin' prayer if they ever figure this shit out, I never used this technique on me ol' pappy, but my brothers did, and they took him for a ride like Bonnie and Clyde.

I'll keep ya posted.
I have the senior teen years ahead of me yet.
So far so good.

My wife and I make a pretty good team.
If one of us is caving the other spells off.

Good cop, bad cop we alternate.
Keeps em on their toes.

When things are in their favor, it's just me getting into them and their mother is quiet. When things are not in their favor, she goes islander on them, and I walk out of the room so I can't be used as a witness.

[MilSpecs]

If you all don't mind answering, how old are your children? It seems like we have a wide range here. And what was the most difficult age for you to deal with?

[Okeefenokee]

Teenagers are the worst. Early teens more so.

[BjornP]

You know the difference between European class and American class.

And I know they had silver spoon kids back then with their hovering nannies and butlers, but that wasn't the norm in the middle.

Didn't really know, no, but I did suspect that something must have gotten lost in translation and I was unsure wether your understanding of the word was personal and ideological or cultural. Apparantly it's cultural, and apparantly it extends to Canada. If what you call "European class" is the sort of understanding of class where you had formal privileges, with a strict social pyramid with little to no acceptance of social mobility, then that isn't even the norm in Europe and hasn't been for the last half-century, at least. I agree you don't have that, then.

But class understood simply as having things like elites (economical, political, social), people with some power, people with none; rich people, affluent people, poor people. All those things you have, like all other societies have had, have and always will have. Understanding that you don't have a classless society, does not involve having to believe in, or engage in, Marxist nonsense about "class conflict". Belonging to a particular tax bracket does not equal having the same values - that would be that old "European class" way of thinking you refer to.

[Smitty-48]

Money doesn't buy you social nor political power in Canada, you can be raised in Forest Hill by multi-millionaires, go to Upper Canada College and McGill, work for an investment bank, nobody fucking cares here, that doesn't get you any power in Canada over anybody else, if anything, you're more likely to be rejected and shunned by Canadians in a sociopolitical sense, for a total lack of street cred.

The sociopolitically powerful in Canada, are mostly academics and artists not rich people, rich people are borderline sociopolitical pariahs, Canadians like money, but they don't worship it, and if they think you have too much, that alone can disqualify you.

Canada is a Technocracy; Government by Academics, University Professors in their Ivory Towers, are exponentially more influential than the Bankers on Bay St.

Ya'll already know a Canadian sociopolitcal big shot; Dr. Youth, liberal academics and technocrats, that's who rules here, if the wealthy ran the country, do you really think we'd be paying these kind of taxes? Please.

[BjornP]

Money doesn't buy you social nor political power in Canada, you can be raised in Forest Hill by multi-millionaires, go to Upper Canada College and McGill, work for an investment bank, nobody fucking cares here, that doesn't get you any power in Canada over anybody else, if anything, you're more likely to be rejected and shunned by Canadians in a sociopolitical sense, for a total lack of street cred.

The sociopolitically powerful in Canada, are mostly academics and artists not rich people, rich people are borderline sociopolitical pariahs, Canadians like money, but they don't worship it, and if they think you have too much, that alone can disqualify you.

Canada is a Technocracy; Government by Academics, University Professors in their Ivory Towers, are exponentially more influential than the Bankers on Bay St.

Ya'll already know a Canadian sociopolitcal big shot; Dr. Youth, liberal academics and technocrats, that's who rules here, if the wealthy ran the country, do you really think we'd be paying these kind of taxes? Please.

Seems alot like how class is structured here. Everyone can become any class, high degree of social mobility, but political power does not require any wealth whatsoever. A degree in political science and administration, and a couple of years worth of membership and networking in one of the political parties, otoh.... say hello to the next PM. Not that that means they're hostile to investment banks, here. The neo-Liberals and Conservatives usually have the same career trajectory, but even Social Democrats are chummy with big banks and succesfull business owners. Outright "eat the rich" mentality comes mostly from the weaker (in terms of seats) leftist parties.

[Smitty-48]

Seems alot like how class is structured here. Everyone can become any class, high degree of social mobility, but political power does not require any wealth whatsoever. A degree in political science and administration, and a couple of years worth of membership and networking in one of the political parties, otoh.... say hello to the next PM. Not that that means they're hostile to investment banks, here. The neo-Liberals and Conservatives usually have the same career trajectory, but even Social Democrats are chummy with big banks and succesfull business owners. Outright "eat the rich" mentality comes mostly from the weaker (in terms of seats) leftist parties.

You can't even discern a wealthy "class" here, the wealthy are not unified into a "class" in Canada, there are people with money here and there, but they don't constitute a "class" by any definition, Toronto Bankers, Calgary Oil Barons, and Montreal Liquor Mavens? That's hardly a "class", gimme a break, more like a gaggle.

[Smitty-48]

The Upper Classes of Canada, are in America, you wanna see the Upper Class on this continent, just drive down I-75 through the US and look at all the airports going by, that are just for private jets, you ain't gonna see nothing like that, up here in the Company Town, in the middle of the wilderness, we are the Middle Class in the American hegenomy, but the Upper Class don't live here, they live in New York, Florida, and California, and the lower class don't live here neither, they live offshore in the third world, Haiti, Bangledesh, and the Phillpines.

The rich people don't live here, it's fucking cold as all get out here, as soon as you get rich in Canada, you depart for the warmer climes and lower taxes to the south, I assure you. If we lived in a tropical climate, maybe we'd have a wealthy class, but nothing gets rid of your rich people, like -30C.

What self respecting wealthy elites, would live next door to the United States, freezing their asses off and paying higher taxes? Answer; they don't, they move to America and become Americans, as soon as they make the big bucks, they're outta here, on their way to summertime all the time, and no state tax.

You want to talk about the ruling classes in Canada? That would be your Academic Elites, your Institutional Elites, and your Media Elites, taken all together we call them the Laurentian Elites, and you can't buy your way in with money, money in of itself, cannot buy you elite status, in a Technocracy.

That's why it's hi-larious, when DrY starts prattling on about the "ruling class", as if it was somebody else, when in fact, he is the ruling class here, that's who runs shit here, Dr. Youth & Co, he's an Institutional Elite, and while he lives out west, he's not from there, he's a Laurentian Elite from back east, whatever he tells you about the "ruling class" and the "dickensian suffering of the proletariat", don't be suckered by that shit, you're talking to the Canadian ruling class, when you're talking to Dr. Youth, and there is no proletariat class here, these Laurentian Elites never cease with the fabricated sob stories to justify their existence on the taxpayers dime, but they're totally full of shit, make no mistake.