This Is Our Social & Cultural Issues Thread

[PRgal]

1 hour ago, Neurochick said:

True, but what if the parents can't do that?  What if they don't know how, or what if they're so busy working two, three jobs that they don't have time?

This may be unpopular but I'll say it here because it's a social issue.  I love seeing Randall and Beth and I'd watch a whole show with them.  I think it's important for black children to see couples on TV like Randall and Beth, all the time, rather than the dysfunction junction that is on shows like Love and Hip Hop and Black Ink Crew.  I grew up in the 60's and 70's and never heard the word "babymama" or "babydaddy."  It was always, "my husband/my wife."  Black children need to see that no, marriage is NOT just for white people (which is a title of a book, "Is Marriage for White People?").

That's true.  My parents worked 9-5 jobs and my primary caregiver growing up was my grandmother (it's called free babysitting, y'all) as she lived with us.  Neither parent ever REALLY taught me to cook, and I (barely) learned basics from my grandmother because she didn't believe ladies should be in the kitchen (she didn't JUST mean a professional one).  I barely baked well enough to pass my Brownie and Guide badge testing!  My mom was never really taught to cook either and couldn't even boil an egg until she was 21 and going to school abroad.  Thing is, my mom didn't exactly grow up in a privileged home with help, either.  Her mom (i.e. the grandmother who lived with us) didn't allow her in the kitchen and wanted her to study, go to university and do things she wasn't able to do because of the war.  Note that both my parents had ONE job.  They came home, had dinner and my grandmother did all the cleaning up.  They were responsible for driving me to my lessons/Brownies and my regular school education.  Of course, they spent time with me, reading stories, playing games, etc, too.  I ended up following in neither of their footsteps (mom in IT (I tried to get her to watch Halt and Catch Fire since she was in that industry back in that period), dad in finance) and ended up in dabbling in PR before going into philanthropy-related work.  They DID teach me how to budget, however. 

[DearEvette]

1 hour ago, Neurochick said:

This may be unpopular but I'll say it here because it's a social issue.  I love seeing Randall and Beth and I'd watch a whole show with them.  I think it's important for black children to see couples on TV like Randall and Beth, all the time

So much this!  This is why I am loving not only Beth & Randall on this show but also Trish & Murtaugh on Lethal Weapon and Evelyn & Blip on Pitch.  All these marriages are being portrayed strong and healthy.  And while women are supportive to their men they are also accomplished in their own right with opinions and a real personality that shines through and makes their roles seem actually bigger and more important than they at first seem.

Regarding life skills:  my stepdad had this list of things he felt all his daughters (there were four of us girls) needed to know how to do, stuff like, cook at least three types of meals, swim, drive, patch or sew garments, fix a flat tire, fix a faucet... stuff like that.  And my husband and I have translated this list to our kids with some modern additions. 

Also in our school district Consumer Skills is a required course for 8th  graders and they learn basic cooking but also budgets, and they learn about job searching such as writing resumes and going on interviews.  As a final class project they have to answer a mock job ad and send in their resume.  The "employer" is usually a volunteer from the community whose own work or skills mimic that of the job ad placed and they act as the interviewer.  The kids are really instructed on how to conduct themselves in an interview, what to wear, what questions they shouldn't answer stuff like that.  My husband and I both did the "employer"  bit and it was a blast.  I have a ton of experience because I have been on a billion search committees and we get to give written feedback.

[chocolatine]

8 hours ago, SlackerInc said:

Some people believe this is true of all aspects of education.  Where do you draw the line?

IMO, the line should be between life skills that most functioning adults have mastered by the time they have middle- or high-school aged children, and subjects that require specialized knowledge. I don't expect most parents to be able to teach their children advanced math or a foreign language, but the vast majority of them do know how to cook a meal or do a load of laundry.

9 hours ago, SlackerInc said:

 What bothers her (and amazes me to hear about it) is how many of the "paras" (paraprofessionals or what used to be called "teachers' aides", support workers who usually don't have college degrees) she supervises grumble in very right wing terms (usually when the kids are out of earshot) about the "poor parenting" at the root of the problems these kids face.  They go on about "personal responsibility", yadda yadda.

It's interesting that you chalk that up to "right wing", because most countries that have schools focus on academics and leave the life skills education to parents are politically much more liberal than the US. They don't consider personal responsibility a right wing concept. And those countries also tend to do much better in global reading, math, and science rankings.

9 hours ago, SlackerInc said:

But I think many women would just feel extremely unfulfilled being a "power whatever". My wife, a special ed teacher as I've mentioned, certainly would be one of them.  [...] And I think this is to their credit as a gender.

That is a gross generalization and an insult to women. Your wife's career choice is just that, it does not speak for other women.

Until a few decades ago, most women's career choices were limited to the "caring" professions, and to this day there's still social conditioning that women are supposed to be "nurturing", "peacemakers", "put other people's needs first", etc. In professional situations they receive backlash for being assertive, negotiating their salaries, and asking for promotions, i.e. behaviors that men get rewarded for. 

You can't say what career a woman will or will not find fulfilling when there aren't many historical precedents of women in those careers. It's difficult to be what you can't see. Until girls and young women get equal exposure to, equal opportunity to enter, and equal treatment and compensation in all possible career paths, you don't have reliable data to make that kind of statement.

[PRgal]

28 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

IMO, the line should be between life skills that most functioning adults have mastered by the time they have middle- or high-school aged children, and subjects that require specialized knowledge. I don't expect most parents to be able to teach their children advanced math or a foreign language, but the vast majority of them do know how to cook a meal or do a load of laundry.

It's interesting that you chalk that up to "right wing", because most countries that have schools focus on academics and leave the life skills education to parents are politically much more liberal than the US. They don't consider personal responsibility a right wing concept. And those countries also tend to do much better in global reading, math, and science rankings.

That is a gross generalization and an insult to women. Your wife's career choice is just that, it does not speak for other women.

Until a few decades ago, most women's career choices were limited to the "caring" professions, and to this day there's still social conditioning that women are supposed to be "nurturing", "peacemakers", "put other people's needs first", etc. In professional situations they receive backlash for being assertive, negotiating their salaries, and asking for promotions, i.e. behaviors that men get rewarded for. 

You can't say what career a woman will or will not find fulfilling when there aren't many historical precedents of women in those careers. It's difficult to be what you can't see. Until girls and young women get equal exposure to, equal opportunity to enter, and equal treatment and compensation in all possible career paths, you don't have reliable data to make that kind of statement.

And more men are needed in traditionally "female"/"caring" jobs.  How many male elementary school teachers do you see?  Some people even see guys who teach lower grades as "creepy."  And it shouldn't be that way.  Some education programs have affirmative action policies in place for elementary education programs, because, well, it's too female-dominated.

[SlackerInc]

The only male teacher at my wife's school the whole time she has taught there is the P.E. teacher.

10 hours ago, Neurochick said:

I think it's important for black children to see couples on TV like Randall and Beth, all the time, rather than the dysfunction junction that is on shows like Love and Hip Hop and Black Ink Crew.  I grew up in the 60's and 70's and never heard the word "babymama" or "babydaddy."  It was always, "my husband/my wife."  Black children need to see that no, marriage is NOT just for white people (which is a title of a book, "Is Marriage for White People?").

I'm not familiar with the shows you mentioned, but I was struck by how similar this desire is to what Bill Cosby stated he was out to do with his show in the '80s (as opposed to shows like Good Times or Sanford & Son, both of which I actually liked).  And it seemed like it had the intended effect with a lot of people, although obviously now his legacy has been badly tarnished.

[HeySandyStrange]

3 hours ago, PRgal said:

How many male elementary school teachers do you see?  Some people even see guys who teach lower grades as "creepy." 

I think some of it too comes down to the relatively lower wages teachers get. I had a really great male math teacher in middle school, who (like many teachers I knew at the time) had a side job because teaching didn't pay all the bills. When his wife got pregnant he had to leave teaching because it just didn't pay enough. One of the few male teachers in my high school was married to a doctor so I'm guessing his family wasn't depending on his salary. And I wouldn't be surprised if elementary school teacher got paid even less.  It would help if teaching was a more respected profession in the West and that they got paid better, in attracting more diverse candidates to the field.

[OtterMommy]

Just now, SlackerInc said:

The only male teacher at my wife's school the whole time she has taught there is the P.E. teacher.

I'm not familiar with the shows you mentioned, but I was struck by how similar this desire is to what Bill Cosby stated he was out to do with his show in the '80s (as opposed to shows like Good Times or Sanford & Son, both of which I actually liked).  And it seemed like it had the intended effect with a lot of people, although obviously now his legacy has been badly tarnished.

Well, they still have Andre and Bow on Black-ish.

I was thinking back to my own schooling and I think there were probably *more* male teachers when I was in school than what I've noticed now in the public schools (my kids go to a private school, where men are also under-represented among the teachers, but I volunteer in the local public elementary school).  

I'm really not sure why that is, beyond the "women" should be teachers.  When I was in high school, at least half of my teachers were men and 3 (so, half) of my elementary school teachers are male.  I have apparently blocked out middle school, but whatevs.   Now, at least the schools around me, might have 1 or 2 male teachers in the elementary schools and a few more in the high schools.

I do know that there is a mindset that teaching is a "good" profession for women because it is easier for them to have a job and be a mother.  Let's let that sink in.  Yeah, there is LOADS wrong with that sentiment....

I think that is part of the problem with education in general.  Teaching is seen by many (not necessarily people IN the profession, but the general attitude out there, which influences people who are considering teaching), that it is some sort of consolation profession.  And, sadly, in many places it is paid as such.

[PRgal]

43 minutes ago, SlackerInc said:

The only male teacher at my wife's school the whole time she has taught there is the P.E. teacher.

I'm not familiar with the shows you mentioned, but I was struck by how similar this desire is to what Bill Cosby stated he was out to do with his show in the '80s (as opposed to shows like Good Times or Sanford & Son, both of which I actually liked).  And it seemed like it had the intended effect with a lot of people, although obviously now his legacy has been badly tarnished.

Speaking of stereotypes, I'd like to see a show featuring an Asian family with NORMAL issues.  Fresh off the Boat (and Kim's Convenience in Canada) still has a lot of American born vs immigrant conflict, which I'm REALLY sick of (yes, I realize this is a REALISTIC issue and I've experienced it myself, but still).  I saw it in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (I know, not Asian, but same deal) and I don't need to see more.  Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program...

Edited December 16, 2016 by PRgal

[SlackerInc]

2 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

I'm really not sure why that is, beyond the "women" should be teachers.  When I was in high school, at least half of my teachers were men and 3 (so, half) of my elementary school teachers are male.  I have apparently blocked out middle school, but whatevs.   Now, at least the schools around me, might have 1 or 2 male teachers in the elementary schools and a few more in the high schools.

I do know that there is a mindset that teaching is a "good" profession for women because it is easier for them to have a job and be a mother.  Let's let that sink in.  Yeah, there is LOADS wrong with that sentiment....

In my district, there are plenty of male middle school and high school teachers, and all teachers in the district are paid on the same scale.  So there's something about their utter absence in the lower grades that is more about some direct gendered idea of who should teach small children.

Yet at the same time, the idea of teaching being easier to balance with motherhood is not only sexist but also flat out wrong, for my wife at least.  I have been sick as a dog this week with the flu, and she felt she could only take one day off without her classroom completely falling apart.  So I've been trying my best all week to keep my stay-at-home parenting barely over the line of "minimally passable, non-neglectful".

[Guest]

I think too men are less likely to want to work with smaller kids?  My 11th grader says the male teachers (probably about 50/50 in her HS) are constantly complaining about how they don't like kids.  

I moonlight as adjunct faculty at a college and the full-time faculty here has a great gig for parenting.  They work like 35 hours a week with summers and holidays off, with great state benefits and really good pay.  

[breezy424]

20 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

Well, they still have Andre and Bow on Black-ish.

I was thinking back to my own schooling and I think there were probably *more* male teachers when I was in school than what I've noticed now in the public schools (my kids go to a private school, where men are also under-represented among the teachers, but I volunteer in the local public elementary school).  

I'm really not sure why that is, beyond the "women" should be teachers.  When I was in high school, at least half of my teachers were men and 3 (so, half) of my elementary school teachers are male.  I have apparently blocked out middle school, but whatevs.   Now, at least the schools around me, might have 1 or 2 male teachers in the elementary schools and a few more in the high schools.

I do know that there is a mindset that teaching is a "good" profession for women because it is easier for them to have a job and be a mother.  Let's let that sink in.  Yeah, there is LOADS wrong with that sentiment....

I think that is part of the problem with education in general.  Teaching is seen by many (not necessarily people IN the profession, but the general attitude out there, which influences people who are considering teaching), that it is some sort of consolation profession.  And, sadly, in many places it is paid as such.

OK, I'll go out on a limb here and say that teaching is a 'good' profession for half of a couple with children.  It's not just about taking a sick day.  It's about having the convenience and opportunity to be with your child.  You can shuffle when you're going to do prep and review which enables you to be with your children for after school activities, sports, birthday parties, etc., etc.  It enables you to not to be not in the position of trying to figure out who's going to take care of the kids when school is closed for a holiday or a snow day.  And then there is summer.  I don't see it as a consolation profession.  I know soooo many women who are teachers and I've never heard any of them say it was a consolation.  I have heard many of them say it was a great choice because they have been able to create a balance that works.

Yes, many say 'woman' in this but I think that's changing.  I also think there is still a significant amount of women who do want to be full time mothers when their children are young but yet want to have a career they can go back to without worrying about who's going to take care of the kids when they're school aged.  There's nothing wrong with that.  Just as there's nothing wrong with a mother, or father, who chooses to be a stay at home parent.   A full time parent is one of the most demanding exhausting careers out there.  

Sorry Ottermommy.  I don't mean to direct this all at 'you'. 

PS.  How did we get into discussing this in the first place??????????????  :)

 

One of my biggest problems with education is that the emphasis on math in the later grades is about 'academic' math.  There shouldn't be just an elective course or one semester focused on balancing a check book or budgeting.  Kids should be able to know inside out every aspect of 'business' math.  In the old days, business math was the focus of students who didn't plan to go to college.  The reality is that business math (debits/credits, interest rates, compound interest, and now IRA's, Roth's, the stock market and how it works, etc.) should be taught and be part of every standardized test.  These skills are far more important to students than higher order thinking math.  I always 'love' the standardized question about the trains leaving the station.  Well, in today's world you can just google that.

I do think there is value to some elective courses but I also understand that in today's world, too many people are too quick to sue school systems as well.  Shop is just about gone.  Cooking is just about gone.  One of my kids did take sewing and enjoyed it.  For me, it all boils down to educrats who make decisions based on trying to reinvent the wheel.  How did 'whole language' work out?  It was gone in my kids' school system after four years.  And now we have 'common core' math.  Yeah, let's reinvent math to make it as complicated as possible. 

PS.  How did we get into discussing this in the first place?????   Not saying any any of these topics are not interesting.  I'm pretty passionate about education and what's wrong or right with it.

[mansonlamps]

I don't think the trains leaving the station problems were about getting the answer as much as the critical thinking involved in getting there.  I think that's still extremely important to be successful in life, Google can't solve everything.

[ShadowFacts]

6 hours ago, breezy424 said:

PS.  How did we get into discussing this in the first place??????????????  :)

 

5 hours ago, breezy424 said:

PS.  How did we get into discussing this in the first place?????   Not saying any any of these topics are not interesting.  I'm pretty passionate about education and what's wrong or right with it.

I think it all started with us discussing Beth calling her girls "little mamas" when sending them up to get ready for bed Christmas Eve.  That got us talking about tracking girls towards motherhood, gender roles, jobs that women do, etc.  We were on the little mama train.

[OtterMommy]

13 hours ago, breezy424 said:

OK, I'll go out on a limb here and say that teaching is a 'good' profession for half of a couple with children.  It's not just about taking a sick day.  It's about having the convenience and opportunity to be with your child.  You can shuffle when you're going to do prep and review which enables you to be with your children for after school activities, sports, birthday parties, etc., etc.  It enables you to not to be not in the position of trying to figure out who's going to take care of the kids when school is closed for a holiday or a snow day.  And then there is summer.  I don't see it as a consolation profession.  I know soooo many women who are teachers and I've never heard any of them say it was a consolation.  I have heard many of them say it was a great choice because they have been able to create a balance that works.

Yes, many say 'woman' in this but I think that's changing.  I also think there is still a significant amount of women who do want to be full time mothers when their children are young but yet want to have a career they can go back to without worrying about who's going to take care of the kids when they're school aged.  There's nothing wrong with that.  Just as there's nothing wrong with a mother, or father, who chooses to be a stay at home parent.   A full time parent is one of the most demanding exhausting careers out there.  

Sorry Ottermommy.  I don't mean to direct this all at 'you'. 

PS.  How did we get into discussing this in the first place??????????????  :)

No offense taken!

Here is where I was coming from with this.  I worked in the corporate world for many years and it was most definitely not a good fit for me.  After I got married, I thought I would investigate a teaching career (when I was a kid, I had wanted to be a teacher).  When my MIL heard this, she said, "Oh that's good.  Teaching is such a good career for women--it doesn't interfere as much with motherhood" (I was not yet a mom at this point!).  While she was the only one who was so blunt about it, I did hear this, or a very similar sentiment, from many people (mostly women, oddly)--both family members and friends/acquaintances.  Also, in my husband's family, women are expected to be teachers and men are expected to be engineers and they just don't know what to do when it doesn't work out that way (My husband has a female cousin who is an engineer, and she has been labeled all sorts of derogatory things by HER FAMILY.  He also has an Uncle who was a teacher--and comments about how he "never reached any potential" are frequently made about him).

All that being said, I have a lot of friends who are teachers and who have kids and it works out for them.  However, I don't think any of them became teachers *because* they were parents, or even because they wanted to someday be parents.  Instead, they went into teaching because they had a passion for education.

Oh, and I ended up not pursuing teaching. I've found something else that is my passion to do and that lets me be my own boss.  And, being a Girl Scout Troop leader, I've realized that there is no way that I have the patience to teach 5 days a week.... A couple hours every other week is more than enough!

Edited December 16, 2016 by OtterMommy
Typos

[PRgal]

58 minutes ago, OtterMommy said:

  (My husband has a female cousin who is an engineer, and she has been labeled all sorts of derogatory things by HER FAMILY.  He also has an Uncle who was a teacher--and comments about how he "never reached any potential" are frequently made about him). 

And I've been criticized for NOT going into finance - especially investment banking, hedge fund management and the like.  Almost ALL my cousins are in some sort of financial services job, save for one (who is a doctor).  I think it was finance, IT or bust for my family.  My maternal grandmother, who really didn't know much about business/financial services or IT (especially IT), thought finance was a "good" job since I could make decent money AND still be "pretty"/look neat, since you dress up for work.  Keep in mind my grandmother was born in 1923. 

Edited December 16, 2016 by PRgal

[SlackerInc]

15 hours ago, mansonlamps said:

I don't think the trains leaving the station problems were about getting the answer as much as the critical thinking involved in getting there.  I think that's still extremely important to be successful in life, Google can't solve everything.

Indeed.  And (watch this neat trick to pull the tangent back into the show) someone like Randall got where he is because of higher-order math and learning skills on how to tackle complex problems with multiple variables.  If you could just Google the answers to all the questions he is tasked with about weather and crop futures, he would not have that fancy car he paid cash for.  Now, in fifty (maybe twenty!) years, perhaps you will be able to just let an AI do that kind of problem.  But currently, we still need humans to learn those skills.

And if we do get to where everything is just "screw it, who needs to learn any of that stuff, you can just Google it", you are headed down the path to Idiocracy.  Or maybe a little more optimistically, people still pursue many kinds of knowledge and contemplation for its own sake, but lean more toward philosophy, literature, history, "the humanities", as there's nothing in STEM they can do as well as the robots.  The usual fear of that scenario is "Terminator" or "The Matrix"; but leave aside those malevolent AIs: what if our infrastructure starts to break down, and no one knows how to fix it?  That is the premise of the amazingly prescient E.M. Forster story "The Machine Stops".  Not known for sci-fi, this guy predicted so many aspects of the 21st century Internet over a century ago.  In fact, the story is so old, it's in the public domain, and you can legally read it right here.  I urge anyone who hasn't, to do so...and maybe you'll rethink "ah, don't bother teaching it if they can just Google it".

[kaygeeret]

well, the reason that more men are not in teaching/going into teaching is because teaching and public schools are constantly under attack and the pay is being decreased.

The charter/voucher schools pay SIGNIFICANTLY less than public schools who used to have the benefit of a union who could negotiate salaries and working conditions.  Sadly, that is no longer the case in my state of Wisconsin.

Why in god's name would someone go to college to be called lazy and a bum and be given little or no power to negotiate anything.  Why would you choose to work in a system where competing entities (charter/voucher) routinely score very badly and do no better than any other system, yet you get all the blame.

I have seen some resoundingly successful public schools in Milwaukee, a city widely assumed to have a failing school system - and yet, there are plenty of public schools getting the job done without attention or acclaim.

To be fair, there is a charter school system here that has also achieved results.

BUT, to get the best and the brightest - and keep them in the profession - you need to PAY them.  You also need to provide them with classroom materials and not force teachers to spend their own money - sometimes a significant amount if in elementary school - on tape, paper, construction materials, puzzles whatever.

A teacher performing their job properly is working very hard every day - and for many longer hours than just classroom time.  Don't forget weekends.  Often Sunday is a work day.

Sorry for the rant.  I guess I know too many teachers :) 

[Enigma X]

2 minutes ago, kaygeeret said:

well, the reason that more men are not in teaching/going into teaching is because teaching and public schools are constantly under attack and the pay is being decreased.

The charter/voucher schools pay SIGNIFICANTLY less than public schools who used to have the benefit of a union who could negotiate salaries and working conditions.  Sadly, that is no longer the case in my state of Wisconsin.

Why in god's name would someone go to college to be called lazy and a bum and be given little or no power to negotiate anything.  Why would you choose to work in a system where competing entities (charter/voucher) routinely score very badly and do no better than any other system, yet you get all the blame.

I have seen some resoundingly successful public schools in Milwaukee, a city widely assumed to have a failing school system - and yet, there are plenty of public schools getting the job done without attention or acclaim.

To be fair, there is a charter school system here that has also achieved results.

BUT, to get the best and the brightest - and keep them in the profession - you need to PAY them.  You also need to provide them with classroom materials and not force teachers to spend their own money - sometimes a significant amount if in elementary school - on tape, paper, construction materials, puzzles whatever.

A teacher performing their job properly is working very hard every day - and for many longer hours than just classroom time.  Don't forget weekends.  Often Sunday is a work day.

Sorry for the rant.  I guess I know too many teachers :) 

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with your statements. I am just curious why those would be the reasons for men not becoming teachers as opposed to men and women not going into teaching?

[kaygeeret]

7 minutes ago, Enigma X said:

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with your statements. I am just curious why those would be the reasons for men not becoming teachers as opposed to men and women not going into teaching?

Oh gosh, I did go off on a tangent didn't I?

I am a retired person and in my day, women gravitated to the profession as they would be married and it would be the second income.  HS paid more and more men were teaching in my day, but pay is being cut to the bone and college educated men (and of course women) can make more elsewhere w/o being constantly criticized by political hacks for being 'lazy', etc.

So my comments really meant both men and women and it is my understanding that women are declining to go into teaching as well as men.

No one wants to work hard and be criticized for being lazy, overpaid and rotten at their job when they are putting in long hours and spending their own money to provide classroom tools.

This is, of course fairly specific to what is happening/has happened in Wisconsin, but I see and read about the same anti public education activities in other states.

Hope I answered your question.

[Tiger]

12 hours ago, Indy said:

I didn't totally love this episode, mostly because of the excess schmaltz and no grown-up Randall and no Beth. But it wasn't bad (no Toby and no Olivia!!). I both loved Jack's reaction to the golf dads and also kind of rolled my eyes as the halo over Jack is getting bigger and bigger. 

The babies are exactly one day younger than I am.  No wonder I like them :)  For some reason, based on Kevin's Challenger disaster conversation, I had them placed as '79 babies but apparently not.  As for what generation we fit in, we early 80s and late 70s babies are part of the Oregon Trail generation - https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-generation/. Not quite Gen X, not quite Millennials. We're the weird lunch meat in the generation sandwich. 

Thank you for this.

It seems to me that my immediate peers, which I would put two years on either side me so those born from 1980 to 84, are the lost generation in more ways that one.  My older brother is definitely a Gen X'er and my younger brother is the epitome of a millennial.  But I definitely dont fit in either group.

[methodwriter85]

I've always felt firmly in the Millennial group- I was born in '85, so I can't remember anything before 1989, and the childhood years I can remember are firmly in the 1990's. I think being born in the second half of the 80's is as good of a cutoff as anything.

I do have older siblings that were born in '81 and '82 (so right around the age of the triplets), and they never quite felt like my peers- their childhood was more influenced by the 80's than mine was. However, because of them, I do remember seeing/watching a lot of Gen Xer stuff, like OR 90210 and listening to Debbie Gibson and New Kids on the Block.

At the same time, I can remember going on the internet in elementary school, and having the internet in my house by 7th grade, and having a hand-me-down Brick Nokia phone by 8th or 9th grade. Social media has always been a thing- I remember LiveJournal going back to the start of high school.

[chocolatine]

I had a very interesting conversation with an Uber driver recently about his experience with adoption in the 80s (I'm not sure how we got there, but it was a long ride and we talked about a lot of things). He told me that he and his wife's only biological child was diagnosed with a genetic disorder and died a few hours after his birth in 1986. They were told by their doctors that any biological children of theirs would be 25% likely to have the same disorder, so they decided to adopt. However, he said they were not allowed to adopt for at least a year after they lost their first child. He was angry about that at first because he and his wife wanted a baby ASAP, but in retrospect he felt he needed that time to grieve and process properly. After the one-year wait, he and his wife adopted a boy, and then another one four years after that, so there was thankfully a happy ending to that story.

Watching the show last night made me think about that story again, and made me wonder again how Jack and Rebecca were seemingly able to adopt Randall the same day they lost one of their babies. Does anyone here have any experience (hopefully not first-hand) with adoption after losing a biological child? Would Randall's adoption story have been at all realistic in real life in 1980? 

[PRgal]

9 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

I've always felt firmly in the Millennial group- I was born in '85, so I can't remember anything before 1989, and the childhood years I can remember are firmly in the 1990's. I think being born in the second half of the 80's is as good of a cutoff as anything.

I do have older siblings that were born in '81 and '82 (so right around the age of the triplets), and they never quite felt like my peers- their childhood was more influenced by the 80's than mine was. However, because of them, I do remember seeing/watching a lot of Gen Xer stuff, like OR 90210 and listening to Debbie Gibson and New Kids on the Block.

At the same time, I can remember going on the internet in elementary school, and having the internet in my house by 7th grade, and having a hand-me-down Brick Nokia phone by 8th or 9th grade. Social media has always been a thing- I remember LiveJournal going back to the start of high school.

I think if you're in your early 30s, you're firmly Millennial.  Anything mid-30s to 40 is "somewhere in between."  As for boy bands, some of us never officially admitted we listened to the later-90s stuff like 'NSYNC or Backstreet Boys.  Because it was too "middle school" for us.  Heh.

[ShadowFacts]

9 hours ago, chocolatine said:

Watching the show last night made me think about that story again, and made me wonder again how Jack and Rebecca were seemingly able to adopt Randall the same day they lost one of their babies. Does anyone here have any experience (hopefully not first-hand) with adoption after losing a biological child? Would Randall's adoption story have been at all realistic in real life in 1980? 

No experience, but I bet in real life they couldn't adopt him immediately, they would have been fostering him first.  Back when we were discussing one of the first episodes, I looked at Pennsylvania foster care rules from that period and they seemed pretty lenient, you only needed a telephone and a working toilet in your home, for example.  They probably would have gotten an emergency license, helped along by the hospital social worker.  As for considerations about a waiting period after losing a biological child, that type of factor sounds more modern than something that would have been in play 30+ years ago. 

[PRgal]

Regarding adoption:  I would say that a lot changed in the 90s.  I've spoken with people in their late 50s to 60-something who said that they adopted fairly quickly after applying.  They would have adopted in the 80s some time, going into the early 90s and were surprised that we've been waiting for three years.

[chocolatine]

4 hours ago, ShadowFacts said:

No experience, but I bet in real life they couldn't adopt him immediately, they would have been fostering him first.  Back when we were discussing one of the first episodes, I looked at Pennsylvania foster care rules from that period and they seemed pretty lenient, you only needed a telephone and a working toilet in your home, for example.  They probably would have gotten an emergency license, helped along by the hospital social worker.  As for considerations about a waiting period after losing a biological child, that type of factor sounds more modern than something that would have been in play 30+ years ago. 

 

4 hours ago, PRgal said:

Regarding adoption:  I would say that a lot changed in the 90s.  I've spoken with people in their late 50s to 60-something who said that they adopted fairly quickly after applying.  They would have adopted in the 80s some time, going into the early 90s and were surprised that we've been waiting for three years.

Right, but the man I was talking to started the adoption process in 1986 and was told they had to wait 12 months after losing their first baby. So I was wondering if anyone had any further information on that 12-month rule, e.g. when was it first instituted, was it on a national or state basis, etc.? It's just something that I had never thought of before I head that story, but once I'd heard about it, it made perfect sense.

[theatremouse]

28 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

Right, but the man I was talking to started the adoption process in 1986 and was told they had to wait 12 months after losing their first baby. So I was wondering if anyone had any further information on that 12-month rule, e.g. when was it first instituted, was it on a national or state basis, etc.? It's just something that I had never thought of before I head that story, but once I'd heard about it, it made perfect sense.

I'm not an expert (and definitely don't know about PA law from the 80s) but from what I know in the current day, practically no adoption rules are "national". SO much of the regulation is state by state (or agency by agency). Although there are some things that are true in every state. But my understanding is that a lot of the consistency that exists now is relatively recent.  Pennsylvania is supposedly one of the least restrictive states though, in terms of adoption. That said, I can also see how even if there were such a standard, A) they might treat "born and died a few hours later" as a different scenario than what happened with Kyle. He might've been stillborn. (I don't think the show made it completely clear.) Depending on the legalese, it wouldn't be the same thing. or B) if it were an emergency foster-to-adopt scenario as others posited, as long as there were no "can't foster after the death of a child" regulation, it wouldn't apply to them, since there's usually a significant delay from starting to foster (even if the intention all around is to adopt). It varies but they probably had to foster him for a certain period of time before they could then start the adoption process and then that takes more time too. Which I guess is a long way of saying, that they'd just lost a child but still were allowed to adopt Randall, on my personal scale of "issues with the believability', runs low compared to other plot points.

[PRgal]

I wonder if they're going to actually address Randall's adoption, how he was adopted BY the Pearson family and whether there were any issues leading to his official adoption. 

[SlackerInc]

On 1/18/2017 at 9:52 PM, Tiger said:

Thank you for this.

It seems to me that my immediate peers, which I would put two years on either side me so those born from 1980 to 84, are the lost generation in more ways that one.  My older brother is definitely a Gen X'er and my younger brother is the epitome of a millennial.  But I definitely dont fit in either group.

 

18 hours ago, PRgal said:

I think if you're in your early 30s, you're firmly Millennial.  Anything mid-30s to 40 is "somewhere in between."

Yes, this whole notion of leaving people born in the early '80s out of the Millennial generation is, in TV terms, a "retcon".  In the 2007-2009 period when "Millennial" first started becoming a big buzzword, those early Eighties babies (including my now 32 year old wife) were definitely Millennials.  But then in the 2010s, they started hitting their thirties.  And due to the media's annoying confusion about what a "generation" is, they tended to stubbornly stick to their idea that Millennials are "teens and twentysomethings", causing people like my wife to "age out" of the generation, even though that's not how generations work.  The exact same thing happened to the term "Generation X" in the late '90s and early '00s: the older ones born in the 1960s suddenly were no longer talked about as being GenX any more--until they finally could talk about Millennials as the new "young" generation, and suddenly they were reinstated, LOL.

I talked about this at greater length in a Straight Dope thread I started called Thirtysomethings: an age group with no generational affiliation, which I encourage people interested in the topic to check out.  But if that doesn't sound like pleasure reading to you, I'll briefly back up my "retcon" claim here with a couple pieces of evidence.

First off, take a look at the origin (as far as I can tell) of the whole "Generation Catalano" deal, a 2011 Slate article.  The author places this transitional "generation" as those born during the Carter Administration, 1977 through 1980.  The piece also links to a long New York Magazine article, also 2011, by Noreen Malone, in which she defends her Millennial generation.  She was 27 at the time, so born '83 or '84.

My best piece of evidence, though, is a 60 Minutes story from 2007.  This was the first really big major media piece on Millennials that I can recall (it's even breathlessly titled THE "MILLENNIALS" ARE COMING).  The opening paragraph sets the table:

Quote

It's graduation time and once again we say "Stand back all bosses!" A new breed of American worker is about to attack everything you hold sacred: from giving orders, to your starched white shirt and tie. They are called, among other things, "millennials." There are about 80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995, and they're rapidly taking over from the baby boomers who are now pushing 60.

(Then starting with the second paragraph, they get into all the stuff about "participation trophies" and so on, which you can read for yourself if you dig that sort of thing.)

So at that time it described people 12-27.  If we used the same years now, as we should given the way generations are supposed to work, it would be those 22-37, meaning today's high school and college kids are part of a new generation that hasn't been named yet.  When it is, Millennials will snap back into being an older, more tightly defined generation; but people born in the late '90s will probably have to be another transitional generation like those from the late '70s (any suggestions for that name?), because they will go from having been called Millennials in their teens and college years to being retconned out by their mid-to-late twenties.

Edited January 20, 2017 by SlackerInc
Tightened up a quote

[chocolatine]

Quote

It's graduation time and once again we say "Stand back all bosses!" A new breed of American worker is about to attack everything you hold sacred: from giving orders, to your starched white shirt and tie. They are called, among other things, "millennials." There are about 80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995, and they're rapidly taking over from the baby boomers who are now pushing 60.

60 Minutes was way behind the times in 2007. I've been working in very corporate large tech companies (SAP, Oracle, Amazon, etc.) on and off since 2000 and there was nary a starched white shirt and tie in sight even then.

Edited January 20, 2017 by chocolatine

[SlackerInc]

31 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

60 Minutes was way behind the times in 2007. I've been working in very corporate large tech companies (SAP, Oracle, Amazon, etc.) on and off since 2000 and there was nary a starched white shirt and tie in sight even then.

Okay, but isn't tech different from the rest of the corporate world?  Stereotypically, tech giants might have a CEO/founder whose "corporate uniform" is a hoodie, but I think most CEOs in other industries are still wearing bespoke suits.

[kieyra]

4 hours ago, chocolatine said:

60 Minutes was way behind the times in 2007. I've been working in very corporate large tech companies (SAP, Oracle, Amazon, etc.) on and off since 2000 and there was nary a starched white shirt and tie in sight even then.

Yeah, but west-coast tech companies were the first to do that kind of thing, even back in the 90s. (Wasn't Oracle the "take your dog to work" company?) I'm not sure a whole lot of other industries have caught up even now, aside from the occasional Beer Friday type of deal. (Wouldn't know for sure, I haven't worked outside of the tech or tech/entertainment sector in a very long time.)

[PRgal]

@SlackerInc:  I wrote an article for the Toronto Star some 13-14 years ago on this very topic.  It's not online anymore (I have a photo of it on my Instagram, posted as a TBT back in August), but basically, I noted that we didn't have any REAL/long-lasting pop-culture icons like Gen X or Millennials.  All we really got was Clueless and My So-Called Life (which barely lasted a season).  Maybe they'll address this on the show someway?  Hmmmm

[methodwriter85]

I've heard "Generation Z" being used as a place holder name for the people born in the mid-'90s to the early 2000's. I work in retail, so I work with a shit ton of teenagers, and it's kind of fun playing around with the generation gap. I do believe that if you can't remember 9/11, you're not a Millennial. It would be like Baby Boomers and the JFK assassination.

Speaking of, Baby Boomers are technically born from 1946 to 1964, but the term "Generation Jones" sprang up to describe the people born in the mid-1950's to early 1960's- too young to have been part of the flower child movement, but too old to really have been part of Generation X, and the people who embraced Yuppie lifestyles in the 1980's. Basically, Kevin Arnold's peer group.

Honestly...the lasting social icon for that age group seems to be Full House. It's basically turned into the Brady Bunch of the modern era.

For me, it seems like Mean Girls has remained relevant. The kids today seem to still be into it.

And the Carter administration...I can get into it. I do believe that people born in 1982 (instead of 1977 to 1981) start to have more Millennial characteristics. On average, they were the class of 2000, and that did give them a special amount of attention. I think when you get to the people who were born during the second term of Ronald Reagan (1985 to 1989), you get to what I call the "Vanguard" Millennials. The idea is that we basically had our childhood during the 1990's economic boom, had Clinton as the first president we can really remember, and most importantly, lived during the time period where EVERYTHING seemed to be about kids. The Disney Renaissance, the 90's teen movie explosion, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's tween/teen clothing lines, et. etc.

[ChromaKelly]

19 hours ago, PRgal said:

I wonder if they're going to actually address Randall's adoption, how he was adopted BY the Pearson family and whether there were any issues leading to his official adoption. 

Me too. Right now I just have to handwave it all because even in 1980, the adoption story as it stands right now is so far-fetched if I think about it too much I can't enjoy the show. It would have been more realistic for Randall to be either older or younger than K&K. But I get that they want them to be "triplets" for drama's sake.

[kieyra]

Quote

The idea is that we basically had our childhood during the 1990's economic boom, had Clinton as the first president we can really remember, and most importantly, lived during the time period where EVERYTHING seemed to be about kids. The Disney Renaissance, the 90's teen movie explosion, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's tween/teen clothing lines, et. etc.

I have a vague memory of that being referred to as the "Baby on Board" generation by someone. 

Douglas Coupland's gen-x nerds in Microserfs (early 90s) bemoan how jealous they are of that new generation of kids. I'm firmly part of that segment of gen-x; ignored by Boomer parents who were off finding their own bliss, no job prospects until the internet exploded. Yikes, the Grunge generation I guess. 

Edited January 20, 2017 by kieyra

[ChromaKelly]

12 minutes ago, kieyra said:

I have a vague memory of that being referred to as the "Baby on Board" generation by someone. 

Douglas Coupland's gen-x nerds in Microserfs (early 90s) bemoan how jealous they are of that new generation of kids. I'm firmly part of that segment of gen-x; ignored by Boomer parents who were off finding their own bliss, no job prospects until the internet exploded. Yikes, the Grunge generation I guess. 

I'm of the same Gen X group. I grew up a latchkey kid, left home all the time, left in the TV or toy department of stores until my mom was done shopping, left in the car... wow, there was a lot of leaving kids unattended. 
My understanding was Millennials came of age roughly at the turn of the millennium (2000). So, they are about 10-15 years younger than me. They are of the infamous participation trophy, let's dote on our kids generation.

[Court]

The babies born in the early 80's were originally coined Gen Y. That somehow somewhere fell out of favor and somehow we got lumped in the Millenial's crowd.

All the stuff @ChromaKelly describes is exactly how it was for me. I used to walk to pick up m younger siblings from daycare at least twice a week. My upbringing was vastly different than theirs. I had a job, bought my own clothes, my own car,  part of my college, etc. They had phones and brand new cars given to them. My parents paid for any college they wanted. I had to stay in state. The list goes on. I did laundry by 10 and neither of them do their own laundry yet and they're in college. They didn't have to get a job when they turned 15. 

 We didn't grow up with computers in the house nor did my friends. Most of our households got one when we were in high school with dial up. Pagers were the cool thing then. 

[Hanahope]

1 hour ago, ChromaKelly said:

I'm of the same Gen X group. I grew up a latchkey kid, left home all the time, left in the TV or toy department of stores until my mom was done shopping, left in the car... wow, there was a lot of leaving kids unattended. 

This must definitely be a trait of us Gen X.  I remember my parents used to go to this square dancing "weekend" at a hotel/resort and I had to come, but then I'd be left alone to hang out at the resort's shopping center, the pool or the hotel room by myself.  Once I reached my teens, I could stay home alone all weekend.  When a mall opened a few miles from our house (that included a 4 screen movie theater), my mom used to drop me off there on Saturdays, even if I didn't have a friend available.  I'd see a movie, sometimes sneak into another (ah the times before 'reserved seating'), or wander around the mall.  I saw a lot of movies as a kid.  I always had a set time to meet her for pick up.  There were payphones back then, but I never needed to call home.

I suppose all this independence served me well later on.  I did a semester of college in London pretty much on my own, and spent my first year of grad school in a different city living almost alone (I had a room mate in the school apartments, but I rarely saw her).

Its hard for me to even consider leaving my kids so unattended, not so much that I don't think they can handle it, but because I'm afraid that some 'busy body' will report me to the cops or child services.  Last year, we started to allow our kids (11 and 8) to stay home alone on school holidays when both I and my husband had to work.  He was usually home by at least 3.  I still told the kids, stay inside, don't answer the door, don't answer the phone (unless caller ID says mom or dad), don't tell your friends you're home alone.

[izabella]

6 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

This must definitely be a trait of us Gen X

Yep - Gen X here, also a latchkey child with two parents that worked and lots of time alone with the tv.  When I was younger, I literally had the latchkey on a string around my neck.

[kieyra]

Can you imagine today's 'copter parents turning their kids loose on the street the way we were?

On a travel forum I recently saw parents fretting over whether it was safe to let their sixteen-year-old go off on her own while they were in ... Disney World.

[PRgal]

Just now, kieyra said:

Can you imagine today's 'copter parents turning their kids loose on the street the way we were?

On a travel forum I recently saw parents fretting over whether it was safe to let their sixteen-year-old go off on her own while they were in ... Disney World.

Sixteen?  That's cray.  Sixteen year olds have phones. 

[kieyra]

Just now, PRgal said:

Sixteen?  That's cray.  Sixteen year olds have phones. 

It was particularly funny to me because I grew up in Florida--when I was 11 or 12, they'd drop us off at Epcot with no chaperones on school trips.

[Hanahope]

2 minutes ago, PRgal said:

Sixteen year olds have phones. 

10 year olds have phones.

[PRgal]

29 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

10 year olds have phones.

Exactly.  So parents shouldn't worry that much.  Now MY parents were freaked out about ME being alone back in the mid-90s.  When I was already a teenager.  I was a temporary boarder at my school for a few weeks and my parents actually TOLD ME not to leave campus unless I HAD TO.  They never said anything to the school, so technically, I was free to sign myself out any time I wanted - as long as I returned for curfew.  And I did.  They didn't know. 

[izabella]

44 minutes ago, PRgal said:

Sixteen?  That's cray.  Sixteen year olds have phones. 

And CARS.  They give them cars of their own these days.

[PRgal]

52 minutes ago, izabella said:

And CARS.  They give them cars of their own these days.

Parents have been giving kids cars for a long time. 

[ClareWalks]

1 hour ago, kieyra said:

Can you imagine today's 'copter parents turning their kids loose on the street the way we were?

On a travel forum I recently saw parents fretting over whether it was safe to let their sixteen-year-old go off on her own while they were in ... Disney World.

That is batshit. Disneyworld is probably the safest place on the planet for tweens/teens to roam freely. There are cameras everywhere and buses will take you wherever you want. Of course, when I go to Disney, I see women bringing their sons (I've seen 12-year-olds) into the women's bathroom with them. God knows they'll be raped or worse in the men's bathroom, I guess. Or god forbid they use the family restrooms that are everywhere.

[PRgal]

54 minutes ago, ClareWalks said:

That is batshit. Disneyworld is probably the safest place on the planet for tweens/teens to roam freely. There are cameras everywhere and buses will take you wherever you want. Of course, when I go to Disney, I see women bringing their sons (I've seen 12-year-olds) into the women's bathroom with them. God knows they'll be raped or worse in the men's bathroom, I guess. Or god forbid they use the family restrooms that are everywhere.

How can a 12 year old boy be comfortable in the women's room?  I recall a FIVE YEAR OLD (or so) scream "I'm a MAN!!!" because his mom took him into the ladies' bathroom!

[ClareWalks]

5 minutes ago, PRgal said:

How can a 12 year old boy be comfortable in the women's room?  I recall a FIVE YEAR OLD (or so) scream "I'm a MAN!!!" because his mom took him into the ladies' bathroom!

To their credit, the 12-year-olds always look absolutely mortified and keep their eyes glued to the floor. I am a firm believer that school-age boys, who go to public bathrooms without Mommy all the time, have no business in a women's room. Special needs children can use the family bathroom, which is bigger and more comfortable anyway.

Edited January 20, 2017 by ClareWalks