Father's frustrated letter goes viral; highlights the generation gap

reply to post by DaMod


Fair comment. My earlier post was a chance to brag about my 6 magic kids, nothing to do with anything else. Any chance I get I would brag about my wonderful, happy, polite, courteous kids. And on another note, re your avatar, shame on you DaMod, giving your cat an unfair advantage over the mice by teaching it to use a rifle with a scope. Poor mice, it's just not fair!!!

Originally posted by Grimpachi
I wonder which one of his spoiled whiney little brats decided to go public with this.

Apparently one of the daughters has written a book and felt it would make good publicity. She asked her father for permission to publish.

He agreed, presumably with the motivation of helping her.

Originally posted by schuyler
The problem as I see it, being the father of three underachievers myself, is not so much that the kids are underachieving, but that they lay the drama of it all back on the parents, in this case primarily the mother. If you want use your $100K Marine Science degree that I paid for into watching goldfish at Starbucks for the rest of your life, have at it! It's just that I don't want the blowback.

Excellent point.

I think that was the father's main point. While he has spent a fortune giving his kids a private education, they now work in minimum wage jobs, are unhappy with their lot in life and unload it all on the poor mother.

To be fair to the kids though, if all three of them are under achievers, something went wrong with their upbringing?

I know I personally wouldn't fancy having a Nuclear submarine captain as a father. I don't imagine he was the most supportive or confidence building father around.

Originally posted by ollncasino

Originally posted by schuyler
The problem as I see it, being the father of three underachievers myself, is not so much that the kids are underachieving, but that they lay the drama of it all back on the parents, in this case primarily the mother. If you want use your $100K Marine Science degree that I paid for into watching goldfish at Starbucks for the rest of your life, have at it! It's just that I don't want the blowback.

Excellent point.

I think that was the father's main point. While he has spent a fortune giving his kids a private education, they now work in minimum wage jobs, are unhappy with their lot in life and unload it all on the poor mother.

To be fair to the kids though, if all three of them are under achievers, something went wrong with their upbringing?

I know I personally wouldn't fancy having a Nuclear submarine captain as a father. I don't imagine he was the most supportive or confidence building father around.

Wow, I can't believe I'm saying this. .. but for once, I agree with ollncasino

If all three kids have problems, something was definitely wrong with their upbringing. Let me give you a couple of examples:

My parents were fairly strict, and pretty stingy with their money (well, they actually didn't have a lot when I was little). They thought education was very important, and I was punished for making bad grades/rewarded for making good grades. They analyzed every graded paper I brought home. Whenever I would complain about tough teachers, or lots of homework - their response was "suck it up, there will be tough employers and tough jobs when you grow up - get used to it". I went to the college of their choice (what they could afford). Because they were paying for it, they get to choose.

We didn't get a lot of material things handed to us. I remember making some money babysitting when I was 14, but I was blowing the money on stupid things like music, candy and teen magazines. My mom told me that in a couple of years I was going to want a car really bad, so maybe I should start saving my money now, because I was going to have to buy my own car. She even took me to a used car lot, so I could get an idea of exactly how much I was going to have to save. Looking at those cars got me excited, so from that point on, I saved every penny. When I had a chance to go out with my friends on the weekend, I instead chose to babysit. Needless to say, I purchased my own used car by the time I was 17.

I grew up having a strong work ethic, knew how to manage my money, and toughed it out with mean bosses and difficult jobs. All thanks to my parents.

Here's how my aunt and uncle raised their two boys:

They got more toys than the richest kids on the block. Every time my aunt went shopping - and I mean EVERY time - she bought something for those kids. When they turned 16, they bought brand new cars for both those boys. When they would complain about a tough teacher, my aunt would run down to the school and fight their battles. They got everything handed to them on a silver platter. My aunt and uncle thought what they were doing proved they loved their kids. How did those kids grow up? They struggle with their jobs, they are always broke (but they have the coolest cars, the most expensive guns and the biggest TV's), they can't handle any adversity that comes their way, and they take total advantage of their parents.

How you are raised as a child has everything to do with how you turn out as an adult.

"I was trying to express my frustration at these wonderful grown-ups who had yet to make the best of what they had. They have read the criticism, but not seen the enduring love through the lines.”

He pauses: “I haven’t done well as a father, have I?”

Source

I just think a lot of people have missed what a tragic story this is and its true message.

It saddens me that it appears to be a call to arms to beat down a generation or two of children, and it saddens me that parents feel this way for so long and then finally choose to express it in this bitter, bitter way.

I feel like a failure of a person most of the time. I try very hard, but I guess I'm just not that smart. Not everyone is meant to be the best I guess. That's just life. No one is the best parent. No one is the best to their parents. All of the people involved would do well to remember this.

People shouldn't be posting their problems with their children online, they should be communicating with and guiding their children with ruthless compassion if neccessary before it gets to this sad, sad state of affairs.

This poor father has lost contact with children over this, and how much time is left? I'm sure the father doesn't want to hear how badly he has done as a parent from his children, and it would destroy me if my dad suddenly had an out burst like this that I didn't see coming.

I feel the father's pain in a way, regardless if the situation is true entirely or not. I feel his children's pain. They would all do well to work out how to work better as a family together in the future. I'm not saying that's even possible ... maybe the dad is a monster, maybe the children are all terrible persons ... but no one should celebrate having to do this or the outcome of this ...