EdD5 wrote:
Re: kuntext
I'm American and have lived in Ireland (with two teenagers) for the past eight years. You're wrong on just about every point. No one graduates at 16, unless you're talking about dropping out of school with a junior cert. Those staying for leaving certs (the equivalent of a high school diploma) are generally 18 and sometimes even 19. Your idea of "real" school is also funny. Most start at around that age in junior infants, but to pretend a three- or four-year-old in Ireland is learning anything more rigorous than an American kid in nursery school is preposterous. A four-year-old is a four-year-old.
While the drinking age in Ireland is 18, you're quite deluded if you think the average 18-year-old is markedly more mature than the typical American kid of the same age. While there is a range of maturity at that age, as in any country, the typical 18-year-old is listening to the same music, watching the same movies and as likely (or unlikely) to clean their room or have a part-time job as their American counterparts.
Overall, Ireland is an incredibly PC country with a good deal of nanny-state strictures. If you think that breeds an early sense of responsibility and self-reliance, I'd beg to differ. While it's illegal to carry a small pocket knife or use one to eat an apple on your doorstep, the amount of teenage binge drinking and consequent accidents and violence is alarming. While it's against the law to deride someone's religious views, the rate of teen pregnancy and single mothers continue to rise.
While psychiatric care and counseling services are woefully insufficient, suicide rates and depression-linked self-harm continue to present as serious societal problems.
Try to put a peanut butter sandwich in your kid's lunch or take a picture at a swim meet and see if you're not scolded and apprised of the regulations banning such invasive and suspect behavior.
If you think the average Irish child and teen aren't as coddled and deluded as anywhere else in the western world, you are simply misinformed.
To which I replied:
Ed -
Technical question first, for the sake of context.
You've been an IMDb member for 9 years and THIS is your only post?
(For new people, this almost always means it's a sock account used to put out a view that the poster lacks the courage, or has the good sense, NOT to associate themselves with because of some deceitful or hateful agenda.) But, let's give this poster a moment to distinguish themselves from that group, if possible.
You're wrong on just about every point
"My view and experience differs from yours on just about every point."
There, ^^^ I fixed it for you. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Debate. Not hate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Which devolved into this:
I don't leave posts up for posterity. And the age kids graduate secondary school in Ireland is not a matter of my or your "experience", but a fact and that fact is 18, not 16.
Your safeguards about whom you'll "associate with" on a movie message board should be posted on every fridge.
Ah, now we're getting somewhere. It's a reading comprehension problem. You thought I was stating who I associate with. No, look again. I am saying that people who use sock accounts do so because they do not want to be associated with their own view.
As a person who does sometimes post an unpopular view, I wonder at why anyone would not stand behind their own assertions.
Seriously, what is your problem? Your tone is nasty. You obviously feel offended, yet fail to specify what is so threatening to you in the fact that my experience differs from your own. You do realize that your experience also differs from mine, yet I am not upset that this is true.
I'm considering these things:
1) Things may have changed over time. It appears you are far younger than me.
2) The differences between urban and rural areas.
3) The way The Troubles affected education and laws.
4) One, or both of us, are mistaken.
But, in none of that do I find cause for anything beyond curiosity and perhaps further clarification on why the differences exist.
Your initial reply reads like a rant against Irish culture (as you see it) by someone who appears to have issues with their social services, which is why I asked that you clarify your sock status before discussing anything with you.
On a related note: Posterity - every keystroke is recorded, and stored - legally, for 5 years by the NSA. You can erase your posts, but that only makes them inaccessible to you... the government has them forever. As the world knows, that means our information is vulnerable to leakage, exposure or sale. Say you delete your post to me. It's now in my post, and that remains. The internet is not a place of temporary communication, privacy nor anonymity.
Also, for best results in seeking uniformity of experience and POV, try a mirror - not a public forum.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Debate. Not hate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
reply
share