Teenagers


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BigDTBone wrote:
To be clear; if you are shooting other kids with guns, exploding animals, and spending weekend nights with your girlfriend before you turn 18, then "your parents didn't care if you got into trouble so they never bothered to grill you about anything," is dead on accurate. You can have a problem with it all you want, that doesn't mean I'm not right.

Hmm, this is such a general, absolute statement that it's hard to disagree. So, as I understand it, if kids explode animals AND shoot other kids with guns AND spend weekend nights with their girlfriends before 18 AND your parents didn't care if you got into trouble AND they didn't grill you about anything... you make assumptions about the parents? How many people fit your limited example?

I'll agree that you have set a fairly extreme circumstance that would make you correct many times. However, what's the point?

Let's try this and see what you think. My parents trusted me, because I built that trust over years. I did live with them for at least a dozen I remember well and quite likely 18 of them (I just really don't remember many of those early years). I lived near Detroit, ran with a "group of liked minded enthusiasts", got into a few fights, drag raced cars for pink slips, made a few mistakes, and grew up. I never really exploded any animals, and my shooting of other kids with guns was quite limited. My parents never grilled me about my activities, they asked with respect and were given an answer with more of the same. If I felt they shouldn't know I told them so, and they frowned and told me that it was my choice. Sometimes they allowed me to go/do the thing we were discussing, sometimes not.

My relationship with them was a good solid one. People who know my parents and my family describe them as "Leave it to Beaver" like. I was the first child of 3 in a family of 5. My parents were excellent ones, both in my opinion and in the opinion of many other people.

So, in your opinion my parents didn't care? I was raised poorly? I take offense. Today I'm an executive at a fortune 500 company. I make a fine salary, get to play Pathfinder all I want, still love my parents (mother alive, father died a few years ago), and I feel turned out pretty much how they wanted. How can you make assumptions about them?

I'll go out on a limb and say that your classification of such parents could be based upon your personal experience with a few people you know/knew. I'll also, on that same limb, guess that there are quite a few more people like me out there. I admit that my perception of the discussed topic is limited to my experiences, but do feel that my experiences should not be discarded in an offhand way with such a broad, high-handed, all encompassing statement. I'll even admit that you are certainly allowed an opinion; and that opinions are never wrong...

This however is my opinion; parents can be respectful of their child's privacy and still be involved. Children can make mistakes without there being an instant negative reflection on their parents. And finally, parents who understand this often end up with children willing and capable of working well in our world, who respect other's privacy and who are willing to take informed risks without fear of reprisal.


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Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

But obviously they didn't care...

Forgive me, NobodysHome for interrupting, but earlier you wrote:

"(1) Where are you going?
(2) Who are you going with?
(3) When do you expect to be home?

And he never drilled down. If I answered those three questions, he let me go without any argument."

I could be wrong, but I think that qualifies as "grilling" if I am reading the earlier posts correctly.

If that is indeed "grilling", then I apologize to BigDTBone for misinterpreting his response.

My *impression* was that his stance was that because my father didn't drill down, he didn't care and was somehow being an irresponsible parent.

Yeah, I read a lot into it.

I had significant issues with my father, but the way he treated us as teens is something I look to as a role model, so I get uppity. As you might have noticed.

3 brothers. No unexpected pregnancies. No drunk driving convictions. In fact, no arrests at all. No life-or-death situations involving one of us. (I was the wonderful recipient of a police chewing-out for sticking around when a friend OD'ed on alcohol and flagging down a cop to call an ambulance. I think I lost points when I said, "Yell at me later! Call an ambulance now!")

EDIT: And yes, when my parents heard about that one, they said, "So you stayed around, risked your own safety to flag down a passing officer, by all accounts including the EMTS on the scene saved her life, and they're all yelling at you?"
"Yes."
"Idiots."

Scarab Sages

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Teenagers: they should all be neutered.

Spoiler:
My 19 year old daughter has been threatening to move in with her boyfriend all week, I may be biased.


NobodysHome wrote:

If that is indeed "grilling", then I apologize to BigDTBone for misinterpreting his response.

Well, I'm not him, so I could be wrong, but your father wouldn't have had to "grill," as in the OP's scenario, because he would ask you three direct questions and you would answer them.


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Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

If that is indeed "grilling", then I apologize to BigDTBone for misinterpreting his response.

Well, I'm not him, so I could be wrong, but your father wouldn't have had to "grill," as in the OP's scenario, because he would ask you three direct questions and you would answer them.

Too true.

And speaking of teenagers, my 13-year-old keeps taking advantage of my distractions (curse you, Paizo!) to run off and hide from his homework.

Time to go a-huntin'. Again. *SIGH*.


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NobodysHome wrote:


And speaking of teenagers, my 13-year-old keeps taking advantage of my distractions (curse you, Paizo!) to run off and hide from his homework.

Tell him Doodlebug Anklebiter feels his pain and says "School sucks."

Silver Crusade

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Teenagers with a paycheck working for you is bad for your health too.
Hint: The Army. :)


Torath wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
To be clear; if you are shooting other kids with guns, exploding animals, and spending weekend nights with your girlfriend before you turn 18, then "your parents didn't care if you got into trouble so they never bothered to grill you about anything," is dead on accurate. You can have a problem with it all you want, that doesn't mean I'm not right.
Hmm, this is such a general, absolute statement that it's hard to disagree. So, as I understand it, if kids explode animals AND shoot other kids with guns AND spend weekend nights with their girlfriends before 18 AND your parents didn't care if you got into trouble AND they didn't grill you about anything... you make assumptions about the parents? How many people fit your limited example?
Simon Legrande wrote:
I spent about 80% of my time outside hanging with my friends shooting each other with BB guns, throwing rocks, blowing up frogs, kid stuff.

Specifically, Simon. Who I was directly addressing because he gave a specific example along with a snide personal attack. I haven't made ANY grand generalizations in this thread. All of my comments have been direct replies to the OP or to other posters who are questioning my posts.

Torath wrote:


Let's try this and see what you think. My parents trusted me, because I built that trust over years. I did live with them for at least a dozen I remember well and quite likely 18 of them (I just really don't remember many of those early years). I lived near Detroit, ran with a "group of liked minded enthusiasts", got into a few fights, drag raced cars for pink slips, made a few mistakes, and grew up. I never really exploded any animals, and my shooting of other kids with guns was quite limited. My parents never grilled me about my activities, they asked with respect and were given an answer with more of the same. If I felt they shouldn't know I told them so, and they frowned and told me that it was my choice. Sometimes they allowed me to go/do the thing we were discussing, sometimes not.

My relationship with them was a good solid one. People who know my parents and my family describe them as "Leave it to Beaver" like. I was the first child of 3 in a family of 5. My parents were excellent ones, both in my opinion and in the opinion of many other people.

So, in your opinion my parents didn't care? I was raised poorly?...

It sounds like you fit into the 95%+ of all teenagers I was talking about before. My "three alternatives" were what I considered to be the most likely cases for the remaining 5%. If you weren't in that 5%, you should ignore those alternatives as they do not apply to your situation.

Torath wrote:


So, in your opinion my parents didn't care? I was raised poorly? I take offense. Today I'm an executive at a fortune 500 company. I make a fine salary, get to play Pathfinder all I want, still love my parents (mother alive, father died a few years ago), and I feel turned out pretty much how they wanted. How can you make assumptions about them?

As someone who left the corporate world to start their own business, I will say that this entire passage made me frakking ill. I didn't say squat about you or your parents. If you even posted in this thread before this post I didn't even see it.

I gave specific responses to specific posts, I was not making any generalizations. Just because you couldn't be bothered to keep the continuity together in your head doesn't mean that I was personally attacking you, and certainly doesn't give you the authority to assign my opinions to fit your narrative. Perception is not reality, no matter how much you want to believe that it is.

You certainly don't get to fluff your feathers about salary and free time as some sort of measuring stick of how well you turned out. Take your salary and divide it by the lowest paid person working in your company (you can even adjust them to full time even though you probably only let them work 27 hours to prevent them from claiming benefits status) and if the answer is 50 or greater then you are a terrible person. I didn't make any assumptions about you before (because if you even said anything I didn't notice) but now that you have opened your mouth I'll feel free to draw conclusions about you based directly on your own words.


NobodysHome wrote:
Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

But obviously they didn't care...

Forgive me, NobodysHome for interrupting, but earlier you wrote:

"(1) Where are you going?
(2) Who are you going with?
(3) When do you expect to be home?

And he never drilled down. If I answered those three questions, he let me go without any argument."

I could be wrong, but I think that qualifies as "grilling" if I am reading the earlier posts correctly.

If that is indeed "grilling", then I apologize to BigDTBone for misinterpreting his response.

My *impression* was that his stance was that because my father didn't drill down, he didn't care and was somehow being an irresponsible parent.

Yeah, I read a lot into it.

I had significant issues with my father, but the way he treated us as teens is something I look to as a role model, so I get uppity. As you might have noticed.

3 brothers. No unexpected pregnancies. No drunk driving convictions. In fact, no arrests at all. No life-or-death situations involving one of us. (I was the wonderful recipient of a police chewing-out for sticking around when a friend OD'ed on alcohol and flagging down a cop to call an ambulance. I think I lost points when I said, "Yell at me later! Call an ambulance now!")

EDIT: And yes, when my parents heard about that one, they said, "So you stayed around, risked your own safety to flag down a passing officer, by all accounts including the EMTS on the scene saved her life, and they're all yelling at you?"
"Yes."
"Idiots."

"Grilling" is only something parents should feel inclined to do if they know their kids are on the out to cause havoc and/or just returned from doing so. It also sounds like you fell into the 95% I was speaking about earlier. Also, if you answered those three questions directly then there was no reason for you to have further angst related to this issue. The OP however is not seemly as lucky as your parents were in this regard. I offered some suggestions as to what Spawn may be hearing when parent asks these questions. If you didn't hear those things as a kid then so much the better.


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NobodysHome wrote:
Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:

If that is indeed "grilling", then I apologize to BigDTBone for misinterpreting his response.

Well, I'm not him, so I could be wrong, but your father wouldn't have had to "grill," as in the OP's scenario, because he would ask you three direct questions and you would answer them.

Too true.

And speaking of teenagers, my 13-year-old keeps taking advantage of my distractions (curse you, Paizo!) to run off and hide from his homework.

Time to go a-huntin'. Again. *SIGH*.

Ha! my daughter at 10 has perfected the art of homework evasion, just now in fact she tried asking to do a campaign journal for her new Android to get out of homework, it almost worked too:)

also don't give your family an extra day before starting a new campaign, it gives them just enough time to to make half a new character then tell me to finish them, which of course i'll just fold into doing the dishes, laundry and making dinner:)


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BigDTBone wrote:
"Grilling" is only something parents should feel inclined to do if they know their kids are on the out to cause havoc and/or just returned from doing so. It also sounds like you fell into the 95% I was speaking about earlier. Also, if you answered those three questions directly then there was no reason for you to have further angst related to this issue. The OP however is not seemly as lucky as your parents were in this regard. I offered some suggestions as to what Spawn may be hearing when parent asks these questions. If you didn't hear those things as a kid then so much the better.

I vastly appreciate your response -- your position is far clearer now.

Thank you.

(Ta da! Isn't that one of those, "Things you will never see on the Paizo messageboards"? What do I win?)


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captain yesterday wrote:

Ha! my daughter at 10 has perfected the art of homework evasion, just now in fact she tried asking to do a campaign journal for her new Android to get out of homework, it almost worked too:)

also don't give your family an extra day before starting a new campaign, it gives them just enough time to to make half a new character then tell me to finish them, which of course i'll just fold into doing the dishes, laundry and making dinner:)

And I would bet that your 10-year-old daughter is larger than my 69-pound, 53-inch "wunderkind".

Strength, dexterity, and intelligence of a 13-year-old.
Flexibility of a gymnast.
Size of an 8-year-old.

When he decides it's time to not be seen, He Is Not Seen.


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NobodysHome wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
"Grilling" is only something parents should feel inclined to do if they know their kids are on the out to cause havoc and/or just returned from doing so. It also sounds like you fell into the 95% I was speaking about earlier. Also, if you answered those three questions directly then there was no reason for you to have further angst related to this issue. The OP however is not seemly as lucky as your parents were in this regard. I offered some suggestions as to what Spawn may be hearing when parent asks these questions. If you didn't hear those things as a kid then so much the better.

I vastly appreciate your response -- your position is far clearer now.

Thank you.

(Ta da! Isn't that one of those, "Things you will never see on the Paizo messageboards"? What do I win?)

I think we should both get a cookie.


NobodysHome wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:

I accounted for that possibility with the 5%- that was not expressed. I'm sure there are all kinds of atypical relationships that fit into that 5%. There are probably parents who do drugs with their kids, or send their kids out to score stuff for them. I didn't list that either. Because it isn't likely.

To be clear; if you are shooting other kids with guns, exploding animals, and spending weekend nights with your girlfriend before you turn 18, then "your parents didn't care if you got into trouble so they never bothered to grill you about anything," is dead on accurate. You can have a problem with it all you want, that doesn't mean I'm not right.

I know I'm going to regret this, but one more try...

So, the parents who recognize that over 95% of U.S. teens explore alcohol, a nearly-as-high percentage explore sex, and who have the fundamental wisdom to recognize that they are extremely unlikely to be so unique as to stop it in their kids, don't care?

My parents educated us. They let us sample alcohol, and told us what amounts were reasonable and what amounts were dangerous. They talked to us about teen pregnancy. They went over the consequences, both legal and lifelong, of actions we might choose. They spent many hours with us from our pre-teens throughout our teenage years teaching us that every action has consequences, both intended and unintended. They made sure we understood when we were just out on a lark (shooting soda cans with pellet guns in the local park) and when we could be getting ourselves into real trouble (driving drunk or getting girls pregnant).
And once they were convinced that we knew what we might be getting ourselves into, they made sure we knew that more than anything else, they wanted us safe and sound. And so "home" was a safe haven. Always.

But obviously they didn't care...

My dad used to play softball with the guys he worked with. Whenever we went to the games to watch we got to have some beer afterwards, that was when I was 10.

My dad found a pack of cigarettes hidden in my room once. He told me about the next day while he was driving me somewhere. Then he offered me one of his cigarettes and told me he'd be a hypocrite to tell me to stop (both he and my mom smoked). That was when I was 15.
When I'd sneak over to my girlfriend's house on weekend nights (her parents went out on those nights so we had some alone time), I always made up some story about where I was going. My mom told me that they knew where I was going so I should stop lying about it. That was when I was 16.

I guess I fit in with the same type of life as NobodysHome has had. Parents that warned me about doing bad things, but respected me enough to let me make my own mistakes. And never once did they get on my case about doing homework. Lucky me I guess.


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Orthos wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:
over 95% of U.S. teens explore alcohol, a nearly-as-high percentage explore sex
Woo~! *proud 5%er*

Bro-fist for a fellow! (I felt so weird and out of place in high-school and almost embarrassed to say I was engaged...)


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Tacticslion wrote:
Orthos wrote:
NobodysHome wrote:
over 95% of U.S. teens explore alcohol, a nearly-as-high percentage explore sex
Woo~! *proud 5%er*
Bro-fist for a fellow! (I felt so weird and out of place in high-school and almost embarrassed to say I was engaged...)

We are the 5%!

Tactics, I think a lot of us felt weird and out of place there. It's a weird and out of place sort of place. Why pseudo-embarrassed over being engaged?

As for the more general discussion over teenagers and being one, no real interesting stories to tell. Closest thing to pubescent craziness/rebellion was forgetting to fill up the gas tank after using a car. I know we had rules, but they were basically 'Be nice'. The closest thing to an arbitrary rule I can remember was to let someone know if we'd be out after 10. (The punishment for breaking said rule was to have our mother get worried and stay up late, thus making you feel like a terrible human being because you made her worry.)


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Lloyd Jackson wrote:

Tactics, I think a lot of us felt weird and out of place there. It's a weird and out of place sort of place. Why pseudo-embarrassed over being engaged?

She was from Miami.

The number of "knowing" looks that came with that, and the sheer amount if "Ah, I see, nudge-nudge, wink-wink say-no-more!" was... embarrassing to say the least. Slightly infuriating in other ways. A culture shock for sure - to both of us.

(When one of my female friends wanted to talk to me to make sure we were using protection, and why I should work on certain techniques... well, it was a hard conversation to have, let me tell you. "But we don't have sex!" "I know, I know, honey. Okay, so you have to realize, when she says you're satisfying, unless you can ensure that..." Uuuuuuuuuuuugh.)

Engaged =/= engaging in intercourse, but it sometimes seemd like pretty much everyone from Miami, Cocoa, and Chattanooga (save for our parents/siblings/immediate family) thought it did.

I mean, even my gaming group was all, "Wow! You spend an hour on the phone with her?! Man whatever she's doing for you must be haaaaaaawwwwwt!"

It took the older, married gamers (who'd known me the longest and had realized that I was pretty clueless sometimes) to explain both what that meant (at which point I'm pretty sure I turned bright red, mouth agape) and that I'm "not that kind of guy" at which the other players were confused, until they finally got it, in which case they were alternate embarrassed for me, or exceedingly skeptical to the point I later caught them muttering and laughing about Christians being unwilling to admit they "did it".

Seriously. Weird.

I realize this is kind of off-topic, so spoiled.:

(Of course my first collegiate roommate had intercourse with his 2-month girlfriend on the upper bunk we shared, sooooo... I didn't sleep much in my room that semester. Uuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhh...*)

* Wasn't engaged at the time, but the guy was exceedingly nice to me at all other points. Did think I should get a girlfriend, though, 'cause "they're really amazing!" it seems. Man, I enjoyed the couch in my future brother-in-law's (didn't know that at the time) dorm! Or quad! Or floor of a friend's room! Or tree I could climb in! Or couch of the the Westly House! So many great places to sleep!

Lloyd's experience was basically mine. I went on two dates in Highschool (the proms) and otherwise my "rebellion" was dressing all in black one summer, playing outside with a sword (carefully), and drinking grape juice out of a fancy cup. It was so rebellious!

More off-topic madness:
Had some crushes. I got kissed on the ear by a girl once (after one of the proms) - she was my best friend, and it was fun and funny but a tiny bit weird for both of us, but we maintained the friendship thereafter. First "actual" ... "girlfriend"? - weird word - I had came after I graduated college - she was from Maine, and we dated long-distance until she broke up with me because I was distracting her from her studies. No kissing, but twice holding hands and several times hanging out for long periods. Then I met my future wife... and she told me to get lost three times before I ever asked her on a date. Apparently, I was annoying enough that she missed me once she graduated and let me date her long-distance while I finished my degree. Anyway, the proposal was an accident and a mess, and I am so incredibly off-topic this is also going a spoiler.

EDIT: also, what I meant by weird, was that I somehow managed to gather all the out-casts from every section of our Highschool around me. It probably had something to do with the fact that if I ever saw a lonely kid, I'd go sit with them, no matter who they were. Anyway, it ended up with me having half of my friends convinced that I was more saintly than I was ("he'd never watch anime! That stuff is evil!"*) and half of my friends convinced that I was less saintly ("Dude, you've gotta check this VHS out! The be boobies on her are right up your ally!"**).

* I bravely sat down, shut up, and let them argue over my relative morality while I courageously attempted to hide in my pizza. I uttered not a word, and 'casually' changed the topic to a movie everyone would agree was awesome and not evil and highly enjoyable. Highschool. To be fair, very few people in my circle at the time knew anything of anime other than it's reputation for violence and sexual themes.
** I still have no idea how anyone would guess they knew which mammary glands happened to be "right up my ally", but, uh, more than one kid apparently really thought they did. Also, guys, SPELLING OUT YOUR WORDS TO A DYSLEXIC PERSON IS A TERRIBLE IDEA: the dyslexic is left with no idea what you're saying, while everyone else is aware of exactly what you're saying. It is only worse when said dyslexic has zero lexicon dealing with ultra-violence or sexual innuendo. It's not worked since forever, and adults know what you're talking about. Uuuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhh.


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Off-topic Tacticslion:

Alright, you've got to explain this to me, what does being from Miami have to do with anything? I come from the land of ice and snow. Your palm-tree ways are foreign to us.

Yeah, I've gotten similar things about sex, and porn. Probably most uncomfortable conversation of my life was riding the train to work while a couple guys tried to figure out what kind of porn I was into. Like the boob conversation but worse. Telling them I wasn't just convinced them I must be into the really kinky stuff. I learned much that day. Much that can never be forgotten.

As for roommate, wow! Were you there at the time? If so, that's sitcom level.
I have a mat in the lab that I not infrequently use, but that's because my neighbors love their sound system. Related story, one of the most amusing moments of the last year was visiting my roommate at his fiancee's house. There was this weird, awkward silence. When I finally asked what was up, they informed me their neighbors in the building were newlyweds, and the walls are thin. Very, very thin.

Sounds like our high school experiences had quite a few similarities. Our group was the 'Other' box of society. We couldn't even divide up by weirdnesses, because then we'd all be in groups of one. Strange times. Interestingly it was opposite with anime. I was trying to get us to branch out beyond Gundum and Dragonball, everyone else wasn't so sure. What are these 'subtitles' you speak of?


I'll tell you the same things I told my kids...

I've never been a teenager...I've always been old.

So...no...I don't know what it's like and no...I don't really care.

:P

Either that or I'm the eternal 12 year old...for the past few decades!!!


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Lloyd and TL:
Sounds pretty much exactly like my experiences as well, up into college even. I had one "relationship" in high school that fell apart quickly and that I am not really even sure counts due to things, and one in college that I admittedly screwed up royally but thankfully we're still very good friends, once I got my head out of certain improbable positions. I didn't even go to prom - among other things due to a moral opposition to dancing - and even if I had I wouldn't have had anyone to go with, so there wasn't a lot of lost opportunity there.

But by the time I got myself sorted out, I'd come to realize I didn't want a relationship (or at least the expectations and demands that came with one), I didn't want sex, and I most certainly didn't want children.

Then I met Scintillae and actually learned that asexuality was a thing that had a name and everything, and that kind of explained a few things.

I've thankfully never gotten the "no seriously what kind of porn do you watch" or similar conversations, mostly because all my friends and people I spend time with are quite aware how extensively prudish I am; apparently, and I didn't find this out until almost a year later, one of my old gaming group members out in Arizona apparently thought I was gay because of, among other things, how I never made any passes at her or the other girl in our group (though said other girl was/is my sister-in-law) or anyone else she ever saw.

It's pretty anathema to American culture, at least, to be a guy and simply not be interested in sex of any sort. There's some bit part of my brain that never got past the twelve-year-old "ewwww" response, I guess.

I had two roommates over the course of eight/nine years in Arizona who dedicated themselves to "corrupting" me during my time in their presence. Thankfully the second of the two settled for just making me a more lethal GM. That said I didn't escape unscathed; I unfortunately learned a lot of things that I probably would be better off just not knowing, that prior to those excessively awkward conversations I would have just either not noticed the innuendo or looked at the person oddly with a "what" expression/reply. Sadly at least that shard of innocence is gone; when people say "Ignorance is bliss" in this case I think it can be excused to be a bliss wanting to be held onto.


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Captain Yesterday, the teenage years.
so you can pretty much watch the first 3 seasons or so of That 70s Show and there it is (i was the Steven Hyde type, lots of conspiracies), or even really Dazed & Confused (Slater) the upside was my Teen years rocked! the downside is i'm now 38 and have no friends from those years except my Wife (who is of course my Best Friend:)

of course my wife and kids rock so its all worked out, still it would be nice to have people to hang out with from time to time.

also NobodysHome, our house is small so hiding isn't an option, she has however mastered the arts of distraction and misdirection, but thats my fault for letting her watch Archer and Burn Notice with me:) she is a big fan of Spy stuff (again like her old man)


The bus I take home from work also happens to be the one that takes ll the high school kids heading the same way.

There are times I hear these creatures all trying to talk over each other, the guys making the most ridiculous attempts at innuendo jokes ("that's what she said!" knows no generational boundaries, it seems) while the girls all squeal at each other while shoving phones in each others' faces, and I wonder, "was i ever such a creature?"

And then, I remember back to being 15, at the Gold Dragon game shop where I first got addicted to Magic, playing at a table with people twice my age, who all wore the exact same expression that I have when these kids get on the bus.

Oh yes, I was such a creature. The fake voice, the jokes that are funny to me (and only funny to my peers because my laughing tells them it was meant to be), a certain belief in the power of catchphrases, the notion that choice of soft drink is somehow imbued with meaning and status. And of course, the absolute understanding that everything is worthy of announcement to the world, and that everything worth announcing must be loud enough for all to hear.

Most of us outgrow it. Some older than others, sure, but eventually, it hits everyone. The most annoying thing, that a lot of parents don't seem to get, is that "growing out of it' really CAN'T be trained. You can't shape your kid into a "mature adult" before their internal wiring decides to throw the switch to "mature adult." Your best bet is, instead, to show them what a mature adult is. Unfortunately my experience is that a lot of parents take it in a serious overdose, nd end up teaching their kids that to be an adult is to be a neurotic, anal-rententive basket case who tracks the absolute minutae of everyone's life.

And sadly, while you can't really "train" your kid to be a good adult, you CAN teach them how to be a pretty awful one.


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I think the big thing about this thread for me is that, even at nearly thirty, I'm still undergoing some level of culture shock. I knew/know on an intellectual level that there were parents out there who don't make it quite clear that certain actions - drugs, smoking, alcohol, premarital sex, anything that gets you arrested, etc. - are simply Unacceptable. That doesn't stop it from simply boggling my mind.

If it puts it into context better, I still get weirded out every time I hear a parent swear. Because mine never did so (and still don't), nor any of my immediate relatives or most of the adults I was around when I was growing up. It simply wasn't done, and it wasn't considered acceptable for anyone - parent or child - to indulge in. And nine times out of ten, the parents I did encounter who did indulge in such things tended to be the kind of parents that we didn't tend to talk about.

On many levels it's actually led me to appreciate my own parents more, which surprises a lot of people, apparently.


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well i myself keep my parenting style close to nobodyshome, but my daughter's inherent sense of right and wrong makes it easy:)


Continuing the off-topic fun, I'm amazed how many equated my 95% to sex, rather than alcohol.

No sex for me in my teen years; heck my first girlfriend of any sort didn't come along until I was 19. Then in a single summer it was GF-GF-future wife-GF-blecch-what-the-heck-am-I-doing-back to wife.

I was talking about alcohol. I knew almost no kids who hadn't at least tried it, and those who had had almost universally become tipsy at least once.

I didn't care for alcohol, but ONCE I was at a party, had no idea what I was doing, and filled a party cup half with gin and half with vodka. Twice.

I spent the evening worshipping a lamp.

Back on topic, and specfically for Orthos, you are indeed rare if your parents deemed something Unacceptable and you didn't try it at least once. My experience, as I indicated before, was that teens with disciplinarian parents in our area went well out of their way to do EXACTLY what was unacceptable. They were SO over-the-top about rebelling that they scared me.

That incident I mentioned with the girl nearly dying of alcohol poisioning? A group had asked me to drive them because they knew I didn't drink. She had the strictest parents of any member of the group. And she drank the most, smoked, and was otherwise scary wild every time we went out. (And it was the pastor's son who tried to take advantage of her in her state until I stopped him.)

The girl with the most liberal parents was, shall we say, very open in her sexuality, but otherwise didn't drink, didn't do drugs, and was a very responsible young woman.

So that was my experience, not a reflection on others'.

EDIT: And in case people think that this modern generation is different, one member of my gaming group had a daughter so wild that she finally threatened to throw her out with the classic "my house, my rules" line. So the daughter moved out at 16 and was pregnant at 17. And listening to the mother's extensive list of rules (strict 10:00 pm curfew, no talking on the phone with boys when mom isn't around, random searches of her room for drugs or birth control, etc.) it just didn't surprise me. Treat a kid like a prisoner and they're going to try to escape.


I'd tell you what my parents tried to keep me away from teenage sex, substance abuse and communism, but goblin parenting techniques are notoriously un-pc. Also, they didn't work.

Goblins do it in the streets!
[bubble bubble bubble]
Vive le Galt!


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NobodysHome wrote:

Back on topic, and specfically for Orthos, you are indeed rare if your parents deemed something Unacceptable and you didn't try it at least once. My experience, as I indicated before, was that teens with disciplinarian parents in our area went well out of their way to do EXACTLY what was unacceptable. They were SO over-the-top about rebelling that they scared me.

That incident I mentioned with the girl nearly dying of alcohol poisioning? A group had asked me to drive them because they knew I didn't drink. She had the strictest parents of any member of the group. And she drank the most, smoked, and was otherwise scary wild every time we went out.

The girl with the most liberal parents was, shall we say, very open in her sexuality, but otherwise didn't drink, didn't do drugs, and was a very responsible young woman.

So that was my experience, not a reflection on others'.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I found/find weird. Because it's completely the opposite of my experiences: the kids with the stricter parents were typically the straight-edge, don't dabble in stuff type kids, and what rebellion they did do was all little things: playing more video games than normally allotted, especially if over visiting another kid's house; sneaking Gameboys to school; occasional small swearing when adults weren't around to hear; pocketing church contribution money to spend on snacks at the machines at school instead; things like that. I never heard nor saw any of them drinking, smoking, doing drugs, having sex, or anything of that sort.

Heck, still to this day none of us drink. I have never had alcohol beyond medicinal doses in things like NyQuil, and I'm nearly thirty. My brother has tried it once or twice, I think, but has never gotten drunk. I've never smoked, never tried any kind of illegal drug (or heck, any drug at all that wasn't basic OTC pain relief or allergy or heartburn meds, or prescribed). When I was a kid/teen it was because it was made quite clear that this was wrong, so I never even considered if it might be fun to try, it was simply not done. By the time I was an older teen/adult there was no desire to get involved in the stuff anyway.

Even my sister, who was by and far the worst case of childhood rebellion of anyone I grew up around, was fairly tame about it - no drugs, no alcohol, and while I can't guarantee there was no sex (she did live with her boyfriend for over a year) she didn't get pregnant along the way.

Meanwhile the kids with the more liberal parents were the ones always getting into trouble, having to get hauled home from school or sent to regular detention/ISS/whatever.

Hence, culture shock.


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Orthos wrote:

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I found/find weird. Because it's completely the opposite of my experiences: the kids with the stricter parents were typically the straight-edge, don't dabble in stuff type kids, and what rebellion they did do was all little things: playing more video games than normally allotted, especially if over visiting another kid's house; sneaking Gameboys to school; occasional small swearing when adults weren't around to hear; pocketing church contribution money to spend on snacks at the machines at school instead; things like that. I never heard nor saw any of them drinking, smoking, doing drugs, having sex, or anything of that sort.

Heck, still to this day none of us drink. I have never had alcohol beyond medicinal doses in things like NyQuil, and I'm nearly thirty. My brother has tried it once or twice, I think, but has never gotten drunk.

Even my sister, who was by and far the worst case of childhood rebellion of anyone I grew up around, was fairly tame about it - no drugs, no alcohol, and while I can't guarantee there was no sex (she did live with her boyfriend for over a year) she didn't get pregnant along the way.

Meanwhile the kids with the more liberal parents were the ones always getting into trouble, having to get hauled home from school or sent to regular detention/ISS/whatever.

Hence, culture shock.

Yeah, I think it's fascinating. It may just be where we live. The Bay Area is a hotbed of temptation and liberalism, so teens have ample opportunity to get into trouble. You couldn't go to school without getting offered drugs at least a few times a year. There were well-known "designated smoking areas" for the high schoolers, where they smoked far more than just tobacco. And sex was absolutely commonplace; I was very unusual in my area in graduating from high school a male virgin. And the social pressure was absolutely towards rebelling and doing all those things; it took great strength NOT to smoke or drink, because the culture was that "it's what high schoolers do for fun".

I didn't go to dances, either. I was an antisocial sort.

Fascinating conversations...

EDIT: On the other hand, considering all the stereotypes out there about the "pastor's daughter" or the "army brat", perhaps my experiences are more common. Who knows?


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Yeah, I'm from a small town in south-central Texas. At least at the time I was in that age bracket there wasn't any sort of allotment for that sort of behavior at school. There were no on-school "smoking sections" and it was made quite clear that getting caught with cigarettes or alcohol was grounds for immediate expulsion; if you got caught with something worse, said expulsion would come after you were handed over to the cops.

Granted we had a fairly liberal come-and-go policy for non-freshman high-schoolers, so anyone who wanted to do that sort of thing just had to get to their sophomore year then leave campus on lunch.

Pregnancy was very rare (in fact, one example I meant to edit into that last post but didn't get to before you replied was that one of my cousins - whose family my brother and I loved visiting because they were far less strict than our own parents and would let us stay up late into the nights eating snacks and playing video games for hours on end, then sleep in all morning during the summers instead of being sent to bed at semi-normal school-year times then woken as the parents left for work [or expected to wake shortly after, in later teen years] and given a list of chores to keep us busy - was one of the most notorious for getting into things, and one of a very small handful of my rather large extended family to end up with a kid in high school. That experience at least shocked him into being more responsible overall.) and abortions unheard of and highly frowned upon.

We also didn't have cops on campus, didn't allow weapons in the school building but several kids would keep hunting guns and knives in their cars, and had a graduating class under 200. So in addition to everything else, the fact that I grew up in a tiny town probably has a lot to do with my experiences.

Quote:
EDIT: On the other hand, considering all the stereotypes out there about the "pastor's daughter" or the "army brat", perhaps my experiences are more common. Who knows?

And... those stereotypes are what? I'm not familiar with either, but I have a feeling they're very much the opposite of what I've personally experienced with both categories.

Sovereign Court

So...are you guys billionaires or noble peace prize winners? I cant imagine what I would do with all the energy I spend chasing tail. I mean I don't even know exactly what "being from Miami" means but I'm thinking about moving there. I am 35 and still totally about the muffin. Not sure I will ever slow down. What's it like to not have that particular drive?


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Most of my spare energy goes into my creative endeavors - writing, storytelling, worldbuilding, game prep. I have a ton of partial or unfinished stories, books, video game ideas, and campaigns. I imagine if I was slightly less ADHD I probably would have actually done something with most of them, but most projects get started then left, then touched on again months/years later, then abandoned again, etc. I'm waaaaaay too easily distracted to pull off the "Tesla the Celibate Scientist" route. ;)

The rest gets eaten by work. And in a month or two, I imagine some will start to be gobbled up by the cats I plan to get.

Mostly, it's just liberating. When I hit my mid-twenties and realized I didn't want a girlfriend, didn't want a family, didn't want a sexual relationship, and thus didn't need to figure out what I needed to do to make all that happen, it was just... immensely relaxing. All the worries about looking for that certain someone and wondering if I was ever going to find someone to spend my life with just evaporated. I didn't ever have to worry about ruining any friendship I made because I wanted something more intimate than the other person was interested in. It majorly simplified pretty much everything about my interactions with other people by removing one of the most complicated parts of human contact, and removed a massive distraction from what I consider more important (or at least, more interesting) pursuits. And given how little I interact with people period, any level of easing that complexity is welcome.

Plus, the loss of worry of never having to fear unexpected complications like kids, or STDs, or worrying if your partner is cheating, or all of the countless other extended difficulties of engaging in those kinds of interactions. That right there is a major, major benefit. And was probably one of the major determinators in keeping me from risking such in high school - in addition to the general disapproval of my family and religion, I grew up in the middle of the 90s AIDS scare, and since by that point your chance of getting AIDS without having sex was slim to none, I knew I was pretty much 100% safe from that particular nightmare.


in my high school years (we moved around a lot, i mean a lot!) i lived in a smaller city (10,000, still the biggest town within 60 miles in any direction, our town was a cliche, from the detectives that dressed like they were in Beastie Boys "Sabotage" video to the high school principle with PTSD issues from Vietnam to the Driver's Ed teacher with only an occupational license because he had so many DWIs.

i went the Drugs (if you consider pot a drug, nothing heavier), Sex and Rock & Roll (i was sure i was gonna be a rock star, LOL) route. i didn't drink as much or as heavily as my friends and because i was spending my money on girls and entertainment i could never save enough for a car, so unlike everyone i know i've never driven drunk:)

edit: and yes in our town the kids that partied hardest were the sons and daughters of judges, cops, lawyers and surprisingly doctors, super strict parents with lots of money, but the strictness wasn't limited economically, i knew some poor kids with crazy strict parents.


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captain yesterday wrote:
i lived in a smaller city (10,000, still the biggest town within 60 miles in any direction

Yeah that sounds like Victoria, the biggest city in our immediate area. The town I was in was barely over 5000 when I graduated in 2003, and only up to 6000 and change when I came back in this past May for my grandfather's funeral.


yeah i haven't been back to Monroe since 2001, i don't plan on going back either, they have the creepiest slogan "Monroe, We'll Bring you Back!" not me, no thank you!


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I've always been a small-town guy =) The Phoenix Metro Area (Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, etc.) was always too big and crowded for me, and even Chattanooga was a bit too close to my tolerance threshold. Hence why I live in semi-rural north Georgia now =)


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Pan wrote:
I mean I don't even know exactly what "being from Miami" means

If this is in regards to TL's story, I think the issue is less that the girl was specifically from Miami, and more that he was involved in a long-distance relationship and thus when he went to visit her/she came to visit him/whatever the arrangement was, his friends couldn't believe they wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity for a "conjugal visit". Or that if he was spending that long on the phone with his significant other that they would be doing anything other than having sex-talk.

The Exchange

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Game Master Scotty wrote:

Stands before wall.

Recalls discussion today and yesterday with teenager.

Begins pounding head into wall.

Carry on..

Stop that...it takes longer for your d20 to regenerate if you chip off the corners.


madison where we are, when you consider the surrounding burbs is almost 400k people however we live in a small neighborhood with tiny two bedroom houses and small yards, we're on a bus line, 2 miles from downtown, school is a 10-20 minute walk, when she starts middle school thats only 4 blocks away, a few grocery stores and a target in a short walking distance and my wife works 15 minute walk away.

so while we live in a bigger city, it has more of a small town feel for us, thats how i cope with living in a big city, so i'm with you Orthos:)

and MY GOD! PHOENIX! DID you want to die? i've driven thru and jesus i wouldn't wanna live there!
lots of people, 120 degree temps and hardly any shade, best recipe for disaster ever!

glad you lived thru that:)


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captain yesterday wrote:

and MY GOD! PHOENIX! DID you want to die? i've driven thru and jesus i wouldn't wanna live there!

lots of people, 120 degree temps and hardly any shade, best recipe for disaster ever!

glad you lived thru that:)

I had far fewer complaints about the heat than the crowds, if that explains anything. I've always been more amenable to heat than cold. I've never lived further north than Tennessee, and rarely ever been more miserable than when it snowed.

Plus they had an awesome bus system, with a small handful of exceptional incidents I never needed a car to get anywhere, hence why I didn't get my driver's license until I was 27.


Orthos wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:

and MY GOD! PHOENIX! DID you want to die? i've driven thru and jesus i wouldn't wanna live there!

lots of people, 120 degree temps and hardly any shade, best recipe for disaster ever!

glad you lived thru that:)

I had far less complaints about the heat than the crowds, if that explains anything. I've always been more amenable to heat than cold. I've never lived further north than Tennessee, and rarely ever been more miserable than when it snowed.

Plus they had an awesome bus system, with a small handful of exceptional incidents I never needed a car to get anywhere, hence why I didn't get my driver's license until I was 27.

i meant the Heat and the Crowds:) give me one or the other, just not both at the same time:)

you should come up here in January, if the intermittent 6-20 inch snow falls don't get to you the -20 to -50 degree temps will, always with a bitter howling wind, thats why The Shining is one of the scariest books i've ever read and why alcoholism is so prevalent here, Winter Madness is real! i use comedy to fight it off:)

edit: i didn't get my license until i was 23 and my (future) Wife told me she wasn't going to be to doing all the driving, especially not across the country by herself:)


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yeah how bout no o.o


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LOL:)


Seattle has the best bus system! Madison is alright, better then most, certainly better then the train wreck bus system Milwaukee has. but yes having a kick ass bus system will make any city livable:)


Clarification: I'm not from Miami, but she was. Also Catholic and a straight-A student.
(I got A-B honor-roll... but, uh, that's about it.)

Pan wrote:
So...are you guys billionaires or noble peace prize winners? I cant imagine what I would do with all the energy I spend chasing tail. I mean I don't even know exactly what "being from Miami" means but I'm thinking about moving there. I am 35 and still totally about the muffin. Not sure I will ever slow down. What's it like to not have that particular drive?

Nope. Stay-at-home dad, here. I love every minute of it. (Well, okay, MOST every minute of it. Well, okay, SOME minutes of it. :D)

I've never quite figured out what "being from Miami" means beyond the vague notion that folk from Miami are somehow more promiscuis than folk not from Miami. Maybe something to do with the idea of "Latin lover" or the old Will Smith song? I dunno.

Also, Lloyd, yes. It was while I was there. As I said: so many opportunities to sleep all around campus!

See, my rebelliousness matches Orthos' in terms of what I did. Heck, the one Highschool pregnancy we had was actually the year after Highschool, and it rocked everyone's world. It was pretty big-time rumors when one of our guys supposedly had sex once. Another mentioned "the pot" on occasion, and smelled funny, and was the one of the few other kids I didn't like to be around (but mostly because he usually glared at me evilly no matter how nice I tried to be, and wrote faux-satanic symbols on everything)*.

Otherwise, my school sounds like a smaller version of Orthos'.

Of course, I attended no less than six schools over my Elementary and Highschool years, as, as a Pastor's son and Missionary Kid, we would occasionally move. The pastor's daughter/son and missionary kid/army brat were always confusing to me. I've known several dozen and, of those, three eventually fell into the stereotype. So it's kind of a weird stereotype.

Orthos: the stereotype is little more than "they rebel and fall away into sin and vice due to repression" - similar to the stereotype of Catholics, strict Protestants (general term, rather than specific), and pretty much anyone that has a strong moral code they expect their children to follow. I suspect it come from the high visibility of the "failures" skewing things to appear more prone to problems than they actually are.

* To be clear, I never shunned this kid. He was invited to sit with us, but refused to do so for... reasons? He generally either made jokes with two other guys that sometimes sat with us but sometimes didn't, or glared at me. I have never discovered why. The whole two or three times we had a genuine conversation, he was pretty nice, which made his tendency toward glaring at me and avoiding me all the more strange. Weird, yeah, but I memorized all 125 Pokemon when I didn't even have or play that game by virtue of one kid reciting them to me all year (though I hadn't memorized their stats) - I can handle weird and be friends. Then it was back to the glaring.

Sovereign Court

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Well Madison is nice and all but I wouldn't consider it a big city. Is that joint Sambas still around? Excellent food and a nice stage for Jazz music. That was about 6-7 years ago though since I have been out that way.


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Quote:
Orthos: the stereotype is little more than "they rebel and fall away into sin and vice due to repression" - similar to the stereotype of Catholics, strict Protestants (general term, rather than specific), and pretty much anyone that has a strong moral code they expect their children to follow. I suspect it come from the high visibility of the "failures" skewing things to appear more prone to problems than they actually are.

Ah, fair enough. Yeah I knew plenty of preacher's kids and both my parents were military brats so I always associated the stereotype with kids that were overly-goody-two-shoes-ish, which was still above and beyond what I had actually experienced. I have yet to see someone fall into what the sterotype actually means, apparently.


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Orthos wrote:
Pan wrote:
I mean I don't even know exactly what "being from Miami" means
If this is in regards to TL's story, I think the issue is less that the girl was specifically from Miami, and more that he was involved in a long-distance relationship and thus when he went to visit her/she came to visit him/whatever the arrangement was, his friends couldn't believe they wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity for a "conjugal visit". Or that if he was spending that long on the phone with his significant other that they would be doing anything other than having sex-talk.

Oh, hey, this is also a good explanation. Huh. Yeah, that might actually be what they meant.

I'm both NINJA'D and slow, it seems...


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I'm a stay at home dad too:) way to go tacticslion!


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The Only One That Could Ever Reach Me/Was the Sweet-Talkin' Son of a Preacher Man, Yes, He Was!: The Musical Interlude


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But yeah, a lot of this does explain some of the conversations I've had with various friends. I recall one of my gaming friends was complaining about how some relative or close associate was having trouble with a sibling/offspring, and I remember wondering aloud why the parent hadn't been stricter with them. We went back and forth for some time, with me trying to explain that almost every incident of activity like he was describing that I had ever observed had been primarily caused/allowed by a parent who was too lenient and/or hadn't intervened soon enough, and him rebutting that their parent/s being more strict simply would not work for reasons he couldn't really explain and to this day I can't fathom.

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