Y siguen hablando los "Self Hating Porro Ricans"

[Stanley]

Suki:

Children do not come with a manual of operation. And to make matters worse they don't function in the same manner. So one manual does not apply to the other.

However, there is one thing that I have learned. Kids do as parents do, not as parents say they should do. Kids observe the parents behavior and may copy that rather than listen to the voices.

Kids have different talents and they don't perform the same even with the same set of parents and same opportunities.

My parents gave me opportunities, but never pushed me to do anything. It is important for the child to know that he or she does not have to please the parents to be loved. If a kid is overloaded he may choose to go the opposite direction and become rebellious.

Nevertheless, the key to a good person is a good set of parents and at age nine your child still has plenty of space in his brain for fresh imprints.


As for poverty and those that are left behind. A great deal of this has to do with culture and learned behaviors that are passed from generation to generation. This reminds me of another point. We are the product of many generations-----we are not the product of just one generation. The good habits are passed from generation to generation and they get refined. A long-term tradition of excellence is very important and you can often observe this in artists, craftsmen, and musicians.

Back to poverty:

Have you heard of the Amish in Bolivia? They seem to flourish in the same land where the peasants are starving to death. These folks have an uncanny ability to work the land and it is something that has been passed from generation to generation. And do not forget----this has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. These folks are as ascetic as you are.

[Suki]

Stanley, of course I know that one manual doesn't apply to all kids. I understand that. Yes, kids do what they see that is done, not what you say. Kids also need to have consistency. Also, kids who are not with parents since birth come with a special set of circumstances. In my child's situation he came from a home with drug addiction, chaos, unpredictability and instability. He lost his brother and younger sister who went to other homes due to how screwed up the system for placing children is in the USA. Extended family was unable to adopt because the majority of people can't afford to raise three extra kids. They don't have the room, the finances, etc. The home the older brother went to had eight other kids in it and he was placed there and the mother of the home with the eight kids thought she could handle another child. But, she underestimated the trauma these kids with destroyed families have and the attention they require to try to adjust. She wound up adopting his older brother and sending my son back to the system. My son gets extremely angry when he thinks someone is lying to him.

It reminds him of all these broken promises made by all these foster temporary bullcrap situations in which no one committs to deal with his issues for a lifetime. I don't blame the lady with the eight biological kids and the ninth child is adopted. The older brother carried the weight of an adult: feeding his younger brother and sister, clothing them, and trying to survive on his own at five years old, six years old. He just wanted to forget all that mess and be a kid. His younger brother was a reminder of his past life, and it was a difficult relationship. Why? Because the parent is a hardcore drug addict who is gone mentally, physically, and in every significant way is completely absent. Why is she on drugs? Because she came from poverty, incest, racism, every screwed up thing that happens to human beings in this world that could go wrong---and she did not want to cope with the pain anymore and decided to medicate herself and 'check-out' with drugs. So, who pays for all this river of excrement that happens in life? The ones who wind up paying for all this? You guessed it---the ones with no blame. It reminds me of the working class. They have to pay for all the bad financial decisions of the ruling class. If there is waste, and over consumption and stripping of resources, contamination, pollution and so on---the ones who pay the most are the ones least guilty of the wrongdoing.

The fathers of these kids are absent and checked out in every possible way. Some don't want to be, but they can barely take care of themselves, much less be responsible for another human being. People moan and groan and complain. The truth is there is enough money to take care of all these people who are really in dire straits---but this society would rather spend it on gold plated toilet seats in Washington, fat pensions and newer and shinier weapons of mass destruction than on solving some hard core human issues....like treating addiction, health care, affordable housing, child welfare, and education that is accesible to all and not to those who live in exclusive neighborhoods paying high property taxes.

All of this is a by-product of a society that is disfunctional on a human level. Yes, poverty is cyclical and so is opulence. It is systemic. And as such it is mutable. It all depends on how willing people are to struggle for the change in the long run. Or if they decide to give up and throw all of the kids, adults, people away and say it is useless to try to change things. That is the way of the world---Or is that the way we have made the world? Human beings. With their poor judgements and bad choices. Can't we learn from our mistakes and do better?

Yes, I know Miranda about poor people who dream with owning a shiny new truck. They live in a tiny and rundown apartment but their truck is new and they never fail on the payments. There are women who spend a lot of their money on luxury goods so they have a self image, and a sense of self worth that is reflected by their possessions. But does that fill them up? As a psychologist I would have thought you were a lot more humanistic and more of a person who might believe in giving without receiving. I think you have become cynical in many ways. I don't know why. I just hope you realize that if you change your consciousness you change a lot.

What do people really need? Are possessions and consumption the equivalent of freedom and so on? Or are they a trap in disguise? Something temporary and not long term fulfilling? I have also realized Stanley that people have some archaic and obsolete ways of thinking. They think what is manifested is the only way of doing things. If capitalism the way it is practiced today is the way things are done---then---hey, game over. All is solved. No, it is not like that.

What have I learned? I learned many things. I still got a lot to learn. And my son has shown me I have a lot to teach too. What bonds people to one another? I think it is shared struggles, experiences and dedication to each other. After all, that is all we really leave behind when we finally exit out of here. That is really all we leave behind.