The Old Folks Home

[ronott1]

I've lost many finger nails working in bluestone quarry smashing them. Worse I ever did though had a vehicle that would static electric shock you bad every time you shut the door. So I got in the habit of shutting it with the inside handle. Didn't get my hand out of they way once, caught two fingers. Screamed and yanked a couple times before I realized I had to open the door . Blackened and lost two nails. One never grew back right, never reattached all the way, big hollow spot under it.

Doors can be treacherous!

 

[ronott1]

Funniest thing I ever saw at work
Years ago. Couple old old guys helping each other hook up a big hose in the back to wash one of their milk tankers fighting with it.
One had a hand the fingers didn't move, like a claw hand. Lost his fingers in a barn cleaner were reattached but couldn't move them. The other missing most his fingers, said he lost them working at a dairy plant when he was young, before OSHA, put his hand where it shouldn't be on a butter press. Laughed about it, said "you should have seen all those old ladies scream"
They caught me laughing at them struggling, I apologized, they said after they got the hose hooked up my a#$ was grass...
.
They worked every day, wish the generation today had as much gumption and tenacity as they did.

Boomers work a lot but the newer generations do not put as much stock into it

 

[drumstick diva]

That's very true ron.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Where did we go wrong with them ?

 

[ronott1]

Where did we go wrong with them ?

I do not know!

 

[CapricornFarm]

Where did we go wrong with them ?

Didn't spank them enough.

 

[ronott1]

Didn't spank them enough.

Along with the everyone's a winner for showing up stuff they were doing...and non competitive games

 

[pennyJo1960]

Member Doctor Spock

 

[microchick]

The guy with the pointed ears or the doctor....sorry Penny, couldn't resist.

I dunno guys. I don't have kids. Been around plenty though. Mother is a verb as well as a noun.

We, for the most part, came from the generation that went through the depression as young children and WWII as adults. They knew what sacrifice and service were all about. They wanted us, our generation to be better off than they were. They taught us service and responsibility.

What happened with kids born of our generation? Golly, who knows? We wanted them to be better off than we were but suddenly, single parent families were the norm. Pregnancy outside of wedlock no longer a shameful stigma (we used to say when I worked OB that there was no such thing as illegitimate babies, just unmarried parents). And when there are 2 parent families both parents are now having to work in order to give their kids the things the other kids all want and so they want them also. Kids are off to daycare when they are a year old and latchkey kids as they grow up.

I was getting my teeth cleaned once and the hygienist had just had her second baby a few weeks earlier. I asked how she could stand to be away from her newborn and her reply was....goodness, I'd go nuts being around them all day! If she hadn't just put her fingers in my mouth at the time I would have asked her why she had kids in the first place.

That is what I think has happened to kids now adays, that and the fact that too much is placed on what this actor or that actress says. Sorry. I pay these idiots to entertain me, not tell me what I should think feel or believe. Plus what kids are being taught in school plays a part also.

C'mon guys, could you imagine what would have happened to us back in the day if we refused to stand and put our hands over our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance?

 

[bruceha2000]

I don't know Micro. DW stayed home with DD1 the first year, I stayed the second year then DD2 was born and DW stayed home a year. Our kids went to preschool because they changed the leave rules at work, DW went permanent part time (the other choices for "leave" were full time work or quit). DW left for work at 6 AM, I dropped them off at school at 8 AM. DW picked them up at noon. They were never "latch key" kids, alway a parent at home when they got on the bus and one at home when they returned.

Dinner as a family every night their whole lives at home (which continues to this day). As you said, our parents lived through the Depression and WWII. 3 of my grandparents immigrated from Spain in the first decade of the 1900's. Certainly no big money or education there. We learned frugal from our parents and grandparents I guess. Our kids never wanted for anything but we weren't buying megayachts either. Fortunately for them they weren't "MUST HAVE the newest in fashion clothes" because it would have cost them. My plan was "I'll pay for regular clothes, you can pay the extra for the 'fad of the moment' clothes" but I never had to.

But somewhere we went wrong, especially DD2 isn't at all motivated to take a job to have a job even if it isn't her "dream job". Most of us here got out of school and found a job; it is what one did, there wasn't even a discussion about it, it was assumed. Somewhere that assumption fell on its face with the next generation.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes. For once I thought I was going to be a year older. Lol I thought I was going to be 60. Lol Dh told me no, I was only 59.
I don’t keep up with how old I am. Never have. Lol

You can be 59 again next June 23rd if you like

Boomers work a lot but the newer generations do not put as much stock into it

Certainly true of a lot of them.

Where did we go wrong with them ?

I wish I knew. But then without a time machine I can't go back and fix it.

Member Doctor Spock

Actually saw him in the British Virgin Islands while bareboating in the late '80's. Sister's college friend was an MD and recognized him on the boat anchored nearby. I knew the name and why he was famous but I wouldn't have known him from any other 85 (or so) year old man.