Thread Drift

[rocknrollgirl]

I teach high school...you would not believe what I overhear....

[Pax]

Well, talking with the investment/retirement guy was like being a goldfish, listening to a martian. I have NO idea what 90% of the words he used meant; I just sat there like "huh" Thankfully Mary understood, all I had to do was sign my name.

[snapdragen]

I used to feel that way too Pax. My dad would start talking to me about my finances, investments, and what I should do. My eyes would glaze over halfway through the conversation. I'm sure he would have hated that I rolled my 457b (Public Emplyees version of a 401K, sort of) into my regular pension plan. It added five year to my days of service though.

[Pax]

It was weird, I can write you a multi million dollar HUD grant, but financial stuff is as confusing to me as basketball!

[Crankin]

I hate listening to financial stuff. I understand quite a bit of it, but I would avoid it if I could. I let DH handle this. I am aware of all of the stuff, but I don't have the inclination to watch the market daily and make transactions. I put my $ in a socially responsible fund, so I wouldn't have to deal with it. When the growth wasn't so spectacular, I gave DH permission to pull it out and do the investments himself. It's doubled, so I guess he knows what he is doing.

[OakLeaf]

Yeah, it makes my eyes glaze over too, when it isn't plain terrifying ... pretty much the same as electrical stuff. Both life skills that can wind up costing me badly if I trust too much to others. But I just don't really get it.

I wonder whether it's a matter of what we were exposed to as kids? Growing up, my parents never shared money stuff with us kids. My dad, really, my mom was in the dark too, and after he passed away, she had to learn what she could and trust entirely too much to her broker. At least, thankfully, her 401(k) gives her access to a broker who's salaried to manage all her investments without commission. And then, for most of my young adult life I lived so close to the edge that saving wasn't even possible. So, now DH tries to involve me, but his understanding is so far beyond mine that it's hard for him even to explain things in terms that I can integrate. Discrete concepts, yeah, I can get, but how it all works together, it might as well be Sumerian.



On a completely different note ... I had a little epiphany this morning about my own reactions to some things, triggered by the graffiti thread. I realized that I get cranked at any kind of "other-ing" of bad behavior.

Sometimes it's just a way to feel superior, insulting but basically harmless. ("I didn't do X when I was young, and so when I read about young people doing X now, it means that my generation was superior to the current crop of young people.")

Sometimes it's a way to deflect self-examination, to the detriment of both the person and their community at large. (The meme that racism happens only in the American South, or that intolerant Christian Americans live only in rural areas. Or that only certain genres of popular music contain violent misogynist lyrics.)

Sometimes it costs lives, and means that some truly bad people are punished much worse than others. (The idea that mass violence is terrorism only if it's committed in the name of certain religions and not others.)

From small to large, it all ticks me off, the idea that people do bad things because they're members of groups that just coincidentally the speaker doesn't belong to.

[salsabike]

On a completely different note ... I had a little epiphany this morning about my own reactions to some things, triggered by the graffiti thread. I realized that I get cranked at any kind of "other-ing" of bad behavior.

Sometimes it's just a way to feel superior, insulting but basically harmless. ("I didn't do X when I was young, and so when I read about young people doing X now, it means that my generation was superior to the current crop of young people.")

Sometimes it's a way to deflect self-examination, to the detriment of both the person and their community at large. (The meme that racism happens only in the American South, or that intolerant Christian Americans live only in rural areas. Or that only certain genres of popular music contain violent misogynist lyrics.)

Sometimes it costs lives, and means that some truly bad people are punished much worse than others. (The idea that mass violence is terrorism only if it's committed in the name of certain religions and not others.)

From small to large, it all ticks me off, the idea that people do bad things because they're members of groups that just coincidentally the speaker doesn't belong to.

Well said, Oak. Thank you for this.

[PamNY]

On a completely different note ... I had a little epiphany this morning about my own reactions to some things, triggered by the graffiti thread. I realized that I get cranked at any kind of "other-ing" of bad behavior.

Sometimes it's just a way to feel superior, insulting but basically harmless. ("I didn't do X when I was young, and so when I read about young people doing X now, it means that my generation was superior to the current crop of young people.")

Sometimes it's a way to deflect self-examination, to the detriment of both the person and their community at large. (The meme that racism happens only in the American South, or that intolerant Christian Americans live only in rural areas. Or that only certain genres of popular music contain violent misogynist lyrics.)

Sometimes it costs lives, and means that some truly bad people are punished much worse than others. (The idea that mass violence is terrorism only if it's committed in the name of certain religions and not others.)

From small to large, it all ticks me off, the idea that people do bad things because they're members of groups that just coincidentally the speaker doesn't belong to.

Very well stated. I could go on about this for pages, but I won't. You've done a good job of saying what needs to be said.

[Veronica]

Sometimes it's just a way to feel superior, insulting but basically harmless. ("I didn't do X when I was young, and so when I read about young people doing X now, it means that my generation was superior to the current crop of young people.")

I have to disagree. I've been working with the same basic age group of children 9 - 11 year olds for 20+, and they have changed. They know a whole more about the world, sex, drugs, movies, videos than they did 20 years. The first time I showed the sex video to my fifth graders in 1996 shot from the point of view of a sperm, they had no idea that when the sperm entered the "large cave" that the man had just ejaculated. My students today know about condoms and golden showers.

Further their ability to deal with interpersonal relationships has changed. They no longer ignore people who bother them. They yell at them or hit them. Their ability to perform academically has changed as well. When material is challenging, they are more likely to give up. If something has too many words, they won't read it.

i do believe overall the ten year olds of 1996 were superior to the ten year olds of today.

Veronica