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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Jeremy M. Praay wrote:
 > 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.

Then maybe I can do some good (do you remember the topics of these 
conversations?), but I need to start by setting a better example.

I have been feeling pretty bad about something that happened a few 
months ago. I was a real food Nazi when I worked in an office, but since 
moving to outdoor employment, I have started to relax a bit, relying on 
my job to keep me lean. That's wrong, because my job won't keep me 
healthy, just healthy-looking (if you call a grown man at 160 lbs 
healthy-looking). Anyway, I was recently at a party at my niece's 
mother's house and was cutting a cake I had made when my niece walked 
into the room. I offered her a piece, which she refused. I KNEW she was 
refusing because she knows that she needs to improve on the junk food 
diet on which she has been raised. She's not overweight, but she is 
ahead of schedule. At 13, she weighs as much as my 33yo wife. I should 
have refused the cake myself, especially since I knew why my niece was 
refusing it. I should have said, "You're right, kid, f*** that cake. 
Tastes like sh** anyway." I HAVE been that smart many times in the past, 
but that day I wasn't. I cut myself a slice and ate it, leaving my 
niece, as the one person in the room sane enough to try and take care of 
herself, all alone. Naturally, she eventually succumbed and had a slice 
herself.

Can't take back the past, but that is the last time anything like that 
will happen. I need to think about these things because my wife and I 
might have a kid ourselves. I don't want to live a lie (or a mostly, but 
not completely true) in front of my kid. One of the artists I linked to 
in my "Lucky to have seen it" post declares on her myspace page that she 
is "interested in natural health, yoga, spirituality, healing, the 
vedas, meditation ... and things of that nature," yet I saw her at the 
bar smoking, drinking, and carrying around an ass through which I'm 
quite sure many a cheeseburger had passed. I'm losing faith in people. 
*I* have to BE what I want to see - want my kid to see - in the world.

  -Shay

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Jim Charter wrote:
 > their ranting against long hair, or rock music, or hippie
 > fashions, or student protests, or negro riots, or drug use, or
 > modern public sculpture

I wonder if the 'youth of today' will forever think us stodgy for 
ranting against commercialism?

  -Shay

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Shay wrote:
> Jeremy M. Praay wrote:
>  > 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.
> 
> Then maybe I can do some good (do you remember the topics of these 
> conversations?), but I need to start by setting a better example.
> 
> I have been feeling pretty bad about something that happened a few 
> months ago. I was a real food Nazi when I worked in an office, but since 
> moving to outdoor employment, I have started to relax a bit, relying on 
> my job to keep me lean. That's wrong, because my job won't keep me 
> healthy, just healthy-looking (if you call a grown man at 160 lbs 
> healthy-looking). Anyway, I was recently at a party at my niece's 
> mother's house and was cutting a cake I had made when my niece walked 
> into the room. I offered her a piece, which she refused. I KNEW she was 
> refusing because she knows that she needs to improve on the junk food 
> diet on which she has been raised. She's not overweight, but she is 
> ahead of schedule. At 13, she weighs as much as my 33yo wife. I should 
> have refused the cake myself, especially since I knew why my niece was 
> refusing it. I should have said, "You're right, kid, f*** that cake. 
> Tastes like sh** anyway." I HAVE been that smart many times in the past, 
> but that day I wasn't. I cut myself a slice and ate it, leaving my 
> niece, as the one person in the room sane enough to try and take care of 
> herself, all alone. Naturally, she eventually succumbed and had a slice 
> herself.
> 
> Can't take back the past, but that is the last time anything like that 
> will happen. I need to think about these things because my wife and I 
> might have a kid ourselves. I don't want to live a lie (or a mostly, but 
> not completely true) in front of my kid. One of the artists I linked to 
> in my "Lucky to have seen it" post declares on her myspace page that she 
> is "interested in natural health, yoga, spirituality, healing, the 
> vedas, meditation ... and things of that nature," yet I saw her at the 
> bar smoking, drinking, and carrying around an ass through which I'm 
> quite sure many a cheeseburger had passed. I'm losing faith in people. 
> *I* have to BE what I want to see - want my kid to see - in the world.
> 
>  -Shay

I dunno Shay.  My brother is as fine a goal-oriented, 
self-made-successful, athletic, health-conscious, generous, avucular 
example as ever a niece and nephew could want...
and he scares the living crap out of my kids.

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Shay wrote:
> Jim Charter wrote:
>  > their ranting against long hair, or rock music, or hippie
>  > fashions, or student protests, or negro riots, or drug use, or
>  > modern public sculpture
> 
> I wonder if the 'youth of today' will forever think us stodgy for 
> ranting against commercialism?
> 
prolly

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Shay wrote:
> I should 
> have refused the cake myself, especially since I knew why my niece was 
> refusing it. I should have said, "You're right, kid, f*** that cake. 
> Tastes like sh** anyway." 

That's the kind of short conversations I had in mind.

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"Shay" <sha### [at] nonenone> wrote in message news:4795278e$1@news.povray.org...
>
> Then maybe I can do some good (do you remember the topics of these 
> conversations?), but I need to start by setting a better example.

In my case, a lot of them had to do with "girls".  The two uncles with which 
I felt comfortable, were about 10 years younger than my parents (about 20 
years older than me), had lived "interesting lives", and certainly had a 
fairly well-balanced perspective on things.

> I have been feeling pretty bad about something that happened a few months 
> ago. I was a real food Nazi when I worked in an office, but since moving 
> to outdoor employment, I have started to relax a bit, relying on my job to 
> keep me lean.  <snip>

Since getting married, my diet became horrible.  It's not because my wife is 
a bad cook, or I'm a bad cook, but mostly, we just got lazy, and quickly got 
into the habit of fast food.  Only in the last 4 years have I started to 
take control of that part of my life again.  Additionally, I've started 
growing some of my own food (gardening, raising chickens, etc.) and in the 
process, I've come to recognize HOW DIFFERENT my home-grown food is from 
anything at the store.

I read a book called "Pastured Poultry Profits" when I decided that I wanted 
to raise a few chickens for meat last year.  That book probably changed my 
life forever.  All I was curious about was how to raise chickens on 
grass/pasture because it sounded better than keeping them in a poopy chicken 
coop*, but the author really opened my mind to the concept of "buying local" 
and WHY.  I live in an area where I'm surrounded by cows, pigs, chickens, 
corn, you name it, and yet I never realized that most of the livestock 
around me IS NOT what ends up at the grocery store.  Now, we buy a lot of 
our meat (beef/pork) from local farmers, eat our own eggs and chickens, and 
for a few short months, we get our own fresh vegetables.

I'm not into organics, per se, because I don't think there's truly much 
difference.  If a chicken is fed organic grain versus non-organic, is it 
going to be any different?  I doubt it.  But put the chicken outside, on 
pasture, and there's a difference.  I gave a few chickens away last year, 
and this year, I'll probably raise 50-100 meat chickens, just because now, 
so many people want one (or 2 or 5 or 20).  Next year, perhaps even more.

Here's an interesting article discussing pasture-raised chicken eggs:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Whole-Foods-and-Cooking/2007-10-01/Tests-Reveal-Healthier-Eggs.aspx

But more than that, this entire process gives my life more meaning.  Going 
outside in the morning to service the chickens puts a completely different 
perspective on the entire day and takes away a lot of "the drag" before 
going to the office.  I've spent hours sitting outside in the summer just 
watching the chickens, or collecting grasshoppers for them (they LOVE 
grasshoppers), or whatever.  It's that whole feeling of being connected to 
the land, I think.

LOL, I guess that kinda turned into "Jeremy Praay's 2007".

* They are cooped up for now until the weather warms up (probably in March).

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Jim Charter wrote:

 > My brother is as fine a goal-oriented, self-made-successful,
 > athletic, health-conscious, generous, avucular example as ever a
 > niece and nephew could want...  and he scares the living crap out
 > of my kids.

They don't have to like him or in any way want to be like him, but I 
think it's important that they see that there are alternatives. I've 
done myself a lot of harm in life by blindly accepting behaviors for 
which I was never presented an alternative. I was lucky early-on to 
stumble into some of these alternatives through witless rebellion. 
Slowly, I'm figuring out some of the others, but I might have saved 
myself a lot of grief had I (literally) seen as a kid that I could ABC 
instead of XYZ.

  -Shay

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Shay wrote:
> Jim Charter wrote:
> 
>  > My brother is as fine a goal-oriented, self-made-successful,
>  > athletic, health-conscious, generous, avucular example as ever a
>  > niece and nephew could want...  and he scares the living crap out
>  > of my kids.
> 
> They don't have to like him or in any way want to be like him, but I 
> think it's important that they see that there are alternatives. I've 
> done myself a lot of harm in life by blindly accepting behaviors for 
> which I was never presented an alternative. I was lucky early-on to 
> stumble into some of these alternatives through witless rebellion. 
> Slowly, I'm figuring out some of the others, but I might have saved 
> myself a lot of grief had I (literally) seen as a kid that I could ABC 
> instead of XYZ.
> 
>  -Shay
Yes I also think that exposure to alternatives, in particular 
alternatives to low achievement, is good.  It is in fact one of the 
greatest comforts to me that my kids have had before them a variety of 
high-achieving, quality people who still keep concerns about status at 
an arms length.  There are a lot of things that a childhood growing up 
in Manhattan lacks, but exposure to high achievers is not one of them.
My daughter has been coached by a gold medalist, and partied at the home 
of Oscar winners; a sizable proportion of my son's HS teachers had 
Ph.D's, but he also works at an after school in our local church which 
has an active AIDS support program, and so on.  My daughter goes to a 
leading HS and her friends are dispersed among another half-dozen of the 
city's top schools.  The networking potential is amazing.

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Jim Charter wrote:

> Yes I also think that exposure to alternatives, in particular 
> alternatives to low achievement, is good.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

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