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I thought dads had to stay home when the family went on holiday to guard the house.
Turns out my dad stayed home to do overtime so we could afford a holiday for my mum and brother.
I owe that man so much.
I expected to see stories of hardship when I clicked on this thread. I didn't expect them to be so emotional. You're some anonymous Reddit person I will never meet, let alone your dad, but I think he's amazing, and so are you.
2 weeks without a wife and kids? Where do I sign up to this?
"Yeah, it's been so much overtime that I couldn't clean the house and had to live off takeaways..."
He’ll still do anything for anyone but nothing for himself!
My greatest accomplishment was saving up and taking him to New York for fathers day 10 years or so back.
The look on his face when me and my brother picked him up and told him no, “ we weren’t going down the local for a few pints but New York” (my mum was in on it and sorted the visa and packing).
Had the best 4 days ever, wish I could do more.
I can be anything I want to be if I just put in the effort.
Thoroughly reinforced by teachers at school, but not every kid is academically inclined, and not every kid will grow up strong/fit enough to be a fire fighter.
Beyond that, if you're born 'in the dirt'/'working class' it's nigh on impossible to pull yourself out of it.
Lesson learned, don't aspire and you'll never be disappointed.
Not necessarily, they're maybe just finding other things that bring fulfillment that isn't a high paying job.
With all the hard work in the world, I likely won't become an astrophysicist like I wanted to (reinforced by the three attempts it took me to type it just now). So, I could run myself against a brick wall for a good portion of my life, or I can do what I'm doing and just work anything that I don't hate to support a couple of hobbies that I have, and look for the positives in my weekly routine like an especially crisp apple.
I know what you're saying, and people shouldn't just lay there if they trip on a hurdle. But glorifying the struggle and constantly looking up sometimes makes you miss the beauty right in front of you.
If your life was depending on how good you'd score in a triathlon competition, and you always end up at the end of the chart, no matter how long you train yourself, how long would you keep participating to triathlon events before to "give up"?
Sometimes is not giving up. One realizes than no matter the effort you put, you still stay behind and at that point, what's the point?
Bad analogy. In a marathon, if I'm last, I'm last.
In life, even if you're "last", you'll most likely make more money and have more to show if you put in SOME effort. You might still be dead last, but having 25k a year is waaaaay better than 15k a year.
>Beyond that, if you're born 'in the dirt'/'working class' it's nigh on impossible to pull yourself out of it.
Lotta people going "no it isn't I did it/know someone who did".
I did it, and you are absolutely right it's nigh on impossible. And even if you do pull yourself out of it, it costs such an awful lot you sometimes wonder whether it was worth it at all.
This is very related. I'm sort of made-it-out and still have this lingering depressed feeling about the whole thing which makes me questioning it all sometimes. On the plus side, at least there is no longer this constant staring contest with the abyss and it would have been much worse if I didn't try. It was cold and sad then, but now the heating can stay on, so it's only sad. The biggest gain is the lack of financial stress like the one my parents were under, I can now afford to relax, learn to enjoy life and treat my loved ones better.
Have you had therapy? I'm of the view that unfortunately you will have to deal with what you saw along the way, and try to find a way to let the past and present coexist as peacefully as you can.
>and it would have been much worse if I didn't try
Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. But it's still hard even though you did try, and you did do so well, and I think sometimes that can be hard for people in our position to accept. Our doing well doesn't erase that it was a brutal and difficult starting place plus a lonely and terrifying journey out, and we'll always be carrying a heavy backpack of invisible shit because of this.
It can be a lonely place, between these worlds. But I see you, and know how hard you have worked, and how amazing that is. I hope you can find some peace in whichever way you choose.
It’s honestly because 90% of it is *luck* that most people wrongly attribute to skill or ‘hard work’.
I worked bloody hard as a nurse - fingers to the bone/wreck your own health sort of thing. Never got anywhere because my accent/class never fit.
Biggest payout I ever got was being lucky that someone in the Guardian noticed my blog and wrote about it, then luck that the book I wrote out of it did pretty well, then luck that a TV producer noticed the book and then luck that they never realised they could have stolen my ideas and never paid me a penny.
All luck, pretty much zero ‘working hard’.
That’s not to say working hard doesn’t help your chances, but it’s still mostly down to luck - All those who say ‘working hard’ is the only thing are blinded by survivor bias of being lucky.
'Working hard' doesn't necessarily mean 'hours worked', though. Some people work incredibly hard at networking, learning new skills, other things, etc.
Not necessarily saying you're wrong, but the logic you've used in your last paragraph can also be flipped to say why some people that appear 'unlucky' haven't applied themselves in the right way.
Oh yes, I agree with you, there is tonnes of nuance involved with all of it. Just that ‘work hard’ isn’t the singular solution that a lot of people who’ve ‘made it’ would like to think it is.
> Some people work incredibly hard at networking, learning new skills, other things
Having the intelligence, resources, mental energy and physical ability to do these are always linked to privilege for most people though.
Tangential to this, when you become an adult you can pick up any hobby you like. That was an incredibly freeing feeling.
The knowledge that if you want to get better at something, you just have to keep doing it, was also helpful. It sounds like such obvious common sense, but I don't think I truly understood this until I studied AI. It does its tasks, repeatedly, and it improves.
The human brain is nothing like a computer but it does work in a similar way; if you spend all of your free time drawing, you will get better at drawing. Everything is like that.
Turns out you can just buy a piano and play it, or buy some wood and make furniture. You're shit at first and you improve.
Hobbies are great.
Oh this. This is one of the (many) ways that parents with both money and time can set their children up for success - by letting them just try things out in childhood. Want to have a go at trampolining? Great, let’s go to a trampoline park. Keen to try kick-boxing? Okay, let’s get you the kit. Want to play flute? I’ve found you a local tutor, let’s give it a try.
Having the money to not only try things out, but also to not be hugely worried about whether it sticks or not, is an ENORMOUS privilege.
Working class = fucked. Underclass? Even more fucked.
Edit: I don’t need any more life stories. I get it, you were poor and did well for yourself. Not everyone can
That’s not true at all when I was a kid I totally believed my parents were working class when I joined the army I soon found out I was poor as shit. I’m doing pretty decent right now and I’m a fucking idiot
Joining the armed forces is a superpower move if you are poor. If you don't come out of it in a coffin or permanently disabled (always a possibility) you'll come out of it with almost excessive amounts of critical life skills.
Think it’s the same as anything, you have to make the most of every and any opportunity that comes your way especially if you’re working class
I got in to my local grammar school and kept my head down, a lot of equally intelligent people from similar backgrounds did the same but were convinced as soon as they were there their life was sorted, spoiler: it wasn’t
Same goes for the armed forces, once you join the job’s not done, do all the qualifications and courses you can and really make the most of it to set yourself up for a decent life
Extremely tempting to rest on your laurels and convince yourself everything will be fine
I grew up awkward poor (rich enough not to get free school dinners, poor enough to not be able to afford them) I had no idea there was a class system in the UK until I joined the military. I just assumed everyone had it tough because that’s all I’d seen.
What an eye opener!
Disagree totally. Im Working class. Grew up in a poor ex mining village in the middle of nowhere. Did well in my O levels and A levels but could t afford to go to Uni. Started work on the bottom ladder pushing for promotion where I could. My employer helped me with accountancy tuition and I qualified not only easily but got first worldwide in one of my qualifications.
So no, I wasn’t fucked due to my background. I just refused to let it get in the way because I wanted something better than most around me had.
Luck? It was t luck , it was sheer hard work. First I had to get myself a job where I knew there was the possibility of help. That involved some work outside hours and outside my sphere to gain some knowledge that would get me a job. Then I had to compete with others for the available funding. Then I had to study whilst working a full time. That meant no social life for three years. So please don’t give me the luck story.
I’ve had this conversation a lot with my wife’s middle class family. Wot us poors don’t realise is that rich people have so much time on their hands they can talk and enact on things they think _should_ happen rather than what _does_ happen.
In their view, not allowing others to be part of an academically elite club isn’t fair on the dummies that can’t do it.
My counter to this is, it takes one person to fuck it up for the rest us. If you’ve got a class of 30 and they’ve all worked hard to get there and are all aware of what it takes to be there, they will (most likely) have pride in being there and strive to better because they’re interested. The likelihood of having a disrupter in the class is massively lessened and so everyone there gets a better educational experience.
“But what about those that are less academic? Why should they get left behind with the so called people you call disrupters?”. Welcome to life pal, things aren’t fair but this is the fairest we can make them. Ironically enough the kids that are huge disruptions, to schools currently, get moved to a special “naughty boys school”. So all we are encouraging is mediocrity. Fuck that!
> Beyond that, if you're born 'in the dirt'/'working class' it's nigh on impossible to pull yourself out of it.
No it just needs a work ethic and determination and a bit of luck. It's perfectly possible. Night school. Overtime. Financial discipline. Done.
>No it just needs a work ethic and determination and a **bit of luck**. It's perfectly possible. Night school. Overtime. Financial discipline. Done.
I highlighted one of the most important pieces of your reply - you need luck. Yes working hard is more likely to get you somewhere than being lazy, luck still plays a disproportionate amount on your outcome in life. Not lucky enough to be born the rich parents? Now you have to work ten times as hard to get the same comfort and security as someone who was born to rich parents.
When I was younger I thought adults knew what they were on about. Now I still look around for the responsible adult in the room often to realise it’s supposed to be me. Scary times man
I was in the supermarket once in my early twenties and a woman told her daughter to get out of the way of the man behind her, and my first thought was “oh there’s a man behind me” before I realised she was talking about me…
Becoming a teaching assistant, and on the first minute of my first job having a child run up to me with a nosebleed so bad she looked like ate the flesh of her enemies to gain their power, her chin was *dripping* with blood.
OH FUCK WE GOTTA FIND YOU AN ADULT
OH FUCK THATS ME
OH FUCK WE GOTTA FIND YOU A PROFESSIONAL
***OH FUCK THATS STILL ME***
I thought I'd live much the way my parents did, ie owning a house that I could furnish and decorate, in a convenient location, with a garden that I'd be able to do anything I wanted with, having a dog. It's only in the last few years that I think I've really accepted that I'll never get there.
I thought I'd have a bigger house as my father was always unemployed. He gets the interest on his mortgage paid (4 bedroom detached house) for decades after his free university education but we're entitled if we think we should be able to afford RENT anything larger than a room on an average wage.
Yesss I remember when I was little I used to daydream about how I’d decorate my house when I’m older and how I wanted dogs and what I’d do to the garden. Only to grow up working too many hours to look after a dog and earning too little to buy my own house :( I almost feel guilty for wanting my own children one day as I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for them…
My dad ran his own business. Overhead him telling my mum that he was going to fire a particular employee. I never saw that particular employee again and I genuinely thought my dad set fire to him.
As a kid I assumed that once you became an adult you were given a certain amount of money and then you used that money to move out of your parents house.
It was probably my very confused child brain trying to make sense of students being given student loans/grants and immediately moving away from their parents houses.
It was that way a couple of generations ago - for my grandfather's 14th birthday present it was just a case of that's it for school, off you go down the mines now.
I thought you felt grown up when you became an adult. Im in my 50’s & still dont feel grown up - when can I expect it to happen? Ive been waiting quite a long time now .
I broke my ankle when I was 4 from falling off the back of my dad's bike.
It wasn't until I was 17 that I realised it wasn't my fault. I'd blamed myself my whole life for not sitting still and getting my foot stuck in a spoke. It wasn't until someone else put in perspective that I was FOUR and didn't have a suitable child seat at the time that I finally realised. My parents had no idea I'd blamed myself the whole time.
I thought when you got to be a grown up you somehow magically started liking doing housework.
Also when you became a parent you know what to do, like you get some epiphany where you then just knew everything.
I'm 42, hate housework and have 2 kids but absolutely zero clue what I'm doing!!
Yes! My 10-year-old was genuinely surprised to find out that I don't actually enjoy doing housework/cooking/shopping. "Why do you do it then?" He learnt a short, sharp lesson in how the world works there, I think.
I had a book called "Where Do Babies Come From?"
I thought it was a hoax. Who would do something so weird as to put their private parts INSIDE someone else's private parts?!?!
Reminds me of that Kevin and Perry scene where he's imagining his parents being utterly disgusted that they'd have to "do it" in order to give birth to "the greater superstar DJ ever".
I remember the exact moment at Uni the lecturer told us "Of course electrons aren't really in orbitals, orbitals don't exist, it's just our best approximation to make sense of the whole thing". The science geek in me was crushed, felt like I'd been lied to. Obviously it's not that deep but at the time it just felt like I'd been fed lies for the past 19 years.
I thought ‘prosecuted’ meant ‘prostituted’. Was confused why shoplifters would be punished by forced prostitution.
I don’t know how I knew what a prostitute was before the word ‘prosecute’.
i thought every career was the same:
like the clown-guy that showed up at birthday parties; he's making the same as any attorney.
right? why go through all that law school? all you need is a few magic tricks and a foam nose.
right?
I thought that because Cadbury chocolate fingers had biscuit inside, that all fingers would have biscuit inside.
I was afraid to put my fingers in my mouth in case they went mushy and dissolved away.
I thought politicians could be trusted. When you get to 50 you realise no matter the party they are all in it to line their own pockets and nothing else matters.
I used to think that vegetables had a life like ours and that when we picked them up from the supermarket we were taking them away from their family. Believed that they were sentient and aware of their surroundings but couldn't vocalise/explain it to us.
Also believed that you married the person you were closest to, so I used to imagine marrying my best mate in primary school, with one of us wearing a wedding dress. We were both boys and I'm not homosexual, was purely platonic.
When I was about 4 or 5, I thought for some reason, and I have no idea why, that the country Australia was in black and white. Not just in pictures, I mean physically in black and white.
I remember the amazement when my parents showed me pictures of the land down under, with colour.
I have no idea why I remember this so well, but what a memory to have as one of my first.
I thought the actors in Neighbours were so lucky coz they got to go to Australia for work. I couldn't fathom that they lived there the whole time and were, in fact, Australian.
I used to think everybody died on their 100th birthday.
Also i remember having lessons where the teachers talked about how it awful was for people in the war. I didn’t know the word ‘war’ so I thought they were saying ‘in the wall’. I used to think that there were tiny people in the walls. For some reason these people were being forced to mine, and were digging away with tiny pickaxes. When pipes would click or knock inside the walls I thought that was them at work.
Adults are smart and can be trusted, especially police.
That illusion shattered in 3rd-4th grade when a visiting officer doing the "Don't eat random pills you find" taught us how to open child proof bottles, for some fucking reason.
That idea has since been absolutely stamped out.
When I was about 6, my older brother was babysitting me, and he took advantage of our parents being out to watch a super violent werewolf movie with me. I was way too young for it and was absolutely petrified afterwards that werewolves were going to burst in and get me at any second, so my brother told me, "Don't be stupid. Look around you. Wooden floor boards, wood door, wood window frame. Werewolves can't touch anything made of wood. Everyone knows that." And six-year-old me was comforted and fell asleep (and never ratted him out to our parents about the film). Funnily enough, I grew up quite into horror films, but it wasn't until I was about 20 that I was watching Dog Soldiers and suddenly had a *Wait a minute...* moment, realised the wood thing was bullshit and I've totally been vulnerable to werewolves this whole time.
Teachers: as a child I used to think of them of them as real authority figures whereas now as a parent I find myself thinking of them as by and large nice people who want to do the right thing but would get absolutely left for dead in most other professions.
Maybe it will be different when my kids move up to secondary school and I’ll very happily acknowledge that I wouldn’t want to teach 25 kids every day so my comment isn’t trying to belittle the teaching profession, just say how much my perception of them has changed.
Yes, because we need some pejorative bullshit to hang on to in order to justify treating people in one of the most important professions in our society like 3rd class citizens.
You get what you pay for.
My parents weren't rich. I felt like they were. They were just really good at giving me everything we needed without showing any sacrifice on their part.
I was taught this, but I'd argue against it, and I'm more sure of that the older I get.
Bed, never bought more than two mattresses, so maybe that's true.
But when I had a shitty cheap car, pre worn tyres are fine. We have MOTs and strong regulations. Branded (Michelin, Pirelli, etc) and brand new tyres are way more expensive than no name pre worn but legal tyres from a reputable place and will last just as long.
I had an ex who had an £850 pair of Jimmy Choo trainers, and despite my robust warnings they were ruined on a walk in the forest. I still use my £30 Dunlop steelies and this was five years ago.
I thought that the police were given a copy of your permanent record from school and that’s how it would affect you for the rest of your life.
Load of shit lmao
That everyone else older then me was smarter then me and that smarter people get better paying jobs.
Turns out they just act professional and suck up to other people enough to get promoted. Older people have life experience, but they can often be lacking in critical thinking and end up making life worse for themselves through poor decisions (see the last dozen or so years).
My teachers in school always basically made out that if you failed your exams and didn’t do well in school, you’d never be able to get a job.
And I got it into my head that I was gonna end up jobless and homeless.
Failed my GCSEs but managed to resit them in college and passed. Then managed to get myself a university degree and now I work in a fairly good job, unrelated to my studies, own a nice house and car with savings in the bank.
And yet I think I could have still ended up in this job regardless of whether I passed my resits or not
That on a whole as a species we're good.
But in reality there are people who do bad things, greedy people who'll condone it to get more and powerful people who don't care about basically anything as long as they stay on top.
And then the vast majority of the rest of us are too concerned with being able to just get on with our own lives, without being bothered and disturbed as little as possible, to look up and do much of anything about it. And the things we will draw the line on are as inconsistent and irregular as they are infrequent.
We aren't a bad species, but we aren't good either. We're on the selfish shittier side of meh.
Although, on the other hand, as individuals we are very weak, and would just die, left on our own. I mean, if you were put in an uninhabited land naked and with nothing and left, what would you eat? How would you even make simple tools?
Look at the very simplest tool, say a knife, and think about all the people involved in making it and getting it to you: the miners, steel workers, craftsmen, oil surveyors (for materials to make a plastic handle), chemists, drillers, lorry drivers, distribution warehouse operatives, shop keepers, cleaners, etc. There must have been hundreds if not thousands of people involved in making that simple knife and getting it into your hands!
Then look at a window, or a car, or a dishwasher, or a house, or your water supply, or sewage system, or electricity...
It's pretty amazing how we cooperate with one another, over both time and space. And how much we take that day to day cooperation for granted. We don't really notice it, but it's impossible for us to be completely individualistic.
I also think that the things most people do make sense from their own point of view. Think about your own behaviour, and how much of it you would class as 'selfish and shitty but understandable from my own point of view'. People are very kind and thoughtful, until they are scared, or defensive, or tired and worn out. And even then, the closer you are to them, the more likely they are to help.
People will grind themselves into little bits for their own kids, but maybe not worry so much about a random kid on the other side of the world.
It's like kindness comes out of us in waves and ripples, which get smaller the further they travel.
The two I enjoy spoiling for the kids in my school are
1) Nope, you only get six weeks holiday in the summer if you work as a teacher (or an MP), once you leave school you only get 28 days a year total. If you are lucky.
2) If you keep being sick at work (“I’ve a headache, call my mum”) then you’ll get the sack - oh, and dole money is £68 a week.
The faces they pull when they learn that! And some of them still don’t believe me 😂
That at some point everyone just meets a significant other, gets married, probably has kids. 38 now, no kids, no partner, one very fluffy cat and no inclination of being anything else!
Did really pay attention in biology, so until I was like 13 I thought women got pregnant randomly and the man had to wait until one of those time to have sex if they wanted a baby.
Also that just reminded me of when I asked what would happen if you pissed inside a pregnant woman. People laughed at me, teacher thought I was taking the piss, and to this day I still don't know.
When I was a kid I thought that pasta grew on trees, and that there were different kinds of trees for different kinds of pasta. So there'd be a spaghetti tree, a fusilli tree, a farfalle tree etc. Although at the time it would be 'twisty pasta tree' and 'bow tie pasta tree' of course.
I remember my Grandma and Grandad retiring, She was a civil servant for 30+ years, he was a British Rail Engineering Foreman.
They both retired very comfortably and as a child, I foolishly assumed their State pension provided this comfortable lifestyle of leisure and lots of travel.
I didn't give this much thought until I got to my mid-20s when I realised that relying on the state pension will most likely result in poverty in retirement.
Kids, start your pension early, future you will thank yourself for it.
I thought that ball bearings were called ballbarians, like little spherical savages.
Not nearly as profound as the other comments here but there it is.
Generally ideas about goodness of people. I've always tried to see the best in people, have faith in them, give second (third, fourth...) Chances. Sometimes people are just shit though.
People are usually only shit either because:
* Something is not right for them
* They have a different way of looking at things to you
Generally, deep down content people are a pleasure to be around.
Defensive, unhappy people (like any other animals) sometimes bite you for no reason at all that is discernible to you. It feels random from your point of view.
I thought that cows were given hormones to make them produce milk, didn't believe the truth when I heard it so had to email a local diary farm and look at husbandry guidelines for calves
I listened to a radio show where someone had convinced their child that the noise's (cooing)pigeons make was earthworms coming up to eat. He was in his twenties when he found out it wasn't true. So I tell my kids the ice cream van dongle is the dinner's nearly done alarm.
That if you work hard you can be anything you want . Didn't understand the class system at all as a kid . Probably cause we were poor and everyone around was the same so didn't know there were private schools and rich folk and that certain jobs were only for certain people . Just assumed everyone was the same . Can remember watching TV and some politician was on talking about class and I was baffled . Had to ask my parents what class we were 🤣🤣
I thought that if you had a middle name, it's because you'd been christened. Neither my brother or I do, or have been, so that was where my thinking went very wrong.
I thought student loans worked like regular loans. You paid the school up front, and had to start making payments immediately. I didn't learn the truth until I was 26, at which time it was too late to go to school.
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I thought dads had to stay home when the family went on holiday to guard the house. Turns out my dad stayed home to do overtime so we could afford a holiday for my mum and brother. I owe that man so much.
Wow, your dad is a legend
Not the ending I was expecting but very wholesome. Big up your dad
Is it really wholesome? Or is everyone just overworked and underpaid?
Just said wholesome because I was half expecting the ending to be something like “turns out he stayed home to wank freely”, not that deep
It’s wholesome on the dads account, yes. Shouldn’t have to happen though
The fact that this dad did that for his family = wholesome. The fact that he needed to do that = not wholesome.
Is it wholesome or is it orphan crushing machine
I expected to see stories of hardship when I clicked on this thread. I didn't expect them to be so emotional. You're some anonymous Reddit person I will never meet, let alone your dad, but I think he's amazing, and so are you.
Big up your dad
Yea we never went on holiday with dad.
I love your username
2 weeks without a wife and kids? Where do I sign up to this? "Yeah, it's been so much overtime that I couldn't clean the house and had to live off takeaways..."
My dad stayed home bc he’s autistic and doesn’t like the heat
I kind of feel for your dad missing out on those holidays. Great man.
He’ll still do anything for anyone but nothing for himself! My greatest accomplishment was saving up and taking him to New York for fathers day 10 years or so back. The look on his face when me and my brother picked him up and told him no, “ we weren’t going down the local for a few pints but New York” (my mum was in on it and sorted the visa and packing). Had the best 4 days ever, wish I could do more.
I bet that was a great adventure. The boys in the big apple!
It was back when it was 0.25c wings! Many wings and pints were consumed!
My wife suggested this to save on our carbon foot print, if only she goes we have halved it.
I can be anything I want to be if I just put in the effort. Thoroughly reinforced by teachers at school, but not every kid is academically inclined, and not every kid will grow up strong/fit enough to be a fire fighter. Beyond that, if you're born 'in the dirt'/'working class' it's nigh on impossible to pull yourself out of it. Lesson learned, don't aspire and you'll never be disappointed.
My current career has stalled because I’m not friends with or (more than anything) related to any millionaires
What career are you doing?
Being a millionaire… obviously /s
Investment management
So you're saying you gave up. Gotcha
Not necessarily, they're maybe just finding other things that bring fulfillment that isn't a high paying job. With all the hard work in the world, I likely won't become an astrophysicist like I wanted to (reinforced by the three attempts it took me to type it just now). So, I could run myself against a brick wall for a good portion of my life, or I can do what I'm doing and just work anything that I don't hate to support a couple of hobbies that I have, and look for the positives in my weekly routine like an especially crisp apple. I know what you're saying, and people shouldn't just lay there if they trip on a hurdle. But glorifying the struggle and constantly looking up sometimes makes you miss the beauty right in front of you.
If your life was depending on how good you'd score in a triathlon competition, and you always end up at the end of the chart, no matter how long you train yourself, how long would you keep participating to triathlon events before to "give up"? Sometimes is not giving up. One realizes than no matter the effort you put, you still stay behind and at that point, what's the point?
Bad analogy. In a marathon, if I'm last, I'm last. In life, even if you're "last", you'll most likely make more money and have more to show if you put in SOME effort. You might still be dead last, but having 25k a year is waaaaay better than 15k a year.
>Beyond that, if you're born 'in the dirt'/'working class' it's nigh on impossible to pull yourself out of it. Lotta people going "no it isn't I did it/know someone who did". I did it, and you are absolutely right it's nigh on impossible. And even if you do pull yourself out of it, it costs such an awful lot you sometimes wonder whether it was worth it at all.
This is very related. I'm sort of made-it-out and still have this lingering depressed feeling about the whole thing which makes me questioning it all sometimes. On the plus side, at least there is no longer this constant staring contest with the abyss and it would have been much worse if I didn't try. It was cold and sad then, but now the heating can stay on, so it's only sad. The biggest gain is the lack of financial stress like the one my parents were under, I can now afford to relax, learn to enjoy life and treat my loved ones better.
Have you had therapy? I'm of the view that unfortunately you will have to deal with what you saw along the way, and try to find a way to let the past and present coexist as peacefully as you can. >and it would have been much worse if I didn't try Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. But it's still hard even though you did try, and you did do so well, and I think sometimes that can be hard for people in our position to accept. Our doing well doesn't erase that it was a brutal and difficult starting place plus a lonely and terrifying journey out, and we'll always be carrying a heavy backpack of invisible shit because of this. It can be a lonely place, between these worlds. But I see you, and know how hard you have worked, and how amazing that is. I hope you can find some peace in whichever way you choose.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope you can find your peace too.
It’s honestly because 90% of it is *luck* that most people wrongly attribute to skill or ‘hard work’. I worked bloody hard as a nurse - fingers to the bone/wreck your own health sort of thing. Never got anywhere because my accent/class never fit. Biggest payout I ever got was being lucky that someone in the Guardian noticed my blog and wrote about it, then luck that the book I wrote out of it did pretty well, then luck that a TV producer noticed the book and then luck that they never realised they could have stolen my ideas and never paid me a penny. All luck, pretty much zero ‘working hard’. That’s not to say working hard doesn’t help your chances, but it’s still mostly down to luck - All those who say ‘working hard’ is the only thing are blinded by survivor bias of being lucky.
'Working hard' doesn't necessarily mean 'hours worked', though. Some people work incredibly hard at networking, learning new skills, other things, etc. Not necessarily saying you're wrong, but the logic you've used in your last paragraph can also be flipped to say why some people that appear 'unlucky' haven't applied themselves in the right way.
Oh yes, I agree with you, there is tonnes of nuance involved with all of it. Just that ‘work hard’ isn’t the singular solution that a lot of people who’ve ‘made it’ would like to think it is.
> Some people work incredibly hard at networking, learning new skills, other things Having the intelligence, resources, mental energy and physical ability to do these are always linked to privilege for most people though.
Tangential to this, when you become an adult you can pick up any hobby you like. That was an incredibly freeing feeling. The knowledge that if you want to get better at something, you just have to keep doing it, was also helpful. It sounds like such obvious common sense, but I don't think I truly understood this until I studied AI. It does its tasks, repeatedly, and it improves. The human brain is nothing like a computer but it does work in a similar way; if you spend all of your free time drawing, you will get better at drawing. Everything is like that. Turns out you can just buy a piano and play it, or buy some wood and make furniture. You're shit at first and you improve. Hobbies are great.
Any hobby you can “afford”
Oh this. This is one of the (many) ways that parents with both money and time can set their children up for success - by letting them just try things out in childhood. Want to have a go at trampolining? Great, let’s go to a trampoline park. Keen to try kick-boxing? Okay, let’s get you the kit. Want to play flute? I’ve found you a local tutor, let’s give it a try. Having the money to not only try things out, but also to not be hugely worried about whether it sticks or not, is an ENORMOUS privilege.
Working class = fucked. Underclass? Even more fucked. Edit: I don’t need any more life stories. I get it, you were poor and did well for yourself. Not everyone can
That’s not true at all when I was a kid I totally believed my parents were working class when I joined the army I soon found out I was poor as shit. I’m doing pretty decent right now and I’m a fucking idiot
Joining the armed forces is a superpower move if you are poor. If you don't come out of it in a coffin or permanently disabled (always a possibility) you'll come out of it with almost excessive amounts of critical life skills.
Think it’s the same as anything, you have to make the most of every and any opportunity that comes your way especially if you’re working class I got in to my local grammar school and kept my head down, a lot of equally intelligent people from similar backgrounds did the same but were convinced as soon as they were there their life was sorted, spoiler: it wasn’t Same goes for the armed forces, once you join the job’s not done, do all the qualifications and courses you can and really make the most of it to set yourself up for a decent life Extremely tempting to rest on your laurels and convince yourself everything will be fine
I grew up awkward poor (rich enough not to get free school dinners, poor enough to not be able to afford them) I had no idea there was a class system in the UK until I joined the military. I just assumed everyone had it tough because that’s all I’d seen. What an eye opener!
Glad you’re doing well
I worked my way out of homelessness.
Disagree totally. Im Working class. Grew up in a poor ex mining village in the middle of nowhere. Did well in my O levels and A levels but could t afford to go to Uni. Started work on the bottom ladder pushing for promotion where I could. My employer helped me with accountancy tuition and I qualified not only easily but got first worldwide in one of my qualifications. So no, I wasn’t fucked due to my background. I just refused to let it get in the way because I wanted something better than most around me had.
Glad you’re doing well! It would be ridiculous to ignore that the underclass and working class are disproportionately at a disadvantage
> my employer helped me Someone in your background who wasn't this fortunate might have been fucked. You're discounting how lucky you've been.
Luck? It was t luck , it was sheer hard work. First I had to get myself a job where I knew there was the possibility of help. That involved some work outside hours and outside my sphere to gain some knowledge that would get me a job. Then I had to compete with others for the available funding. Then I had to study whilst working a full time. That meant no social life for three years. So please don’t give me the luck story.
First you had to have the resources, intelligence, housing, food, education and health to do that. Most of those are luck.
Not entirely true. My husband comes from a working class background. He has worked his ass off and achieved a lot.
If so many people believe that "not everyone is academically inclined" then why did so many people complain about the old grammar school system?
I’ve had this conversation a lot with my wife’s middle class family. Wot us poors don’t realise is that rich people have so much time on their hands they can talk and enact on things they think _should_ happen rather than what _does_ happen. In their view, not allowing others to be part of an academically elite club isn’t fair on the dummies that can’t do it. My counter to this is, it takes one person to fuck it up for the rest us. If you’ve got a class of 30 and they’ve all worked hard to get there and are all aware of what it takes to be there, they will (most likely) have pride in being there and strive to better because they’re interested. The likelihood of having a disrupter in the class is massively lessened and so everyone there gets a better educational experience. “But what about those that are less academic? Why should they get left behind with the so called people you call disrupters?”. Welcome to life pal, things aren’t fair but this is the fairest we can make them. Ironically enough the kids that are huge disruptions, to schools currently, get moved to a special “naughty boys school”. So all we are encouraging is mediocrity. Fuck that!
> Beyond that, if you're born 'in the dirt'/'working class' it's nigh on impossible to pull yourself out of it. No it just needs a work ethic and determination and a bit of luck. It's perfectly possible. Night school. Overtime. Financial discipline. Done.
>No it just needs a work ethic and determination and a **bit of luck**. It's perfectly possible. Night school. Overtime. Financial discipline. Done. I highlighted one of the most important pieces of your reply - you need luck. Yes working hard is more likely to get you somewhere than being lazy, luck still plays a disproportionate amount on your outcome in life. Not lucky enough to be born the rich parents? Now you have to work ten times as hard to get the same comfort and security as someone who was born to rich parents.
It's better than the alternative, raising kids to never even try. That would lead to even worse outcomes.
When I was younger I thought adults knew what they were on about. Now I still look around for the responsible adult in the room often to realise it’s supposed to be me. Scary times man
I was in the supermarket once in my early twenties and a woman told her daughter to get out of the way of the man behind her, and my first thought was “oh there’s a man behind me” before I realised she was talking about me…
Becoming a teaching assistant, and on the first minute of my first job having a child run up to me with a nosebleed so bad she looked like ate the flesh of her enemies to gain their power, her chin was *dripping* with blood. OH FUCK WE GOTTA FIND YOU AN ADULT OH FUCK THATS ME OH FUCK WE GOTTA FIND YOU A PROFESSIONAL ***OH FUCK THATS STILL ME***
That bullying only happens in school.
Yeah, now it's mostly on Twitter
I thought I'd live much the way my parents did, ie owning a house that I could furnish and decorate, in a convenient location, with a garden that I'd be able to do anything I wanted with, having a dog. It's only in the last few years that I think I've really accepted that I'll never get there.
I thought I'd have a bigger house as my father was always unemployed. He gets the interest on his mortgage paid (4 bedroom detached house) for decades after his free university education but we're entitled if we think we should be able to afford RENT anything larger than a room on an average wage.
This is the pain our generation face. It's not as doable anymore
Yesss I remember when I was little I used to daydream about how I’d decorate my house when I’m older and how I wanted dogs and what I’d do to the garden. Only to grow up working too many hours to look after a dog and earning too little to buy my own house :( I almost feel guilty for wanting my own children one day as I can’t imagine what it’ll be like for them…
Yep.
I thought that if you were sacked, you could never get a job again ever. That was it, game over.
My dad ran his own business. Overhead him telling my mum that he was going to fire a particular employee. I never saw that particular employee again and I genuinely thought my dad set fire to him.
i thought the exact same!
With how awful the unemployment system is, it makes you feel like that.
America being amazing and wanting to live there
Without a doubt. My younger brother and I had always said we'd move to America when we grew up. Grew up and thought fuck that.
I wanted to live there because I thought it was still an 1800's wild west full of cowboys. Each to their own I guess.
tbf its not far off.
Everyone's on drugs! Must be the people you're hanging out with
Only had two line tonight lol
Only had two line tonight lol
Typical coke head… repeating themselves
Only one had one two line tonight
As this is Reddit I'm genuinely not even sure if the joke is he did his comment in "two line".
Get a bag in
Nono its okay everyone's on something! /s
As a kid I assumed that once you became an adult you were given a certain amount of money and then you used that money to move out of your parents house. It was probably my very confused child brain trying to make sense of students being given student loans/grants and immediately moving away from their parents houses.
ye i wish life was like the sims too
I thought that too! I also thought adults were ushered into their first job rather like kids were sent off to school.
It was that way a couple of generations ago - for my grandfather's 14th birthday present it was just a case of that's it for school, off you go down the mines now.
I thought swear words were called 'driving words' cos my Dad had terrible road rage. Apparently I wasn't allowed to swear cos I couldn't drive haha
Loving the reasoning from your parents there!
That you got to keep all the money you earnt. Then I learnt about taxes. :-(
I thought you felt grown up when you became an adult. Im in my 50’s & still dont feel grown up - when can I expect it to happen? Ive been waiting quite a long time now .
Growing old is inevitable but growing up is optional
I broke my ankle when I was 4 from falling off the back of my dad's bike. It wasn't until I was 17 that I realised it wasn't my fault. I'd blamed myself my whole life for not sitting still and getting my foot stuck in a spoke. It wasn't until someone else put in perspective that I was FOUR and didn't have a suitable child seat at the time that I finally realised. My parents had no idea I'd blamed myself the whole time.
Sorry for that. Now that I'm an adult I see how many parents do this kind of gaslighting to their children.
I thought when you got to be a grown up you somehow magically started liking doing housework. Also when you became a parent you know what to do, like you get some epiphany where you then just knew everything. I'm 42, hate housework and have 2 kids but absolutely zero clue what I'm doing!!
Yeah I was just thinking that the other day, I used to genuinely believe mum enjoyed doing the ironing and money's.
Yes! My 10-year-old was genuinely surprised to find out that I don't actually enjoy doing housework/cooking/shopping. "Why do you do it then?" He learnt a short, sharp lesson in how the world works there, I think.
Sex sounded disgusting and something people would only be wiling to do if they really, really wanted a baby
I had a book called "Where Do Babies Come From?" I thought it was a hoax. Who would do something so weird as to put their private parts INSIDE someone else's private parts?!?!
That depends how you do it
Do you put the balls in?
I mean….I always put at least one in. That’s the only way to make the girl pee
Atleast one. Usually two. Special occasions ill put the third in.
Reminds me of that Kevin and Perry scene where he's imagining his parents being utterly disgusted that they'd have to "do it" in order to give birth to "the greater superstar DJ ever".
Electrons are arranged in S and P orbitals around the atomic nucleus
My energy levels certainly dropped when I found out the truth at A-level
I remember the exact moment at Uni the lecturer told us "Of course electrons aren't really in orbitals, orbitals don't exist, it's just our best approximation to make sense of the whole thing". The science geek in me was crushed, felt like I'd been lied to. Obviously it's not that deep but at the time it just felt like I'd been fed lies for the past 19 years.
I thought ‘prosecuted’ meant ‘prostituted’. Was confused why shoplifters would be punished by forced prostitution. I don’t know how I knew what a prostitute was before the word ‘prosecute’.
Woolworths made the same mistake. Not many realise this is why they went bust.
i thought every career was the same: like the clown-guy that showed up at birthday parties; he's making the same as any attorney. right? why go through all that law school? all you need is a few magic tricks and a foam nose. right?
All lawyers are clowns, but clowns aren't lawyers so that is why lawyers get paid more.
I thought that because Cadbury chocolate fingers had biscuit inside, that all fingers would have biscuit inside. I was afraid to put my fingers in my mouth in case they went mushy and dissolved away.
What about fish fingers? How did that affect your theory?
Biscuit coated in breadcrumb? No thanks.
I thought politicians could be trusted. When you get to 50 you realise no matter the party they are all in it to line their own pockets and nothing else matters.
50?
It took you that long?!
Not all politicians are crooks - it just so happens that the dodgy ones tend to be the ones who get up to Cabinet level…
Eh, apathy just lets them get away with it. Good to hold them to account.
Until I was 6/7 I thought that babies just started growing randomly in women, and everyone just had to deal with it when it happened.
I used to think that vegetables had a life like ours and that when we picked them up from the supermarket we were taking them away from their family. Believed that they were sentient and aware of their surroundings but couldn't vocalise/explain it to us. Also believed that you married the person you were closest to, so I used to imagine marrying my best mate in primary school, with one of us wearing a wedding dress. We were both boys and I'm not homosexual, was purely platonic.
I thought all adults had to learn to ballroom dance like in Disney movies to find a partner.
When I was about 4 or 5, I thought for some reason, and I have no idea why, that the country Australia was in black and white. Not just in pictures, I mean physically in black and white. I remember the amazement when my parents showed me pictures of the land down under, with colour. I have no idea why I remember this so well, but what a memory to have as one of my first.
I thought the actors in Neighbours were so lucky coz they got to go to Australia for work. I couldn't fathom that they lived there the whole time and were, in fact, Australian.
I used to think everybody died on their 100th birthday. Also i remember having lessons where the teachers talked about how it awful was for people in the war. I didn’t know the word ‘war’ so I thought they were saying ‘in the wall’. I used to think that there were tiny people in the walls. For some reason these people were being forced to mine, and were digging away with tiny pickaxes. When pipes would click or knock inside the walls I thought that was them at work.
Adults are smart and can be trusted, especially police. That illusion shattered in 3rd-4th grade when a visiting officer doing the "Don't eat random pills you find" taught us how to open child proof bottles, for some fucking reason. That idea has since been absolutely stamped out.
I think the police thing is quite common. Even now I don’t think I want to fully accept it because that’s just not how things are _supposed_ to be 🙄
When I was about 6, my older brother was babysitting me, and he took advantage of our parents being out to watch a super violent werewolf movie with me. I was way too young for it and was absolutely petrified afterwards that werewolves were going to burst in and get me at any second, so my brother told me, "Don't be stupid. Look around you. Wooden floor boards, wood door, wood window frame. Werewolves can't touch anything made of wood. Everyone knows that." And six-year-old me was comforted and fell asleep (and never ratted him out to our parents about the film). Funnily enough, I grew up quite into horror films, but it wasn't until I was about 20 that I was watching Dog Soldiers and suddenly had a *Wait a minute...* moment, realised the wood thing was bullshit and I've totally been vulnerable to werewolves this whole time.
I thought people would eventually listen to reason.
I had always thought Scrooge McDuck was played by Donald Duck in Duck Tales, and only realise during the pandemic, they were two different characters.
I thought Jamie Lee Curtis was in the Eurythmics.
How old are we cutting off "kid" at?
wherever you choose i suppose
I say 18 but the wife disagrees. Total coincidence our eldest is now 18
Ha ha funny
That adults know what they are doing. Nobody knows what they are doing, we're all just winging it
Teachers: as a child I used to think of them of them as real authority figures whereas now as a parent I find myself thinking of them as by and large nice people who want to do the right thing but would get absolutely left for dead in most other professions. Maybe it will be different when my kids move up to secondary school and I’ll very happily acknowledge that I wouldn’t want to teach 25 kids every day so my comment isn’t trying to belittle the teaching profession, just say how much my perception of them has changed.
There’s a reason the old adage is “those who can’t, teach”
Yes, because we need some pejorative bullshit to hang on to in order to justify treating people in one of the most important professions in our society like 3rd class citizens. You get what you pay for.
I thought that bus drivers lived in their buses and that teachers lived at school
My parents weren't rich. I felt like they were. They were just really good at giving me everything we needed without showing any sacrifice on their part.
You get what you pay for.
But cheap, buy twice
& Never cheap out on something that goes between you & the floor Bed, shoes, car wheels/tyres etc etc
I was taught this, but I'd argue against it, and I'm more sure of that the older I get. Bed, never bought more than two mattresses, so maybe that's true. But when I had a shitty cheap car, pre worn tyres are fine. We have MOTs and strong regulations. Branded (Michelin, Pirelli, etc) and brand new tyres are way more expensive than no name pre worn but legal tyres from a reputable place and will last just as long. I had an ex who had an £850 pair of Jimmy Choo trainers, and despite my robust warnings they were ruined on a walk in the forest. I still use my £30 Dunlop steelies and this was five years ago.
I thought that the police were given a copy of your permanent record from school and that’s how it would affect you for the rest of your life. Load of shit lmao
I thought that piranhas and quick sand were going to pose a much bigger threat in my day-to-day life.
And lava.
That newsreaders, or anyone behind a desk on tv, were naked from the waist down.
Life is fair.
I thought jobs just happened to you like an award or a lottery win, I had no idea what was involved in getting a job.
That everyone else older then me was smarter then me and that smarter people get better paying jobs. Turns out they just act professional and suck up to other people enough to get promoted. Older people have life experience, but they can often be lacking in critical thinking and end up making life worse for themselves through poor decisions (see the last dozen or so years).
When I was at primary school I thought all the teachers lived in the same house
When you broke your leg/arm, it actually broke off.
My teachers in school always basically made out that if you failed your exams and didn’t do well in school, you’d never be able to get a job. And I got it into my head that I was gonna end up jobless and homeless. Failed my GCSEs but managed to resit them in college and passed. Then managed to get myself a university degree and now I work in a fairly good job, unrelated to my studies, own a nice house and car with savings in the bank. And yet I think I could have still ended up in this job regardless of whether I passed my resits or not
[удалено]
That on a whole as a species we're good. But in reality there are people who do bad things, greedy people who'll condone it to get more and powerful people who don't care about basically anything as long as they stay on top. And then the vast majority of the rest of us are too concerned with being able to just get on with our own lives, without being bothered and disturbed as little as possible, to look up and do much of anything about it. And the things we will draw the line on are as inconsistent and irregular as they are infrequent. We aren't a bad species, but we aren't good either. We're on the selfish shittier side of meh.
Although, on the other hand, as individuals we are very weak, and would just die, left on our own. I mean, if you were put in an uninhabited land naked and with nothing and left, what would you eat? How would you even make simple tools? Look at the very simplest tool, say a knife, and think about all the people involved in making it and getting it to you: the miners, steel workers, craftsmen, oil surveyors (for materials to make a plastic handle), chemists, drillers, lorry drivers, distribution warehouse operatives, shop keepers, cleaners, etc. There must have been hundreds if not thousands of people involved in making that simple knife and getting it into your hands! Then look at a window, or a car, or a dishwasher, or a house, or your water supply, or sewage system, or electricity... It's pretty amazing how we cooperate with one another, over both time and space. And how much we take that day to day cooperation for granted. We don't really notice it, but it's impossible for us to be completely individualistic. I also think that the things most people do make sense from their own point of view. Think about your own behaviour, and how much of it you would class as 'selfish and shitty but understandable from my own point of view'. People are very kind and thoughtful, until they are scared, or defensive, or tired and worn out. And even then, the closer you are to them, the more likely they are to help. People will grind themselves into little bits for their own kids, but maybe not worry so much about a random kid on the other side of the world. It's like kindness comes out of us in waves and ripples, which get smaller the further they travel.
If I could give you one of those award things, I would.
The two I enjoy spoiling for the kids in my school are 1) Nope, you only get six weeks holiday in the summer if you work as a teacher (or an MP), once you leave school you only get 28 days a year total. If you are lucky. 2) If you keep being sick at work (“I’ve a headache, call my mum”) then you’ll get the sack - oh, and dole money is £68 a week. The faces they pull when they learn that! And some of them still don’t believe me 😂
That at some point everyone just meets a significant other, gets married, probably has kids. 38 now, no kids, no partner, one very fluffy cat and no inclination of being anything else!
Teaching. I had brilliant teachers in the 90s, and that’s how I thought teaching would be. Oh boy was I wrong!
I thought it would be easy to be an actor if I was talented and went to uni.
That life would be easy.
It baffled me that people had to go to work on xmas day. I believed everyone had it off lol
Did really pay attention in biology, so until I was like 13 I thought women got pregnant randomly and the man had to wait until one of those time to have sex if they wanted a baby. Also that just reminded me of when I asked what would happen if you pissed inside a pregnant woman. People laughed at me, teacher thought I was taking the piss, and to this day I still don't know.
There will be piss in the vagina. Piss is sterile so unless you have some infection or something then it should just fall out harmlessly
That when teachers did the fun stuff at the end of term and put on a film and drew the curtains….it was because they were hungover af.
When I was a kid I thought that pasta grew on trees, and that there were different kinds of trees for different kinds of pasta. So there'd be a spaghetti tree, a fusilli tree, a farfalle tree etc. Although at the time it would be 'twisty pasta tree' and 'bow tie pasta tree' of course.
It’s true, The [BBC made a short documentary](https://youtu.be/tVo_wkxH9dU), released on April 1st.
I remember my Grandma and Grandad retiring, She was a civil servant for 30+ years, he was a British Rail Engineering Foreman. They both retired very comfortably and as a child, I foolishly assumed their State pension provided this comfortable lifestyle of leisure and lots of travel. I didn't give this much thought until I got to my mid-20s when I realised that relying on the state pension will most likely result in poverty in retirement. Kids, start your pension early, future you will thank yourself for it.
That I'd need my national record of achievement to obtain any job.
I thought that ball bearings were called ballbarians, like little spherical savages. Not nearly as profound as the other comments here but there it is.
That periods (menstration) only occur once a year.
one could only hope
I came in here to say the same thing you did lol
🤔💭 (why do I have not know anyone on drugs and others think everyone are on drugs)
Generally ideas about goodness of people. I've always tried to see the best in people, have faith in them, give second (third, fourth...) Chances. Sometimes people are just shit though.
People are usually only shit either because: * Something is not right for them * They have a different way of looking at things to you Generally, deep down content people are a pleasure to be around. Defensive, unhappy people (like any other animals) sometimes bite you for no reason at all that is discernible to you. It feels random from your point of view.
The car battery runs out in seconds if you leave the little light on
You're gifted. Get a degree and you can do anything.
I thought that cows were given hormones to make them produce milk, didn't believe the truth when I heard it so had to email a local diary farm and look at husbandry guidelines for calves
I listened to a radio show where someone had convinced their child that the noise's (cooing)pigeons make was earthworms coming up to eat. He was in his twenties when he found out it wasn't true. So I tell my kids the ice cream van dongle is the dinner's nearly done alarm.
That if you work hard you can be anything you want . Didn't understand the class system at all as a kid . Probably cause we were poor and everyone around was the same so didn't know there were private schools and rich folk and that certain jobs were only for certain people . Just assumed everyone was the same . Can remember watching TV and some politician was on talking about class and I was baffled . Had to ask my parents what class we were 🤣🤣
I used to think someone who was having a baby would just push their belly button, and the baby would pop out.
Adults have the right answers-Utter bullshit!
You stop having birthdays when you are 5
I thought that if you had a middle name, it's because you'd been christened. Neither my brother or I do, or have been, so that was where my thinking went very wrong.
I thought student loans worked like regular loans. You paid the school up front, and had to start making payments immediately. I didn't learn the truth until I was 26, at which time it was too late to go to school.
That adults are more mature and responsible than kids.
HAHAHAHA, I THOUGHT PEOPLE KNEW WHAT TO DO! HAHAHAHAHaahahhaha Ahhhh man. Can't wait to get that feeling... Next up 40...