[JeffL]

Mzdagrl, I wasnt pointing at anyone here, since I dont really know more than a few people personally, and certainly dont know anyones parenting techniques. I grew up in an area that for the most part, is in the middle of east bum fuck. Its 5 minutes down the road to a "city" of 25,000, but as a kid, that might as well be to the moon. We rode our bikes around town and did the usual young kid, evil type stuff. Killing snakes, jumping through streams, and building dirt jumps for our 1 speed BMX bikes in the middle of the woods.

For kids growing up in a more urban area, I'm sure things are different completely, but I think people have to agree, a decent portion of parents are just too damned pussified to discipline their own children. I know in grade school (10-15 years ago), we'd have a FEW (1-2) "problem" kids per grade. The ones that were off the wall, always being out of line and causing trouble in class, picking fights, being general pains in the asses all the time. I think these days they'd probably just diagnose the kid with ADD/ADHD, put them on medication and call them cured. Now I'm sure theres more like 8-10 kids per grade they'd call "problem kids" and "diagnose" them with ADD. I mean, I'm sure theres SOME kids who truly chemically are not "right", but I know even 2 of my younger cousins have been "diagnosed" with ADD, and they arent even FIVE YEARS OLD YET. It's pretty disgusting to me. They were thrown into Pre-school way too early, act out of line, and all of a sudden they say they are chemically imbalanced and put them on meds, which is fucking ridiculous. Keep in mind, the mother (my aunt) is completely hands off with the kids, and the father wont hardly discipline them whatsoever. Just a "dont do that" or "no, thats not good" here and there, but nothing concrete. Seriously, I think kids these days just need a good whooping across the ass when they fuck up to keep them in line. I'm not talking beating them about the face and throwing them down stairs, just a smack across the bottom just to add some concreteness to a point you're trying to make.

Whatever, I'm half drunk and off on a tangent, but kids these days are fucking ridiculous. If you can say they are better in the past 5 years than they were 15-20 years ago, I gotta take my hat off to you.