stella41b -> RE: Young submission and its consequences (8/11/2009 11:53:43 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Malkinius Right now you are enabling many young people to do things which does harm their future. Yes, you are doing so for good reasons with the hope that they will grow out of them. You ARE an enabler. You MAY be right in doing so for some of them. Personally I don't believe you are following a good or correct path but I do think that you believe that you are following the best path you can given circumstances and history that only you know. In this situation, you are very much an adult and it is your responsibility for what you are doing. You do seem to be taking that responsibility and I consider that a very good thing. To me 'enabler' is one of those politically correct psychobabble terms directed at someone who condones or allows someone else to do something which doesn't meet with "mainstream social approval/acceptance". We are talking young people and real life here, and you can be sure that if Prin (and other such parents who do the same thing) don't become 'enablers', then the young people will just go off and find other 'enablers'. The streets are full of such 'enablers' and not all of them will be as experienced in life or as responsible as someone like Prin. This includes the 'enablers' helping as certain section of the street homeless, the teenage runaways, stay where they are, out there on the streets. In fact you could even say that mainstream society and people as a whole are also 'enablers' if you look at it a certain way because every day they walk past these teenage runaways on their way to their offices, places of work, shops, restaurants and nightclubs apparently unconcerned enough not to be making louder noises for someone to be concerned. This is however an extreme example. Other 'enablers' can be the media, social role models, and their friends and peers. But then again I don't look at people as enablers, but as people dealing with life as it happens. But that's just my take and my opinion. I also accept that people make mistakes, young people especially, and they have to make choices and decisions - again not always the right ones - and it is this which is the real learning process in life, not what is taught in school or what is taught by parents which is just preparation. And sometimes the choices or even the options just aren't good or correct, but just adequate, barely adequate, or even unknown. Life to me is also about compromises and risks. Indeed I would even suggest that the ability to consistently and independently make good and correct decisions and choices doesn't take place until someone has lived life and gained some life experience together with emotional maturity. The point at which that happens is purely arbitrary, depending on the inner nature, character, childhood experiences, education and intelligence of each individual person and their trajectory through life. And right through people do things which may potentially harm their future, they smoke cigarettes, they eat the wrong types of foods, they drink too much alcohol, they form incompatible relationships, they commit crimes, they take on too much credit and get too heavily into debt. But on the whole they also somehow cope and learn to deal and cope with the consequences. You see you could call shopkeepers 'enablers' for selling cigarettes, bar owners and pub landlords 'enablers' for selling alcohol, supermarkets 'enablers' for selling unhealthy food and so on using that very same logic as you. I also don't subscribe or accept the term 'enabler' because I believe in personal responsibility and that someone is responsible for what they think, do and say from the earliest stages of life. This is why I disagree with the point above and do not think that Prin is doing anything inappropriate here because she is in fact holding those young people accountable and treating them as adults. In doing what she is doing she is seeking to communicate at peer level but providing an example and modelling perhaps much better attitudes and behaviour than can be found on the street. In fact I'm of the opinion that if more parents did what she and other parents do and took more of an interest in what their teenage offspring actually do and think then society would be better off as a result.
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