Does anyone else hate that DD mercial w/the mom and kids

[retrospective66]

.....Swimming, Soccer, Ballet, Oboe, and last but not least KARATE!!!!

They did a good job casting. The kids look alike but the whole things irritates me for some reason. Maybe it's because I don't like soccer moms a whole lot. Especially ones driving SUV's, and bringing their kids to all those activities when the kids could have just as easily learned (and had fun) playing hopscotch, tag, hide and go seek, roller skating, skate boarding, jump rope, ect.

Not that there is anything wrong with lessons. If a kid is in a team sport it obviously is necessary... and good that they practice. So are all the above mentioned Dunkin Donuts 'lessons'. But only to a point. Kids need to be kids sometimes too and just goof around with their friends.

Everything is too scheduled nowadays. Perhaps that's what irritates me the most. Does anyone 'get' what I mean? :shrug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. Yup

"Mom, can I go over Billy's?" has been replaced by "Mom, what time's my play date with Justin?"

:grr:

[retrospective66]

4. I know what you mean about

-a play date. Scheduled play dates are only nominally fun at ages 2-12. :eyes:

Spontaneous ones are SO much better if you are 21+ :evilgrin:

[Debi]

2. I get you

We have 'downtime' every weekend. We play basketball in the summer (or wash the car), play boardgames in the winter (or go paint pottery). We sit around and READ w/the television off. We just ARE TOGETHER as a family w/out an organized activity going on. It's so nice.

When our son's friends spend the night we sit in the living room and talk for a while before we go off to bed. With all the things the boys do we almost have to schedule time just to BE. It's nice just to ask random questions and talk about nothing in particular.

I get you real good!!! :bounce:

[BlueIris]

3. Tag, hopscotch, jump rope? But, but those don't enhance the parents'

status! That doesn't let the parents try to bolster their own standing in their communities by routinely and viciously putting down the other moms and dads at the soccer/softball/basketball/baseball/football/tennis/horseback riding lessons by trashing the performances of the other kids! What use are activities, or for that matter, children, if they don't. enhance. status.?! STATUS IS ALL. FYE ON THEE, NON-CONFORMIST FREAK!!! YOU HATE AMERICA!!!! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE BROKE AND, AND STATUSLESS!!!!!

[retrospective66]

5. You know, that's the ironic thing

I thought most baby-boomers reveled in their non-conformity. Yet they're some of the most competitive folks I know with their kids on the gamefeild. I'm an X-er. We teach our kids how to survive because that's what we had to do while our parents were out "finding themselves". It's not necessarily important to win some genteel game- though fun... No; we teach our kids to win at life. And that lesson can be found anywhere.

[BlueIris]

6. ...I'm an X-er, too. Just barely. And--you want competitive?

True, it's a way of life I've largely rejected, because I didn't actually get anywhere that way, nor has anyone I know, despite what they sadly believe. I'm really, really scared for the sort of future hyper-achievers my friends are starting to churn out. Being raised by Boomers who became total status whores after the Reagan Revolution in '80 made it damn difficult to feel important, productive or successful if you were still involved in (gasp!) "trying to make a difference" (if you ever truly were in the first place) makes for a bunch of kids (especially from the younger Gen X crowd) who are possibly the most vapid, shallow, narcissistic little assholes America has yet to be endangered by. Wanna know why the X-ers STILL can't be adequately motivated to get off their fat, lazy, sex-and-drug-addicted, ignorant, misogynist asses and I don't know...at least register a few voters? Mommy and Daddy failed to teach them what happens when you abdicate your responsibility to be aware of what the hell is going on with your society and government--not to mention failed to teach them any real sense of history, cultural literacy, inspiration to become educated in a meaningful way, (read: not just to credentialize) or treat their partners like anything other than breeding devices (they also failed to teach them how to fucking use fucking condoms like half-way decent human beings). There's only one Boomer on this board who's been strong and honest enough to step up and admit that, too, from what I've seen, which is a goddamned shame. I pray that in the alternate universe in which I would ever choose to try and raise a child, I'd teach her to do a far sight better than just survive, though. And if I couldn't secure at least some semblance of hope that I'd be able to raise her with a greater sense of having been nurtured and guided (read: actual parented, not subjected to self-obsessed neglect and abuse) I wouldn't even think about taking responsibility for a lifetime of childcare. Being raised as if survival is the best you can expect is no way to grow up.

[retrospective66]

7. Wow!

That wasn't pleasant. But you illustrate my point well. What ever to happened to Peace, Love and Happiness? :shrug:

[Redstone]

8. I get it. Our kids get to be kids.

The old-fashioned way.

Though we can do that because we live in town, in a small town. Other parents may not be able to do what we do.

Redstone

[retrospective66]

9. Redstone, from what I know of you

You'd find a way to make your kids happy and fulfilled no matter where.

I raised my daughter in a small town, actually outside of a small town. Her nearest girlfriend was about 3 miles away..I played with her as much as possible but that's how country girls grow up. Alone and imaginative.

On the other hand, my eldest sister lives in a mid-Atlantic city. Not in the 'burbs' but a duplex among blocks and blocks of similar places. Not a very good neighborhood. She has 3 young boys ages 11 and twins who are 9. She has them in Parochial School as the public school system is very bad there. However, she made sure the kids found fun things to do outside of the structured environment of school. Which included learning from and playing with the many immigrant kids in the neighborhood. Many times the kids couldn't speak the same language but they all knew how to play.

Gosh, Redstone, I've gone off the subject a bit, but I think my point was that good parents (such as you :-) )can make sure their children are brought up well anywhere and you don't necessarily need structured stuff to do it!