Bright lites.

Alarm clock rang Saturday @ 4:30 am. To pay for the race car I'm taking out of district charters.  I pick the Kids up early and since the bus was warm most were sound asleep before I was out of the parking lot.  
    That evening on the way home I drove by downtown just after nightfall. Since they had won against pretty steep odds  they were all wound up and remarkably awake. 
  As the Bright  lites of the city  came into view suddenly these high schoolers were jumping up, pointing and asking what they were. 
     Even though most of these kids live less than 5-7 miles from Downtown Minneapolis, I can't believe that more than 1/2 of the kids had never seen the City lights. 
     Ask yourself. Have your kids spent time at night? Enough so they see the seedy underside  of downtown?   I'd hate for kids to be falsely attracted to the bright lites without any preparation. 

I have jobs in some of the less than desirable parts of Boston. When my kids were younger I made it a point to take them in town to these parts so they could see that the whole world does not live in homes with picket fences. Seeing the homeless and the conditions of the buildings was an eye opener for them.   
 

Then there is my wife who is from a third world country. The worst part of just about any American city does not come close to the slums of where she grew up. With YouTube she has been able to show our kids that.  
 

The innocence of kids is a beautiful thing but it needs to be properly tempered as it can turn to an attitude of arrogance and privilege.   This is where parenting comes in. 

In reply to dean1484 :

An acquaintance of mine comes from money. Extremely well educated - PhD, JD, MA in Economics... The guy has no concept of what even upper middle class families struggle with. He's never had any personal hardships, and is unable to comprehend what a real hardship is. It is astounding. And sadly he's in politics, somehow.

I grew up with the proverbial silver spoon, but my parents had me caddy starting at 13. Seeing, and becoming friends with illegal immigrants living in motels, or literal crackheads living in their cars, was eye opening, and extremely important.

frenchyd said:

Even though most of these kids live less than 5-7 miles from Downtown Minneapolis, I can't believe that more than 1/2 of the kids had never seen the City lights. 

That is strange.  There are places where you can see the glow of downtown from 20 miles away or more.  Makes me wonder if those kids had just never looked out the window before.

In reply to mtn :

Sounds like most politicians, unfortunately.

In reply to mtn 

Kind of related.  When we were getting ready to put our first kid in school my wife was having a hard time because the Elementary school he would go to was in a not "nice" part of your town.  We went to the school, met with some of the staff and teachers and ended up sending all three of our kids there and now my wife works in the office of that school.  One of the things that I said was having the kids interact with a wide variety of people from various socioeconomic levels will serve them well later in life and I stand by that so far.

Aaron_King said:

In reply to mtn 

Kind of related.  When we were getting ready to put our first kid in school my wife was having a hard time because the Elementary school he would go to was in a not "nice" part of your town.  We went to the school, met with some of the staff and teachers and ended up sending all three of our kids there and now my wife works in the office of that school.  One of the things that I said was having the kids interact with a wide variety of people from various socioeconomic levels with serve them well later in life and I stand by that so far.

Cultural norming of racism in action! 

My wife and I made a similar decision (against the advice of many of our peers) to live in and therefore send our kids to school in an area that "isn't as nice as it used to be" according to most people that have moved out.

It's a bit creepy how prevalent and powerful those forces are, and the source isn't clear to me. But we are similarly glad we chose to push against rather than blindly follow.

I moved out of a rough part of Detroit so my wife (then kids, years later) wouldn't have to live in danger. My kids have been to the neighborhood and spent some time there on many occasions. They see how folks on the 'other side of the tracks' live. I've also explained to them that the side of the tracks you are from has no bearing on what kind of person you are. In fact, most of the folks I grew up with are real, hard working people. Now, there are plenty that are/were crack heads or in jail, or should be. But that's more about the culture they grew up in.  

stuart in mn said:

frenchyd said:

Even though most of these kids live less than 5-7 miles from Downtown Minneapolis, I can't believe that more than 1/2 of the kids had never seen the City lights. 

That is strange.  There are places where you can see the glow of downtown from 20 miles away or more.  Makes me wonder if those kids had just never looked out the window before.

It's like the Viking stadium. you really don't  see it coming from the East going west on 94 until you're almost on it.   The area before it is housing and the University  which tend to have few lights on compared to the skyline of Minneapolis  that you see as you pass dinkytown. 
  If you go into Golden Valley north and west of 55&100 there are a lot of that area you can't see downtown.  In fact there are places south of 394 and east of 100 you can't see the lights of downtown. 
 My sister had a picture book look at downtown but 2 blocks away you couldn't see it. 

dean1484 said:

I have jobs in some of the less than desirable parts of Boston. When my kids were younger I made it a point to take them in town to these parts so they could see that the whole world does not live in homes with picket fences. Seeing the homeless and the conditions of the buildings was an eye opener for them.   
 

Then there is my wife who is from a third world country. The worst part of just about any American city does not come close to the slums of where she grew up. With YouTube she has been able to show our kids that.  
 

The innocence of kids is a beautiful thing but it needs to be properly tempered as it can turn to an attitude of arrogance and privilege.   This is where parenting comes in. 

In the Navy I was exposed to a fair amount of that. Some of the Philippines  is nice but so much was abject poverty. The garbage heap  in Manila where whole families lived by scrounging value out of heaps of garbage.

    I was in Hong Kong  in the late 70's.   On leave I wandered all around it and saw the butcher shops that set a cow's skull on the curb to Advertise the place was a butcher shop today. Or walk from junk to junk going to a floating restaurant seeing whole families  living in a 18 foot long Sampam. 
       Laundry hanging  on lines across the street, from apartment to apartment. 
    Then wandering through Kowloon that made the worst of Hong Kong look comparatively luxurious in comparison. Even though it was mid morning, I started noticing gangsters sizing me up and got out of there. 
     I haven't been back to Tijuana in more than 50 years but back then life was so brutal, cardboard shanties at least was someplace. Someplace that a lot didn't have.  That was nice compared to some places in Mexico.  Nowdays those areas are listed as the Do not go. 
       I drove from Rhoada  Spain to the outskirts of Paris and back. Today some of those places are worth millions but not then. They were so derelict   I was convinced they were abandoned  until someone came out.  
    We visited Singapore Today that's the Gem of the orient. Back then our uniforms were washed by locals on the banks of streams.