Protecting the Free-Range Kid

[apeman]

In sum, I needed the hammer.

I would get it soon enough, in massive massive doses.

I know what you mean. The real world does NOT pull any punches. If you're not prepared to buckle down, you just get run over and beat until you figure it out.

This dovetails into the school thread.

Life has gotten a lot easier. A hundred years ago, you wouldn't have needed to have life smack you around in your twenties. Your entire life leading up to your twenties was one ass kicking after another.

I know the sun isn't out yet, but if you want breakfast you're gonna have to go get it. Feed and water the chickens, pigs, horses, and cows, then you can eat. You wanna freeze to death this winter? Well, if not you'll be spending your cozy summer vacation felling and splitting fire wood, and it's all hand tools. Wanna go to town? Well, the rich guy in town has one of them fancy new cars, but you're gonna spend the next hour getting the horses hitched. Oh yeah, the horses. You ever picked up dog shit? Well, it's like that, but the dog is two thousand pounds and you're using a shovel.

In the winter, when the sun goes down at five, that's when you go to bed. Lamp oil and candles are too expensive to burn all night just to read. You're gonna lay down in bed, in silence, aching from the day's work, and know that it's all coming back around in the morning. You're gonna get up again and tend to all the animals, and then walk your ass all the way to school, and if you're smart you'll understand that school's your ticket.

Today, most people don't learn that until long after they should have.

Good post.

[BjornP]

The real world does NOT pull any punches. If you're not prepared to buckle down,

Life has gotten a lot easier. A hundred years ago, you wouldn't have needed to have life smack you around in your twenties. Your entire life leading up to your twenties was one ass kicking after another.

I know the sun isn't out yet, but if you want breakfast you're gonna have to go get it. Feed and water the chickens, pigs, horses, and cows, then you can eat. You wanna freeze to death this winter? Well, if not you'll be spending your cozy summer vacation felling and splitting fire wood, and it's all hand tools. Wanna go to town? Well, the rich guy in town has one of them fancy new cars, but you're gonna spend the next hour getting the horses hitched. Oh yeah, the horses. You ever picked up dog shit? Well, it's like that, but the dog is two thousand pounds and you're using a shovel.

In the winter, when the sun goes down at five, that's when you go to bed. Lamp oil and candles are too expensive to burn all night just to read. You're gonna lay down in bed, in silence, aching from the day's work, and know that it's all coming back around in the morning. You're gonna get up again and tend to all the animals, and then walk your ass all the way to school, and if you're smart you'll understand that school's your ticket.

...or get your servants to do all of the above, if you won the lottery of class and was born a child of the higher classes.

[Okeefenokee]

We don't have classes.

and no ones worrying about the rich anyway.

[Smitty-48]

Money can't buy you class, blue blood is not for sale and never was, blue blood can only be purchased, by the Cross and the Sword, Dieu et mon droit.

[DrYouth]

This dovetails into the school thread.

Life has gotten a lot easier. A hundred years ago, you wouldn't have needed to have life smack you around in your twenties. Your entire life leading up to your twenties was one ass kicking after another.

I know the sun isn't out yet, but if you want breakfast you're gonna have to go get it. Feed and water the chickens, pigs, horses, and cows, then you can eat. You wanna freeze to death this winter? Well, if not you'll be spending your cozy summer vacation felling and splitting fire wood, and it's all hand tools. Wanna go to town? Well, the rich guy in town has one of them fancy new cars, but you're gonna spend the next hour getting the horses hitched. Oh yeah, the horses. You ever picked up dog shit? Well, it's like that, but the dog is two thousand pounds and you're using a shovel.

In the winter, when the sun goes down at five, that's when you go to bed. Lamp oil and candles are too expensive to burn all night just to read. You're gonna lay down in bed, in silence, aching from the day's work, and know that it's all coming back around in the morning. You're gonna get up again and tend to all the animals, and then walk your ass all the way to school, and if you're smart you'll understand that school's your ticket.

Today, most people don't learn that until long after they should have.

It was harder to have entitled kids back then.
It's a lot easier now, almost a default... unless you actively work at it.

[Okeefenokee]

What do you think engenders entitlement?

[BjornP]

We don't have classes.

and no ones worrying about the rich anyway.

What's with the word "middle class" then? And you don't use "working class", either? I can swear i have seen it used alot in debates here..

Anyway. I was responding to your in the days of yore post by pointing that they had soft, sheltered kids then too. Though obviously fewer of them.

[DrYouth]

What do you think engenders entitlement?

If no one gives you responsibility, you never learn to take it.
You firmly believe the responsibility is theirs.
That's entitlement.

[Smitty-48]

We don't have classes.

and no ones worrying about the rich anyway.

What's with the word "middle class" then?

They're all middle class, there are no blue bloods nor peasants in America, it's all one big class, there's just levels to this shit, Niggah...



Tax bracket doesn't determine class, who knew?

You can roll in a Bentley, but that don't make you an HRH.

[Okeefenokee]

We don't have classes.

and no ones worrying about the rich anyway.

What's with the word "middle class" then? And you don't use "working class", either?

Anyway. I was responding to your in the days of yore post by pointing that they had soft, sheltered kids then too. Though obviously fewer of them.

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.