OT:Drunk kid wants his Mac and cheese at the Union

[David 76]

The best thing about old-timey parenting was that all adults were on the same team. Your parents, aunts & uncles, neighbors, people in the stores all saw it as their right to call you out if you were acting like an idiot.
Now people don't know their neighbors, everybody minds their own business, parents fight teachers too much. The "takes a village" piece is pretty much dead. I try hard to get parents to talk to their kids friends' parents. Call if your kid is going over someone's house. Tough to get people to do that these days

 

[ColoradoUCFan]

I received this email from a friend in Louisiana. Here's the entire email:

Subject: What happens in Storrs.....

At L.S.U., this kid would have been given his “f###in’ mac-and-cheese” and asked if he needed any ice cubes in that open container.

 

[temery]

No way kids are worse today. In my dorm, a kid went beserk because the music was too loud and couldn't study. On a Thursday night. So he smashed a beer mug against the wall and threatened to slice another dudes throat with the jagged remains. Did they toss him? No, they just moved him from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor. In with me.

I worked for Campus Police in the 80's. Three football players came back from a night of drinking, and beat a kid into a coma. They had to attend "meetings," and couldn't live on campus.

The kid/parents won a nice lawsuit vs the school. But that was it. They were not tossed out.

Bottom line: I agree - No way kids are worse today.

 

[David 76]

I am hoping you mean that the victim and his parents won a lawsuit.

 

[Kitaman]

And we don't throw people away. Especially when they are 19

While I agree, 'we don't' but I would have to believe that the parent would like to (at least until he gets his act together). Some young adult children are a drain and the peace that immediately comes over the house in their absence is absolutely worth doing anything for.

I've seen parents pay 1st 3 months rent, and the unsuspecting landlord thinks they are getting a good tenant with a nice advance. Please "take my kid" events happen everywhere in this case the parents got UMass and then UConn to do it. They are probably more pissed having to take him back vs the public exposure.

Just saying when you are on the outside its one thing but having to live with 'the problem' is another, and options are limited.

 

[Matt (Chicago)]

No way kids are worse today. In my dorm, a kid went beserk because the music was too loud and couldn't study. On a Thursday night. So he smashed a beer mug against the wall and threatened to slice another dudes throat with the jagged remains. Did they toss him? No, they just moved him from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor. In with me.

So basically you got a dedicated student as a roommate? Lucky you!

 

[OkaForPrez]

Crazy is Crazy guys.

 

[David 76]

While I agree, 'we don't' but I would have to believe that the parent would like to (at least until he gets his act together). Some young adult children are a drain and the peace that immediately comes over the house in their absence is absolutely worth doing anything for.

Just saying when you are on the outside its one thing but having to live with 'the problem' is another, and options are limited.

Agree. It is too easy to trash parents. And not all out of control kids have bad parents. And you just can't just allow your kid to do unacceptable things in your home. Paying for their college while they get drunk and arrested, is never a good option.

 

[Marat]

The "Luke’s Mac N Cheese” added to the specials.

http://nypost.com/2015/10/09/uconn-pub-names-dish-for-mac-and-cheese-jackass/

 

[4in16]

Still plenty of versions on YouTube, the original with over 2.5 million views got pulled.

 

[joober jones]

Mmm, I think it was less fear of punishment and more fear of disappointing our parents and letting them down in light of all they had done us. For better or worse that's gone as a motivator. Perhaps because this generation saw less of the struggle to accumulate wealth.

That's what I was getting at here
"the previous punishments teaching them the action is wrong for bigger reasons than just a punishment. "

 

[Waquoit]

So basically you got a dedicated student as a roommate? Lucky you!

He was a peach. Took speed all day then bong hits after midnight until he fell asleep. Never once shared. He only went off on me once, though. Just because I used his only facecloth to clean up a beer spill.

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

The "Luke’s Mac N Cheese” added to the specials.

The menu offering may last, but university officials may reasonably nick the campus restaurant's reference to the punk by name.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

No way kids are worse today. In my dorm, a kid went beserk because the music was too loud and couldn't study. On a Thursday night. So he smashed a beer mug against the wall and threatened to slice another dudes throat with the jagged remains. Did they toss him? No, they just moved him from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor. In with me.

Do you and freescooter still stay in touch?

 

[Towney007]

The best thing about old-timey parenting was that all adults were on the same team. Your parents, aunts & uncles, neighbors, people in the stores all saw it as their right to call you out if you were acting like an idiot.
Now people don't know their neighbors, everybody minds their own business, parents fight teachers too much. The "takes a village" piece is pretty much dead. I try hard to get parents to talk to their kids friends' parents. Call if your kid is going over someone's house. Tough to get people to do that these days

To me this is a lot of the problem. Just weird in a world with so many ways to connect we don't feel very connected anymore. We're kind of lucky here as our neighborhood - particularly in the last six months - has really started coming together. Kids play in each other's yards, randomly show up on our doorstep, parents take turns doing pick up/drop off for stuff. We have some kooky empty nesters across the street who are basically 65 year old hippies who are in everyone's business all the time... my neighbor to our right was a single dude who JUST retired from the CT state penal system.. he was in charge off solitary. He finally met a really nice woman a year ago and they date.. he is a big trash picker, so we always find great thigns for the kids on our porch randomly.

Bottom line though - everyone knows where the kids are, what they're doing and I don't think anyone doesn't think they can't drop shit on someone else's kid when they're acting like turds. So we're really lucky that way - but our neighborhood wasn't always like that. There was a year or two that we lived here and basically knew one neighbor. I STILL can't tell you the names of people four-five houses down from me.

 

[JMick]

Kids play in each other's yards, randomly show up on our doorstep, parents take turns doing pick up/drop off for stuff.

I'm only 24 but I haven't seen kids playing outside for about 10 years now. It baffles me, as we were always playing football or wiffle ball out in the street. You have a great neighborhood if you actually see kids playing outside and heading over to doorsteps asking if kids can play.

 

[Rocktheworld]

I'm only 24 but I haven't seen kids playing outside for about 10 years now. It baffles me, as we were always playing football or wiffle ball out in the street. You have a great neighborhood if you actually see kids playing outside and heading over to doorsteps asking if kids can play.

I'm 25 and I know what you're talking about.

But Xbox Live didn't exist when we were wiffle ball age. 8 yearold kids "socialize" on Call of Duty after school and on weekends now. They don't need the outside. They don't need neighbors. They're just living in a totally different time.

 

[JMick]

I'm 25 and I know what you're talking about.

But Xbox Live didn't exist when we were wiffle ball age. 8 yearold kids "socialize" on Call of Duty after school and on weekends now. They don't need the outside. They don't need neighbors. They're just living in a totally different time.

Our routine was backyard football, go home for dinner, head to our friends house and play xbox, wait until it got dark, play manhunt, and go home. Every. Single. Night in the summer. We did this from 8-13 years old. I really think it's a matter of kids' sole physical activity coming from organized sports instead of learning to play in the neighborhood

 

[CAHUSKY]

I'm only 24 but I haven't seen kids playing outside for about 10 years now. It baffles me, as we were always playing football or wiffle ball out in the street. You have a great neighborhood if you actually see kids playing outside and heading over to doorsteps asking if kids can play.

Move to Tahoe. It's like fricken Mayberry here. Everyone knows their neighbors, kids go in and out of neighbors houses looking for cookies and play on the streets all day. It really is awesome.

 

[ctchamps]

I'm only 24 but I haven't seen kids playing outside for about 10 years now. It baffles me, as we were always playing football or wiffle ball out in the street. You have a great neighborhood if you actually see kids playing outside and heading over to doorsteps asking if kids can play.

I'm 25 and I know what you're talking about.

But Xbox Live didn't exist when we were wiffle ball age. 8 yearold kids "socialize" on Call of Duty after school and on weekends now. They don't need the outside. They don't need neighbors. They're just living in a totally different time.

Have a kid your guys age. Lot of folks my age made similar statements regarding kids your age. I told them they were looking in the wrong places.

It's easy to generalize. See the thread about girls at baseball game.

I think there are some truisms. Kids have more time to enjoy life than say a couple of centuries ago. And over the last fifty or so years the number of things that are available to kids has grown exponentially. The latter change means that you won't be finding the numbers of kids doing the same things and that is what I believe the two of you are noticing which is the same thing my contemporaries were noticing.

 

[JMick]

Have a kid your guys age. Lot of folks my age made similar statements regarding kids your age. I told them they were looking in the wrong places.

It's easy to generalize. See the thread about girls at baseball game.

I think there are some truisms. Kids have more time to enjoy life than say a couple of centuries ago. And over the last fifty or so years the number of things that are available to kids has grown exponentially. The latter change means that you won't be finding the numbers of kids doing the same things and that is what I believe the two of you are noticing which is the same thing my contemporaries were noticing.

I think it has a lot to do with organized sports. Kids go to football or baseball practice after school and don't want to play backyard versions of those sports on days they don't have practicel

 

[ctchamps]

I think it has a lot to do with organized sports. Kids go to football or baseball practice after school and don't want to play backyard versions of those sports on days they don't have practicel

That certainly is a part of reason. I think there are other factor as well.

 

[David 76]

Other reasons:

Houses are farther apart. I grew up on a 1/4 acre lot and live on an acre.

We are often too busy to know our neighbors (2 parents working 47 hrs/wk each vs 1 parent working 40/wk)

Parents have become too concerned to let kids play w/o adult supervision. Even though violent crime has gone down, the media and parental anxiety leave the impression that kids are disappearing every day.

If you have a real neighborhood, you are lucky. It is a protective factor for your kids and it makes life more enjoyable.

 

[ctchamps]

Other reasons:

Houses are farther apart. I grew up on a 1/4 acre lot and live on an acre.

We are often too busy to know our neighbors (2 parents working 47 hrs/wk each vs 1 parent working 40/wk)

Parents have become too concerned to let kids play w/o adult supervision. Even though violent crime has gone down, the media and parental anxiety leave the impression that kids are disappearing every day.

If you have a real neighborhood, you are lucky. It is a protective factor for your kids and it makes life more enjoyable.

Was going to present 2 and 3. Great minds you know. Forgot about number 1. Big impact for our son growing up in a rural/suburan neighborhood. He still found to a way to get to friends. But not the same as growing up in a neighborhood with houses in close to proximity to one another or even in the city where several thousands of people are in one building. But like everything else there is good and bad with each of those variations.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Other reasons:

Houses are farther apart. I grew up on a 1/4 acre lot and live on an acre.

We are often too busy to know our neighbors (2 parents working 47 hrs/wk each vs 1 parent working 40/wk)

Parents have become too concerned to let kids play w/o adult supervision. Even though violent crime has gone down, the media and parental anxiety leave the impression that kids are disappearing every day.

If you have a real neighborhood, you are lucky. It is a protective factor for your kids and it makes life more enjoyable.

So, true. When I was 9 years old in the summer, I would eat breakfast and run out the, possibly not to be seen by my folks until dinner time (depending on my ability to forage for lunch at a friend's house) and my 'territory' was basically a 2 mile circle around my house and I did not have a cell or other way to communicate. Yet, my folks let me go without any real worry. I am surer there were just as many kidnappings back in the '80's as they are today; but, unless they were high profile and wound-up on ABC national news at 6:30 or were local enough to be covered by the Register or ABC 8 out of New Haven, never heard about it. Today, if there is a kidnapping in the brubs of Chicago, its all over the web in Jersey and all of the parents are thinking 'my kid will be next' even though it was far away and it was a custody fight, which means it was not random. I am on the fence about how far I let my 2 boys wander, though, I keep them away from the street primary because its a secondary road with no sidewalks that people tend to do 45 MPH on and not 25 MPH as the signs state.

 

[Paesano]

I worked for Campus Police in the 80's. Three football players came back from a night of drinking, and beat a kid into a coma. They had to attend "meetings," and couldn't live on campus.

The kid/parents won a nice lawsuit vs the school. But that was it. They were not tossed out.

Bottom line: I agree - No way kids are worse today.

Just curious, what years did you work for campus police? I never had any run ins with them as I was a well behaved engineering student but I did have one interaction which was sad on my end and handled well by the officers. Were you a cop or did you just work in their department?

 

[temery]

Just curious, what years did you work for campus police? I never had any run ins with them as I was a well behaved engineering student but I did have one interaction which was sad on my end and handled well by the officers. Were you a cop or did you just work in their department?

Undergraduate. Different school.

 

[Chuck]

Other reasons:

Houses are farther apart. I grew up on a 1/4 acre lot and live on an acre.

We are often too busy to know our neighbors (2 parents working 47 hrs/wk each vs 1 parent working 40/wk)

Parents have become too concerned to let kids play w/o adult supervision. Even though violent crime has gone down, the media and parental anxiety leave the impression that kids are disappearing every day.

If you have a real neighborhood, you are lucky. It is a protective factor for your kids and it makes life more enjoyable.

One of the reasons we stayed in our town and moved to a bigger house (but smaller than we could've gotten in other towns) is that it's a small town in a crowded area (northern NJ). There's no school bussing, the kids ride their bikes and skateboards everywhere. I see the teenagers walking in to town to catch the train to the city (blessing and a curse). I think one reason that some of this exists is that our lots are narrower than some of the nice towns around us so there are a lot more houses that are close to town/schools/trains. Adults and kids walk more and people hang out in their front yard which furthers the bonding. We all do block parties, and my neighborhood still does July 4th parade floats. The home prices are somewhat narrow as well which I think adds to the community feel because even the "rich" people don't have too much more than others.

There are negatives with this as well. My house is pretty close to my neighbors, we have zoning regs that make it tough to build-on or add stuff to your backyard, everyone knows your business, and we have high taxes because we have our own solid school system, police, etc. Also, I would get more house/property for my money, even in some of the higher-end Bergen County towns. But there are a ton of people that grew up there that move back. All of them say that when they were kids they had no intention of coming back, but then when they have kids it's the kind of place they want to raise them. Then they move out again to avoid the high taxes after the kids are out of town.

All of that said, I still generally walk with my kids to their friends' houses that are more than a block away, and then they play outside on a few properties. Next year (5th grade) seems to be the big age to give the kids the freedom to roam (and the cell phone that goes with that freedom) as long as they are with multiple kids.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

One of the reasons we stayed in our town and moved to a bigger house (but smaller than we could've gotten in other towns) is that it's a small town in a crowded area (northern NJ). There's no school bussing, the kids ride their bikes and skateboards everywhere. I see the teenagers walking in to town to catch the train to the city (blessing and a curse). I think one reason that some of this exists is that our lots are narrower than some of the nice towns around us so there are a lot more houses that are close to town/schools/trains. Adults and kids walk more and people hang out in their front yard which furthers the bonding. We all do block parties, and my neighborhood still does July 4th parade floats. The home prices are somewhat narrow as well which I think adds to the community feel because even the "rich" people don't have too much more than others.

There are negatives with this as well. My house is pretty close to my neighbors, we have zoning regs that make it tough to build-on or add stuff to your backyard, everyone knows your business, and we have high taxes because we have our own solid school system, police, etc. Also, I would get more house/property for my money, even in some of the higher-end Bergen County towns. But there are a ton of people that grew up there that move back. All of them say that when they were kids they had no intention of coming back, but then when they have kids it's the kind of place they want to raise them. Then they move out again to avoid the high taxes after the kids are out of town.

All of that said, I still generally walk with my kids to their friends' houses that are more than a block away, and then they play outside on a few properties. Next year (5th grade) seems to be the big age to give the kids the freedom to roam (and the cell phone that goes with that freedom) as long as they are with multiple kids.

Sounds like my town, i.e. borough. A lot of folks grow-up, leave for college, and then come back to raise a family. The only reason that my street does not have a 'neighborhood' feel to it is because the street has no sidewalks and traffic zips by at 45, though the speed limit is 25. That said, I have no been coaching for about 4/5 years now and the group of and parents that we spend a lot of time with is its own community and it is a good group. The taxes do suck; but, we live 35 miles from NYC in a top school district. You get what you pay for, I suppose. That said, from a tax and logistics standpoint, the three towns that belong to my school district shoudl just merge (cultural differences, and there are many, aside) as I don't see the value in having 3 police departments, 3 public works departments, 4 school superintendents (each town has 1 plus the regional HS has 1), etc. covering 24 square miles, which is smaller than the town I grew-up in in CT.

 

[Chuck]

Sounds like my town, i.e. borough. A lot of folks grow-up, leave for college, and then come back to raise a family. The only reason that my street does not have a 'neighborhood' feel to it is because the street has no sidewalks and traffic zips by at 45, though the speed limit is 25. That said, I have no been coaching for about 4/5 years now and the group of and parents that we spend a lot of time with is its own community and it is a good group. The taxes do suck; but, we live 35 miles from NYC in a top school district. You get what you pay for, I suppose. That said, from a tax and logistics standpoint, the three towns that belong to my school district shoudl just merge (cultural differences, and there are many, aside) as I don't see the value in having 3 police departments, 3 public works departments, 4 school superintendents (each town has 1 plus the regional HS has 1), etc. covering 24 square miles, which is smaller than the town I grew-up in in CT.

Sounds like my town, i.e. borough. A lot of folks grow-up, leave for college, and then come back to raise a family. The only reason that my street does not have a 'neighborhood' feel to it is because the street has no sidewalks and traffic zips by at 45, though the speed limit is 25. That said, I have no been coaching for about 4/5 years now and the group of and parents that we spend a lot of time with is its own community and it is a good group. The taxes do suck; but, we live 35 miles from NYC in a top school district. You get what you pay for, I suppose. That said, from a tax and logistics standpoint, the three towns that belong to my school district shoudl just merge (cultural differences, and there are many, aside) as I don't see the value in having 3 police departments, 3 public works departments, 4 school superintendents (each town has 1 plus the regional HS has 1), etc. covering 24 square miles, which is smaller than the town I grew-up in in CT.

At least you have 3 towns for your school system. That must give SOME efficiency (although the superintendent in each town + the HS is crazy). I think it's cool that our school (GRHS) is pretty small (700 students) and it's generally ranked highly, but it's all on us. And our police force has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. That's all for a town that is 2.7 sq miles.