You know, I come from a very small family. I never met my father (don't get emo on me now guys!) and my mom's side of the family consists of only about 12 people. I have no brothers or sister's and my parents are divorced. To top it off, I don't talk with them much so all and all, I'm someone who has primarily been focused on my own life and that of my partner and now my son.
However, my lady has a pretty big family - and she's very close to them. When I first met them it was pretty nice, I mean they were all welcoming and seemed like a cool bunch despite their problems. Everyone has their skeletons, drug addicts, arrests, infedelities, that's fine though - I can accept the fact that we aren't perfect, none of us.
As I starting to learn more and more about this family I began to learn things I couldn't help but shrug my head out over the years. As time has passed the things I saw and learned only pushed me to despise some of the family members that I once found nice and at least tolerable.
It's not as if these people are beating their kids, they're simply neglectful or hypocritical. It's not as if these people are drug addict welfare parasites, they're just 45 year old recovering addicts who drink a 6-pack of pepsi everyday and smoke at least a pack along with it.
Tonight was no different, probably worse but typical of some of these people. Her uncle, father of 2, seems to report the problems that are occuring with his kids to the mother rather than actually do anything about it. "He's playing in the water!" So go do something about it ya know? What are you the hall monitor and your wife is the principle?
Then there's her cousin who wants to drink a beer, age 20, 21 in August. But no, Mom says 'no, it's not okay!'. Meanwhile her son is smoking cigarettes at age 17 she bought. Meanwhile they all smoke pot together and they think we aren't aware of it.
Then we've got my ladies little brothers - the 20 year old, don't have a job, can't keep a job, don't have a car, don't have a dollar to their name and think that someday, magically, they'll just fall into a ton a money and never have to work for anything in their lives.
Now I know this is all subjective, inside info nonsense but seriously - I miss not knowing about these people and their realities. I even tell my girl that I don't wanna hear it - seriously, it frustrates me. I start to get upset when I hear about the injustices of their parenting, the hypocrisy of their actions, it drives me insane. It's the kinda thing that makes your blood boil even though you know you have no control over it - and the truth is, it's not all THAT bad, ya know?
I just miss not knowing, I miss smiling and laughing and having a great time with no care in the world when it came to these people and their lives. I miss being ignorant to what they do behind the scenes and seeing them at face value.
I miss bliss.
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Hard not to get all emo over that one JayC, but I have to say, I sorta understand where you're coming from. I've got a smililar issue with some friends of mine that I really like, and who are good folks, but they just have no concept of some of the simplest things, like cleaning up after themselves (even though they harp on the fact that visitors have to keep their place clean...).
Argh. Stupid people drive me crazy. I've found that just walking out of the room and getting some air helps some, but that's just me. However you cope, good luck.
This thread does not belong here. Speak Your Mind is to speak your mind on forum related issues. While it's more like a blog post than anything else, since this is on the forums and not the blogs, this best belongs in Water Cooler talk. Thread moved.
Maybe if you think your inlaws are horrible, you should try and change them. Have you ever suggested how they could improve themselves? Many people can get rid of annoying habits really easily. It's just that no one mentions them so they keep on with it. Also, I don't see what frustrates you so much. They're your in-laws. You'll probably only see them like once a month anyways. That what happens to my parents in my family. The only in-law my mother ever sees on a weekly basis is my grandmother who lives with us on occassion. My father hasn't seen anyone from my mother's side of the family for 10 years!
Changing people who don't want to be changed is extremely hard and usually leads to many conflicts, which sometimes ends up making things much worse for everyone involved. It would be good if you could find natural ways to bring about some change for the better, but do not force them.
Instead, focus on someone that you truly can help - your son. Learn from your relatives and teach him the lessons that they have missed. I would also recommend that you don't criticize your relatives too harshly in front of him. Patience and tolerance are virtues and your actions will speak louder than your words to him. As you said, no one is perfect and he'll make mistakes too, but with someone like you to guide and direct him - especially in his earliest stages of life - maybe the next generation will end up a little better than the current one.
Her uncle, father of 2, seems to report the problems that are occuring with his kids to the mother rather than actually do anything about it. "He's playing in the water!" So go do something about it ya know?
Take your own advice, go do something about it. Offer them some advice to better their lives or stop caring, otherwise you're just a bystander venting from the sidelines like he is.
You know if you accept the fact that they are imperfect, you kind have to accept those little imperfections of theres. Just do what I do, use blunt honesty. Yes they will get mad at you and throw things at you like dishes, pots, pans, rottweilers, but after a while it might have an effect? Can we get a list of your flaws too, it'll make it sound a bit less like you are on a soapbox and it'll amuse me.
There is no hope of changing these people. My own in-laws -- while from a different social class, apparently, than yours -- were a thoroughly disgusting bunch, once you got to know them. They had their good moments, though.
Like most, I've known people from a variety of backgrounds. Some I have liked more than others. Some I've put up with. Some I've been unable to tolerate. I've discovered that trying to hold any of them to my expectations of how a person should behave is a futile exercise at best, and perhaps hypocritically judgmental at less-than-best.
It's up to you whether you find these people likable, tolerable, or insufferable; but it seems to me that to long for the days when you knew them not, is to prefer delusion to authenticity.
Ignorance is not bliss. It's just ignorance.
May you find bliss and fare well.
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People in general, are a stupid and contradictory lot.
You are describing things which are common. I could name numerous people who fit what you have described, but I would be standing here a while naming pretty much everyone I have met.
It is also awesome how people replace one addiction with another like that, and think they are cured. Because we sell Cola to kids, we assume it is healthy safe and not addictive. I firmly believe that the majority of North America's health problems stem from the excessive amount of soda we drink. Our kids are addicted to it in their youth. We tell our kids they cannot drink coffee, yet put soda into them the moment they can use a straw. Good job people. It is funny, when i had CAS (canadian child services) in my life, they looked at me like I was a nut job because I wouldn't let my kid drink pop.
The father who points out the children playing in the water, very common. Its the same metality as "wait until your father gets home." In some instances, it is Good Cop/Bad Cop (which is bad parenting because it sets one parent as a friend or pushover and the other as a villain). I also see alot of instances where a husband views the kids as belonging to his wife, since she gave birth to them not him. That I find hideous because that makes fathers like this just as bad as the ones who get women pregnant then scram when pregnancy is mentioned.
It is definately hypocritical to let a 17 year old smoke cigs and pot yet not drink. It is also a prime example of a child who is learning his parents bad habits.
And MLK was a plagiarist and adulterer. Seriously. You're describing minor character flaws. I'll bet a million dollars I could find worse to complain about if I hung around you for a few weeks. Don't sweat the small stuff so much.
I agree with bear. We all have flaws we do not notice, and would likely hate ourselves if we had an outside view.
But as Snoop said, if it truly bothers you then take a better look at your girl. Either cut yourself off from them or from her. If you cannot live with it that is.
Most people like that either can't or won't change, so there's nothing you should do. Have pride in the fact that you and your wife and son are above that and focus on the three of you instead of the rest of your wife's family. If you've always been concerned more with your life and that of your immediate family, you should stay that way and try and make a difference where it's needed most.
"Hello! I've come to serenade you. I can't play guitar. I can't play this accordion either, but I thought it'd be less obvious."
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Also the bad thing about relatives is even though you see them fairly often, you only have a small window into the goings on of their lives. A fair amount of the time they may be doing the right thing.
Sometimes I am suprised at what I didn't know about my relatives. It surprising sometimes how much suicide, abuse and substance addiction becomes bigger when you understand it as you grow up. Life was simpler when I was a younger and thought relatives were just cool people who gave you stuff and played with you (with the exception of one cousin, who felt that he was qualified to be jerk to anyone younger than him. I still bear hard feelings about the way he treated me and other younger relatives)
I once wrote a poem (which probably wasn't very good) about how I was always in a rush to grow up, and now I realize it isn't all its cracked up to be. Ah, to be young again. Actually, its probably more like being innocent or naiive again. Youth just happens to be a cause of those.
Edit: Marriage and kids doesn't necessarily mean personal responsibility. In the case of some of my relatives: How many times have they been married? and How many of their kids have committed suicide because they were abused as a child?
Aah well, you're sharing the burden right? That's what marriage is about, sharing everything, through sickness and in health etc. You're wife obviously needs to vent, and at least you are listening and sharing the pain.
I'm a firm believer that you should need a license to have a child. Ideally, it would be obtained via parenting classes. Anyone with a license would have authority to "direct" another parent's child, within reason. The report-making father is one of the reasons that I feel this way. First, the classes/license would hopefully give him better parenting skills or keep him from having a child altogether. Second, those that have better parenting skills around him would have some basis of authority to manage his child even with his deficiencies.
I know someone will object to the whole license thing, but think about it... You're responsible for developing this person's mind for 18 years... You can seriously screw someone up bad if you don't know what you're doing. Their life is in your hands. Similarly, when you're driving with a passenger you have their life in your hands as well. You need a license for that for multiple reasons. Are you really going to tell me that driving a car is harder than raising a child?
I'm a firm believer that you should need a license to have a child. Ideally, it would be obtained via parenting classes. Anyone with a license would have authority to "direct" another parent's child, within reason. The report-making father is one of the reasons that I feel this way. First, the classes/license would hopefully give him better parenting skills or keep him from having a child altogether. Second, those that have better parenting skills around him would have some basis of authority to manage his child even with his deficiencies.
I know someone will object to the whole license thing, but think about it... You're responsible for developing this person's mind for 18 years... You can seriously screw someone up bad if you don't know what you're doing. Their life is in your hands. Similarly, when you're driving with a passenger you have their life in your hands as well. You need a license for that for multiple reasons. Are you really going to tell me that driving a car is harder than raising a child?
Having a license to have a kid is like needing a license to live. The government could not be responsible with the power to give the right to make life to those who deserve it while keeping it away from those who "don't". I am against the license idea, but I am not against other ideas like having a parenting class be a requirment of highschool.
Having a license to have a kid is like needing a license to live. The government could not be responsible with the power to give the right to make life to those who deserve it while keeping it away from those who "don't". I am against the license idea, but I am not against other ideas like having a parenting class be a requirment of highschool.
I agree that the government probably would not be as responsible with this power as they should be but I still stand by my opinion. I don't believe that "the right to make life" is anything special though. Any two idiots can do it by accident, and usually do.
I agree that the government probably would not be as responsible with this power as they should be but I still stand by my opinion. I don't believe that "the right to make life" is anything special though. Any two idiots can do it by accident, and usually do.
The day you give the government the mass rights to deny someone the right to have kids, is the day you give them the right to deny someone the right to have kids based upon the parents being "too poor", "too unchristian", "too ghetto", "too black" or "too foreign", etc, etc. The right to have a child should not be "allowed" by the government, it should be the parents own choice, a natural right they have.
We pay taxes to take children away from parents who can't or don't want to take care of them properly, and as noticed, even this isn't enough to prevent kids from growing up with no or bad parenting.
I agree with your angle on this, that it is a problem, And while I sometimes feel that some people should not be able to reproduce, I can't be willing to take away their natural freedoms while sacrificing my own. I don't want to go thru a bureaucracy to register to have a kid, be approved my local politicians that I am mentally or physically fit just so a couple of people are "rejected" of such a license. For all we know, the government could attach such high standards to such a license as to label you or I unfit to breed based on our geeky love of photoshop and internet forums.
I believe that such a class you suggested in your other post, instead of assigning a license to breed, would be best attached to high school as mandatory, as English or Math. This would help parenting without giving the government direct control over who breeds and who simply works and dies.
I don't feel the class should be mandatory. Some people, such as myself, might not want to have children. It's a surprisingly growing trend, as I know many people who neither support marriage or breeding. While I'm not quite so hardcore (Marriage is okay...), I don't like the current implementation of it in the US. I believe in a true separation of church and state, where a marriage license would marry you in the eyes of the state and a ceremony at a church would marry you in the eyes of your respective god. Additionally, I don't believe that politicians should bring their christian/buddist/etc morals into office. Instead they should attempt to be impartial and represent their constituents' beliefs as accurately as they can. If 100% of the people in their district are christians then they can uphold christian beliefs, but it would be unfair to force someone of another belief to live by another religion's "laws".
But we're getting a bit off topic here, wouldn't you say so?
However, my lady has a pretty big family - and she's very close to them. When I first met them it was pretty nice, I mean they were all welcoming and seemed like a cool bunch despite their problems. Everyone has their skeletons, drug addicts, arrests, infedelities, that's fine though - I can accept the fact that we aren't perfect, none of us.
As I starting to learn more and more about this family I began to learn things I couldn't help but shrug my head out over the years. As time has passed the things I saw and learned only pushed me to despise some of the family members that I once found nice and at least tolerable.
It's not as if these people are beating their kids, they're simply neglectful or hypocritical. It's not as if these people are drug addict welfare parasites, they're just 45 year old recovering addicts who drink a 6-pack of pepsi everyday and smoke at least a pack along with it.
Tonight was no different, probably worse but typical of some of these people. Her uncle, father of 2, seems to report the problems that are occuring with his kids to the mother rather than actually do anything about it. "He's playing in the water!" So go do something about it ya know? What are you the hall monitor and your wife is the principle?
Then there's her cousin who wants to drink a beer, age 20, 21 in August. But no, Mom says 'no, it's not okay!'. Meanwhile her son is smoking cigarettes at age 17 she bought. Meanwhile they all smoke pot together and they think we aren't aware of it.
Then we've got my ladies little brothers - the 20 year old, don't have a job, can't keep a job, don't have a car, don't have a dollar to their name and think that someday, magically, they'll just fall into a ton a money and never have to work for anything in their lives.
Now I know this is all subjective, inside info nonsense but seriously - I miss not knowing about these people and their realities. I even tell my girl that I don't wanna hear it - seriously, it frustrates me. I start to get upset when I hear about the injustices of their parenting, the hypocrisy of their actions, it drives me insane. It's the kinda thing that makes your blood boil even though you know you have no control over it - and the truth is, it's not all THAT bad, ya know?
I just miss not knowing, I miss smiling and laughing and having a great time with no care in the world when it came to these people and their lives. I miss being ignorant to what they do behind the scenes and seeing them at face value.
I miss bliss.
Spread the word.
Argh. Stupid people drive me crazy. I've found that just walking out of the room and getting some air helps some, but that's just me. However you cope, good luck.
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Instead, focus on someone that you truly can help - your son. Learn from your relatives and teach him the lessons that they have missed. I would also recommend that you don't criticize your relatives too harshly in front of him. Patience and tolerance are virtues and your actions will speak louder than your words to him. As you said, no one is perfect and he'll make mistakes too, but with someone like you to guide and direct him - especially in his earliest stages of life - maybe the next generation will end up a little better than the current one.
Take your own advice, go do something about it. Offer them some advice to better their lives or stop caring, otherwise you're just a bystander venting from the sidelines like he is.
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Control is the ultimate expression of power.
Like most, I've known people from a variety of backgrounds. Some I have liked more than others. Some I've put up with. Some I've been unable to tolerate. I've discovered that trying to hold any of them to my expectations of how a person should behave is a futile exercise at best, and perhaps hypocritically judgmental at less-than-best.
It's up to you whether you find these people likable, tolerable, or insufferable; but it seems to me that to long for the days when you knew them not, is to prefer delusion to authenticity.
Ignorance is not bliss. It's just ignorance.
May you find bliss and fare well.
"Uncommonly Smooth."
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You are describing things which are common. I could name numerous people who fit what you have described, but I would be standing here a while naming pretty much everyone I have met.
It is also awesome how people replace one addiction with another like that, and think they are cured. Because we sell Cola to kids, we assume it is healthy safe and not addictive. I firmly believe that the majority of North America's health problems stem from the excessive amount of soda we drink. Our kids are addicted to it in their youth. We tell our kids they cannot drink coffee, yet put soda into them the moment they can use a straw. Good job people. It is funny, when i had CAS (canadian child services) in my life, they looked at me like I was a nut job because I wouldn't let my kid drink pop.
The father who points out the children playing in the water, very common. Its the same metality as "wait until your father gets home." In some instances, it is Good Cop/Bad Cop (which is bad parenting because it sets one parent as a friend or pushover and the other as a villain). I also see alot of instances where a husband views the kids as belonging to his wife, since she gave birth to them not him. That I find hideous because that makes fathers like this just as bad as the ones who get women pregnant then scram when pregnancy is mentioned.
It is definately hypocritical to let a 17 year old smoke cigs and pot yet not drink. It is also a prime example of a child who is learning his parents bad habits.
But as Snoop said, if it truly bothers you then take a better look at your girl. Either cut yourself off from them or from her. If you cannot live with it that is.
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Uh.. I think he said he was married and they have kids
Also the bad thing about relatives is even though you see them fairly often, you only have a small window into the goings on of their lives. A fair amount of the time they may be doing the right thing.
I once wrote a poem (which probably wasn't very good) about how I was always in a rush to grow up, and now I realize it isn't all its cracked up to be. Ah, to be young again. Actually, its probably more like being innocent or naiive again. Youth just happens to be a cause of those.
Edit: Marriage and kids doesn't necessarily mean personal responsibility. In the case of some of my relatives: How many times have they been married? and How many of their kids have committed suicide because they were abused as a child?
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I know someone will object to the whole license thing, but think about it... You're responsible for developing this person's mind for 18 years... You can seriously screw someone up bad if you don't know what you're doing. Their life is in your hands. Similarly, when you're driving with a passenger you have their life in your hands as well. You need a license for that for multiple reasons. Are you really going to tell me that driving a car is harder than raising a child?
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Having a license to have a kid is like needing a license to live. The government could not be responsible with the power to give the right to make life to those who deserve it while keeping it away from those who "don't". I am against the license idea, but I am not against other ideas like having a parenting class be a requirment of highschool.
I agree that the government probably would not be as responsible with this power as they should be but I still stand by my opinion. I don't believe that "the right to make life" is anything special though. Any two idiots can do it by accident, and usually do.
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The day you give the government the mass rights to deny someone the right to have kids, is the day you give them the right to deny someone the right to have kids based upon the parents being "too poor", "too unchristian", "too ghetto", "too black" or "too foreign", etc, etc. The right to have a child should not be "allowed" by the government, it should be the parents own choice, a natural right they have.
We pay taxes to take children away from parents who can't or don't want to take care of them properly, and as noticed, even this isn't enough to prevent kids from growing up with no or bad parenting.
I agree with your angle on this, that it is a problem, And while I sometimes feel that some people should not be able to reproduce, I can't be willing to take away their natural freedoms while sacrificing my own. I don't want to go thru a bureaucracy to register to have a kid, be approved my local politicians that I am mentally or physically fit just so a couple of people are "rejected" of such a license. For all we know, the government could attach such high standards to such a license as to label you or I unfit to breed based on our geeky love of photoshop and internet forums.
I believe that such a class you suggested in your other post, instead of assigning a license to breed, would be best attached to high school as mandatory, as English or Math. This would help parenting without giving the government direct control over who breeds and who simply works and dies.
But we're getting a bit off topic here, wouldn't you say so?
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