Quote Originally Posted by S.W.I.M. 504
I think you are putting all underage people into a broad category.
basically a stereotype of youth. not all teenagers are unexperienced in life or get an allowance from mommy and daddy.
you are correct that many of them cannot make rational or smart decisions, but it is not a "one in a million shot" i would say more of a 60 out of a 100 shot. i know many 14, 15, 16, year olds who have an older mind set than their age. you dont know everyones life and what they had to go through. and you also say someone half way through high school has "no education to speak of, none of lifes experiences, no training to become a useful member of society" so i guess that is all supposed to come to them magically when they graduate, right? im taking a long shot here and guessing that you where once 16, where you as dumb and unintelligent as you see todays youth?

Yes I was 16 once, many years ago, so were both of my children. Todays youth are not near as smart as you are lead to believe. I speak from my own lifes experiences, and a parent.

When I was 16, I was in high school until around noon, then I went to work until around 5:30, then I went home to stuff some groceries down my neck, then off to the local JC to take night school courses. I earned my journeyman machinist papers at 19 years old. I enlisted in the military, figuring that they would pay for my college. I liked it, and retired with 22 years in, and a masters in mechanical engineering with a minor in environmental science. The military allowed me to travel to the ends of the earth....literally.
I have been a business owner and certified master HVAC contractor/technician for the last 10 years.
Maybe I am an "over achiever", maybe not, but it certainly has given me a different prospective on living life.
I guess it all boils down to these few things....

To be truely successful, you have to work a half day, every day, and it doesn't matter if its the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours.

Don't put yourself in a position where somebody has to do something about it

Treat everybody the same way you want to be treated.

Do the very best you know how, every time, all the time.

There is no such thing as a stoopid question, only stoopid answers when you didn't ask questions.

These are a few of the things that my parents tried to teach me, I just wish that I didn't "know it all" when I was a teenager, and listened to what they tried to teach me a lot sooner.