--- Mark Bennett <mab at straussandasher.com> wrote:
> playing out in the street. It's weird. Do young
> bourgeois children
> really just stay indoors, watch television, and play
> computer games all
> day?
I do have some child-rearing experience, with my ex and as a single dad, and also helping to raise my current wife's kids, and here are my insights:
- kids stay indoors because there is more fun stuff to do indoors, like playing vide games or smoking weed when they are a bit older;
- if you live in the burbs, there are no public places to hang out for anyone, let alone kids, so you are forced to stay indoors, which automatically limits the number of kids you can hang out with; if you live in the city it's a bit better but not that many families with children live in cities;
- as a parent you try to encourage your kids to develop some interests, not just hang out with thier friends, watch tee-vee, push buttons and smoke weed; I mean some of it is ok, but you want to them to develop interest in some other stuff as well and eventually go to college; research show that the biggest factor explaining the educational achievement between middle class and poor kids is not the school sinstruction but what is going on when kids are not in school, especially the lack of any 'extracurricular' activities for the latter; that is the reason why why responsible parents do take their kids to various 'extracurricular' activities, most of which again being indoors (excpet perhaps football).
I do not know if that qualifies my kid to be bourgois but hey, if the altenative is pushing drugs in the streets and shooting people, I am glad that my kid was 'bourgeois.'
Wojtek
__________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL – Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com