<p>UriA702- “OH OH I have a question. What about the children who makes those jeans for pennies an hour, whose family have insufficient funds for the bare essentials because they all work in the factories who make those jeans? Are we trying to impress them by buying $300 jeans?”
Haha my economics teacher says the fact that we ignorant teenagers are buying these jeans is actually good. Without those pennies a day making useless items, most of those child workers would be sold by their families as baby prostitutes. It’s sad, but true.</p>
<p>And yet the issue is that either way they are not making a liveable wage.</p>
<p>yeah i know… just wanted to put that out there. it’s hard to believe sometimes that some kids life is hanging by whether that preppy girl in school buys jeans from target or from some designer label.
For ninja- when my guy friends are upset about something, they get all distant and brooding and quiet, unlike us girls who just complain to someone when we have a problem. what’s the best way to get them to snap out of it, or at least tell us what is wrong?</p>
<p>it doesn’t have to be either or…if companies didn’t need to make obscene profits on the backs of children, it governments didn’t put so much into their militaries, etc, we wouldn’t need to excuse the horrid practice of paying basica nothing and creating a slave population</p>
<p>I think the pants question really comes down to what is seen as tough and fashionable. Boys want to look macho and when their male role models are modeling the latest in boxer shorts, it has an effect.</p>
<p>“For ninja- when my guy friends are upset about something, they get all distant and brooding and quiet, unlike us girls who just complain to someone when we have a problem. what’s the best way to get them to snap out of it, or at least tell us what is wrong?”</p>
<p>DON’T NAG! If they want to talk to you, they will, as long as they see you as someone who is quiet and respectful. Just be there and if it’s going to happen it will. Never try to draw it out of them, it’ll feel like you’re more interested in the dirt going on in their life than how they feel. I think staying vague and supportive is the safest and best way to go. It may make you feel powerless but when someone thinks back on it, they’ll remember that you were there for them, first off, and that you cared enough to respect their privacy. It really varies by guy to guy, so you can push the boundaries and probe a bit with more open guys, but it could backfire. Does that help? My male friends complain, including one friend…well…let’s just say we’ve given him a theme song. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (Devo covering The Rolling Stones). We never hear the end of it.</p>
<p>lol well it’s not the answer i would have liked (nice long hug and puppy dog eyes maybe lol) but i guess it’s the truth… why can’t boys be more like girls? jk :)</p>
<p>I agree, I think young men need to feel like men-- and part of this is feeling like they can Clint Eastwood their way through life’s problems (to use a parent reference). It can feel emasculating to ‘lean on’ a girl even if they’d like to. But just being chill and present is very helpful.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your very well-thought out answers - I do appreciate hearing different points of view. </p>
<p>Corranged, my D actually suspects that her guy friend might be gay, but she doesn’t know for sure as he hasn’t told her that he is. I was just concerned for him because he seems to be putting a lot of effort into their relationship, but I know she is pretty crazy about her bf and I don’t want the other guy to get hurt.</p>
<p>Kristin, you are probably right and that she is just lucky to have found a bf who is very trusting/not jealous. The bf and the other guy are friends - you were right about that too. What made me think the other guy might have more-than-friend feelings for my D was that they became friends while she and her bf were broken up this summer - and the first time I met him, I suspected that he might have feelings for her. Hopefully, you are all correct and that they really are all friends - I just don’t want anyone to get hurt, and I’m sure my D doesn’t want that either.</p>
<p>Ninja - thanks for your input as well. You’re right, I think - I don’t think her bf is apathetic - I’ve just never had a bf who would have let another very cute guy drive me home almost all the time and I find it strange that her bf doesn’t seem to mind - whether he and the other guy are friends or not.</p>
<p>JHS - Thanks for sharing your story - it makes me feel a little better knowing that even if the other guy likes my d as more than a friend, he is probably ok with just having her friendship. Like corranged said, there is a chance he is gay, and then there is no problem at all.</p>
<p>When I was young, distant-quiet-and-brooding was as much a magnet for girls as frat-boy-jock – probably more, especially in college. It sure beat the hell out of sweet-deep-and-loquacious. (Over time, sweet-deep-and-loquacious did fine, though.) I sure haven’t seen this change much in my kids’ lives.</p>
<p>My point is that girls (as a group, not individually) absolutely encourage boys to act that way, by rewarding them for it.</p>
<p>so true JHS. That James Dean thing dies hard.</p>
<p>hehe i wanna contribute to this thread too!
i have tons of work though :(</p>
<p>I will say I usually despise rap/hiphop. I do like some though. I like some Common; I especially liked Drivin’ Me Wild<3Lily Allen.
But I tend to prefer my indie rock, guitars and the like. If I want a fun beat I listen to pop rock–but like not mtv pop, haha…more OkGo, The Feeling, Rooney, Locksley, etc. </p>
<p>anyway…
oh yeah facebook status usually does not mean stuff. tons of people are “married” to their bffs and such. </p>
<p>and sometimes girls liek the challenge of going for the guy that might be more difficult to get.
not me though…usually =P</p>
<p>The brooding thing… it doesn’t come from ‘potential hookup’ type guys, but from friends. My best friend happens to be a guy (we get that annoying ‘when are you two just going to give up and go out’ thing all the time), but he does that. Personally, my friends and I don’t find it attractive, just a nuisance that my best friend won’t talk to us. Maybe there’s two different kind of broodiness…?</p>
<p>Is he brooding theatrically for attention, or is he trying to “pass” as happy but you can tell there is something up?</p>
<p>Hope you guys have fun tonight!!! I am off to be wicth one in macbeth. Play nice.
Love, Danielle</p>
<p>I forgot to thank everyone who clued me into the Facebook status thing. Friends of mine had mentioned it to me, and I was just curious. So, thanks to all.</p>
<p>BTW, I hope you had fun at your rehearsal? tonight, Danielle.</p>
<p>How come girls seem to constantly overlook the ‘deep and sweet’ boys in favor of the frat boy hook-up types? I DONT GET IT.</p>
<p>i was one of the lucky ones that had a deep and sweet boyfriend…and let me tell you, they definitely should not be overlooked. come to think of it…why wouldn’t someone like a cute, smart, nice, funny, athletic, affluent guy with a great family? i have no idea–i always have liked them. but then again, guys like that are so easy to like. my best friend, however, is my polar opposite. she always goes for the mean/bad/horrible guys: the cheaters, the heavy drinkers/smokers, the jerks that never call her back. for whatever reason i’ll never understand, she just really likes the “bad boys” and loves the challenge of breaking them into a good guy. perhaps its a security thing too: seems like a lot of the jerky, macho guys are super protective of their girlfriends, so if the girlfriend is lacking support and security she can find it pretty easily and superficially in her boyfriend (definitely applies to my best bud!). after all, the nice guys take work. i’ve found that the nice guys are the ones that get disappointed rather than really mad/angry and actually want to work through problems rather than just blow them off or forget about them. all the nice guys i know respect their girlfriends and their families and understand that girls have other guys as friends too. </p>
<p>seems like as we grow up we figure out that the good guys are the ones to marry and the bad guys are the perfect candidates for one night stands when the good guys dump us unexpectedly.</p>
<p>why are people so obsessed with facebook albums?</p>
<p>i like to see what my friends are doing and keep in touch with them with minimal effort. it’s a nice way to pass time when i’m bored or procrastinating and fun to see what parties i missed over the weekend. when it comes to special occasions like vacations or dances, it’s cool to see everyone dressed up. for the most part, i don’t really scrutinize every picture; it’s more like i browse through a bunch of albums and laugh at the stupid things drunk teenagers do. a lot of times, facebook albums are a way to brag about something crazy you did over the weekend–which can be fun, but is a really immature and irresponsible way to represent yourself online when adcoms and future employers have access to that information. be careful!</p>
<p>AND: turnabout is fair play, so ask me any Mom questions on your mind.</p>
<p>one of my best guy friends is significantly older than me–he’s 28, and i’m 19. there’s nothing shady going on between us…no sexual tension besides one extremely awkward drunken makeout…nothing. he gives me great advice and somewhat lives vicariously though me because i go to the school he used to. he and i have worked together since 2005, so in a business sense we’re considered equals which is what began our friendship in the first place. actually, i didn’t even know or care how old he was until probably 6 months into our friendship.</p>
<p>we hang out over the summer and occasionally if i’m back in town, but for the most part my parents don’t have any idea who he is. if they call or text me while we’re hanging out, i’ll say i’m at john’s/with john/at a work party and they usually just leave it at that, but i feel somewhat guilty not telling them the whole truth of what i’m doing.</p>
<p>as a parent, would you be creeped out of if your kids were good friends with someone almost a decade older than them? what do you think would be the best way to tell them, considering they’ll probably ask about him again over christmas break?</p>
<p>^^ Yeah - I’d be creeped out. The older guy is usually ready for more than the girl might be. It’s seldom as platonic from the guy’s perspective as the girl thinks it is. Girls might argue against what i just said but a lot of guys won’t - expecially the honest ones. There was a comedian who did a whole bit on this subject but I can’t remember who he was.</p>
<p>I tend to agree. You have to think about it from the other person’s perspective. What is he thinking?</p>
<p>There are of course some wonderful friendships between one person in their teens and someone else well into their twenties, but there are also many relationships that aren’t as healthy, balanced, safe, or productive as they feel or appear.</p>
<p>^^ As evidenced by the inebriated make-out session.</p>
<p>Kristin, first - congrats on having the sense to date the good guys. I have a feeling my D (younger than you) has that good sense as well. </p>
<p>To answer your question, I would not necessarily be creeped out by my child having a much older friend - but I would want to meet that person so that I could use my own radar on that person. When I was a teen, I was in that situation myself - I became good friends with a woman who was 26 (I was 17). We worked together for the summer (I was a HS student, she was an elementary school teacher). We have managed to maintain our friendship for over 25 years - although we are not as close as we once were. </p>
<p>There is one problem when teens and adults become friends - often, the teen outgrows the adult. That is what happened between my friend and me. She is still doing the exact same things we did when we first met - while I have gone through many life changes (graduations, careers, marriage, children). We are still friends, but only get together once or twice a year rather than on a regular basis.</p>