Life lesson One

The most important lesson to teach our children is that being a child is a short term deal. They will be adults for a lot longer and the fun they have now will amount to not much if they do not make it as an adult. I am not saying be all huff and puff adult with out joy and discovery, magic and all... but when push comes to shove how we behave and live as adults is more important that these “things” we are raising and letting be teenagers as a social group. Pampered, spoiled, over indulged, and rude will not get them very far in the real world...which is not on TV or in the fashion magazines or (GASP) Face-book or Twitter! Any 16 year old(boy or girl) should be able to and do on a regular basis: the family laundry, meal cooking lunch packing, house cleaning, yard work. Not only for their family but for their grandma and grandpa, elder neighbors and anyone else in their area that is unable to do for themselves. No mother of a teenager should have to cook every meal of the week or do the grocery shopping. If they can’t do it by 16 then there will be some real problems down the road. All this pampering of teenagers is stunting their emotional growth. They need real responsibility and be a full member of the family. They need to learn how to save money rather than piss it away on the trinkets and gewgaws made in China. If girls want the latest fashion then sewing is a good thing. Same for boys. Pierced and tattooed but can’t read a book and needs to be online every minute... I don’t think so. Life’s major lesson is to learn that you are not special just because. We are all dime a dozen. There are 1000 people who write better than I do. But I am trying to better the world from my own experience. I have seen many of my family members destroy their children with no rules and everything “I wanted to do but Mom would not let me”; and now they are useless since those children lived the life they wanted as a teen and not the rules our parents put on us. I see 50 something useless adults with out any maturity and now their 30 something teenagers who can’t hold a job, had no push into some education but could party hardy and that is just in my family.

Life is not easy and it is much harder if you can’t mature, but just grow old. The bloom of youth wears off fast. It may be fun for a while but someday you need to know how to cook beans because that is all you can afford.