The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Geez we have the addicts having drug affected babies,out to adoption.
addicts keeping their kids,no supervision,no mentors...
And now we have a generation of "parents" who want to be FRIENDS with their kids and wonder why they are writing on walls, uncontrollable, rrrrrr
Today I was watching the Bio channel. One kid kept this whole Indian family from going on their five thousand dollar trip to India as she refused to get on the plane.So they placated her into it....what did she learn??? how to manimpulate everyone.
then one kid was taken from the plane because he was running up and down the isle,hitting people,tripping them and being totally disrespectful. he was flying alone, about nine years old.
told everyone I won't get into trouble,my dad won't punish me. And ya know what, he didn't. he laughed it off, was a milktoast, kid said, told ya. OHHHHH man he would have been lifted up and sat down on a bench and gotten a major talking to, and consequenses had it been mine.
Well no becuz mine would never, ever be so rude.
ranting. but see even in this totally off the alanon subject or circumstance, alanon tools work. set boundaries, stick to the boundary,enforce consequences.
Do not argue.
Just hit me today no wonder everything is such a mess. I remember many many years ago,was with my mother,my daughter was ten days old,first time we went out. I said," I know what is going to happen mother." "the world will get worse and worst because of the breakdown of families...."
You know there are more single parents than families with both???
Between alanon and hp is how I remain serene and thought full..love,debilyn who is seriously working towards going to Africa to be a mom to familyless ? orphans....my dogs will have to be quarentined. hope i can bring them....
Someone here mentioned that we have a whole generation of parents who participated in the hippie movement - and while it was "freeing" in some senses, it became very inhibiting in others because of the unchecked "experimentation" in drugs. Many addicts were formed with the hippie movement, and those addicts had children.
Imagine co-dependent children growing up in a home with addicted adults and many of those co-de children really not learning how to maintain serenity, and they then use their passive ways in the raising of their own children.
There are certain shows that I watch that make me want to chuck a brick through the television - and a lot of them are shows very much like what you described - parents raising children to not be happy with themselves unless they have more of everything outside of them - more toys, more friends, more attention... more more more. And it is never enough because they were raised without the knowledge of being able to look within for happiness.
I was very borderline that myself - for quite a while, it wasn't necessarily material things that I wanted more and more of, but it was definitely relationships... I felt very incomplete without a man in my life, so whenever I'd meet a man and start dating him, I'd dig my claws in deep would would NOT want to let go.
I did have an inkling that true happiness lay within with me, but I just really never figured out how to apply it - until everything just sort of blew up in my face at the beginning of this year.
It's not easy. I want to blame "society" for why things are the way they are... but I find, too, that my best bet to maintain my serenity is to not get myself wrapped up in shows like those anymore that trigger me like that and put me in that mode of blame. Every now and then, with the tools I've learned in Al-Anon, I can look at shows like those and just kind of laugh and say, "Yep, those people are really suffering from lack of self-love." But it's not always easy. I can find myself getting wrapped up in them and getting mad at what I'm watching.
Whew.
One of the great things about Al-Anon is we learn we have choices.
I can choose not to put myself in harms way - and that not only means my not picking fights with my AH, but also not watching things on television that I know inspire anger within me (news, reality TV shows, etc.).
I can't imagine not watching the news or at least reading about it online, that seems like putting the blinders on to reality. I think that the pendulum swings back and forth and there are different reactions depending on the child. I know my A's parents were hippies, very liberal, pothead and alcoholic and every one of the kids from that family have a drug or alcohol problem and have no idea how to behave as an adult. I came from the more conservative parents but still with a give your kid whatever they want attitude and I ended up ok but again no idea how to behave as an adult. I think my reaction to that is to be much more restrictive than my parents and just about all of my kids' friends are. Most of you know my A's reaction - follow in their footsteps but have a do as I say not as I do attitude.
I believe technology plays a large part in the disentigration of families and communities. It CAN be used for good but all too often it's used for evil (giving kids ideas about how it's "ok" to behave, absorbing time that would have been spent visiting with friends and neighbors, eliminating the need to be face to face for communication). I have noticed on dating/chatting sites that people talk about wanting to meet but never seem to be able to find the time to do that however they have plenty of time to sit around on the computer and chat. So human interaction is at an all time low even though the ability to communicate is at an all time high.
On top of that... in the "old days" kids were put to work on the family farm or at some other job as soon as they were able to work and they were tired out, they felt involved, had a sense of purpose, communities gathered together to celebrate harvests and worked together and people really KNEW eachother. They didn't get into trouble because everyone knew everyone and they were all accountable to each other. Now I have a 13 year old who will be out of school in 4 weeks, is too "young" to get a paying job and has nothing to do for 10 hours a day while I'm at work! And we wonder why things are getting so bad? And I say all this as I sit here using the internet all day long and avoiding going to face to face meetings because it's just not convenient to my schedule....
I don't actually think the world is worse now. Maybe different but not worse. When I grew up there was no child abuse seen, no mandatory reporting in school, no acknowledgement that some people really did not know how to parent at all. There was no spare the rod, it was perfectly acceptable for people to beat their children. Child sexual abuse and child abuse didn't really get acknowledged till the mid 70's and no one was looking for it or seemed to see it. Now it is acknowledged, children get treatment, if a child is being abused its acknowledged some of the time.
I' ve met many many women in AA meetings who lost their children because the state took them and that seems to be one of the hardest things for them to come to terms with (not that there is a hierachy of pain). People do lose their children if they don't take care of them. I don't know that was possible when I was a child, everyone lived, slept breathed denial. There is good and bad in having mandatory reporting and having people being aware of their parents problems.
Since 1985 I've lived, ate, slept recovery, most of the time I've been in rooms with people who have acknowledged their parents couldn't take care of them because they had no means to look at their issues. Some alcoholics do recover. I've been in rooms where I've heard alcoholics express remorse for what they did to their children in terms of neglect, they were able to hear their children's anger and make amends. That's formidable. I did not get that but its wonderful to hear that some people do. I've no doubt that some people in recovery do make changes to how they take care of their children and how they treat other people. Some people get that far. Some people don't but there is at least a conversation, an acknowledgement that there are better ways to raise children, they are not "invisible" anymore. There will always be a great need in this world and a huge vacumn of pain created by dysfunctional people. For me what is appropriate is that I'm not contributing to it. My dogs are not neglected, they are happy, sane, companionable creatures. I'm not continuing the legacy. In recovery I can stop the "war" of dysfunction, pain, crippling anger and grief, in recovery I can move on to a more sane way of being.
All I can speak for is myself. In my experience,the "hippies" were raised by pretty conservative parents. So even though we were wanting to be more enlightened, more emotional, searching, our children were directed but not forced,not spanked.
you gotta remember the times of that generation raised. School personnel spanked kids. Parents spanked, kids had NO rights. It was very conservative. The ganglike kids were about non existant.
So even though we were flower children, we raised our kids to be kids to be kinder, girls could do anything, no spanking or yelling. they were taught manners the same as us,however we gave them a voice. My kids were great students,however when a teacher told the class, do you want to go to college or be idiots the rest of your life? Raini raised her hand and said,"what if you want to be a waitress,or baker and that makes you happy?" He got mad and called me in,told me I should be wearing a dress and called my kids enigmas.
good. so from my experience LOTS of it,my hippie friends all have great kids with usual problems,nothing big,and are very giving to the world. Engineers, into computers, bakers who make those fancy cool cakes, carpenters and contractors who think beyond the box.
There is sooo much more diversity becuz of those kids.
however THEIR kids, the ones we speak of, are the ones we are seeing who have autism of all kinds, many learning differently type challenges.So the pot smoking,which for awhile was NOT illegal, and was said to not cause problems, skipped a generation.
It is those parents,most of, that are having these kids who are demanding stimulation, who know how to work a computer at about birth who are a handful.
They need guidance,skills, they need to be taught differently but the school system is still so stubborn to do it.
We rarely had drop outs back then.I am hearing there are many drop out rates over 65%!!!!
So yes the hippie times, were a cause and effect, but it introduced "change." Change is messy until we figure it out.
I do agree though, it also brought a new "immorality." Also it brought a generation who looked at war and said," what are we fighting for? I don't care I don't give a d."
putting flowers into the rifles of soldiers. "another one bites the dust.
People began to question and wonder, and say NO.
so in saying this, as we learn in alanon, keep it simple, routine,teach self worth. uno?
If we are into the Bible, this is all in there, very plainly. It also tells the outcome.
I love kids, they know they are blowing it,but they need everyone to guide them.It takes a community to raise a child. and most cities etc the people don't even smile at each other,walk away from a person or animal in need.
Having no natural affection.
so blabbermouth here is going to read her daily stuff, and do for herself. yea me...gotta get feed.
