I think that using suicide statistics to determine quality of life can’t really work. I, for one, have too many responsibilities and too little time to kill myself. Maybe once I retire…
I am not defending the statement that the teenage years are the toughest. For me they were; life since then has been fun, interesting, and bizarre. For a lot of teenagers, nothing they experience later in life will be as bad as what they are experiencing now. On the other hand, for some people life is an escalating series of crises, and gets more miserable as time goes on.
What I’m amazed at is statements like this:
Diane:
Groups? Clubs? Oh poleeeeeeeeze. Will your lights or water get shut off if you miss one too many club meetings? Will your car get repossessed or your home foreclosed leaving you and your children on the street if you fail to show up to a few group activities? Does slacking off in school just because you feel like it cause you to harmfully neglect a small child or baby for whom you are solely responsible? Does skipping school a few days in a row cause you to loose your only source of income?
I suppose it’s inconceivable that a kid might get kicked out of their house due to poor performance in school, goofing off, making mistakes and so on, thus losing their only support and source of income. Except that it does happen. Kids are in the terrifying situation of being at the mercy of parents who, in many cases, are not perfect human beings.
Now, I’m not unfamilar with “whose life is more miserable” pissing contests, but try and remember that doing well in school is what we ask kids to be responsible for; that school is, in many ways, comparable to the responsibilities involved in holding a job. Except, this is a job you’re legally required to attend, you have no option to quit until you’re of age, and very little recourse when situations turn ugly. Read the “bad teachers” thread for some good examples. Would you ever take the treatment you receieved in high school in a job situation?
I’m impressed that Diane is involved with helping teenagers. It’s a great cause, and worth a lot of time and effort. I’m sure she’s a terriffic parent.
But being a parent doesn’t give your whining any more weight than a teenagers’. I’m sorry if your life is rough, and I hope you come through it all with flying colors. But belittling someone else’s problems, especially a kids’, is pretty cold.
Andy
Ya think?
I challenge you to do a search on all my posts for the two years I have been posting to this board to find anything that even resembles me whining about my rough life. Things sure as hell haven’t been easy, especially as a single parent juggling 9000 different responsibilities, but ya know what? No matter what your age, you either deal with it or you don’t I choose to deal with it.
I certainly don’t expect others to handle things the way I do and I understand that venting on a message board is the method some use to handle their problems. I fully support, and will either lend an ear, give a voice of encouragement, or just a virtual hug to anyone on this board having a rough time. In fact, if you look at my very first post in this thread, you will see that I support the right to a teenagers privacy and abhor the fact that a parent read a diary without any serious provocation.
You seem set on making me out to be this horrible, evil, ogre who doesn’t understand what teens go through. :::shrug::: You have the right to make your own assumptions, whether or not they are correct.
I guess it is my fault for putting specific situations into my post, but this is the exact reason I specifically stated “the typical teenager”. We can go into the different degrees of tough lifestyles from a teen getting kicked out of his home to a battered woman to a poverty level elderly man trying to be the caretaker for his disabled wife. There are so many variables that there really would be no way to say, as a whole, one group has it tougher than any other.
I stick to my original comment that the blanket statement that “teenage years are the toughest” is a bullshit statement. It’s just not true.
I would say that the only thing more difficult than being a teenager is being a parent of a teenager.
Welcome to the SDMB.
Welcome to the PIT.
Quote:If you’ve chosen to be a parent, great. Enjoy it. It’s a nice hobby.
Fuck you with a capital F.
I’m not sure whether to classify you as an intelligent troll, or just an asshole with bad gas.
(apology pending)
Plisa, yup, but it does have some great rewarding moments.
Diane, not unless we get really bored.
later, Tom.
This is from someone who is both a teenager (19) and yet struggling with the issues of adulthood: yeah right. When I was 17, I played sports, joined every extracurricular activity, worked at a job I liked for “extra” money, and worried about my SATs. My biggest worry was my speech for the Student Council, helping my best friend run for Class Treasurer, and getting a good score on the SATs (1380, thankyouverymuch. I’m sure half the SDMB got perfect scores.)
When I dropped out of college, my parents made me get a real job, pay my own bills, buy my own car, and cut off all cash flow from their direction. I work at a job I mostly hate, I’m paying for my own education (before, a scholarship covered most, my parent’s loan got the rest, and I got $1000 a semester for books and living), I bought my own car, I pay the credit card bills I racked up in college. I’m actually taking responsibility for my mistakes and choices - and it’s a lot different from failing a test. It’s being a failure.
In high school, I worried about being popular. Sure, that sucks. But wait until you get a tiny paycheck (you were sick and had to call out) from the job you hate so much you hope you’ll get fired - a paycheck that has to cover the car payment, two credit card bills, rent and car insurance. Fuck spending money. Fuck going out Friday night. Your Friday night money is now gas money. Cause without gas money, you aren’t getting to work. You use the Friday night money to get gas so you can drive to work sick because you used all your sick time when you were vomiting buckets last week, and you have to make it through these eight hours because eight hours equals $72 and you desperately need $32 of that $72 to pay off the minimum balance on your VISA so you can hopefully one day rent an apartment, although it’s not looking good cause you still haven’t paid the MBNA bill. Wait until you have to decide if you should save the last $10 in your account for an emergency, or treat yourself to a cuisine of McDonald’s since there’s no food cause you couldn’t pay mom rent and she meant it when she said, “no rent, no food!” And you know that this upcoming check is already spent - the extra $30 of Friday night spending money you might have goes to the $15 copay on the doctor’s visit and the $15 copay on the prescription. So there goes the next two weeks. Wait until you can describe to the penny exactly how you’re gonna spend the next eight paychecks, until you eat disgusting Ramen noodles every night for a week, until you have gas for three days from those “5 for $5 Mexican Microwave Dinners” you bought, wait until you drag your sick, excess-phlegm-producing carcass to work vomiting out the window the whole way cause you can’t miss any more work. Wait until you have to suck some stupid nutfuck’s ass day in and day out so that you can’t look yourself in the mirror because if you do, then he will give you a raise. Wait until you spend the last $50 of availible credit on the your card on a birthday present for your stepdad, who you don’t even like. Wait until your car breaks down and you have to spend a precious $14.50 plus tip on a cab and who the hell knows where the money to get the car fixed is coming from!
I would give my left tit to be 16 again.
I find it amusing to review the posts on this thread, keeping in mind that its main theme seems to be that teenagers complain too much. I count two posts by one teenager that could be seen as complaining. Adults, on the other hand, are bending the whineometer far into the red.
Diane. I said:
But being a parent doesn’t give your whining any more weight than a teenagers’. I’m sorry if your life is rough, and I hope you come through it all with flying colors. But belittling someone else’s problems, especially a kids’, is pretty cold.
and you replied:
You seem set on making me out to be this horrible, evil, ogre who doesn’t understand what teens go through. :::shrug::: You have the right to make your own assumptions, whether or not they are correct.
You have the right to your assumptions about my assumptions as well. But I don’t see you that way; I see you as struggling under a heavy burden, that perhaps you didn’t expect. Doing your best to raise your children well, and from the sound of it, doing it well.
My point, I reiterate, is that some teenagers have miserable lives. Some adults have miserable lives. I concede that in all probability your life is more painful to live in than Garfield’s. That doesn’t mean that comments like…
"Ahhhhh. . . . how I miss the days when the only thing I had to worry about was passing math class, getting a date for Saturday night, sneaking home before curfew, covering up cigarette and pot smells, and not letting my supply of Visine run dry. "
…aren’t belitting the problems of a whole group of people, based on your own personal experience. From what you’ve said, I assume you know a teenager or two you wouldn’t want to trade lives with.
What’s the point of making sure that miserable teens believe they’re going to grow up into miserable adults? Why put down someone else’s problems, no matter how small they seem compared to your own? They seem big to the person on the receiving end.
The teenage years are tough. Maybe not the toughest for everyone, but some kids don’t live through them. I’m willing to listen to some complaining, if I think it’s going to help things get easier on someone.
What gets me about this thread is all the whining being done by people complaining about whiners. Whining I can take; hypocrisy drives me nuts.
Andy
Thanks for the welcome. To wit:
“I’m not sure whether to classify you as an intelligent troll, or just an asshole with bad gas.”
A better sig was never written. Not sure what the policy on obscenity in sigs is, though. I’d love to use that, with your permission.
And thanks for classifying me as intelligent. What pissed you off was my statement: “If you’ve chosen to be a parent, great. Enjoy it. It’s a nice hobby.”
I’m standing by that one, unless you can come up with an intelligent defense. What else is parenthood, other than a hobby? Were you under the impression that the world population just couldn’t get by without a few new kids around? Did the Human Genome Project stop by and encourage you to contribute to the gene pool personally?
If you adopted, I have the utmost respect for you. Taking responsibility for a kid who was already around is admirable. But I fail to see why I should respect biological parenthood as some sort of holy vocation. Sure, there’s a chance your kid may grow up to perfect cold fusion, but I’d get better odds playing the lottery.
From what I’ve seen, people have kids to stave off loneliness, have unconditional love around for a few years, add some drama to their lives, have someone to take care of them in their old age… What I’d like, hflathead, is for you to come up with an unselfish reason to have kids. Then I’ll reconsider my position on parenthood. Until then, I sincerely believe that it’s an expensive, involving, fulfilling, complicated hobby.
Andy
Which do you think looks better?
“I’m not sure whether to classify you as an intelligent troll, or just an asshole with bad gas.” -hflathead
“Dear MrVisible…
Welcome to the SDMB.
Welcome to the PIT.
Fuck you with a capital F.”
-hflathead
Nice post, hits the OP.
mrvisible:
Sure, no problem. Use the sig you want. I think both look pretty good. They both will probably get by the Mods.
Nope, didn’t adopt. I have three healthy teenagers living with my wife of 21 years and me. I have problems like all families. I’m sure the world will do it’s best to populate, but my take on it is, that you try to create an intelligent gene pool by being a better parent than your folks were. Fight ignorance by being a good role model and showing your children that hate and prejudice in society is not acceptable.
Sure, I just finished having my 2 teenage boys help me put a new roof on our house, that’s selfish. They even shoveled the trench for the new sewer line. But I hope as a side effect, they learned that they did not want to be roofing labor, or work a shovel for the rest of their lives, and understanding the importance of an education.
As far as parenthood being a holy vocation, I’d leave out holy, and agree it’s a vocation. I’m still trying to get the hang of being a “good” parent, and the decisions that accompany that resonsibility can be overwhelming. Being a good parent is probably the most selfless thing an individual can achieve in life.
I do play the lottery, in RL and with the kids. Yup, sure could use a couple of million, and hope my children grow up to be responsible adults. If it’s because I invested some time in their up-bringing and enforced basic rules, cool.
Yes, it is expensive, involving, fulfilling, and complicated, but I believe HOBBY is not a proper term for being a responsible parent.
The best thing I could teach my children is “TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS”. If I do this, then IMHO I’ve done my best to see that the gene pool is tilted toward bettering itself. Not a hobby. A resposibility.
later, Tom.
hflathead,
I don’t see that you answered the question. What sets raising humans apart from raising fish, birds, or opossums? I understand that it’s hard to raise good people. I know it takes a lot of work and sacrifice. But it’s a hobby.
It does involve responsibility, true. So does owning dogs. But I don’t consider myself selfless because I choose to have a couple of pups around. I’m proud of them, I’ve taught them to be good dogs, but I did it because I like having them around. I enjoy it. It’s a hobby.
My question stands. Give me one unselfish reason to become a parent. I agree that it’s difficult, demanding and rewarding. But I believe that parents enter into parenthood because they believe they’ll enjoy it, not for some nebulous altruistic reasons. It’s not a bad perspective to have, you know; if you realize your kids are there because you’ve chosen to have them around, for reasons of your own, maybe the times when they seem to be more of a burden could be easier to bear.
But I maintain. Nobody told you to have kids. It’s not a requirement, or an obligation. It’s a hobby.
Unless you’re raising them for food, I guess. 
Andy
hob·by [hóbbee ] (plural hob·bies) noun
- enjoyable activity: an activity engaged in for pleasure and relaxation during spare time
I can come up with an unlimited number of things that would fall into this catagory, but being a parent is not one of them. Can’t make it any clearer than that.
later, Tom.
This statement is so moronic I don’t know where to begin.
Building little model cars is a hobby.
Collecting stamps is a hobby.
Putting together an HO train layout is a hobby.
Internet pornography is a … no, wait, forget I said that. 
But the difference is that I can stop doing those things at any time. I don’t have to take time off work to go talk to school teachers about collecting stamps. I don’t have to worry about taking model cars to psychiatrists and neurologists and worry if their medication is balanced well enough that he doesn’t go on a violent tantrum.
True, we may make the decision to have kids, it’s not forced upon us. But the minute that I start thinking about my kids as a “spare-time activity” is the time I expect someone should take me out behind the woodshed and beat me with a two by four.
Okay, now I have two people enraged. That was not my intention, but I’d like to note that neither one has answered my question.
I know it’s difficult, I know it’s a commitment. A lot of recreational activities involve commitment, and most are challenging. Heck, I know someone who makes furniture as a hobby, has devoted thousands of dollars to it, and has lost most of two fingers. He’d probably be better off never having started, but he does it because he loves to, and it makes him happy. How is parenting any different?
To reiterate:
Give me one unselfish reason to become a parent.
“My downfalls can beat up your downfalls!”
:rolleyes:
The all-too rare one: to add another intelligent and ethical human being to the citizenry; to bring about the development of a fulfilled and upright human soul.
As soon as you give me one unselfish reason why you continue to breathe.
I thought it complimented it nicely.
Ok… here’s one: “oops.”
Now that that is taken care of, I’d like to add my voice to the multitude of parents who have just finished reading that ‘hobby’ nonsense and are mumbling to themselves about how that’s pretty much the most idiotic thing they’ve read all week.
Hobby. sheesh.
I’ll agree that the decision to become a parent is 99.9% likely to be selfish - one could argue it up to 100% if one had the time or inclination. Point is, the decision to become a parent is way different than being one. Being a good parent is not in anyway synonymous with selfishness. Nor can the two exist on the same plane at the same time. On the other hand, I know lots of selfish, lousy parents.
Hobby. sheesh. I’m not even going to argue that one. You should really put some thought into things before you put them to print. Or get a journal that you can be sure is private.
In anycase, meditate on this old saying. “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to post and remove all doubt.”
You want an unselfish reason to become a parent?
How about the fact that it’s written into our genetic code to procreate?
How abou the idea that a baby brings joy to a family and to friends of the family?
How about the very idea that raising a child is one of the most selfless acts one can do, on par with sacrificing oneself so another may live? How about all the parents who understand that once you have a child, your wants and needs go out the window in order to accomodate the wants and needs of the child?
Allah in a fetal position, I don’t even have kids and I understand that much!
Okay. There are unselfish reasons to become a parent.
I asked for a reason, I got several; I’m done. I’ll reconsider my position.
It may well be that you all are selfless individuals, trying hard to raise a generation of children that will make the planet a better place, by sacrificing your personal freedoms for the good of humanity.
Andy