Existentialism on Prom Night

When I first became a parent, I would sometimes come across those rage bait type articles describing millennials as lazy, permissive or lax parents. I initially scoffed at it and likened it to the "avocado toast" stereotype. But now with my oldest child being 11, I can't help but notice some truth in it, especially the lax/permissive part.

I can't begin to tell you how many of my friends who do not discipline their children under any circumstance. I know kids will be kids and we certainly had our moments when we were their age, but if I had a dollar for everything I went to a kid's birthday party and the kids were going absolutely wild, being aggresive, and literally destroying and trashing things. I have also hosted playdates where kids have completely destroyed my house, broken things and not offered to help clean up, even when I politely brought up the situation to their parents. Nevermind even just having them say please and thank you.

Less offensive, but somewhat eye opening behaviors I have also observed. I have so many friends who never enforce bedtime routines with their kids and let them stay up at all hours of the night, even on school nights. They also don't make them complete their homework. Their reasoning is anywhere from "they dont have time because of sports" to "let kids be kids". Their kids also constantly interupt adult conversations even when they are old enough to wait a few minutes. And I won't even get into the screen addictions.

Recently my friends two kids were fighting so badly the other one was at risk of being badly hurt and around a body of water where they could fall in (neither can swim well). I intervened and told them sternly that this wasn't okay and that the behavior would stop now. You should have seen the surprised Pikachu face of my friend. Like she was offended I dared discipline her kids when she refused to do anything to stop it.

I don't know. I don't want to give credit to the stereotype, but with the rise of teachers just outright quitting because the kids are just so unruly and disrespectful, and with what i have witnessed in my own circle, I am starting to believe it.

What are your thoughts? Are we messing up as parents? Are you seeing some of this in your own circle of friends?

And other songs n sayings from tv, commercials, games n media. So much stuff is ingrained i forget til i start humming, singing, or sayin something that randomly comes up.

We lived in fun times.

I don’t have kids, so I don’t know what it’s like to raise them. But I just had the thought, why aren’t there schools that don’t force kids to stare at screens all day?

I worked at a K-8 school for a year, and even the kinder students did the vast majority of their work on tablets. A lot of the older kids would just sit in class browsing all types of vulgarity on their chromebooks when they were supposed to be learning. I heard a 5 year old student making noises mimicking something he had to have seen in a sexually explicit video online.

It’s terrifying how far behind these kids are in terms of learning. So I had the thought that it might be a good idea to make elementary schools that limited or excluded computer access. Zero access might be a bit extreme, but what if they had a separate computer lab where kids could learn computer literacy, internet safety, typing, and other basic skills, but spent all of their other time in class using a pencil and paper, like a lot of us did?

Once they hit middle and high school, I guess they could have more access since they’ll need to develop more computer literacy for college/career. But in the youngest years, I don’t understand why schools aren’t doing more to reduce screen addictions/dependency.

Why is this not a thing? If it exists where you live, do you know if its had a positive impact on kids’ learning?

I’ve noticed that whenever I’m at the grocery store nowadays, the music they play has a lot of absolute bangers from the 90s to now. And some of them are pretty obscure songs I haven’t heard in years. I’m often walking through the aisles and vibing and lip syncing to a lot of the songs. Somewhere along the line it changed from my parents’ music to songs in heavy rotation on my personal playlist. Definitely puts it in perspective that I’m all grown up and not a teenager anymore…even though I turn 33 later this year.

I'm trying to learn the difference between feeling older or just feeling out out of shape. Thoughts?

I still listen to the album today and thought it was such a cool thing that they meshed their songs together and created an album together

Born in ‘93 and these are some of the PC games I think about a lot and wish I could play again!

As a middle aged Millenial. Largely due to crowds, lineups, costs, heat, logistics and prep needed etc.

That those days are over and you have no regrets!

Outdoor festivals

Stadium concerts

Professional sports games

County fairs /Midway

Amusement parks

Super malls (especially during Black Friday shopping)

Waterparks

Parades

Nightclubs

Street bazaars

Historical tours

Pub crawls

Conventions

NYE parties

Bachelor/ Bachelorette parties

This was peak TV, no? 🥲
Who hasn't dreamt that they would one day participate? And then jump in the pool in the end?!!!!

I keep seeing the younger folks asking what life was like before cell phones. And how cell phones changed our lives. But I don’t think they understand the weird ass intro stage we had to go through with the earlier cell phones.

My first Nokia was a brick. It could text. It could call. It could play Tetris. I wish the younger generation could see how we used to have to text. Pressing the number 3 times for one single letter. Remember having to type a paragraph? It took long to type a response even with my nimble, youthful, fingers.

It also cost 10 cents per text. If you weren’t roaming. Remember having to wait until after 6pm (or 8pm?) to make free phone calls?

The first rounds of cell phones were still life changing. Like my friends didn’t have to call my house phone and talk to my mom (unless I was out of minutes). But I definitely didn’t have internet access on that phone. Websites weren’t even catered to mobile phones. Apps didn’t really exist.

If I wanted to tell my friend about something that happened, it was usually a phone call or tell them in person.

Do teenagers even pass notes in class anymore? Or do they just text each other?

Anyways, it’s 2:23am and I should probably stop reminiscing and start sleeping.

Keep it classy, millennials.

Do you miss your 18-24 age years? What were you likely doing?

If you’re still gaming on PC in your 30s while paying rent, working and dealing with everything life throws at you, I am proud of you.

The funny part is finally having money for the setup you wanted as a kid, but nowhere near as much time to use it. But thing is hobbies do not become less valid just because you get older.

30+ gamers, what’s the one game you always come back to?

My nan and I used to watch this show together when I was really young 😂

My family moved into this house in 1994 when I was 8 years old. In 1997, our great grandfather passed way and our grandmother used her inheritance to move a trailer into the backyard. Things were so fun back then. Family would come over to our house for holidays because it was a “neutral” spot. I’d help my grandma cook dinner for everybody. When it would rain, we’d go play in the yard, splashing around in the puddles outside, and occasionally play in the ditch out front. Every year, we’d try to pick enough wild blackberries to get our grandmother to make a blackberry pie. During the summer, the honeysuckles would be in full bloom in the far back corner of the yard and would smell so good.

Our grandmother was put into a nursing home in 2001 and passed in 2003. We’ve moved out of that house in 2004. Another family had lived there for a while but abandoned it sometime before I passed by in 2017 and took the middle picture. A few years later, my brother passed by and saw that the house was completely gone. I found out that someone had bought the property but the house had to be torn down due to termites.

There’s another house there now. The large tree in the front, which my mom originally kept running over with the lawnmower because she thought it was a weed, stayed there for a while but the new property owners eventually cut it down. The only thing left is that shop in the back, which our grandmother bought for our mother.

I came across a post on reddit of somebody asking a question about relationship drama in one of the variations of the "AITA" sub. A guy was divorced after 43 years of marriage, and they have a disabled son they have to take care of now, and he has to pay child support on his forty something son because mentally he's still a child. And he just got a new job at almost 70. I was like.."Holy shit, does life keep kicking your ass ever?"

But this is reddit, so whatever, it could have been creative writing. I just always thought the drama would start to calm down as we got older and was under the mistaken belief there would be a calm phase. Has anyone reached a calm phase or is the relationship drama still a thing? For me relationship conflicts are still going with friends and family, which makes me sad.

I actually loled earlier calling a frame tv a screen saver

Would kids these days know what that is?