real life and some silliness
Nov. 7th, 2008 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdI may have one gap in my knowledge but check out my word count:
:P :P :P
Now, a curious bit of people observation in regards to a couple I'm friends with. First I really like these people, they're fun to be with, but I think they're rather silly. Silly in the way they run their lives.
They are a family of six who moved down to LA for job opportunities. When they moved down here they only were five, two older children and a toddler. They wanted their children to go to the good schools so they moved into one of the expensive neighborhoods and got a tiny two bedroom apartment. The husband works full time, the wife takes care of the little one(s).
Now, here comes the silly, in parts.
First: Their money spending. They live in an expensive apartment in an expensive neighborhood with a large family, with a one person's income. Yet they have a gigantic big flat screen TV, the sorts that can take up half a wall, and takes up half their living room. They have this so that they can play video games. The mother has said that they don't use it often because it drains a lot of power, but they have it for the cinematic experience. They have a smaller TV, about the size of the new flat screen computer monitors, for which they watch regular TV on. They also have another one, apparently, in the parent's bedroom. They have cable, which they can't afford because at one point they had to turn it off for a while. They have several expensive game systems and Rock Band, of which they occasionally by new songs for. Then they had their fourth child, which they can't afford They don't have enough room for anything. They two little ones sleep in the parent's bed. They have no place to put their laundry, their kitchen is over run with food and dishes, the apartment is a wreck. Oh, and they have two cats.
They know all this, and yet the husband bought a new lap top, because it was so cheap. He had a perfectly functioning laptop before, but he bought a new one. They also have a desktop computer. And do hundreds of little things like this. And it just bothers the hell out of me, because I really like them and I hate seeing them in this money hole, which they could easily get out of if they started spending wisely instead of impulsively.
Second: Their parenting. This is in regards to their little ones as oppose to their older ones. The older ones are pretty much "set" in their discipline habits and have the understanding to know what their parents are talking about. The lens I am looking through is the lens of how I was raised by my mother. My mother was very strong on discipline. No meant No. No matter what, if she said no, it was no. No compromise The best example I have of this is when my brother and I were little we had a family trip to the zoo. We were acting like hooligans, and my mom said if we didn't stop, we'd leave. We didn't stop. We left. It was things like that which taught us what "no" meant. However, "Yes" meant "yes". If it was within our means to do something we asked, and she thought it was something we could have, she let us have it. She wouldn't buy us candy when we went grocery shopping, but we could go out and get ice cream for a treat together. When we were older, we had if/then clauses. My brother and I loved going to Toys R Us, and my mom would say, if we could find a parking place we could go. If we found a parking place, we went, if not we didn't. We found this fair and acceptable because we knew she would keep her promises.
Also she never gave into a screaming fit. If we threw a tantrum, she would ignore us. There was no way we would get what we wanted if we threw one. As soon as we stopped, she would give us attention (but we still wouldn't get what we wanted, because she didn't think we needed us). I don't remember if this is positive or negative reinforcement, but I know it's one of the two. She also never talked down to us and treated us like we could understand concepts like no even when we were little tiny kids.
This is what I think good parenting is. We learned to respect and honor our parents who respect and honor us.
Now, my friend.
First of all she doesn't enforce the concept of "no". The younger boy once tried to take some of the baby girl's snacks from the table. He would constantly reach and say, "I want". After about four or five times of "No" she gave in and let him have them. The only thing I can think of in regards to this is the little boy knows that "no" means, keep on trying until you get "yes". Then there are the screaming fits. As soon as the little ones realize they aren't getting attention because the adults are doing something else, they scream and scream and scream. And their parents will pick them up asking "What's wrong? What do you want?" The kids will calm down fairly easily after that. When they're out walking and the little ones wander off, their parents will ask, "Come over here please, please come over," but they never do and continue on their excursions.
One time I asked why she didn't discipline them more, I'm not saying hitting them or anything like that, but just enforcing "no", and she said, "Oh, but they're too little to understand, I'll wait until they're older". She's doing this in regards to breast feeding the youngest.
The thing is, they can and will listen to discipline. I've done some "care taking" with the little boy, when he and his mother and I were out and about. The boy would wander off and I'd go and fetch, holding his hand. He tried to break free the first couple of times, but when he realized I wasn't going to let go, he stopped fighting me and went along nicely. Another time he was at my place and was given a cookie. (Soft cookie with chocolate icing and sprinkles). His mother said that he could eat the cookie if he stayed in the chair. He sat there for about thirty seconds before starting to get off. His mother said, "please, stay on your chair," but he didn't listen to her. I gave him a look and told him to stay on the chair. He stayed until he ate his cookie.
The mother continues to be amazed at this but can't seem to put two and two together. She says it's easier to give in now than have to deal with the fits. The thing is, if she didn't give in, the kids would quickly realize that the fits won't get them anything. As my mom said, today they only want the car keys, tomorrow they'll want the car.
She is also very forgiving for her childrens misbehavior. The little boy, again, once went into the kitchen of our gamer host and took out a stool, put it against the counter and went for some cookies. His mother was all, "it was okay, he wanted some cookies". The father, and most of the others were, "he was doing something he shouldn't be doing in someone else kitchen." To her he wasn't do anything wrong because he didn't know better. To me and the others was "he should know better." I know I would never even think about that.
Which is a shame because they are such nice people and I'm sad that they're going to have such issues with their children when they're older.
On a completely different tangent. One of the other players in our group (the same group with the couple previously mentioned) wants to do a d20 game where we, as players, can choose to create characters from any d20 system. Absolutely any. I have the Munchkin's Player handbook with such delightful things of "Get a feat every odd level" Unless you're a fighter then you get them every level =D. Feats that let you take a standard action and, if you are wearing/in possession of the Munckin Lovely Loot shirt, bend down and find treasure at your feet. Any treasure you want in the DMG except artifacts. =SD The Munchkin deck, where you create a deck of munchkin cards and I think once a session, have another player cut the deck for you and you take the top card. The GM then has to do something nice for you in regards to that card. =D Of course the Munckin Cleric domain lets you have a +1 to anything and everything you can possibly want to use it for. It also gives you kick as spells, like limited wish, miracle, finger of death and other fun stuff!
I'm going to make a half elf fighter cleric. I think. =D
:P :P :P
Now, a curious bit of people observation in regards to a couple I'm friends with. First I really like these people, they're fun to be with, but I think they're rather silly. Silly in the way they run their lives.
They are a family of six who moved down to LA for job opportunities. When they moved down here they only were five, two older children and a toddler. They wanted their children to go to the good schools so they moved into one of the expensive neighborhoods and got a tiny two bedroom apartment. The husband works full time, the wife takes care of the little one(s).
Now, here comes the silly, in parts.
First: Their money spending. They live in an expensive apartment in an expensive neighborhood with a large family, with a one person's income. Yet they have a gigantic big flat screen TV, the sorts that can take up half a wall, and takes up half their living room. They have this so that they can play video games. The mother has said that they don't use it often because it drains a lot of power, but they have it for the cinematic experience. They have a smaller TV, about the size of the new flat screen computer monitors, for which they watch regular TV on. They also have another one, apparently, in the parent's bedroom. They have cable, which they can't afford because at one point they had to turn it off for a while. They have several expensive game systems and Rock Band, of which they occasionally by new songs for. Then they had their fourth child, which they can't afford They don't have enough room for anything. They two little ones sleep in the parent's bed. They have no place to put their laundry, their kitchen is over run with food and dishes, the apartment is a wreck. Oh, and they have two cats.
They know all this, and yet the husband bought a new lap top, because it was so cheap. He had a perfectly functioning laptop before, but he bought a new one. They also have a desktop computer. And do hundreds of little things like this. And it just bothers the hell out of me, because I really like them and I hate seeing them in this money hole, which they could easily get out of if they started spending wisely instead of impulsively.
Second: Their parenting. This is in regards to their little ones as oppose to their older ones. The older ones are pretty much "set" in their discipline habits and have the understanding to know what their parents are talking about. The lens I am looking through is the lens of how I was raised by my mother. My mother was very strong on discipline. No meant No. No matter what, if she said no, it was no. No compromise The best example I have of this is when my brother and I were little we had a family trip to the zoo. We were acting like hooligans, and my mom said if we didn't stop, we'd leave. We didn't stop. We left. It was things like that which taught us what "no" meant. However, "Yes" meant "yes". If it was within our means to do something we asked, and she thought it was something we could have, she let us have it. She wouldn't buy us candy when we went grocery shopping, but we could go out and get ice cream for a treat together. When we were older, we had if/then clauses. My brother and I loved going to Toys R Us, and my mom would say, if we could find a parking place we could go. If we found a parking place, we went, if not we didn't. We found this fair and acceptable because we knew she would keep her promises.
Also she never gave into a screaming fit. If we threw a tantrum, she would ignore us. There was no way we would get what we wanted if we threw one. As soon as we stopped, she would give us attention (but we still wouldn't get what we wanted, because she didn't think we needed us). I don't remember if this is positive or negative reinforcement, but I know it's one of the two. She also never talked down to us and treated us like we could understand concepts like no even when we were little tiny kids.
This is what I think good parenting is. We learned to respect and honor our parents who respect and honor us.
Now, my friend.
First of all she doesn't enforce the concept of "no". The younger boy once tried to take some of the baby girl's snacks from the table. He would constantly reach and say, "I want". After about four or five times of "No" she gave in and let him have them. The only thing I can think of in regards to this is the little boy knows that "no" means, keep on trying until you get "yes". Then there are the screaming fits. As soon as the little ones realize they aren't getting attention because the adults are doing something else, they scream and scream and scream. And their parents will pick them up asking "What's wrong? What do you want?" The kids will calm down fairly easily after that. When they're out walking and the little ones wander off, their parents will ask, "Come over here please, please come over," but they never do and continue on their excursions.
One time I asked why she didn't discipline them more, I'm not saying hitting them or anything like that, but just enforcing "no", and she said, "Oh, but they're too little to understand, I'll wait until they're older". She's doing this in regards to breast feeding the youngest.
The thing is, they can and will listen to discipline. I've done some "care taking" with the little boy, when he and his mother and I were out and about. The boy would wander off and I'd go and fetch, holding his hand. He tried to break free the first couple of times, but when he realized I wasn't going to let go, he stopped fighting me and went along nicely. Another time he was at my place and was given a cookie. (Soft cookie with chocolate icing and sprinkles). His mother said that he could eat the cookie if he stayed in the chair. He sat there for about thirty seconds before starting to get off. His mother said, "please, stay on your chair," but he didn't listen to her. I gave him a look and told him to stay on the chair. He stayed until he ate his cookie.
The mother continues to be amazed at this but can't seem to put two and two together. She says it's easier to give in now than have to deal with the fits. The thing is, if she didn't give in, the kids would quickly realize that the fits won't get them anything. As my mom said, today they only want the car keys, tomorrow they'll want the car.
She is also very forgiving for her childrens misbehavior. The little boy, again, once went into the kitchen of our gamer host and took out a stool, put it against the counter and went for some cookies. His mother was all, "it was okay, he wanted some cookies". The father, and most of the others were, "he was doing something he shouldn't be doing in someone else kitchen." To her he wasn't do anything wrong because he didn't know better. To me and the others was "he should know better." I know I would never even think about that.
Which is a shame because they are such nice people and I'm sad that they're going to have such issues with their children when they're older.
On a completely different tangent. One of the other players in our group (the same group with the couple previously mentioned) wants to do a d20 game where we, as players, can choose to create characters from any d20 system. Absolutely any. I have the Munchkin's Player handbook with such delightful things of "Get a feat every odd level" Unless you're a fighter then you get them every level =D. Feats that let you take a standard action and, if you are wearing/in possession of the Munckin Lovely Loot shirt, bend down and find treasure at your feet. Any treasure you want in the DMG except artifacts. =SD The Munchkin deck, where you create a deck of munchkin cards and I think once a session, have another player cut the deck for you and you take the top card. The GM then has to do something nice for you in regards to that card. =D Of course the Munckin Cleric domain lets you have a +1 to anything and everything you can possibly want to use it for. It also gives you kick as spells, like limited wish, miracle, finger of death and other fun stuff!
I'm going to make a half elf fighter cleric. I think. =D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-07 08:57 pm (UTC)I'm jus' sayin'.
And I do have the d20 book if you want to flip through it :)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-07 09:01 pm (UTC)But... we can mix and match systems... >.>
no subject
Date: 2008-11-07 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-07 11:43 pm (UTC)Far be it from me to judge a stranger...
Date: 2008-11-08 12:28 am (UTC)...but I have a feeling this explains the TVs and video games. (Why don't more parents get their kids into RPGs? Five times the social interaction, one fifth of the price!)
And just taking food from a stranger's house?!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-08 05:31 pm (UTC)You're right, it's sad.