From a conversation the other day with me and my husband.
15 year old son: "My life sucks."
Me: "What do you mean by that?"
Son: "All I do is sleep, wake up, eat, go to class, come home, eat, do homeschool lessons, go to practice, come home, eat, do homework, and go to sleep. I do the same thing every day. This sucks."
Me: "Sounds like the typical life of a teenager, and the kids on your team, as a matter of fact. Everyone sleeps, wakes up to go to school, does homework, goes to practice, does homework, then goes to sleep."
Son: "Well that sucks! It's not right! I want to travel! We don't go anywhere!"
Me: "Yesterday we drove home from Oklahoma City. We were there for three days for your regatta. We were away three days of the last seven! You were with your friends. You walked around Bricktown by yourselves and had fun together. We do go places."
Son: "Yeah but I want to travel about half of my time, I want to be home half the time and travel and have fun the other half of the time. This is no life where all you do is focused on schoolwork."
Husband: "The life you are living is the life of teens! Maybe when you are 22 and out of college, you can have a job where you travel a lot, but first you need to finish high school and then go to college to do that career. If you are lucky you can find a job that will fulfill you goal of traveling so much."
(My sons live a priviledged life compared to how I was raised. They have no clue how much rougher my own life was. They have even less of a clue how rough many American kids today have it. I have torn emotions about the crazy position I am in, of having worked so hard to provide my kids with a great life and having them take it for granted and to complain and think they have it rough. They have no idea how many kids in the world would love to trade places with them. We provide a fantastic house and home, we are not alcoholics or drug addicted or mentally ill parents or physically ill either, we have tons of delicious and healthy food in the house, they are never wanting. We have Internet and phones and mobile phones and cable TV and DVR and Netflix and other instant streaming, and video games, and books and magazines and cameras and software, MP3 players, stereos, iPods, and anything and everything. We have provided Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, sports, and many educational endeavors. We have traveled all around the USA for fun and for historical site visits and for educational museum trips. We own two functioning cars, one with radio, satellite radio and TVs. I am sick to my stomach just thinking about their ungrateful attitude. This it the thanks we get for what we have provided our kids?)