I just talked to someone at work(not a co-worker) who said her son was just shot on Saturday right infront of their house. What's wrong with kids?! he was only 16. I've been plenty mad at people, but never once has it crossed my mind to shoot somebody.
I hated it when I lived in the suburbs when I was younger, and couldn't wait to move to the city. I still love being able to walk or bicycle anywhere, and always have stuff going on around me, but anymore I can't wait to move back to the suburbs. We just bought our house 2 years ago, so I'm not ready to up and move right yet, but probably in 3-4 years I'm gonna high-tail it out of here. It's definitely bad for the city that people who can afford to move all leave and neighborhoods tend to deteriorate, and that has always bothered me, but not enough to be around people who are shooting each other. I live in a nice neighborhood, but it'll still be nice to not wonder "was that a firework or a gun shot?" when you hear a loud noise, not to mention actually having a yard, front porch, a garage, the lack of constant cars that drive by with music so loud my house shakes, and most of all, not worrying about my kids being shot by some other 16 year old kid with a gun and no anger management skills.
Kids are a reflection of the society we gave them.
We love violence and promote it in our culture. Look at Rap for instance....
Poppin' caps an slappin' you ho is cool. Getting the Benjis's is what you strive for...
If we saw this stuff for hours a day, we'd be the same way.
Thats a shame , cuz I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 60's and 70's , The Hill was bad
and Mon Valley was sort of ruff, and it was almost like Leave it To Beaver, otherwise.
If some old bag yelled at you to get home, you said "Yes Ma'am" and rolled out with smoke kicking off yer heels ! :icon_eek:
[/rant]
Yeah, I see the correlations constantly, I just didn't want to turn this into a rap music rant and try to make it looks like I'm blaming one segment of the population or anything.
I found the news story on the one channels website, and it looks like another girl was shot and killed within 2 hours of the boy I knew about. She was only 21. Same part of town and both articles said they were looking for a green buick regal. It's crazy enough to get mad and shoot someone, but these kids made a night out of riding around shooting people.
and yes! my response to complaints about the way kids act was always "you're the ones who raised us this way" when I was younger. I definitely know all about jerk parents raising jerk kids. I'm still old enough to not be one of the kids anymore, but I'm definitely not old enough to have had any influence in raising any kid. I'm only 26, but I guess from what I see with other people on a daily basis, it's not uncommon for people my age to have kids as old as 10.
I live on the other side of the state in Philly.
Its worse over here. Somone gets killed literally every day. :2guns: :2guns:
Quote from: ride4lame on August 10, 2009, 11:21:02 AM
I live on the other side of the state in Philly.
Its worse over here. Somone gets killed literally every day. :2guns: :2guns:
Sorry if Im boring you guys with these long old-man-on-geritol tales...
But after I lived in Pittsburgh, which was very midwestern at that time, I
moved just outside the Philly area in 1974. It was insane !!!! In the first
week of hi-skool I saw about 4 fights with teachers, greasers or 'techies'
doing crazy-crazy stuff in the parking lots of the school, lots of pot and
drinking, etc...A HUGE HUGE culture shock for a little kid !!
Still, Philly used to be a really cool place to go hang out in
the 80's. It got really bad in the 90's. Now, I wont go into it.
Also, I dont mean to single Rap out, just an example. Even those grizzly
CSI type show dehumize violence and make it entertainment.
I dont think its going to get any better. My Wife is a Guidance Counselor
in the school system down here and is amazed at the amount of violence
kids think is normal, or not violence. Sad.
I guess Im just feeling reflective after watching the Woodstock special on TV last nite *sNiFfLe*
:icon_mrgreen:
haha, yeah, I used to not care about where I was in the city, or where I had to go, because I felt like anyone deserved a chance, but the longer I live here, the more I stick to certain neighborhoods and avoid others. Not because I feel like I'm going to get shot, but just because you know it's not somewhere you want to be.
...and yeah, I don't know what the deal is, because I used to watch CSI and Law and Order shows all the time, but it really takes some pent up aggression and some unresolved issued to actually be willing to take things that far. Plus I also understand that I have a house and a wife and some dogs and cats, a motorcycle and a job, and shooting someone is a quick way to make that all go away, not to mention a college degree I worked for for years that would now be worthless. That's all motivation for me. Other people who have grown up and watched so many people around them come in and out of jail, never have a job, still have kid after kid, get your rent paid for, free food money, free spending cash.... then yeah, shooting someone really doesn't have much of a consequence anymore. You go to jail for 4 years, come out with street cred, I mean you weren't planning on getting a job or caring for any of your kids anyway.
So anyway, I take my original comment back, I understand exactly what's wrong with kids now a days, and I'll just listen to my kids complain about how boring the suburbs are, instead of having them ask me what the drug dealer across the street is doing, or why he should even have to get a job when all you have to do is fill out an application to get free money from the government since that's what other people do.
At least you guys don't live in Baltimore City. Highest murder rate in the USA.
Parents have no control over their kids, or are afraid to control them.
I was having pizza with 2 friends last night. A mom walks in with her 10-ish year old son, who was screaming "NO!"...OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Real loud and long. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I said, "Give me a roll of farking duct tape and I'll put a stop to it QUICK."
Man, when I was that age, or even younger, it was made CLEAR to me that if we went into a restaurant, I was not even to raise my voice or cause trouble. One yell out of me would have got a warning, two would have got a slap and a trip to the car.
Parents need to put some EXPECTATIONS on their kids, and there has to be CONSEQUENCES if those expectations are not met. But we've got a whole generation of kids being ignored by their parents, stuck in front of a tv that gives them a very distorted view of the world, and a handful of Ritalin if they get ornery. Sad.
But I know in this state (Florida), if you get reported to DCF for hitting/abusing a kid, they will just be all over your butt. A lot of parents are afraid to hit their kids. Yes, I do feel there is a time when it becomes necessary to tan their hide.
Teachers are also not allowed to discipline kids. The ones that do are often retaliated against by an angry parent who is offended that some teacher accused their crotchfruit of being anything other than a perfect angel. It's sickening. In my high school, paddling was an option. On the first day of school every year, the shop teacher had a 10-minute speech in which he would introduce everyone to the 32-inch solid oak paddle that he had hand-made expressly for the purpose of paddling anyone who was sent to him for paddling. It was only necessary once or twice a year to actually follow through with it, and EVERYONE knew about it, and nobody wanted to tempt fate.
There's lots of blame to go around. We need to stop coddling kids and treating them as though their self-esteem is the most important thing on the planet. Let them fail once in a while. That's how they will learn. That's what growing up is all about.
My dogs are so much better behaved than any of the kids in this neighborhood
i've allready had to stare down several "Good Samaratins" who think to intervene during discipline of my children in public. i'll not tolerate it. when i was their age, i lost teeth for talking the way some of these kids do to their parents. now, my girls aren't angels by any means. but i do my best.
A former girl friend worked at a restaurant as a host. A woman came out of the bath room and told my girl to call the police because a mother was spanking her child. MIND YOUR OWN FU(KING BUSINESS. It may not work but your way may fail as well.
If parents would take responsibility for raising their kids i.e dont just sit them in front of the t.v its not a babysitter. Discipline your gawd damn kids. What happened to parenting. It will only get worse.
Side question and I dont want to thread jack but I think its along the same lines. Nature or nurture? Are we born the way we are or is it learned?
Indeed i got the belt hand or whatever was handy. worst i amounted to was a postwhore on gstwin.com :embarrassed: :cookoo: 8)
Yeah, I got spanked on occasion, but my parents had it easy! I was such a good kid. I don't know if I ever actually got smacked with a belt, but my dad used to pull it out all the time, and that was enough.
As far as nature versus nurture, I'm not going to pretend like I'm the one who's smart enough to solve this debate, and I'm sure it's somewhat of a mix, but I feel it's at least 80% of the way kids are raised. I've had too many jobs where i had to deal with parents and their kids and there's always way too many similarities between the two. Not even just temperament or bad judgment, but scheming and specific reactions. Kids learn so much from their parents, and it's a shame parents don't care enough to set a good example. It happens at both ends of the scale too. Rich kids grow up watching their parents treat people like crap, and doing whatever they want because they have enough money not to care, and get out of any trouble they may be in. Poor kids grow up watching their parents treat people like crap, because they've never seen their parents deal with a consequence of anything they've done, whether it's have 3 kids by the time you're 22, all the while still being single, their father's not bothering to stick around, never having a job because the government will give you money no matter how poor your choices are. At no point have kids learned that being nice, working hard, and waiting your turn is the decent way to behave, because the way businesses are set up, with public image being more important than your employees doing their job properly, people know that the person who screams the loudest gets what they want, so kids don't understand "no", they just start screaming louder.
As far as all the guns, I know you can't require the rich and famous to be role models..... but good god! I think the majority of celebrities are very good in the public eye. They've all been caught doing something stupid, but that's what happens when you're watched 24/7. I do stupid things pretty often, but no one's watching me all the time to notice. The guys who make a point of doing whatever they want just because they have the money to not care are playing a pretty big part in kids growing up screwed up. Too many musicians and football players currently have their head too far up their ass and have no clue how to interact with society publicly because they never had a progression of earning money, they all of a sudden one day were just handed a contract that took them from being poor to ridiculous rich and they do whatever they want. I think the general example is things like Michael Vick getting arrested for dog fighting, and most likely will just be signed by a team in the next 2 weeks. Even if he takes a pay cut, he'll still be making way too much money for being a scumbag. Yes, even people who do screwed up stuff deserve to go back to work after they get out of jail, but being a professional athlete isn't a real job, it's just some public position where money is thrown at you. That's great that he got arrested for it and people pretended like he had consequences, I'm sure it was tough being treated like a king in some fake prison for 2 years, but the shame alone should keep any respectable team from ever signing someone like him again, but clearly money is the more important thing here, and I guess that's important for children to learn. I'm pretty disgusted to say that the pittsburgh steelers have been one of teams I keep hearing pop up in the news who sportscasters feel would benefit from signing him. I will literally walk over to Heinz field on my lunch break and throw up on it if my city ever hired him. At least a couple cities were decent enough to say they wouldn't even consider him, but that's why kids are so screwed up.
we actually just did a piece on nature vs nurture in my psychology class. it's an ongoing debate. apparently both sides of the issue are very divided and can argue persuasively for their case. but, not convincingly enough to get the majority "vote" as far as who is "right". i actually myself feel it's a combination of the two really. not everything is black and white. the biggest thing i've taken out of my psyc class is that CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION! just because two things share a link does not mean one caused the other. but, i will say that i really feel that our genetic make-up AND how we are raised and the environment which we are raised AND the society in which we are raised, ALL play a part to a degree in how we turn out. there is a relationship there, that much is evident. at this time though, i don't think we have solid proof of the exact amount that each of these factors roles in our lives. it may be different for each individual. because for every person you hear about that grrew up in the "ghetto" and went to prison, you also hear about the guy who grew up in the same place, and turns out to be a model citizen. other side of that, for every person who grows up in a "nice" place and is a model citizen, you've also got the "nice" kid who comes to school and starts blowing away his classmates.
Well, my "nurturing" amounted to my parents leaving me with my Aunt and Uncle at three days old. They weren't horrible people but lived on 'welfare' and all of my cousins had done time and most Chistmas' was going to the state Pen to visit them. One year we stayed home but instead of Santa bringing me gifts on Christmas Eve well he took them!
When I was 12 I was taken from the only family I knew in Arkansas to Florida. I never saw my Aunt and Uncle again. And as of 1997 DCF turned a blind eye to my beatings from my parents. And no I'm not talking about spankings I'm talking about a oak tire tool with a metal rod down the middle to the back of the head! My parents also used sleep deprevation for a form of punishment I.E Straight A's since they weren't A+ then I had obviously screwed up. To this day I still can't sleep a solid night!
But, I graduated high school and am one pre-calculus class away from my A.A degree. I like to think of myself as a caring stable individual that despite my parents holding me back from such things as the International Bacularete Program which would have allowed me to graduate with an A.A degree. But, to them I wasn't good enough!
So I don't think nurture really has anything to do with it. Minimal if at all!
Mary
well mary, after all of that in your youth, youve turned out (IMHO) to be one hell of a person :cheers: