colboltfeist
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User ID: 1174
colboltfeist
1yr ago
I probably didn't articulate it well enough. I didn't have to pay anything, and I didn't get bullied. The reason I didn't get bullied was that I basically shelled up and treated school like jail.
colboltfeist
1yr ago
My father was a police officer in a very dangerous city, and he wanted a "take home" car that he could park outside our house, to show people he was a police officer and so that he wouldn't have to drive to the station each morning to pick up a car. The police department that he worked at required police to live within the city limits to have this privilege, and so we bought a house in this city, and I went to school there. This meant that the public middle and high schools I went to were simply atrocious. Gangs, metal detectors, weekly fights, shootings, underage pregnancies, drugs, etc. Before moving into this area, I was a relatively sheltered child who had lived on military bases, so as you can imagine this was quite a shock for me.
My mother didn't work (and still doesn't), and really wanted to live the American dream of having a house with a picket fence and play housewife even if that house was only affordable to them due to the bad schools around it. Instead of getting into a lot of trouble as a kid, I simply shelled up and was very depressed and scared. Regardless of anything I was going through - we couldn't move since my parents loved having a house and I couldn't go to a different school because we didn't have enough money for a private school.
And I developed deep life long depression and still sometimes panic in large crowds due to the fights and riots I experienced while in school. After high school I often wondered why I was so emotionally immature and I think some of it had to do with growing up in this sort of environment. Regardless, I have taken responsibility for my life now and have my own family and children. As I look back upon this situation, I can't help but respect my own parents less and less as I age. It pains me to be around them, as they seemingly were very happy to sacrifice my happiness and childhood for their way of life.
colboltfeist
1yr ago
I wish Twain's comment was the case for all of us. As I've grown older, and I'm 35 now, I respect my parents much less. It was only after going out and getting more experience in the world that I was able to understand how selfish they were. That was a tough pill to swallow.
May I ask what you intend to use the notes for? I write down notes when I read on physical note cards and this helps me a lot to retain quotes, notes, and take aways from the book.
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