It's good to know that someone still trusts and feels closed enough to you to share their very deep, and private problems.
I wasn't only lending him an ear for a couple of ... hours, but I felt for his pain and suffering as well.
His daughter-in-law had left his son with their only child which is just barely over a year old.
They are now fighting for custody, and visitation rights. The fight spills over to both families now, and the little kid was in the middle of the storm, and I was and still am, his son's God-father. What a mess!
Growing up nowadays in a normal two parent family is hard enough, I can't imagine how life is going to be for the baby from now.
Not all of the children grow up in a single parent home to be bad kids, though. But it is going to be extremely difficult. We have had a beautiful girl in our lives we treat as a daughter, whom grew up in a single parent family. Surprisingly, she's grown up to be one of the nicest, and successful woman I know of. She finished her education even though she struggled here and there for self-support through school, and graduated at the age of twenty five. She now married and ready for her dream family.
Anyways, I understand for many parents of the generation-in-between like me. We are the bridges of the old people who came here, could not adjust, could not adapt, would not understand the new cultures and traditions, and the young ones who were born here, or came to this country at the very young age. Even though it's still very hard, and confuse sometimes for us to pick and choose. This is what they call, it's between a rock and a very hard place.
For example, before my daughter got married, I found out that the American marriage tradition was the girl's family's responsibility. We had to pay for everything (all the wedding ceremony's expenses). The husband to be not just only taking home your daughter, but paid nothing in return. So if you have a daughter ready to marry, make sure she asks for the biggest, and most expensive diamond ring she could get from him. Better yet, prepare a prenuptial in which you have a not-to-pay-for-the-wedding-tradition escape clause ... :).
Now lets get back to the main topic ...
Beside, there are so many distractions they have to face, in which their parents had never had to endure. Back home, we had to worry about one thing beside schooling. That was chipping in to help out the parents taking care of the family's tasks, and choirs. We could not find an after-school job, so whatever we could do to help out, was always things that we could get done around the house.
We did not have too much free time.
There were no peer pressure, because nobody had more things than the others. We were all very poor, so having a chance of going to school, and having two meals a day was more than enough already.
There were no sex pressure. We did not know how a girl's (or a woman) body was like until ... marriage (mostly).
We never had enough money for anything so having money to buy drug or alcohol was not even an issue.
Many of us had a chance to view for the very first time, the semi-naked-body-of-the-opposite-sex only after we got married. And most of the time we were too shy to open our eyes fully to catch a glimpse of a rare display of flesh from the spouse.
Getting pregnant before marriage was a significant rarity, and was considered a fatal mistake, with which the punishments were so harsh that would last for years. Therefore, some of those girls who found no escape, had to take their own lives to get away from facing a lifelong punishments.
When I was dating my wife during the early seventy, it was very similar to what you see in "good morning Viet Nam with Robin Williams". We were allowed to go out only for two or three hours max, with supervision, and watchful-eyes by a couple of younger siblings. There were no chance to do anything else beside talking. Holding hands happened only long after a few months of dating. A peck on the cheek was allowed from the girl only after a proposal of marriage. Lips locking or French kissing were unheard of, and so yucky anyways.
That's good enough for now ... :).
Young people nowadays have to face lots of distractions at the school, and at home. They were growing up in a family that both parents are busy with working. They were in a household with only one or two siblings. Some are all by themselves. The clashes of different life styles, cultures, traditions, and moral values confuse them so much they don't know how to separate and adjust.
The amount of free times spending in isolation, and with no-supervision is posing a great danger to teenagers. This problem alone has caused so much ruin, shattering, and destruction to families that both parents spend too much time away from home. These youngsters have to deal with alcohol, drugs, and sex pressure every day of their lives without guidance.
In return, they are awarded with more money, with free access to poisonous materials in videos, internet, "smart" phones, and inappropriate magazines which promote, and glorify the unacceptable life styles of drugs, alcohol and wild sex. The trend for a young couple to move in and live together without marriage is growing higher and higher, and so with the divorce rate. Do you have any idea of the divorce rate in America in 2010?. It's close to 50%. This is the number for married couples. How about the people live together without marriage?
I am not judging anybody. I am just showing the differences between then and now. I am trying to point out the dilemmas, the predicaments, and the challenges that young people have to deal with nowadays.
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