Well, Teach, in a way I sort of envy you your sensitivity to meds. I have such a high tolerance that I just keep getting put on more and at higher dosages. But if I stop taking them for a week, I am suicidal. Go back on for five days and I have no such feelings, thoughts or inclinations. I like the Welbutrin also. I need it to offset the lethargy of depression and the side effects of the other anti-ds.
But in common, it is important that our Drs believe us. I have no tolerance for those who won't listen to me...I haven't been a guinea pig for nothing for 20 some years!
I am sorry about Trevor. We just put our foot down with stepson that unless he can be respectful we don't want to talk to him. Hubs has stopped calling him. He hates my guts...that's because I had all ready learned about boundaries way before he came along...the hard way, of course. Not quite a month ago we were in court with him for a dirty UA, he got a curfew added and required AA attendance and a sponsor. He went right back to using even more and immediately got another dirty UA. We hope no one bails him out this time.
I enjoy your garden tales. Florida soil is worthless. But I have such fond memories of working out in the yard, a garden, canning and freezing, and flowers. Husband has planted a large nice flower garden in front, but I can't seem to get into it, tho' I did buy him some gladiola bulbs on sale. I am fond of the ferns and they are thriving. I am pretty sure I want to go home to the midwest. When hubs and I were dating I flew home to visit daughter and grandson and took photos. Hubs thought that the color didn't process right because it was too green....the grass, the trees, etc. Now since he has been there we call central FL gray. Everything has a gray cast. I miss the seasons, how you can watch things change from week to week and the colors of the flowers coming into season at different times. Daughter has just put out brussels sprouts and at least we can discuss it and I get vicarious pleasure. It is also so affirming that in most ways she wants to replicate the way she was brought up as a child, with improvements. We lived out in the country, too far too see neighbors.....and the whole family worked together with the growing of our food and bringing the meals to the table.
I was thinking about education and the way we raised our kids and you quite a bit yesterday. I had read a book about racism and that many esp the poor black kids think education is trying to be white. It spoke of homes without a book. I can't imagine.
We have videos of my father and his class as a teacher in the early sixties in the midwest, where we didn't really have drop-outs. It wasn't allowed. By the end of his career he was completely disillusioned and hopeless with the culture and system of education. Raising my kids, they weren't exposed to pop culture. They lived in a benevolent dictatorship. But we were alot about education. I was read to growing up and I read to my kids, the abridged classics such as Robinson Crusoe such that each chapter was a cliff hanger and they would beg one more! In my nuclear family, we are all addicted to books. Dad always encouraged intellectual curiosity. And we were raised on field trips and so was my kids. They played outside with their imagination and nature.
It isn't safe to do that most places now, why I so love the rural backwards. No daytime tv. No violence as entertainment. Learning channels after dinner. And many a spanking and swat. They didn't even know what candy was, so no problems at the grocery check out. The choices were made by the grown ups, not asking the kids all the time what they wanted. They had chores. Pictographs before they could read hung on the frig.
My daughter still likes me to make them for her at 26! LOL I thought about you, where the system completely is set against you when you are doing your best for the children and I think that's the most important job in the world. I asked myself, what can I do?
My sis used to leave her kids with me for basic training, yes she meant it, she had been in the military. I thought about babysitting pre-school age, but I doubt that I could find a parent who wouldn't take issue with me. For the same reason you have problems, discipline. I can out-stubborn any child, and I think it has to be taught early.
Not that it means there won't be problems. You didn't cause Trevor's addiction, I didn't cause my son's suicide, nor did my husband cause his son's addiction. I know we were all responsible parents. But a couple of weeks ago, stepson cussed his father like, well, I find it unbelievable. After hubs got off the phone, I asked him, would you have ever dared curse your parents like that, and he said....I wouldn't have thought of it and if I tried my head would have been knocked to the other side of the room. I got my husband to promise he would never allow it again, that he would immediately hang up and we sent the new rules out indirectly...as he had been running the show and didn't take hubs calls. So I guess I am thinking, we are so much about abuse, but I think it is a kind of abuse not to discipline. I am rambling. But I am always intrigued by sociology and by education. I am very much out of touch with pop culture and kids today, that I am truly clueless. I know it is classic for every generation to think the next ones are going to damn......but I believe we have a real and huge crisis right now. Too big to be dealt with almost and needing to be aimed at from so many directions. Yet I look at my daughter and know she is more evolved than I am, that was my goal and it is her goal with her children and the 6 year old is all ready proving to be precocious. His grammar is better than mine. And he can be far more diplomatic! LOL Mimicing his mother. None of my raising prevented me from experimenting with drugs, that was the culture at the time, nor from the cigarette addiction even tho' I listened to my grandfather cough when he laid down and watching 3 people die of lung cancer.
It is too bad that I am not affiliated with any church, as I would use that avenue to do volunteer work of some kind.....I'd like to read aloud but not just religion. To somehow inculcate a love for education. I am very much interested in any and all of your thoughts about any of this. Please help educate me. As an introvert and a recluse I can't say that I know anything of what is going on except what I read. I have never lived in a city, only visited for the cultural aspects. I have traveled and read, worked with Socialists and met many cultures. I still and will always actively pursue my own education. I am wondering how I could pass this on, make even one difference and yet stay true to my terms.