What's
the
Opposite of Schadenfreude?
(I borrowed this from nothingforungood.com. I love reading
stuff like this. =mike=)
 Walk
through a park in Germany on a Friday
evening and you are certain to see a
group of young teenagers well on their
way to becoming completely intoxicated,
and you will also notice that none of
the adults walking by give them a second
glance. That’s because Germans
let their kids do things that Americans
would never dream of allowing.
Germans recently decided it is a bad
idea to allow cigarette vending machines
available to anyone 3 feet tall or over,
but that doesn’t mean you won’t
see a group of kids that can barely reach
the counter in their local Rewe working
together as a team of 4 to struggle to
carry the case of beer and pooling their
money together to pay the 10 Euros for
it. Although German parents aren’t
particularly worried about their kids’ safety,
the German government is worried about
protecting its future tax base. That
is why German kids have to use car seats
a few years past the age that their parents
let them start drinking. “Luca,
get back in your car seat, and I told
you a thousand times to use the ashtray!”
Not only will kids get the opportunity
to hear dirty words on the radio and
see naughty body parts on regular television,
but they are also reading detailed instruction
on how to do things only married people
should being doing in the Bravo magazine
that they have been subscribing to since
they turned 11. Forget chaperons at the
school dance, German teenagers are hanging
out preglowing in the parking lot across
from the disco so they can save enough
money for the bus ride home afterwards.
German kids are allowed to go places
by themselves, even riding the subways
of largest cities completely unaccompanied.
You don’t have bright yellow school
buses with flashing lights stopping all
traffic on both sides of street, school
children are left to fend for themselves
when they leave the campus. Some are
allowed to even ride a bicycle without
knee pads and a helmet.
One dramatic place where you can see
German parents letting their kids do
whatever they want is sports. German
parents don’t stand on the sidelines
screaming at their kids to kick the ball
harder and run faster at the soccer game,
they just let them play however they
feel like. It’s despicable.
----------
(The following is a snippet of a response
from a reader who'd lived in Germany
for two years as an exchange student)
The American model is, you are a CHILD
for precisely 17 years and 364 days with
few rights and a mere handful of freedoms.
Bluntly put, many parents feel they own
their “child”, whereas here,
teens are more seen as “adults
in training” and individuals who
become increasingly entitled to certain
rights and freedoms and their very own
values, beliefs and opinions. In the
US, on the other hand, alcohol is off
limits until your early 20s, no dance
club will let you in under 21 (without
fake ID), and sex also tends to be a
big taboo. Heck, every now and then,
teens even get sent to prison for a consensual
nookie. And on your 18th birthday, you
are expected to somehow throw a switch
inside your head and be an adult through
and through and never look back.
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