Do we lie to children?

^^^^

You're uncle sounds a lot like mine, that is to say fucking awesome. As a kid I always loved to spend time with him because he would talk to me about almost anything. I did sort of lift the veil when I got older and see a few of his problems, but no biggy.

I've always been rather peeved by this "follow your dreams" business. What are those of us who don't have dreams supposed to do with our lives? Apparently there's no fallback option for people who can't come up with anything. My parents seemed to figure I'd just wake up one day passionate about something. They didn't say anything about how to develop a sense of direction or identity, and they didn't say anything to prevent me from feeling inferior to all the people around me who already had various interests or ideals they were enthusiastic about.

Well Tongpu, I didn't have any dreams either, I still don't to be honest. Most of my decisions about what I wanted to do for a living were rather clinical. "Hmm, could I enjoy this? Sure. Will it pay the bills? Yeah, fairly enough. Will I get retirement? Yes? Sweet. And I get to carry a gun and sit on my ass all the time being lazy? Fuck yes, sign me up!"

And from my modest ambitions of doing what I do now, I've ramped up those ambitions. I'm working towards becoming a US Marshal since I've had time to figure out what I want to do.

Most parents lie to their children; fortunately mine didn't.

Growing up my parents told me that the world wasn't a nice place, and I'd have to work my ass off because nobody was ever going to give me anything. People are assholes, and they''l take advantage of you if given the chance.

On the fun side I got to go to the range, learn to fight, fish, camp....all that fun stuff. Pretty much the agoge w/o the anal sex and killing slaves. Looking back it helped out a lot.

I'm going to do the same for my kids if I have any.

You know, I never to this day, had "the talk" about sex with my folks. I just learned on my own, and then at some certain point in my teenage years my mom and I started trading sexually explicit jokes.

My mom is cool though, I'm fortunate that my mom is my friend, and not so much my mom.

^I'm jealous; I got the clinical version. Goddamn doctors.

I think my dad figured that since from the 5th grade on I practically lived on the internet, I was already knowledgeable. :P

^We all know that women wear 6in heels in bed.

Pretty much that. I figured most of the stuff out by instinct and experimentation without intervention from my parents/grandparents; now we make terrible jokes all the time, and my papaw asks me frequently when the last itme I 'got some' is.

edited 2nd Feb '11 9:09:00 PM by Diamonnes

Hells yeah!

I always preferred amateur stuff anyway, the hopeless romantic in me goes "AWW LOOK AT THEM CUDDLE!" *fap fap fap*

edited 1st Feb '11 11:50:45 AM by Barkey

I like realism in my porn!

Unfortunately, somehow for example columns in magazines for the same purpose include some questions which make me doubt could figure it out alone is the standard...

Raising children is a walk in the park. And a puke on your blouse. And nights without sleep. ....

Yes, you lie to them. Anything to make them stop asking questions. They will learn the truth soon enough.

If you say, "follow your dreams," what they hear is "I can do whatever I want." If they do whatever they want and get away with it, they will never learn responsibility. If you don't set limits for your little snowflakes, they will never learn to think inside the box, much less outside it.

You don't really lie by saying follow your dreams. I think you just tell them how the world should be. Also, even if you don't have dreams, then you can just pick something you like...most people have one thing they like doing, even if it's hating everything(they could be a movie critic or something, I don't know ) Besides, I really don't wanna tell a kid, Hey, when you grow up you're gonna be sad and remember nobody dies a virgin because life fucks us all! Because little kids tend to run with stuff like that, and they might decided that they don't have to do anything forever, because they're gonna be screwed anyway.

edited 1st Feb '11 2:36:11 PM by wuggles

We are raised in a society that tries as hard as it can through culture and media to hide the reality of the world and its people. Setting our youth for a hard fall by filling their heads with bullshit trying to create the ideal world, so as to cover up the reality no one wants to see. They aren't prepared, and they suffer for it.

My two cents.

edited 1st Feb '11 4:13:05 PM by ViralLamb

I was never able to connect very well with anyone growing up, be it parents, or kids my own age, so I pretty much got all my development from books and TV. As such, I pieced together what a shithole the world is pretty early on. Well, that and non-stop bullying in school. Thankfully, this also meant I never had to go through the feeling of having your view of the world come crashing down when you grow up and realize what a meaningless death march you're facing. Mind you, its not exactly ideal, and if I ever have a kid, I really dont want them to go through that. But eventually, they'll reach an age where they'd be mature enough for me to take them aside and say "Kid, I'm sorry, but no matter what trite cartoons and school has taught you, you're old enough to know now. Not everyone is special, sometimes life WILL suck for no reason and there is nothing you can do about it, and there are countless people dying every day for reasons no one cares about, and no one with any power to stop it cares enough to do so. Welcome to life"

Would I be correct in guessing that you trusted your own judgment in making these decisions, and that you didn't grow up with the impression that having to resort to making decisions in this "clinical" way, instead of already "knowing in your heart" what to do, was akin to selling your soul or settling for mediocrity?

I couldn't say really, I just went the pragmatic route one day and was like "Meh, sounds cool and it's an attainable goal."

Honestly, what I'm doing right now is a backup plan, but it's a good backup plan. If I keep doing what I'm doing for the rest of my life, I'll have a decent pension to draw from and I'll keep the lights on, and I also happen to enjoy the job. I'm happy with my decisions. It's sort of like "If I stay with this, I'm settling, but at least I'd be settling on something viable.

But I'm always looking to trade up. In fact I just wrote up and sent in my resume today for a job with the Department of Defense Federal Police. They have several slots open at a nearby base and I'm overqualified, this would really get my foot in the door. I'll stay a Guardsman, but instead of being full time it'll be one weekend a month. This will get me into the General Schedule(GS) pay scale, which are federal jobs that you have to be a severe shithead to be fired from, and if your job is cut back you can pretty much move to any job, even if you don't have experience in it so long as the pay level is comparable to what you had prior.

If I get this job, I'll have a second police academy under my belt and if I stay with it, I'd end up with two retirements. A military retirement from the Guard, and a government retirement that won't run dry, as it is federal. With both of those I'd be willing to settle, but I still have ambitions to move up. While I do Do D Police and the Guard, I'll be going to school and I'm almost to my Bachelors degree. Two police academies, a bachelors, and Phoenix Raven training make me an overqualified shoe-in to do what I really want, which is to be a US Marshal.

I guess the best way I could describe it is that I'm taking careful and methodical moves so that if my hopes get shot down, I'm still in a strong position doing something I enjoy that pays the bills. If I make Marshal, that's pretty much the top chain of all my ambitions though, short of pulling security on a Space Station or Lunar Colony, which is my over-the-top unrealistic ambition that I hold just in case the opportunity presents itself. That's what I meant by clinical, it's a pragmatic and safe way to go, I'm not risking anything with my ambitions the same way as I would if I decided I wanted to be a famous writer/actor/etc, where I could end up not making it big and being in poverty. With my current situation I'll always have a secure job, and the only way to go is up.

So yeah, wall of text and such, but those are pretty much my ambitions for the next 10 years.

edited 2nd Feb '11 8:56:53 PM by Barkey