I was told that I look like Ben Aflek, who has put on a bit of weight and hasn't had much sleep recently, but only if you squint your eyes and tilt your head.
From the person that said it, "that was actually meant as a compliment!"
Sheesh! :shock:
Last week, rode into a traffic warden. Long story.
When did you first fall in love?
a big welcome to you both!
:welcome:
Wow, this really is a touchy subject, which i think is indicative of our society today.
I know that when I was a kid, in the East End, most of the people that I grew up with were, by the age of 20 or so, either on smack, in prison or in a couple of tragic cases, dead.
With the advent of Friends reunited I found that people definitley can change once they grow up. A few of those people who I decided were no-hopers were on there and all seem to have turned their circumstnaces around and are now productive and active members in our society, despite the poor education and in most cases bad parenting.
I believe that there is hope for all children, no matter how bad they are.
Unfortunatley, a lot has changed even in the last 15 or 20 years.
With the luxuries that kids have nowdays, the fact that parents are not allowed to smack children, the fact that children can sue parents and even more desperatley the ever growing stories of people ready to abuse their children both physically and mentally (perhaps this always went on but is reported more now?) are all worrying trends.
My little boy is 2 now and I am positive that he will have a good education, good discipline and even better manners, but how can I be sure?
I know that I and my ex will do everything that we can, but will it be enough.
Along with the social reforms mentioned above, there is also the fact that you can now see things like "ultimate fighting championship", people being beheaded live on TV or on the internet, images of torture and misfortune being branded about as "cool to watch" and now even videos of real life accidents and murders being swapped in school playgrounds (and I thought the copy of animal farm I watched when I was 16 was bad!!).
All of these things serve to de-humanize violence and will give us a generation of adults who think seeing someone stabbed in the head is the norm (they have seen it all before).
I know that we can all protect our children to some extent, but my Mum would never allow me to watch a porno at 15, I managed to on several occasions. She would never have allowed me to smoke a joint, but I did on too many occasions, she would never allow me to have sex so young, but I did. All of those things can only be regulated by the peers of our children and how do we know that our kids friends parents are of the same mind as us?
The simple answer is that we dont.
Recently my Uncle was working under a car, fixing the exhaust when the car suddenly started coming down on him. He slid out just in time to see a boy of no more than 9 who had been lowering the jack onto him. he chased after the kid, caught him and explained to him what would have happened if he had managed to lower the jack the whole way before telling him that he would talk to his parents about his bad behaviour.
That afternoon the kids Dad turns up at my Uncles house with an axe, ready to use it on my Uncle because he had berated his Son.
How do you legislate for parents like this? You can't. All you can do is defend yourself the best that you can, try to explain to kids who they are hurting, and why, when they go off the rails. Then just hope for the best.
Apart from locking your own children in their room all day, they will be exposed to the same peer pressure that we all were, but the difference that I can see is that there are more people who do not give a shit about what their kids do.
I really do feel for you madinheaven. I know how scary 5 or 6 kids can be these days, even if they are only 10 years old. Unfortunatley, there is nothing that can be done, apart from asking your local police force to enforce the curfew order and making sure that you keep your eyes open. Always have your mobile to hand, always have the local police station number programmed in and if all else fails, defend yourself against them as you would a grown person. Nobody deserves to be hurt just because the asailants are kids.
Sorry about the rant folks, it is just a subject close to my heart.
, but you are supposed to put your problem in for the next post to answer, who then put their problem in. Geddit? No? Oh bugger.
