18 and Knowing It All

The days of having 12, 13, 14 or more kids of more of a thing of the past; today, even four or five kids is out of the question anymore.  It seems more and more people are waiting until their late 20’s, 30’s or even their early 40’s to have children.  For what, to be more monetarily stable, career orientated first, to live their wild days before they have to take care of kids, or just to raise their one and a half to two children. The census seems to say this is the average family household now with a dog or cat.  If that’s not the age group then you’re 16 to 20 and have one or two babies already and letting your parents raise them for you, because you have no job and you feel entitled and that’s not knowing it all, otherwise your parents wouldn’t be raising them. 

The 18 year-olds have no job, are still living at home, and decided they don’t need to go to college because they’re smarter than the teachers now; thank you Google.  They live for free in some cases, come and go when they please, disrespect and disrupt the entire household, then continue to blame anything and everything on everyone else, no matter the situation.  If anyone says anything, they’ll respond with something like, “I didn’t choose to be born”.  I get it, okay, well then move out, get a job and leave me they heck alone if you can’t stand being near me, in this house and for free, or close to free.  I brought you into the world in hopes you’d be a loving, caring respectful person and not an ungrateful person who thought that they were entitled and undeserving.  

Everyone deserves to experience life, in their own way.  In doing so, you have to take responsibility fo your own actions.  Going to school, having relationships, having your own children. If you choose to have a child, raise them on your own.  It’s not wrong to ask for help, don’t expect it and don’t pass them off on your parents or grandparents, as you feel you may be entitled to do.

In some households, the grandparents are raising the babies, leaving the 18 year-olds to go and do whatever they please, because they know it all.  Of course they do!  They know a lot more than we did, because technology is growing in leaps and bounds and they’re being taught at the age of, well before birth how to use a computer, a cell phone and iPad or a tablet.  Heaven for bid they don’t get that computer time, they’ll have a screaming fit.  

No matter which child it is, the baby or the 18 year old know it all, they cause a fit if they don’t get their “screen” time in.  We as society live by this all too much, we allowed it, we made it happen.  What happened to going outside and playing on the swings or riding bikes.  The 18 year-old, not knowing it all and asking for help, not excepting it.  How can we reverse things?  What in that tiny little device makes it so appealing, that it’s so much better than a human touch, or emotion?

Pick up the phone and actually call then instead of texting; go physically hug your mom, dad, family or friends instead of sending that emoji, it really does help, it truly does.  We all send those ridiculous email forwards, or possibly post on twitter, FaceBook or Instagram for that matter, about depression, or loneliness, hatred and the facts are this, if you’re 18 and know it all, how come you don’t know that the human touch, physical voice and actual contact is much more life changing than a post on a computer. So you don’t know it all.  Depression is terrible and texting or posting doesn’t come close to sitting with someone and just listening.

If you want to make the change in this world and know it all, then be the change, call someone, be there for someone in person, hug them in person, love them. 

Life before...

...the Internet, was, well what was it?  Boring, not for me.  I think it was much more enriching, to be honest.  Yes, today you can Google, Bing or whatever you search engine taste is.  It hasn't been that long, but long enough that I have been to a library, a good old fashioned, sit down and be quiet, people are reading library.

I loved having to ask for information.  Especially from the older generation.  You still can.  It may not always be correct, and you had to verify and cross-check a lot of it, depending on what you were asking.  Gosh, what was that saying I was just told the other night, "the mystery of history" or something to that affect.  Either way, it made sense.  I love both worlds, but word of mouth, listening to the elderly tell you stories of when they were children is fantastic and enthralling in itself.  Sometimes the details can get intermingled with other stories, and this is where stories become inflated over time. When this happens, that's when you start to think if it's ever happened in history.  It is capable, very bound to happen, just because it's in a text book, doesn't mean it's true, 100% true.  Look at all the stories over time that have been changed and "facts have come to our attention".  Amazing, no one ever lied before the Internet, huh?  I guess only the Internet has misinformation and nowhere else.  I caught a fish and it was "this big".

Thinking about everything is just simply amazing to me.  Some people believe everything they hear, read and see, whether it be on the news, in the newspaper or Internet.  It can come from the neighbor or over-heard in the deli, but truth be told, take everything and I mean everything with a grain of salt unless you were there, especially today in the Internet era.  Come on, have you seen that gorgeous "french model" in the commercial on TV, ohh la la, bwhahaha, gets me every time. (clip below)

Anyone can tell you anything they want, it's a matter of what you believe and what you want to believe.  Think about that game from when you were little called "Operator or Telephone", you would whisper something in someone's ear then they would do the same to the next person.  This would continue around the room, until the last person heard it, then they would have to say it out loud.  Ninety percent of the time it was wrong.  It usually came out distorted and really funny.  Everyone would laugh, it was a fun game.  Thinking about it, it shows you how information being passed along through people gets distorted and mis-communicated over time, passed from person to person.  Just imagine this was only within a few minutes. History has a way of getting jumbled and mis-communicated, it's inevitable, no doubt in my mind.  The Internet has a way of letting people shape information to their own likings.  It also has a way of allowing people to search unlimited amounts of information that is absolutely true.  The difference is, which is real and which is not.  Are there parts of it that are true?  I would think and hope that most of it is, at least some of it is.  OK, just a small glimpse.  And this, this is the part that intrigues me the most. Is it live or is it Memorex?  (and for those who don't know this line, clip below, took me about 10 before I picked one, loved them all)