Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Okay, I want to do some b--- complaining now. My mother-n-law lives in a small town (population around 200) and while I was at her house today I heard one of the neighborhood kids screaming. It was a 10 year old girl who had been stung by two yellow-jackets or wasps (she wasn't sure which). I carried her inside [dang she was heavier than I realized] and sent my youngest son to fetch her older brother. The brother informed my son he was too busy (he was tossing the football with some friends) I hollored out: " ________, your sister is hurt! Come here now!" No show. By this time I've given her some ointment to puch on the stings to ease the stings. Sent my son once more to try to retrieve the brother so that at least he can carry her home. I sent a reminder to the boy that yesterday when he fell off his bicycle that I went running to help him. His response, 'he's not an adult what do I expect him to do?'

The mother is at work, the step-father is no where to be seen. No way to contact the mother. I would think that a brother would be more concern with their little sister especially when their mother is not home and I'm ASSUMING that he was left in charge to care for. But then again I could be wrong. This is the same family that allowed their their daughter when she was nine to be riding her bicycle at 11:00 at night.

So who else have run into teenagers who show no respect for adults nor act like they care about anybody but themselves?

I have.

Eyes High wrote:So who else have run into teenagers who show no respect for adults nor act like they care about anybody but themselves?

Does a kid screaming, "Fuck you, you fucking faggot!" in my face count as not showing respect? I've worked in education for 11 years so I think I've seen my fair share. Not to mention dozens of death threats that none of the little fuckers had the stones to carry out.

Nekhrun wrote:

Eyes High wrote:So who else have run into teenagers who show no respect for adults nor act like they care about anybody but themselves?

Does a kid screaming, "Fuck you, you fucking faggot!" in my face count as not showing respect? I've worked in education for 11 years so I think I've seen my fair share. Not to mention dozens of death threats that none of the little fuckers had the stones to carry out.

Careful, man. Never say never!

Those little shits. They ain't gonna do nothing. The ones that matter end up being grateful. Both my grandparents were headmasters, one in PA and they called him "The Hawk" and the other in Hong Kong, and they both lived a very long time and died of natural causes.

Although, neither of them drank Mt. Dew...

Eyes High wrote:So who else have run into teenagers who show no respect for adults nor act like they care about anybody but themselves?

You mean there is another kind?

I am preparing myself for the teen years of my best friends' kids who are like a niece and nephew to me ... great kids but I know there will be moments when I think "can't wait until you grow out of your asshole phase."

It's not teens that annoy me so much with this, it's people in their 30's who NEVER grew out of it. What the hell is their excuse?

I blame their parents! So many people have children just for having them, without taking the time to spend with them. When the parents are off from work they have to do what THEY want to do, and often that doesn't involve the children. IMHO you loose the right to be selfish when you become a parent, your needs a secondary!

What surprises me the most is Eyes ranting... I thought that impossible - this just confirms my thoughts that the end is near......

nampigai wrote:I blame their parents! So many people have children just for having them, without taking the time to spend with them. When the parents are off from work they have to do what THEY want to do, and often that doesn't involve the children. IMHO you loose the right to be selfish when you become a parent, your needs a secondary!

What surprises me the most is Eyes ranting... I thought that impossible - this just confirms my thoughts that the end is near......

hey, even patient personified can have her limit. I went and talk to the mother last night. What a joke. It was as if she just laughed off that fact that her son wouldn't come to the aid of his little sister. Oh well, at least she did give me her work number so the next time the child is over here and gets hurt at least I can contact someone.

It just seem like more and more kids today have no respect for their elders. There are a few still out there but I remember when I was growing up that if we talked to an adult like the kid talk to Nek, we would have gotten knocked to the other side of the room then got it again when we got home from our parents (or grandparents)

Well any how, thanks for letting me rant a little. Back to trying to be patient.

I couldn't imagine one of my kids doing something like that, even our teenager takes care of the little ones...

Once, my wife caught them taking pillows and cushions out into the back yard and asked what they were doing. One of them was stuck in a tree and the rest were preparing for landing.

My 6yo fell through the roof of one of those plastic play houses and twisted his knee, my 8yo carried him inside and made him a bowl of ice cream.

Someone splashed water on The Princess at the lake once... ONCE.

Freakzilla wrote:I couldn't imagine one of my kids doing something like that, even our teenager takes care of the little ones...

Once, my wife caught them taking pillows and cushions out into the back yard and asked what they were doing. One of them was stuck in a tree and the rest were preparing for landing.

My 6yo fell through the roof of one of those plastic play houses and twisted his knee, my 8yo carried him inside and made him a bowl of ice cream.

Someone splashed water on The Princess at the lake once... ONCE.

Now THAT is the way brothers are suppose to be. Even as much as my brother tortured me growing up, I knew he would be there for me if I got hurt. And as much as my sons 'fight' they are there for one another.

Good for your sons Freak, and thanks for the laugh about the pillows. I'm going have to tell Spiff about that one.

A kid pants-ed a teacher at the school I go to. A kid also farted in a teacher's face, and one kid jerked in the back of a bus. F-bombs get throw around at teachers alot too.

But actually, in the 80s a kid shot a teacher at the local public high school.

There's still good teens, but it's tough to see them through the bad sometimes. I was raised with manners and respect (for those who deserve it only though), and I feel out of place sometimes, seems like others were raised by wolves at times.

I second someone's earlier comment about the issue not being the teens, worse is the adults that stay that way (I'd hazard a guess that many of them are responsible for creating these trouble kids in the first place).

If a child incites trouble it is the fault of the authority for not foreseeing and preventing the trouble.

Nekhrun wrote:If a child incites trouble it is the fault of the authority for not foreseeing and preventing the trouble.

So smite them kiddos early, folks!!!

I guess, personally, what bothers me about EH's story is that the boy in question
is a White Southern Male .... I think there's about four stereotypes WSMs can fall into -

a> Southern Gentleman (polite, educated, "upstanding citizen, pillar-of-the-community" (see also: "deacon"))

b> Righteous Outlaw (not always so polite, may or may not be (highly) educated, righteous in his own sense
of morality, concerned more with welfare of self/family/clan than society as a whole)

c> Arkansas-style Mama's Boy (extremely polite, extremely sensitive, cries during the opening
credits of Steel Magnolias, educated and usually a very good educator, will appear to be homosexual
to Yankees or anyone not familiar with this particular variety of White Southern Male (and may in fact be
homosexual, altho greatly repressed; more likely, the Mama's Boy is better labeled "asexual"))

d> Shitheel


and I'm sure I've espoused this opinion before, but of course the behavior and development of the child
is most influenced by the parents ... public schools, society at large, media &etc. certainly play a large
role, but ultimately the deciding factor is parents/family ...

I've talked before about the quality of the home-schooled kids I've interacted with at historical encampments;
however, I know quite a number of public-schooled kids who are as polite, well-behaved, attentive, &etc.

at the recent Family Reunion, I met one of my cousin's grandchildren for the first time - I'd not seen his
daughter in over twenty years, they have two girls, 14 & 12, and two years ago had another "surprise"
"bonus-baby" girl ... due to the husband's job, they live in New York City, Lower Manhattan, and the
older girls think they are "New Yorkers" ... they are also wonderful, bright, polite, well-behaved and
caring kids ... the 12 year old cared for the little one, and all the other little kids, in such a loving,
thoughtful way, it brought a tear to my eye several times ... spending time with these kids and their
parents, it was clear that the parents were simply excellent ... a cross word was never passed between
them, even when the frustration of trying to organize all these people and get them close to the same
place at the same time for the same function was driving me to cuss & drink more than usual ... when
the little one got tired and cranky, all four of them responded with calm patience ...&etc.


for the boy in question here, some might say an ass-whippin' is in order, and it might be, but that
would depend on the boy's age and maturity level ... from personal experience with my boys and
observation of all these "good kids" and their parents, I now believe that ass-whippin's are not the
answer, for younger kids ... (boys, now, I really ain't got a clue about what to do to produce good girls ..)

now, if the boy's over 16 or so, and starting to exhibit that Shitheel Behavior, a good public
ass-whippin' might be in order, to demonstrate to the boy that's he's just simply not the
toughest dude around, and that he can't just go spoutin' off his mouth to anybody he feels like with
no repercussions ...

this may be a Southern Thing, but I think boys being raised around men who just don't accept a lot
of Shitheel Behavior around them learn a lesson right quick ... I still vividly remember a deer camp
when I was about twelve; one of my daddy's older friends had brought along his son, who was
about 19 or 20, I guess .... that boy was kinda mouthy and know-it-all, and I saw a look in my
daddy's eye that really scared me when that boy said something to his own daddy in a sarcastic
tone ... now, I don't recall just exactly what the boy said to my daddy, but I sure remember him
getting up off his log, knocking that boy's hat off his head, grabbing him by the collar and dragging
him down to the creek .... wading off into the creek with him and holding his head under water
alot longer than the preacher ever did at a River Baptism ... daddy walked back up to the camp,
poured some more bourbon into his steel coffee cup and sat back down ... the boy's father just
grinned a little, and eventually the boy slinked back into camp with his tail between his legs and
didn't have alot to say after that ...

now, later in that trip, rather than let the animosity simmer, my daddy made a point to talk to the
boy like a Man, helped him with his rifle, consoled him when he missed that buck, and taught him
how to correctly field dress the deer we did get ... things his own father should've been doing,
except his own father was a Shitheel ....

of course, I regret not applying alot of those old-school techniques of implanting respect for
others early on with my own boys ... things might've been alot easier on me in their teen years...

and maybe "respect for others" is the basis for good kids ... "yessir" & "nosir" should
(honestly) roll off their tongues as soon as they can talk ... and as with alot of things in
The South, children (and their parents) are immediately judged by their language ...

if I holler at a kid in an encampment I don't know to do something or just to "come here",
and he runs up and says "Yessir ?", I'll probably end up buying him a new kepi from the
sutler's or giving him a brass beltplate or something ... if he just stands there with a look
of defiance in his eyes, contempt for me even deigning to speak to him, I write him (and
his folks) off as Shitheels, and will ignore him and flat-out exclude him from any of the
activities I organize for the kids (vintage baseball games, fishing with limbs and thorns
for hooks, midnight rousted-out-of-your-tent-and-marched-thru-the-dark-woods-to-a-
secret-not-on-the-event-schedule-ambush-of-Them-Damn-Yankees excursions, &etc)

and I got another rant coming about some of these teen-aged girls who seem to
think they can just spout-off snotty to their elders; shit a boy their age would never
dream of saying ... and I'm just not sure what to do about that, except what
I've been doing, which is to go to their granpaws and say "Say, Bill, that little girl's
got a bitchy little mouth on her." and Bill will sigh and say "Yeah, I know. Her folks're
Shitheels ...."

You're my hero, I hope I get to meet you one day.

My kids act like Yahoos at home, but I must have done something half right because they are well mannered everywhere else.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:You're my hero, I hope I get to meet you one day.

I always get here too late; I was going to express a similar thought...

now, if the boy's over 16 or so, and starting to exhibit that Shitheel Behavior, a good public
ass-whippin' might be in order, to demonstrate to the boy that's he's just simply not the
toughest dude around, and that he can't just go spoutin' off his mouth to anybody he feels like with
no repercussions ...

I reckon I have a few family members who could use something like that...

Parents definitely are an influence. The problem students I dealt with on Wed were children I had kicked out or banned from the movie theatre and their parents were shitheels-and-a-half when they complained about their little darling being picked on for breaking the rules.

Rob

Eyes High wrote:So who else have run into teenagers who show no respect for adults nor act like they care about anybody but themselves?

Mine are approaching that age, but I've made sure to emphasize manners and courtesy at all times, so I've been happy with their behavior, so far... for if/when they act up in their teenage years I've got a Plan... a cabin in Canada, 100+km in deep woods, up the Ottawa river. We'll hunt and gather for a few years and I'll bring em back once they're 21.