A 2+2 family on the wrong side of the tracks could have discussions about the price of beer and smokes, having a lousy job, everything is someone else's fault etc.
A family on the right side of the tracks where a doctor is married to a lawyer could have kids listening to the state of the art of technology, good future job planning and the financial resources to let it happen. However there are no guarantees in life. Then there's anything in between.
My parents divorced and dad disappeared. My mother raised my brother and me on her own so there was no adult dinner conversation. She did teach us manners and to take a bath once in a while. (Bad manners and body odour can cancel out the advantages of a BA.) Having blue eyes and not smelling too bad got me through some doors.
My breakout was meeting a girl from the right side of the tracks and seeing a bigger picture of the world. We dated off and on for six or seven years mostly because of her mother. She was so intelligent and nice to talk to that I would drop in to see her after I had broken up with the daughter and I'd start dating the daughter again. Marriage fortunately never entered the picture. If it did, one of us would be dead and the other in jail for murder.
Her mother had the knack of giving advice without it sounding like it. I learned more about reality from her than my own mother. My mother was fatalistic, keep your nose clean and accept what comes your way. My GF's mother let me know I had control over my destiny. Without her I could be living under a bridge or jumping off it.
So how do you get the kids from the wrong side of the tracks to look further down the road than the next beer store?
Some friends were taking care of a teen grandchild for a few weeks because of him having problems at home (The kid's dad was a POS) and the kid wasn't happy. In conversation he was wishing he had a ghetto blaster but his pockets were empty. I pointed out that an electrician made enough in a day to buy one. I know a lot of electrical contractors and could have put in a word for him. His reply was "I don wanna be no electritian."
I think he wanted the lifestyle of a pimp or pusher. Last I heard he was on that track.
So how do you fix the kid from the ghetto?
The welfare rolls are growing in leaps and bounds, particularly if you take into account hospital costs due to self destructive behavior, social, police and judicial costs. Three strike rules just kick the can further down the road.
There was a sci-fi movie about a sunken cruise ship that was able to survive at the bottom of the ocean for decades by generating electrical power to supply oxygen and hydrogen and it became an ecosystem. (Goliath Awaits) As soon as anything had served its original purpose it became food, fuel or ballast. The story is only believable if you also believe in perpetual motion but do you apply that to Mothership Earth?
Triage raises its ugly head and who do you favour? The fifty year old druggie that never contributed an iota to society in his / her life but could potentially straighten out, or the seventy year old that built the society that kept the druggie alive for fifty years?
Soylent Green anyone?
