Jeremy M. Praay wrote:
> "Shay" <sha### [at] nonenone> wrote in message news:4793698e@news.povray.org...
> 
>>Tom Galvin wrote:
>>
>>>Shay wrote:
>>>
>>>>Excellent. I need to find some pretext to have a long talk with
>>>>my niece(13yo) about bad social habits.
>>>
>>>YMMV but I found repeated short conversations more effective at
>>>that age.
>>
>>Don't know many teenagers, but I think it depends on one's relationship 
>>with the kid. In a way, we're fairly close. I knew her parents before she 
>>was born and rented a room from them when my niece was a baby. She was 
>>calling me "Uncle Shay" before I had even met her aunt. On the other hand, 
>>I'm not an uncle to her like my uncles were to me.[1] My uncles had nearly 
>>as much authority over me as my parents. They could pull off preaching to 
>>me.
>>
> 
> 
> I had that type of relationship with some of my uncles as well.  I remember 
> having at least a couple long talks with 2 of them in particular 
> (individually).  I could talk to them about things I would never mention to 
> my parents.  In fact, I believe that my life probably would be quite 
> different if I hadn't had those few long conversations.
> 
> I can't believe that it's been about 20 years since I was a teenager.  Now 
> I'm older than my uncles were then, but they still seem much wiser.  :-) 
> 
> 
Hmmm, I had no such experience, I'm afraid.  The views of my uncles were 
all quite predictable, conservative, and boring and they were always 
anxious to make me aware of them.  I learned that they really didn't 
want conversation they just wanted to rant at a representative 'youth of 
today,' even though I was as disgustingly complacent a little do-bee as 
you could possibly imagine.  But that suited me fine because I didn't 
want to talk and get set up for their ranting against long hair, or rock 
music, or hippie fashions, or student protests, or negro riots, or drug 
use, or modern public sculpture, so I would just sit and shut up and let 
my thoughts wander while they 'set me straight on a few things'.

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