Come on guys...what's the average age of a member here on the forum?  Mid forties, mid fifties?  Now I'm sure as heck not accusing any of you...but if you figure it, those worthless idiot kids are directly or indirectly a product of our own loins!

Most of them are old enough to be either our children or grandchildren.  If grandchildren, why weren't those fabulous morals we were taught in turn taught to our children who could then pass them on to their own?  If our own children, how come they didn't get those lessons on being a self-sufficient car owner and all around good citizen?  Two words...Free will!

How many people have you met in your life who didn't like the way they were raised...thought they could do much better?  Thought their parents just had too many control issues, didn't think that there was any rhyme or reason to the discipline and order their parents tried to protect and raise them with, until, of course, they hit their 40's or 50's, had children of their own who were trashing vehicles, lazing about, and generally taking advantage of the status quo while playing video games 12 hours a day?

So again, and remember, I'm not accusing any of the members here, are we our own worst enemy?  Did we want to provide so much more for our own children than our parents did for us that somehow along the line we raised an entire generation of spoiled brats who can't do a thing for themselves?

I'm 43, with a 18 and 16 year old that I adopted when they were 7 and 5 and I can remember having a dinner conversation when the oldest was probably 10 or 12 wherein I became enraged that any of them thought that I was going to buy her a car when she turned 16...like it was a right or something!  After all, I didn't get a car of my own when I was 16!  If I needed to go some where I walked, rode my bike or got a ride!  Then later my wife calmly explained to me that this was not 1979 anymore.  I didn't have to think about child predators, rapists, and murderers who could pluck me off the street at will without a second thought.  Sure they were around back in 1979, but not as widely spread as now!  The little town I grew up in had grown.  Suburbia had set up shop.  More cars were on the road.  People had developed a mass "weirdness" about them, that I couldn't protect my daughter from if I required her to walk, ride a bike, or heaven forbid, hitchhike anywhere she needed to be.

Well, needless to say, I bought her that car...the Christmas before her 16th birthday!  She attends school everyday, and works after.  When her brother needed to be somewhere, she took him.  Her brother now has his own car as well.  They both work at the same pet shop, attend the same school.  They car pool when their schedules allow.  They get good grades.  They pay their own insurances, and while it was part of the deal to pay their own repairs that end hasn't exactly worked out just right so far.  The BOSS (wife) has vetoed that requirement everytime so far!

I guess after everything is said an done, the best we can do is raise our children the best we know how.  What they do with it is totally, 100% up to them!  We either impressed upon them the morals that we found to be important, or we alienated them to the thought of teaching their children the same.  My kids didn't come with an instruction booklet (it would have made things so much easier if they had), so I've done the best I knew how, and when I was wrong my wife told me I was wrong, but now it's up to my kids to make their own decisions about how they want to raise my grandchildren.  I can only hope I did right by them.

So, next time you meet one of those "idiot kids", don't look too favorably on the parents that raised them, but also understand that even though we may try to teach...the lesson doesn't always get through!

OH...and one other thing...don't be so old you forget what it was like to be young!  The only thing different between us and them is our parents didn't let us get away with it, and pay for everything like it was inevitable.  But, by your own admissions earlier, we've all done pretty much the same things.  The only difference was how it was handled from generation to generation.