Sunday, November 22, 2015

Sunday update - real-time post

Guys, I am working on my book (remember the deal - Primo didn't want me to try to publish anything while Sly and Doris were alive and now they are not alive so) and found this quotation. This is from an email that Sly and Doris sent to my nieces and nephew when they were about 12 years old. These kids are great kids and have been hard workers ever since they could get a job. They are not lazy, they are not grabby, they are not materialistic.

Even if they were, what kind of grandparent writes a letter like this to her grandchildren? (I think this might be somewhere on the blog, but I would have posted this and I had forgotten it!)

As I have observed, you always have had more than enough clothes, all the electronic gadgetry that was available, unlimited movies/videos and gaming programs. This was true despite the fact that your Dad couldn't meet the monetary needs of his family and that your Mom lost her employment as thousands of others have during this serious economic downturn. When people can't afford things, they have to understand they can't and act accordingly. You have to face the facts that there is no goose laying golden eggs to underwrite your expenses in life.


17 comments:

  1. She wrote this to her pre-teen grandchildren? Oh, Doris, I love how you insulted both them and their parents all in one little swoop. We thank you for sharing your observations.

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    1. She was very skilled. I also think she had help from Sly.

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  2. This is so mean. If my grandma wrote me this now, I would be upset. If my grandma said that when I was 12, I would've cried. Those poor kids.

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    1. Lauren, I know! I never heard a mean word from my grandparents. They were loving and kind - which is the job description, isn't it?

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  3. Oh my goodness! This is the same type of logic that schools use when they deny kids lunch and tell them that their parents should have paid. Those poor kids.

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    1. Sly didn't like that Stephanie had the kids on free lunch. (He said.) I asked why Jack didn't pay. Because it wasn't in the child support agreement! he said.

      I said, "If they were my children and I could afford it, I would buy their lunch, even if it were not in the agreement."

      He looked confused. I don't think he understood the moral obligations of parenthood.

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  4. am glad to know that you are really going to write "the book". so much to say, so few pages!

    Doris and Sly were very strange people, indeed, and telling the whole thing all at once will be interesting.

    Hope you and Primo are both healing from this awful experience and tha 2016 will be a much better year.

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  5. ....signed ?????

    Love Always,
    Mimi & PopPop


    I have to continuously remind myself this is not fiction.

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    1. Teen!, I know. I could not make this stuff up. In fact, for the book, I am having to turn it into fiction by having a nice ending - my friends who have read it could not stand it as it was.

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  6. Wish I knew the context in which this was written. I can't imagine one where this is an appropriate response.

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  7. This is foul. Even if the kids had been bratty, there are more adult ways to try to impress upon kids that good manners are important, and the world doesn't owe them everything. That, there, is just plain cruelty. Cruelty and nasty theater.

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    1. Exactly. Even if the kids were brats - which they were not and are not - this is not how you teach kindness.

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  8. This just shows what lousy parents Sly and Doris must have been. Even IF we make the assumption that the grandkids are spoiled rotten, at 12 the average kid is barely old enough to be questioning things like that, it would mostly be on the parents as others have said. So then, assuming they were correct (which I'm sure they weren't), the way to reach spoiled kids is to teach them compassion and show them the humanity of those who have little or nothing, not by scolding them in the abstract. It's possible to have everything you want and not be spoiled if people are more important to you than things.

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    1. I am amazed almost every day at how well Primo turned out. He must be a throwback.

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    2. Sometimes, one's parents can serves best as examples of what *not* to do. That's certainly been my guiding principle, and so far, it seems to be working out.

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