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Originally Posted by nuttyjoe  You are right; but the drug epidemic has spread to the upper middle class nowadays. The only difference here is that a child will never be taken from one of these homes.I think parents nowadays need to learn a lesson from the past. Now, as someone posted in another thread earlier, "we have babies raising babies". (and not a clue as to how!) This total disregard of value has put many families into this situation. Even worse, the children today are referred to as "Generation T." That's for technology, as children today don't seem to be able to live without PDA's, cell phones, video games, and other gadgetry. Heck, I remember when my father spent $200.00 at Christmas one year (he had received a promotion in the Air Force) and that was more than plenty. Now? You might have to take a second mortgage for the things kids want today. The Young parents of today don't seem to get this. Morals and values never reach the inside of the child's mind when we perpetuate this. Babysitting? Put the kid in front of a video game. Gym shoes? $200 and sometimes more for a pair that the kid wants. I am thankful every day of my life that I was not raised to be materialistic. |
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I suppose my kids belong to Generation T. There's an aging computer in their room which Dad sometimes uses. We have a playstation2 and a used Xbox. I recently gave my son my old digital camera that I got in 2001. That's about it. They are as happy playing outside as they are playing on the computer or the xbox. I would just as soon not have the consoles, but Dad likes to play on them, too. OK, I can handle that. I limit their time on them anyway.
That said, I tell my kids that it isn't about what you have, but who you are. It's not about what you look like, it's about what's inside you. I tell them that we don't have to have the latest and greatest since it'll be obsolete in 6 months, if it doesn't break beforehand. I tell them that before we get new stuff, sometimes we have to get rid of things that we don't use or play with.
I teach my kids to read labels and that they should be aware of how marketers want to exploit them. I look for examples of how things don't always live up the marketing hype and that it might look good in the commercial, but the reality is that it is likely not what they expect.
We don't try to keep up with the Joneses because we're not willing to go deeply into debt to finance it and besides, it doesn't bring happiness. It just brings a stack of stuff the the kids grew bored with because their imaginations weren't engaged. When some of my kids' friends live in $3-5M homes and they have the latest of everything, once in a while I have to explain why. I think my older son gets it. My younger son doesn't really notice it yet.
As far as role models go, it is not the job of the sports star or movie star to be a role model, but kids will see them and say, "Well, that guy is into fighting pit bulls, so it must be pretty exciting." I'm not suggesting that kids are going to dress in drag because Dennis Rodman did it, but they might dig the tats and piercings and want to do it because of someone they see. That's not all kids, but some might. I'd like to give kids credit for being able to make intelligent, informed decisions, but not all kids have been given the tools to do that. For those kids, Vick and others like him may be role models whether they want the job or not.