Why Does EVERYONE Say Their Parents Were Bad?

I don't know if I visit the most representative locations on the internet as far as statistical samples go by frequenting Yahoo news articles and political Youtube videos and such, but I swear, in almost every forum or comment section, for every one person I see complimenting their parents and calling them a blessing, I see about 20 or 30 talking about how toxic their parents were.  And we're not talking about teenagers that are still in the middle of maturing and dealing with discipline issues.  These are people in their 30's and 40's who've had ample time to look back.  

My question is, why the dissatisfaction?  Are there really THAT many bad parents out there abusing and neglecting their kids?  Is there just too much expectation regarding parental roles where they have to be absolutely perfect to even be considered decent?  I mean, WHY do so many people have problems with their parents?  I had awesome parents, so it boggles my mind that so many people apparently did not.  

I can't stress enough that I have NO problems with my parents and what they did in my upbringing whatsoever.  They were good people that tried their very best and did WAY more than they ever should have for me.  Were they flawed human beings?  Of course.  Who isn't.  But once I grew up, and possibly even before then, I could certainly tell that they clearly had my best interests at heart and put in SO much effort and sacrifice for my own wellbeing - particularly my mom.  

This realization is not dampered when I look back and think how scared I was when my mom yelled at me or how mad I was at my dad for using the belt when I got really out of line.  They did these things because I needed correction.  Not because they were on some power trip or thought it was fun.  Because they darn sure didn't seem to have fun correcting me.  Not to mention they bought me more toys than I could even count over those 17 or so years.  And they didn't cheat on each other or spend all night at the bar.  

Are parents like mine really so rare?  If so, I guess I can see why the divorce rate is so high.  But it still boggles my mind that so many parents would be problematic enough to not even be considered decent, much less good.  

Even if I classified mine as phenomenal, that could still potentially be an understatement.  The fact is they deserve more love and respect than I could ever give them.  Thank you mom and dad.  Regardless of how your peers behaved, you were shining examples of a traditional family structure.

Exploring Oppression's Limits... On the Weak End

I wonder, how oppressed would Cinderella consider herself to be if her stepmother and stepsisters still held household authority over her, but forced her to do little or no chores, and she spent most of her time playing on a computer all day.  I imagine if they continued to verbally torment her, that would still be oppressive (or at least abusive).  But I'd think it would take more to claim she was genuinely oppressed besides her not be the one in charge making the decisions.

I think to be a true oppressor, one has to exercise enough authority that they transfer most of the shared workload to the one they're oppressing, and not carry it themselves.  But I'm not sure how much distinction we make between terms like jerk, bully, oppressor, and abuser on a daily basis, and that may factor into this thought exercise here.  Those terms probably each emphasize slightly different negative characteristics.

Mr. Friend

My son's favorite stuffed animal growing up was a frog he called Mr. Friend.  It was hard not to like Mr. Friend.

Jet Jaguar Can Deadlift

 

AI Caught Making an Error - Oops!

When I ask AI questions usually, either it doesn't make any error, or it makes errors I don't notice.  But this time it definitely made a noticeable error.  I asked it to verify the number 1984 in binary, and I believe 11111000000 is correct, but that translates only to 1024+512+256+128+64.  There should be NO 32 in the sum as AI stated here.  

The 11111000000 stands for 1*2^10 + 1*2^9 + 1*2^8 + 1*2^7 + 1*2^6 + 0*2^5 + 0*2^4 + 0*2^3 + 0*2^2 + 0*2^1 + 0*2^0

Hope I typed all that out right and didn't make an error myself.

Have it Now is the New Way to See

Years ago I wrote a satirical variant of Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me."  Not an improvement, and probably hasn't aged well.  But I don't think I published it anywhere, so might as well put it up now:

“What’s the matter with the song I’m playing

Will you tell me that it’s not the time?

Maybe I should sing of fame and fortune

And pretend that everything is fine

Nowadays everybody wants something sunny

Guarantees of fancy cars, and piles and piles of money

Everybody’s pushing all this new style on me

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

 

What’s the matter with the way they’re thinking?

It just seems like a twist of time

Back in old days things weren’t as easy

But there wasn’t nearly so much whine

Nowadays people go dancing all around town

They have tons of fun while their love of working goes down

Good days, good pay, good times, all the way

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

  

Oh, we get up every morning and we see in the paper

More bad news that we’ve already seen

Scientists working oh so hard everyday

To find the reason for every bad thing

Try to keep it all running

 

How about signing up with big business,

Where you use all of your great wit?

We can say for sure that you’ll love it

And you’ll never want to call it quits

You know if you say ‘no’ that you’ll get weaker

But saying ‘yes’ will make you a great and rich speaker

Oh man, what a plan, get it now, while you can

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

 

Best of all it’s not considered cheating

And there can never, ever be too much

Once you get your foot in the door and make money

 You’ll never, ever lose your touch

Good days, good pay, good times, all the way

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see

 

Everybody’s pushing all this new style on me

‘Have it now’ is the new way to see”

 

My Best Man

One of my favorite people ever was the guy who was good enough to be best man at my wedding.  He was a handsome, fun, and talented fellow.  Studying mechanical engineering and could bench press over 400 pounds.  This boosted his ego to the point that some people found him somewhat insufferable despite the high amount of charisma that he also possessed.  But I loved it because he reminded me of all of the heels I watched on professional wrestling.  So I did my best to actually feed his ego even MORE just to see what happened.  It was a lot of fun, and he seemed to eat it up.  It sure was an easy way to become his friend.

But at the end of the day, he was smart and sensible enough to realize his limitations (even though he'd never admit them out loud) and never let his ego get TOO out of check as to be unhealthy in a way he couldn't handle.  His life never became unstable, and he ended up working at Lockheed Martin for many years.  I hope he's still doing well.  Because even though it seems like I just fed his ego as some kind of joke, I really did like the guy.  He was my best man for a reason.