Well, I have brought up 4 kids over the last three decades, i am around kids all the time, I now have grand kids, I babysit my nephews and nieces kids as I babysat there parents before I had my own kids. I have taught at University, or should I say tutored, primarily international students. To be honest I would prefer to sit down and play blocks with a kid or use colored pencils than talk to an adult. By and large kids are honest, refreshing and genuine in their thoughts and comments. Adults by and large are false, aggressive and opinionated. So notdej I am speaking with quite a lifetime of experience.
And there is one thing I have noticed that is a real stand out. Most kids when talking about a friend, won't even mention his or her race or religion, they will be talking about a school mate and you might know the name, hear the play stories, and not even know the kid is a little Muslim boy, or an Italian, or someone else. The kids don't care.Half the time I don't think they even notice, why? because to them it is not a significant factor.
In Australia we are currently in a debate about should Gay marriage be legalized. My sons are typical Aussie lads, who like cars, guns, party's, doing burnouts, fast cars etc. They laugh at the issue, they just think, who cares. live and let live. They don't care if you are gay or not. One of my sons has been to the US and Japan, loved both and plans to return as soon as he can afford it. Another has online friends who come from every country you can imagine.
He spends most of his time hanging with his international friends. Not once in conversation has he made comment about that though. It has been me who out of interest asked about it once.
Now I am 55, and I am well aware of the racial prejudice and anger and hatred present in mine and similar generations. Just look at some of the aggro just shoot the bastards comments made by certain folks here in recent threads. I have heard people of my generations fay, fucking Muslims, just nuke em and wipe em off the map. I have heard people on this forum single out African Americans as the basis of certain forms of violence, with no thought or consideration why this might be or thoughts or comments how to fix it. I would have to hunt but somewhere some one made a comment about a certain demographic suggesting just keep killing them down the branches of the tree till you find a good one (by that I assume he meant one who agrees with him)
So i am speaking for myself, and with a fair bag of experience behind me to back up my opinion. I am very confident when I say, our kids and grand kids, by and large outshine us and can teach us a lot about how to treat our fellow man and about racial and religious tolerance.
I can't wait till old farts like me, and the redneck racist agro feelings that are expressed on this forum of late die with the lot of us. I for one can't wait till our kids consign us to the history books are the generation that fucked up there world, and they had to fix it.
And on a personal note, I love this forum, it has some very nice people, but I have to say, I am shocked at the recent level of racism and intolerance shown by some here. This is not what I though was going to happen here.
I guess that song line is true, "Weve lost that loving feeling" I guess the rednecks have arrived and the honeymoon period is over. I for one am a little saddened by that. I had high hopes.