We were stopped all over downtown Portland by white street kids and asked for money? (crimes, live in)

[Yankeemama]

TDNY- I love what you wrote. So beautiful and true about being a parent. Thank you for sharing that on this forum.

[TDNY]

Originally Posted by Leisesturm

I don't get to Portland much but I do get there. When I do, I see the homeless kids. Downtown. I don't see them "all over Portland", I see them Downtown. Yes, they are mostly (exclusively?) white. Is that why it is upsetting? I've given some thought as to why it is there aren't more black homeless on the streets in PDX given the near total lack of opportunity for that sector of the population. Could it be possible that those homeless kids that upset us so much exist because they can? I mean... would it be tolerated for a nanosecond if they were black kids threatening white tourists or business people? Not likely. They would be picking them up off the street by the wagon load and the jails would be filled to bursting, like the jails in NYC. Cross the street against the light in NYC and if you are black you are going to Rikers until someone posts bail for you.

The children of Baby Boomers are lost. Boomers do one thing well: chase the American Dream. They have children because they 'are supposed to'. Then they ignore them. They 'give them' a nice house to live in and they work hard to find just the right school and 25% of the kids aren't going to work with that and are going to wind up on the street. In other places they run away to NYC and wind up being snatched off the Greyhound in Times Square where they are never seen or heard from again. I am seeing those kids in Downtown in a new light: as victims of parental distance, pre-occupation, even neglect. Abuse can enter into it but much less than you are likely thinking.

That line I bolded. That is the problem right there. You aren't giving them anything. Not anything they want or need. You have no right to expect anything from them. The Conservative tide is surely drowning America in unemployed adults, feckless and untethered young people and an overall climate of mute despair. We've had way too many posts from the vantage of smug superiority, lets have a few that acknowledge our complicity in creating these misfit young people. Only when you acknowledge that you have a problem can you really begin to be helped. Isn't that what the 12 Step programs teach us? Well the homeless young people are that way because of us. Tell me, what can a teenage white kid do these days? When I was a teenager white kids had 25 different paths into the middle class. Creative ones had 35. Going all the way through high school and college before one can earn a living because all the entry level work is outsourced or preferentially given to an exploited race... ... did we not think this would have social consequences?

H

This post is dripping with assumptions, stereotypes, and blanket generalizations. It also needlessly brings politics into the discussion. I think it's also safe to say you aren't a parent, but thank you for telling me about it. Thanks so much for this useful post.




PS, I'm not of the Baby Boom generation, I'm a Gen X'er.

[Leisesturm]

Originally Posted by TDNY

This post is dripping with assumptions, stereotypes, and blanket generalizations. It also needlessly brings politics into the discussion. I think it's also safe to say you aren't a parent, but thank you for telling me about it.

And your post was dripping with smug, above it all, condescension. Very unbecoming in a Gen X'er. Politics? Where. And you would be wrong, I am a parent. More to the point I also was a child. A middle class child of immigrant and highly upwardly mobile strivers. They completely lost my brother and I raised myself. Now, they have all the money and things two old people could ever need but they don't have a family. The post is useful to those to whom it 'reaches'. You aren't one of them. What can I say. How is that heavy handed emotionally distant hyper critical approach working for those who use it at home? Don't blame the victims, that's all I'm saying.

H

[EnricoV]

Originally Posted by TDNY

This post is dripping with assumptions, stereotypes, and blanket generalizations. It also needlessly brings politics into the discussion. I think it's also safe to say you aren't a parent, but thank you for telling me about it. Thanks so much for this useful post.

PS, I'm not of the Baby Boom generation, I'm a Gen X'er.

Politics (from Greek πολιτικός, "of, for, or relating to citizens")

[TDNY]

Originally Posted by Leisesturm

And your post was dripping with smug, above it all, condescension. Very unbecoming in a Gen X'er. Politics? Where. And you would be wrong, I am a parent. More to the point I also was a child. A middle class child of immigrant and highly upwardly mobile strivers. They completely lost my brother and I raised myself. Now, they have all the money and things two old people could ever need but they don't have a family. The post is useful to those to whom it 'reaches'. You aren't one of them. What can I say. How is that heavy handed emotionally distant hyper critical approach working for those who use it at home? Don't blame the victims, that's all I'm saying.

H

So, is the point you're trying to make that there are so many homeless young people in Portland because of conservative politicians or because of the baby boomers?

I'm sorry you don't like your parents. Truly. I just don't see how they caused homeless people in Portland. As far as baby boomer parents being emotionally distant, as a person whose peers were mostly children of boomers, I'm going to disagree with you on that one. Compared to the generations before them, the baby boom generation absolutely exudes emotional awareness.

Besides, not everyone in a generation is the same. For instance, I always got a kick out of the fact that Jerry Garcia and my mother were born in the same year, when he was a drug taking hippy musician who lived in Haight Ashbury and my mother was a good Catholic girl from Long Island who married at 19 to a lawyer(my father) 15 years her senior and still gets uncomfortable at casual use of the word "breast."

[aroseinrain]

Face it, most kids are going to hate their parents for a period of time no matter what they (the parents) do.

If you try to guide and mold your kids into responsible adults then you are over-bearing and controlling and it's no wonder they rebelled and drove their truck into a light pole after a night of drinking.

If you try to allow your kids the freedom to make their own choices and mistakes then you never cared enough to lay down the law, it's no wonder they ended up driving their truck into a light pole after a night of drinking.

Don't invest toward their college education, invest toward their therapy.

Some kids are born with a good head on their shoulders and, with a little encouragement, end up doing well. Some kids are born with self-doubt and resentment and have to learn the hard way that the only person who ever tried to hold them down was themselves.

[Yankeemama]

Let's you can nurture and help guide your children so they don't need therapy. And college education is very important, esp. now.

Originally Posted by aroseinrain

Face it, most kids are going to hate their parents for a period of time no matter what they (the parents) do.

If you try to guide and mold your kids into responsible adults then you are over-bearing and controlling and it's no wonder they rebelled and drove their truck into a light pole after a night of drinking.

If you try to allow your kids the freedom to make their own choices and mistakes then you never cared enough to lay down the law, it's no wonder they ended up driving their truck into a light pole after a night of drinking.

Don't invest toward their college education, invest toward their therapy.

Some kids are born with a good head on their shoulders and, with a little encouragement, end up doing well. Some kids are born with self-doubt and resentment and have to learn the hard way that the only person who ever tried to hold them down was themselves.

[aroseinrain]

Originally Posted by Yankeemama

Let's you can nurture and help guide your children so they don't need therapy. And college education is very important, esp. now.

I agree with you, I'm just saying that sometimes no amount of good parenting skills is going to keep your kids from making poor choices.

[Yankeemama]

Sure, not every person who as had serious problems in life had absent to abusive parenting but usually that's the case. I believe there the genetic predisposition to mental illnesses, such as alcoolism and addiction, needs to be addressed early in people's lives. We are still very uncomfortable with mental illness in this country.

Originally Posted by aroseinrain

I agree with you, I'm just saying that sometimes no amount of good parenting skills is going to keep your kids from making poor choices.

[EnricoV]

Originally Posted by aroseinrain

I agree with you, I'm just saying that sometimes no amount of good parenting skills is going to keep your kids from making poor choices.

True. But I then, think how they recover from bad choices is an indication of the type of parenting they had.