Took Both SS's out to dinner last night

BloodiedButUnbowed

Well-Known Member
It was a nice dinner, uneventful really. SS#2 was excited about participating in a summer pre-season program for football (he played in travel leagues during elementary and middle school, did not play his freshman year of HS but thought he might like to do so sophomore year), his wealthy grandmother (my wife's mother) took him out shopping for expensive gear, cleats etc., and he began the program on Monday. He didn't have much to say about it at dinner yesterday but since then, it has come out that SS#2 only attended one day and then decided to quit. He lied about attending the practices at dinner yesterday. I'm leaving this one for my wife to handle as his mother. I don't like the lying, but it's not really my business.

Difficult Stepson and his girlfriend spent most of the dinner airing their complaints about the unfairness of society and the world. Both attend online high school and claim that it is going well, but you'd never know it from the level of their dissatisfaction. I understand to a point but as I pointed out to them yesterday during conversation, they have both successfully identified alternatives to traditional HS education, so good for them as they do not have to participate in it anymore. They didn't have much to say to that. Their main argument seems to me that HS shouldn't be necessary at all. Difficult Stepson is eager for adulthood, wants to leave school as soon as he can so he can go to work doing manual labor. He expressed that he would have preferred to have been born in the 1950s so he could have gone straight to a factory job.

He has not yet obtained his first part time job, so we encouraged him to start there. I told him: Once you start experiencing life as a working person, even on a part time basis, your path will open to you. Right now it's all theoretical. He seemed to hear that okay. He and his girlfriend got an application for him to work as a busboy in a restaurant walking distance from his home with his father. He's supposed to turn it in today. I think a PT job would really help him stop living in his head and begin to live in the real world a bit.

It's ironic as he is highly intelligent and he cannot escape that.

A few comments were made during the evening that lead me to believe both boys are likely smoking pot. Again not my business. I mentioned it to my wife. What she does with my opinion is up to her.
 

JRC

Active Member
So, not everyone (even teens and older teens) seem to have this victim mentality when it comes to external systems. Where do you think that comes from? I've seen it in a couple of friends of mine--actually, only one. And his parents also had that same mentality. Why do you think he and his girlfriend have this attitude? It clearly didn't come from you or your wife.
 

BloodiedButUnbowed

Well-Known Member
I have my theories - mostly relating to my Difficult Stepson's inherent insecurity, his shame at having screwed up his education so royally thus far, and his belief that manual labor is easier and therefore, preferable. He wants an "easy" life. He hasn't figured out yet there's no such thing for any of us.
 

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
Their main argument seems to me that HS shouldn't be necessary at all

I think a lot of kids feel this way. I read a little story in a history book about how excited the former children who were slaves were to attend school for the first time. They had been denied school for so long that it created in them a thirst and drive for knowledge.

I wish today's kids had that same curiosity and desire to learn.
 
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