If it wasn't so sad it would be funny

[bgd]

On my walk this morning I saw a maid taking a boy to school on the back of a bicycle. She was a tiny dot, he about 14 and twice her size. Anywhere else he would have been laughed out of the playground. Anywhere but here.

I guess in a few years NS will help straighten him out. I don't have any hope for parents that would let that happen though.

The image was funny but the human story behind it isn't.

[the lynx]

On my walk this morning I saw a maid taking a boy to school on the back of a bicycle. She was a tiny dot, he about 14 and twice her size. Anywhere else he would have been laughed out of the playground. Anywhere but here.

I guess in a few years NS will help straighten him out. I don't have any hope for parents that would let that happen though.

The image was funny but the human story behind it isn't.

This is what they called the strawberry generation.

[Wd40]

The other day I saw a local lady scolding her maid in fairprice, just like in the old days how teachers used to scold kids. Apparently, the maid took the groceries basket and went to the billing counter, before taking her "master's" permission. The master still wanted to shop summore.

I had only heard of slavery, but that was the first time I actually saw it happening.

[maneo]

On my walk this morning I saw a maid taking a boy to school on the back of a bicycle. She was a tiny dot, he about 14 and twice her size. Anywhere else he would have been laughed out of the playground. Anywhere but here.

I guess in a few years NS will help straighten him out. I don't have any hope for parents that would let that happen though.

The image was funny but the human story behind it isn't.

Did they go by too fast for you to whip out your smartphone and take a picture?

[bgd]

Did they go by too fast for you to whip out your smartphone and take a picture?

Nope. Very slowly. She was small and he was big.

I like to leave my phone at home in the morning.

[Mi Amigo]

I guess in a few years NS will help straighten him out.

Maybe, maybe not...

[JR8]

[PNGMK]

On my walk this morning I saw a maid taking a boy to school on the back of a bicycle. She was a tiny dot, he about 14 and twice her size. Anywhere else he would have been laughed out of the playground. Anywhere but here.

I guess in a few years NS will help straighten him out. I don't have any hope for parents that would let that happen though.

The image was funny but the human story behind it isn't.

IT's no excuse my most of my son's friends (12/13 YO) don't know how to hike, ride a bike, swim, fish, shoot a gun, skin an animal... he knows most of these things thanks to having an expat father. It's no excuse but it's possible only the helper knew how to ride the bike.

[JR8]

IT's no excuse my most of my son's friends (12/13 YO) don't know how to hike, ride a bike, swim, fish, shoot a gun, skin an animal... he knows most of these things thanks to having an expat father. It's no excuse but it's possible only the helper knew how to ride the bike.

Which is why SGns never make it abroad.

[/bite me]

[Beeroclock]

hike, ride a bike, swim, fish, shoot a gun, skin an animal...

the trajectory of this list was getting increasingly tame and placid, but then it took an abrupt 180turn after the fishing!!!

[JR8]

No seriously, youths here.... even after enforced military service etc, ... they're like girls*. They know everything is going to be handed on some www plate.


Nice, cosy. Lucky people, to know life never carries any risk at all. The whole focus down the road, is bitching about some other races...




* Show me them against some US or UK Marines.....

[Strong Eagle]

Interesting tack this thread has taken. In reality, this speaks volumes about how we are moving from experiential living to passive, observational living.

I was a quintessential latchkey kid growing up. I also lived on the edge of town. My brother and I built forts and rafts from trees we cut down and lashed together. Built everything imaginable from Meccano. Built a go cart out of a junk lawn mower engine and bike frames... no, it wasn't very good.

Shot gophers with a 22 rifle, learned to shoot Lee Enfield 303's and pistols in the air force cadets. Built a Heathkit shortwave radio when I was 12, built a music amplifier from scratch when I was 14.

I graduated with my BSEE when I was 47. I was amazed... the vast majority of the young people there had never built anything... and that included the mechanical engineering students as well.

I've got some great nieces and nephews and their lives are so much more structured... and limited in access to simply doing things... sports, maybe a camp... but always the ever present electronics.

I don't know if this change is good or bad... but I am glad that I score high on those life skills tests... and I think that lack of experiential activities and skills makes one's focus much narrower.

[Hannieroo]

I would die of shame if my huge teenager expected anything along those lines from anyone but particularly a tiny helper. If anything he's made to (and happily does) the hard, heavy, or nasty jobs. He goes shopping with her and carries the bags. As it should be.

[the lynx]

I wouldn't go as far as saying that we need to experience gun usage in younger days to substantiate wholesome living.

When I was growing up, guns are banned. Hunting was made illegal. And it is either expensive or highly depriving to live in/near jungle to experience jungle life.

Thinking back, I'm glad my parents allowed us:
1. to climb our rambutan tree (and learnt how it felt to get bitten by weaver ants)
2. to climb our guava tree (and learnt how it felt to step onto those weak branches and to fall)
3. to do household chores (and learnt what it means when you burnt your momma's batik with iron)
4. to cook (and learnt how it felt to run that blade over your finger tip)
5. to read (and learnt how to apply our guava tree-climbing skills on those floor-to-wall shelves of books to get that particular book your Dad hid away up there)
6. to play with Lego and Tinkertoys (and discovered you can build a racing track to race pet tortoises)
7. to help look after baby sibling (and learnt that perhaps you don't want to become a mom/dad 20-30 years down the road, or perhaps you do)

I have a friend whose parents forbade her to lift any finger, aside in dressing up and studying, so that her beauty would not be tarred and she could be presented as marriageable fair maiden to rich families as potential bride and tai-tai-to-be. I cannot imagine how empty such life could be.

[JR8]

I've got some great nieces and nephews and their lives are so much more structured... and limited in access to simply doing things... sports, maybe a camp... but always the ever present electronics.

I don't know if this change is good or bad... but I am glad that I score high on those life skills tests... and I think that lack of experiential activities and skills makes one's focus much narrower.

^+1
I agree with you Eagle. I look at my young relatives and their lives seem so 'narrow'. Study study study, and recreation is all organised (by parents), or else they're playing with e-gadgets. Two of them have this year commenced highly prestigious Uni courses; but you'd still struggle to have any form of conversation with them. By their age I'd already 'done', overlanded, the entire Subcontinent, I don't think either of them have even been on holiday on their own volition/plans, anywhere. Funny old world.


--- By 13-14 YO, I'd 'broken into' the local rifle range (dear reader, this simply entailed straddling a simple 2-bar wooden fence) , and dug out about 20lbs of clay/earth from their target back-stops. Took that home, washed and sifted it, and got out all the bullets (almost all .22/lead). My dad then made a basic looking copy of a 3-4" axe-head from a block of pine. We greased that, and put it in a container of polyfilla (wall-filler). Once set, we sliced the casing in half, took out the hunk of wood, and formed two holes, a pour hole, and an overflow hole.

Then I got up a fire going in the garden (I was already doing this and smelting lead quite regularly), and melted down all the bullets (in a Jolly Green Giant sweet-corn tin! ) and poured the above mold. Once we got it out we snipped off the bits from the cast-seams, and gently hammered it (round ended hammer) to give it some patination. I then took that into history class at school, and it was used as a part of our then study of the Bronze Age, and melting, smelting, weapon production etc...

That's about the polar opposite of what I'd expect my young relatives to be getting up to. And THEN there was the time with a friend I made a rifle, from scratch, from lathing the barrel to mixing the detonator charges (it was woefully inaccurate, but it was fun!). Then I started making ... errr like, depth-charge-hand-grenades that you'd throw in a river and they'd explode sending water 30' into the air (sodium metal fuses were the key). --- Kids these days!! --- ...