this saturday, i had a gig photographing a country market in midrand, for their monthly newsletter doo-dabbie.
amongst some of the entertaiment, were some young’ins dancing. which is cute, and the crowd consisted mostly of mothers.
but, something made the experience a bit creepy.
these girls, ranging from 7/8 year olds, to 16-ish, were dancing VERY suggestively. as in, shaking boobies (even if there werent any), hip thrusting, dipping it low, stroking legs, the whole do.
and i actually couldnt stand around to watch much longer.
and i was thinking. i have heard it said, that there is an epidemic of kids having sex while still at school, which inevitably leads to pregnancies. and i can help thinking, isnt behaviour like this, helping to fuel this?
i mean, im not all that old, and not prudish by any means, but hell, having 8 year old shaking their junk, its cool.
and i cant help looking at these kids, cruising on thursday nights in monte casino, dressing like some adult women would cringe to dress. tottering on some serious heels, tiny skirts, boobs galore, cleavage-are-us (where in the hell do they found that much boobage at that age?). and they turn heads. and the problem is, they turn adult men’s heads. and i cant help wondering, how often, do these young, stupid girls (who think they are adult), get lured into some dodgy situation by some guy, and gets taken advantage of?
i wasnt allowed to wear make-up, heels and colour my hair till i left school. and it didnt bother me one iota. i was a tomboy, so generally i didnt really give a rat’s ass. but, i mean, come on? should parents be allowing their kids to dance like that? and in public no less.
surely, when the next school dance comes along, little missy is going to pull those moves for every horny dude to see, and she might just come short with jannie behind the bleachers.
i doubt that these girls are equipped to handle the kind of attentions that come along with those moves and those shoes.
and, again, i blame parents. how can a mother allow her child to buy clothes like that? i can fully understand that some girls will lie to their folks, and go to monte casino, and dress up anyhow. but surely, as a mother, you have some inkling as to what happens in your kids wardrobe and life? or is it just easier to give them R200 and get them out from under your feet.
in afrikaans, there is a saying: vroeg ryp, vroeg vrot.
'nuff said.
Whilst in complete agreement with you, one cannot dictate to another as to how to raise their child. I’ve been criticised extensively because of the manner I raise both my boys, and frankly, that made me so much more cautious of levelling criticism at others. I am, though, truly grateful that I didn’t have a daughter, there are just too many risks associated with little girls.
My cubicle neighbour found out last week that her daughter (15) got pregnant by “some guy” at a modelling gig a month or so ago. The “guy” was also a young lad doing the modelling circuit, but is nameless and probably at this point faceless as well. Their attempting to hunt the kid down, but I doubt they’re going to be all that successful. (Of course, its all the boy’s fault too…) :-\
its just that, back in the day, and not even that long ago mind you, it was an absolute shame to be pregnant and in school. you got expelled, and it was pretty much considered your life was over.
now its allmost cool to be boning for the team.
has kids been exposed to too much american tv, where having sex at school is pretty much par for the course?
maybe our sanctions did us a bit of good, by shielding us and the kids from the rampant sex and drugs that american teenagers think is cool.
boys want to be ganstas, girls want to be paris hilton. and ganstas smoke, drink, do drugs, and have ho’s. girls are clueless, and just want to get laid for status, and bag a rich dude.
and the poor kids who actually want to become something in life, and not have sex in school, gets bullied and pressurised, and end up having to make a choice between having sex, and being a complete cast-out. its so, so sad.
i dont want to go on and on about this, but i truly feel that kid’s childhood is being stolen from them.
we now have age of consent, and that nonsense, to keep kids from being exploited before a half-decent age, and we claim victory from the years of before, where kids gots married the moment they were fertile.
but how much worth is that now, where girls have to sleep with the entire first rugby team, in order for her friends to stay her friends. and a guy has to pop a girls cherry, otherwise he is gay.
i matriculated in 1999, and this kind of stuff was a foreign concept to me, and i think, my friends too. the kids simply didnt have the opportunity to do stuff like this.
whatever parties were held, had strict adult supervision. school dances were monitored. if you were caught smoking, you are expelled, or drinking, of having sex. shit, the girls werent allowed to shave their legs untill they reached high-school.
i now see 10 year old girls, wearing these outfits, that i, at a size 34, would think thrice about trying in public.
where are these kid’s dads? where are their mums? do they not tell their kids no, as in absolutely not. and deal out sufficient punishment? im not saying beat your kid to death. but flippin hell.
i share an office with a lady, i love her to death. but she has two kids, a daughter in second year varsity, and lightie now 17.
untill quite recently, both used extacy and coke with her. the kid was arrested last year for possesion of weed. he’s got tattoos allready. the daughter’s boyfriend is living with them. both she and the brother had sex under their mother’s roof with her consent.
the daughter was headgirl of her school, had i dont know how many distictions. the lightie dropped out of school last year, and is now in tech.
so, where does one draw the line?
do you let your kids do what they want, under your supervision? or keep them under iron guard, and hope they dont go and do stuff behind your back? or do you somehow find a middle way?
i am very gratefull for the miracle of the abortion. i dont have to make that decision.
The things you mention are really scary. I have a teenage boy and a teenage (adult now) girl and have felt since they were born that nothing, absolutely nothing, prepares you for parenthood. What the missus and I have always tried to do is to show them that they are responsible for their own lives and actions, and to warn them of the consequences of actions and of dangers out there. You cannot mollycoddle or over-protect them - they have to learn by themselves (as I have always had to do LOL). We also moved away from the big city, which I think has helped a lot. We work (or try to) on a relationship of trust. They have their rooms which we do not pry into and do not enter unless invited. They have unrestricted net access on their computers for years, and we do not spy on them - we told them upfront that we trusted them and would not spy. Now they are perhaps too “moral”, and think me an evil old bastard LOL. ;D
But hell, bringing up kids is hard.
It aint for sissies…
To the parents out there - Respect. I am not one, and I honestly don’t think I have the ability to be. So far be it from me to judge the way kids are raised.
However.
It does leave a really bad taste in my mouth when I see kids dressed up like adults, covered in makeup, dancing, thrusting and flaunting their bodies like absurd strippers from a Tim Burton movie. All to serve some perverted body image projection of their parents.
But hey, its not only the parents that enjoy it. I am quite sure that paedophiles the world over enjoy it too. A kiddy pageant tape is almost expected amongst a pervert’s collection, probably stained with semen.
Venting Complete
I have been the parent of a little boy for four years now. I can state with some authority that any certainties that I held about raising kids evaporated somewhere between month 0 and 6. As a monument to my naivety, I have amassed an impressive collection of parenting-made-easy books which was consequently moved to the esoteric section in my bookshelf. I am aching to meet a pregnant female that I find obnoxious enough to give them away to.
I was hoping kids get better as they grow up a bit. So this thread is somewhat disturbing.
GCG, I’m confused. In previous threads you’ve criticized the way you’ve been raised. But now it sounds like you are positively endorsing it … wassup?
Mintaka
C’mon guys…I have four ‘kids’ 38 (Female),36 (Male),29 (Male),23 (Female) sucker for punishment??? no ways…I haven’t regretted one minute of it and love them all to bits…never planned them…they just happened…found out it was Eskom’s fault! Never bought any books on child rearing used the old pakslae when necessary…but make no mistake…over the years learned more from them than I think they did from me. However I pity modern day parents rearing children in today’s society…besides the ridiculous costs, the stresses etc are very different…what we (wifey and I) did was to live in Scottburgh and they (the kids) grew up pretty normally…My eldest lives in Midrand and her daughter (11 yrs now) goes to a local private school…it’s absolutely scary what they have to face everyday. My second in line was a surfie and ‘user’ for years until he met the right girl and now he’s a brilliant doting father of a 3-year old daughter, doing very well for himself sailing charter yachts. (By the way…I had a child at school for 37 years non-stop!!)
They do get better. I only really started enjoying my kids once they started reasoning and formulating their own opinions. The problem with some cultures is that children with opinions are frowned upon - the whole “seen but not heard” culture. Make time to have conversations with your kids, and 4 is a good age to start doing it at. We have roaring debates in our home about anything from religion to feminism to politics - and the boys are 14 and 18 respectively. And this is the major difference to our home and those of my boy’s friend’s - we talk, all the time, about everything… we dont always agree, but I’ve never told them they’re wrong when they voiced an opinion, we would debate it and we all can then accept or reject.
So we gotta call you “Oupa” now? Seems as if you have a great family.
The kids always seem to turn out okay as long as we never lie to them and treat them like fellow human-beings. I have a 21 year-old daughter and a 16 year-old son. They are fantastic but it’s difficult being divorced and raising them “from a distance” - probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do but still the most rewarding.
for true, i didnt have it easy. but for some of it, i am gratefull. i am gratefull for my parents keeping me away from boys. allthough, they kept me away allways, from friends too. so my social skills were dismall. i still have problems in dealing with conflict.
im still picking bits from my childhood that is standing me in good stead, or re-interpreting shitty ones, so that i can make positive sense out of it.
my parents were not that hot at parenting. my mum stood by while my dad beat the living crap out of me. she didnt dare do much else, or the beating would come in her direction.
they were strict as all hell. nobody had a social life. never any visitors. or sleepovers.
my dad died yesterday 6 years ago, and my adoration of him have filtered down into semi-resentment. after much thought, and having to face how my adult life is being affected still by ideas i was force-fed when i was a kid.
stupid example. and the cause of my breakup with my family.
the dude i married last year. abuse. manipulative. controlling. in a nutshell, my dad re-born.
if my mum had been brave enough to take us away from him, i might not have married him, as my role-model for the ideal man, would not have been that. only now i have realised this.
if she had decided to leave him, gotten together with a genuine, mentally stable man, and i would have been exposed to a healthy, mutually loving and respectfull relationship, i might not have issues with commitment, affection, personal space, co-dependance…
you get the picture.
i have taken a stance, that i can take positivity out of a shitty childhood. i am gratefull for their strictness, to a point.
i have to find a middle way between damage done, and values imparted. its an ongoing battle.
and, maybe, i can see the value of being over-strict sometimes, especially when you see shit about to hit the fan.
and im sure, there are better ways to have well behaved, respectfull kids, than beating the fear of god into them.
How many of us were in fact taught parenting? It’s sad that schools etc still haven’t cottoned on to the need for this…not that schools are the best of places to learn lifeskills. Sounds as if you had a real shitty situation and if anything pisses me off it’s abuse of children. Giving a child a pakslae should be a) justified
and b) done with love. I used to feel terrible. My father in law used to say…"as jy die moer in is vir 'n stout kind, gaan tuin toe en soek 'n lekker sterk tak van 'n boom…sny dit mooi reg as ‘n lat, en as jy klaar is sal die woede weg wees’!
Kids should never fear you (god even less!)but they should understand what the limits are and where the line is being drawn…sometimes a good talk is more than enough. With my youngest daughter, I think she got two hidings with her brother but these stopped when she was about 5 years old… I think I mellowed a lot as I grew older and my hand hurt too much anyway!
i scheme, that no tool should be used to dish out punishment, ie paplepel, belt, etc. use your own hand, then you had feel the pain as well.
my dad used his old leather army belt, and if you hear that belt jingle, by god, you start crying, even if you have idea what you’ve done. i try not to think too hard about it. but i recall being frantic with fear. and my dad saying thing like ‘i will blixem you so that you wake up in hospital’
and, there are plently people who rule their kids with fear. i see my sister does the same. the kids rules the house, but when she has a bad day, then he gets moered. he is lank smart, and runs circles around them. a hiding does buggerall to him, exept make him more wiley and more dificult.
Why not? Having a child doesn’t make you a good parent–it just shows you know how to have sex (or maybe got it right once by mistake). I shat all over a guy in the supermarket parking lot because I’d been driving behind him for a couple of kays and all the way this arsehole had his kid (about 7) on his lap. He got quite aggro, but a crowd formed all of whom were on my side and eventually he skulked off mumbling to himself. Some people don’t deserve the privilege of parenthood.
Im speaking holistically, obvious cases such as mentioned, is logic and common sense combined and I agree that you should point out the idiocy behind it. But criticizing parents for providing a religious upbringing - or a secular one for that matter - is out of bounds. Some parents are conservative, others are not, my way of doing things might be wrong, I will only know for sure once they’re grown and flown off, and that is the risk you take in criticizing other’s way of parenting.
I am not a parent. I do not intend to become a parent and I sincerely hope that I never will be a parent. This is because I have never in my life encountered an ‘always good all the time parent’ and logically, nobody can get it right all the time. I would rather not take the risk of Mucking up my kid’s lives the way my folks all but mucked up mine… Fact remains, the days of “don’t blame us, blame our parents” are over, done, should never have occurred to begin with. Responsibility for your own actions is the only logical way to go through life, and the quicker kids learn that nobody is going to be there for you when shit hits the fan, you’re on your own kid, deal with it, if you want something done, get it done, the quicker the messed-up generation of typical Afrikaner-kids (now adults) who I grew up with (who still think its cool to go out on a Saturday night and bliksem some black guys) will become extinct, or learn to think for themselves.
Children can’t “be raised”… they tend to grow up eventually, all on their own. Its the nature of time passing.
wonder if, someone had the bollocks to be cold enough, to perform a study. where twins are seperated at birth. one is put with your average suburban parental couple, however they turn out in the end.
and another kid is raised by androids, who provided, according a mathematical calculations, everything the kid needs, allow him/her things according to the kid’s mental developments. the andoids dont lose their temper, metes out punishment on a logical basis…etc etc.
how different would the kids be when they grow up?
considering though, the androids totally look human, so much so, that they have soft,warm skin, whatever.
so basically, one kid raised by the normal parent, with flaws, hang-ups, issues, etc.
other kid raised by the perfect, temperate, logical, patient, accurate, parents.
would be fun to see, if characteristics for fucking up, is in your DNA, or whether your parent really have such a hectic influence your ability to fuck up.
There’s plenty studies about twins being seperated - go have a google. The nature vs nurture debate will never be settled, I was adopted at age 2 from a very liberal german father (my mom died giving birth to my sister) into a very traditional Afrikaner family, my sister also went to an Afrikaner family. I rebelled from around age 4, and became a very liberal person, my sister who was adopted at birth, turned out the complete opposite of me, the whole religious/conservative/female submissive type. We cannot stand each other (we only met in our late 20’s). Yet, we have very similar upbringings, I speculate that my first two years had a huge impact on my outlook on life.
I am in favour of the “nurture” argument. Bertrand Russell once said, “It’s difficult to unlearn what we learned on our Mother’s knee.” and I agree. I think we are born with little more than a genetic memory for survival, and the rest of what we become is due to our upbringing. Small babies absorb a LOT more from their surroundings than we can measure, I think, and this is what determines who we become in later life.
One of the things learned “on our Mother’s knee” is a belief, somewhere in the back of our minds, that “God exists.” This is one of the most difficult things to identify and remove because it becomes a sort of paradigm we always have on a sub-conscious level. I always shudder in horror when I see overly-religious people having kids - I want to shout “RUN” to the innocent and trusting tykes.
somewhere in the back of our minds, that "God exists."
you know, stevo, allthough i am an avid punter of blasphemous jokes, i cant help but cringe when i see them. or when i curse god, out of habit, and await to be smited. its like, i know its not real, but i cant help having this knee-jerk reaction.
when i croak, is some oomie gonna be standing at the pearly gates, tapping his foot, with his arms folded over his chest.
highly irrational, i know.
years of drilling into your head about burning in hell, takes its toll.