*Phone Calls

Joy wrote:
"Yowie" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Jo Firey wrote:


wrote in message

If she had really done everything she possibly could to prevent
these calls from disrupting her work day, and the company still
fired her, I think it's horribly unfair of the company to penalize
her for something she couldn't control.

They really had no choice, she was in customer service at a bank.

Yeah, I guess you're right, but it burns me that someone could lose
their job because of some other person's actions. Yeah, I know,
life's not fair...

I guess she had a very difficult situation to deal with and it was
costing her, in her own life as well as in her relationship with her
daughter. I don't envy anyone who has that situation!

Thats a similar argument as with parents of deliquent teenagers.
Whilst its probably true that most 'delinquent' kids also have
'delinquent' parents, if a teenager (particularly an older teenager,
like 15+) decides to do something, there is little a parent can do
to physically prevent them from doing it. Its an awefully fine line
as to who is legally responsible is if a teenager does something
criminal, for example. Yowie

That is so true. Sometimes you can tell by the attitude of the
parent. If it's "My baby can do no wrong", then the parents should
be held responsible, IMNSHO. OTOH, some parents recognize that their
child has done wrong and try everything they can. Our house was once
broken into, and some money was stolen. The miscreants turned out to
be four students from the nearby high school, and the police caught
them. The father of one of the boys sent us a letter of apology and
a check for half the amount that had been taken. We never heard
anything from any of the other parents. I'd say that one boy had a
good chance of straightening out his life. I doubt if the other
three did.

Its funny you say that. On my 11th birthday, I invited all the girls in my
class, even the 'cool' ones that would have nothing to do with me. I didn't
expect any of them to turn up, but hoped they did. One did (I have no idea
why) and asked to use the phone to call the others. I said 'sure' thinking
that having 'the cool girls' over would somehow increase my popularity.
Unfortunately said girls only came to the party to ruin it - and started a
food fight.

My mother, who had prepared all the food, emerged from their bedroom (they
were giving us some privacy) because of the racket, to see all her hard
work, and the beautifully home baked and decorated cake spattered all across
the walls.

My mother demanded an apology from every single attendee of the party.

Only two girls bothered with an apology. One of them came back with her
mother the next day and apologised in person.

Two of the girls and their mothers flatly refused to apologise, and gave my
mother an earful for 'even *thinking* that their precious daughters could do
such a thing' (even though there were plenty of witnesses!)

Of the two who apologied, the first one is a doctor now. The one who came
back with her mother ended up being high school captain, was a debating
champion and is somewhere in the USA at the moment as CEO of her own very
successful company.

The two girls who flat out refused to apologise, one is in jail, the other
is three times divorced an an alcoholic. I ran into her at the supermarket,
and she looked at least 50 to my 35 at the time - I didn't know who it was
until I read her name on her badge, but she recognised me. I felt almost
embrassed to have what i would consider a very normal life - she had been
through the wringer and it showed.

Although there are exceptions, I think in general those parents who teach
their kids to take responsibility for their actions are going to raise OK
kids. Whilst taking responsibility for wrong doing is an important part,
taking resposnibility for acheivements is just as important - it means said
kid doesn't end up thinking the world owes them a favour and that everything
should just drop into their lap 'just beacuse'.

Yowie

"hopitus" wrote in message
...


(Snort) they do that all the time.....see my older post re "texting"
sneakily
in class right under teacher's nose (well not in the front row). I
think of
the whole situation as just as when I was their age....something they
enjoy doing to annoy the hell out of "grownups" - theirs or otherwise.
Whatta you think Pam? We did something else as cell phones were
not in use then. I used to play bugle calls in unlikely places....LOL.

I think it is partly used to irritate us adults, partly so they can yak with
their friends in other schools or classrooms, and sometimes to cheat on
exams. On rare occasions, the cell phone has saved lives in the classroom.
That is why I usually gave the one chance rule for those I caught with them.
I figured that the student should have an opportunity to re-think their
actions.

There was only one time I had to take the phone away after the snot was
given a chance. He howled that I was taking away his right of free speech.
I told him he could talk to the office about the phone, then wrote him up
for the teacher. The principal loved to read my notes, and did that
afternoon. OOPS. The teacher almost got fired because he didn't teach his
students how to behave for other teachers and substitutes. Apparently, the
teachers on each side of the classroom were complaining about the behavior
in this teacher's classes, and my note was the final straw. Worse, he was a
floater, which meant that he was in three different rooms every day and at
least six different teachers were having problems with the noise and
behavior of his students. Needless to say, I was not this teacher's
favorite sub.

Pam S.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Cheryl P. wrote:

I feel sorry for some of today's children who don't get the
opportunity to begin to learn independence in the small ways, like
going to a public toilet alone while their parents shop in the
adjacent department.

I know. When I was a kid, I often went out in the morning, and played
all day, stopping home for lunch, and then not returning until dinner
time. My parents did care where I was, and they certainly would have
worried if I didn't show up for dinner. But they didn't need to
micro-manage my every activity.

When I was a young teen, I was allowed to take public transit from the
'burbs where we lived, into the city (Boston), and hang out there for
the day. I think a lot of kids wouldn't be allowed to do that now.
Several years ago I had a good friend whose son was about 13 or 14.
She wouldn't let him ride public transit by himself! This was in the
late 1980s. It's probably even worse now.

Is the world that much more dangerous for kids now, than it was in the
60s and 70s when I was growing up? Or are people just more paranoid?

People are just more paranoid, I think if anything it's safer now for
kids as they are more likely to be believed. That's if they tell people
what happens to them, some things that happened to me as a very young
child I never told anyone about.
--

Story from the Los Angeles Times a few days ago. And it wouldn't have even
made the news if it weren't for the unusual result.

Will probably be in the 2008 Darwin awards.

Yes there are monsters out there.

Jo

LOS ANGELES - Two teenage girls involved in a botched robbery attempt
died when the taxi they were in crashed during a high-speed chase after one
teen slashed the cab driver's face, Los Angeles police said.

The driver, Javier Hernandez, 40, was treated at a hospital for minor
injuries, including cuts to his neck and face, Los Angeles Police
Department Sgt. Lee Sands said.

The two 17-year-old girls had flagged down the cab early Tuesday and asked
to be taken to a nearby housing project, where one girl said her boyfriend
would come and pay the fare, police said.

Instead, a man shoved a handgun through the taxi window and grabbed a GPS
system off the dashboard, Officer Jason Lee said. Hernandez sped away and
called police after seeing a car chasing him, Lee said.

"One of the females pulled out a box cutter and began cutting the taxi cab
driver, and that's what caused him to crash," Officer April Harding said.

Police arrived at the scene as the other car reached the crash site, Lee
said. Three occupants from the second car were detained for questioning, he
said.

Hector Jasso and Daniel Martinez, both 20, were arrested for investigation
of murder because the girls' deaths occurred during the alleged commission
of a crime, Lee said. Both were being held without bail. The third occupant
of the car was released.

Lee said Jasso was the robbery suspect and boyfriend of one of the girls.

hopitus wrote:

snip

FOOD fight? OMG. Interesting facts, Yowie, especially the social
outcomes of
your classmates back then. You don't have much chance of knowing about
this, but try googling "Adam Walsh" or "AMW" when you have a quiet
moment
away from the Yowlet.....my son who is now 36, was playing on the
exact same
video game in a Sears store *the day before* Adam was abducted from
the same store while - yeah -
his mother shopped in "lamps" nearby the toy dept. For months everyone
in Miami
watched the streets like hawks for a blue panel van with a ladder
vertically hung
on the back.....this is to those of you who are *non-parents* for
whatever reason:
all it takes is *one* Adam Walsh in your circle of life. The day
before......

And that is why parents now watch their kids like hawks - back 'when' you
didn't hear about such things. Now you do.

I may be paranoid, I may be overprotective, I may even be overparenting, but
I've only got one child, and I'll go to great lengths to ensure I get to
keep him. He's far far too precious for me not to.

For those who don't have children: how paranoid and overprotective are you
of your cats, who are natural survivors and don't need parental supervision
and guidance? Times that by a trillion, and thats how I feel about Cary, how
most mothers feel about their children.

Yowie

On Apr 14, 5:25*am, "Cheryl P." wrote:
Yowie wrote:

And that is why parents now watch their kids like hawks - back 'when' you
didn't hear about such things. Now you do.

I may be paranoid, I may be overprotective, I may even be overparenting, but
I've only got one child, and I'll go to great lengths to ensure I get to
keep him. He's far far too precious for me not to.

For those who don't have children: how paranoid and overprotective are you
of your cats, who are natural survivors and don't need parental supervision
and guidance? Times that by a trillion, and thats how I feel about Cary, how
most mothers feel about their children.

Yowie

I know it only takes one mistake to lose a child to death - and
sometimes no mistake at all, just an accident.

I also am now at an age where I see some 'children' in their twenties or
thirties who have never learned independence and who are still totally
dependant on their parents. I'm not talking about those who are
physically or mentally disabled, either.

There's got to be a middle ground between never allowing a child to take
any risk and never taking ones' eyes of them and outright neglect and
abandonment. I think finding it involves a rational assessment of risk -
and, yes, every child, however adored, must learn to judge and sometimes
take risks in order to mature into an independent adult. No one's going
to get a rational assessment of the risk of crime in their local area by
listening to the average news reports, which have a interest in
exaggeration and fear-mongering. Those things make people watch.

Cheryl

When my son was 6, a boy in our community (same age) was snatched on
the way home from school, taken into the woods, and mutilated. He
survived. But that was the day I turned into an overprotective mother.
I took him to school from then on. Even though we lived 3 blocks from
school.
There is some credence to what Cheryl is saying. It took him much
longer to become an independent adult than it should, because we
smothered him. We always
had a houseful of kids--because I wanted him playing here where I
could watch him. DH turned Boy Scouting into an obsesssion--after all,
if he was Scoutmaster, he'd always be at every function/campout
himself to supervise.
Anyway, this kid didn't really grow up until he was nearly in his
mid-20's. I blame our parenting on that. On the other hand, I'm pretty
proud of the way he eventually "turned out"....so I guess we didn't do
too much damage.
Kids just don't come with instructions.
There's a lot more pressure to being a kid than there used to. I used
to catch a horse with a rope, that was so tall I had to stand on the
dog house to get on her back. And disappear riding bareback for hours
and hours. I'd never let my kid do that. I'd have visions of him/her
lying somewhere unconscious and bleeding.

Sherry