Aruba...
 

I'm not a happy Mother at the moment. My oldest daughter and her husband have decide to take a vacation to Aruba next Sept. Keep in mind they are in an adjustable mortgage. I am trying to get them into a fixed rate morgage before their loan resets in Oct. They have no savings, live paycheck to paycheck and are driving cars that are on deaths door...Their response, lets take a vacation to Aruba...:rant:

The one thing they have done right is not accumulate credit card debt and they were going to save and pay cash for the trip so to them it seems like a responsible decision. Quite honestly I'm not sure what to say so when in doubt a parent with a married kid needs to keep their mouth shut and not interfere. Still Im just shaking my head thinking WTF kind of fantasy world are they living in. :banghead:

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Jaima the best thing you can do is warn them once, and prepare for them WTSHTF. If you "pester" them they will resent you.

We are going to have a lot of family that we are going to have to look after when the sheeple wake up.

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Amen, to all of the above. The sad truth is that at some point parents must cut their kids loose and let them live their lives and make their own mistakes. It hurts like hell to watch them do stupid things. If you want to discretely offer your opinion just once, that's your parental perogative. Beyond that, let them spread their wings and fly. I know you'll be there to pick up the pieces if there's a crash :)

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Thanks for the advice and letting me vent here. I want to think before I act because I know its easy to alienate your adult child if you interfere. My concern is what happens when I will not be there to pick up the pieces. What happens when me and their father are not around anymore?
I will talk to my daughter and her Husband ONE time and let it rest.

My younger Daughter and her boyfriend are fairly plugged into this stuff. I took them their first round of preps we discussed storage and rotation. They were really excited about having extra food in the house. When I took preps to my oldest Daughter and her husband they laughed about it.
They are clueless to how fragile the system is. My daughter walks around without even a dollar bill in her purse. No cash in the house. I asked her what she would do if the banks and ATM machine closed for a few days. I got a blank look. My husband isn't much better. If I disappear from GIM it will be because he had me committed, he thinks I am bonkers. When my Mylar bags and oxygen observers finally arrived this week he looked at them like a package from outer space had been delivered.

I'm getting frustrated... I going to have to have a long talk with God about control issues...I do feel trying too control too much shows a distinct lack of faith.

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Daily struggle for me also.......as I also tend to be a control freak...Both my married son, and married daughter think I a wacko survivalist nut case old man who needs to be supervised carefully.

Heck, the wife wasn't totally on board till a year ago, and now even she has moments when she doubts what is happening. I have to restrain myself and be careful to provide the love and reassurance to all.

Because we can only make decisions on the level we are at, we have to trust God that he is watching out for us in the long run.....not easy to do every day.

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Jaima, I don't have a problem with gentle pestering. The bible says not to make your children mad, though. Sometimes the most effective means of teaching/leading is simply being a living example of preparedness, which I have a feeling you are.

And then there's the old saying,"You can lead a horse to water, but........"

sb

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same issues here. lack of faith or prudently preparing.

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Not for nothing, look at what we have.

Government is the highest form of organized crime.

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I talked to my Daughter. She is a really sweet and gentle woman. I think she is able to stay that way because she has an uncanny ability to zone out to lala land. Reality will hit her harder them most and I suppose that's why God gave her the Parents he did....sigh
Anyway she said they wanted to take the trip because they were going to try and have a baby next year and this was their last splurge. I didn't have the heart to dampen her spirits. I told her I did have some concerns about her traveling that time of year.. [close to projected SHTF time] I told her we needed to talk about her and her husband saving some money. She agreed..

I guess I better start adding baby preps:confused_ma:

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Last time I looked, Aruba hadn't "premptively" invaded any other sovereign nations recently, killing a million innocent civilians, and torturing others.

I guess I have different values than you?

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Oh no, we have a refugee from the Milarary thread!

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Well, I think the probability of your daughter putting herself in financial difficulty by taking a poorly-timed holiday is far far greater than the probability of her or her husband being killed in Aruba.

And just pointing out the posters hypocrisy about calling ARUBA'S legal system into question. 'sall.

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They're all moving back on their own. They know a collapsing economy when they see one.

And nice way to divert attention from the 1 million innocent Iraqi's you've killed. Way to go!

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Oh for the love of saints ........CUT THE CRAP!!



We need to keeep a cool heads..... and save the venom and spitting fire at the shocktroop goons "trying" to snatch our freedoms.



MM........ Your a firebrand and I look up to sir we just had one of our "vets" go into self imposed exile....... please dont let me down!



T

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Back to the thread......

J.... I can only imagine how deep a moms loves run for her kids ....especially the "wayward" ones.

The advice on the thread is quite good ..........talk to "God."....and realize we all came down here to experince whatever lessons we came to. and we cant interefer with that lesson for another... all we can do is surround them in white light and hope that they come to realization that are looking for.


Tuff pill to swallow I am sure.... ...and many of us on this board will be in similar shoes in the coming years ahead.


T

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Yes. Exactly. Anyone can see that calling a sovereign state's legal system into question because one white girl died is in no way hypocrisy for someone living in the USA.

Nooooo. Not at all.

And another note - "talking to God" was one of Dubya's excuses for his disaster. Do you want to be in the same distinguished pile?

The lack of logic in some of your arguments is astounding.

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The cost of food is too expensive these days anyways, best to stock it.

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Right there with you sir....right there with you! :banghead::banghead::banghead:


T

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Along with AgAuGal, I'll give another second to this point. And I think that's one reason we're all here - for a little reassurance that we aren't totally whacked!

Fortunately, my children aren't old enough to ridicule me without fear of getting grounded (though my teenage daughter throws a jab every now and then). And my wife has had to be brought about in increments - she finally agreed that purchasing land made sense, and she's looked the other way on the ammo purchases. As far as guns, I have to sneak any new ones in because she'll use it on me if I get caught!

Then I started on the food preps - and when she found them, her comment was, "Oh, now you're going too far!" Luckily, she's a smart woman with tons of common sense, and all I had to do was point out a couple of MSM stories about food shortages that are being projected and signs that they are already occurring. Finally, she said, "Well, okay - but where the hell are we going to put all this stuff!" That's an issue we can deal with, so I'm thankful for that.

She'll still throw a jab at me every now and then, and I just tell her, "Go ahead and laugh - just remember that when I'm sitting here eating my canned cheese and you and the kids haven't eaten in three days!" So even though she's on board reluctantly, at least we can joke about it.

Jaima, as far as your adult children go, you've got lots of company. My wife works with at least half a dozen folks that have had their adult kids move back in with them because they don't have a clue about how to function in society. One of them has a 24 y/o son that got fired from his city job (!?!?), then went to work for Best Buy, and then got laid off right after Christmas. His car payment, car insurance, and cell phone bills were all past due, and he had absolutely zero leads on a new job. So he moves back in with the folks, and a week or so later his final check from Best Buy comes in the mail. What did he do with it? Took his girlfriend out to dinner! :banghead::banghead::banghead:

Anyway, you're trying. You've said your piece, and all you can do is hope they'll come around before it's too late. Hang in there!

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I live on an island in the middle of nowhere. all it takes is the hint of a whiff of a rumor of a "hey did you hear..." and instantly all the stores are out of water, batteries and food. gas lines like the 70s. many fall into complacency with the seeming abundance of the big box warehouse stores. until it's time.

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Lars, we have bred a whole generation of these type of young adults. My Daughters fall somewhere in the middle. They both have their bachelors degrees but have not really made much effort to excel in the job market. They have OK jobs and seem content with that. I am very sure neither wants to come back home to live though...LOL

Speaking of this subject has anyone read The Future of (Child) Men by Dr. Leonard Sax? This gives a frightening look into why we have so many 20 and 30 something yr old males still living in Moms basement. Evidently it is becoming epidemic in the US.

His book seems somewhat well researched. He claims young males are ingesting so many female hormones from a chemical reaction in plastic bottles that their testerone levels are seriously dropping. At the same time females are producing more testerone and roles are reversing. Woman are becoming more sexualy agressirive and ambitious and males are playing video games and working at the mall.

I thought is was too much of a generalization but I do think there might be some good reason to believe there is something to chemical poisoning and dropping testerone levels.

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You may be right on the money here. Our environment is flooded with hormone mimicking compounds. There is surely gender derangement. It is subtle and therefore hard to quantify but it's effect would be more noticeable to a time traveler from the not to distant past.

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LOL... I think those time travelers from the not so distant past would include a few us on this board..:tongue_ma:

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I have a very understanding partner for a wife. She tolerates me most of the time. She went along with me through the toughest of times, when I'd not have a job, when we didn't know where the money just to get by was going to come from. Somehow it did come, just in the nick of time.

My wife does say no to a lot of my 'prep' ideas, except where it comes to food, water and shelter are concerned. She balks a little at me buying to much TP and other such necessities. Being a female, I'd think she'd go for that one. hehe.

I tend to be a pack rat and she is constantly telling me I need to clean my room and get rid of some of my 'junk'. Sounds more like I married my mother sometimes the way she nags at me. Only my Mom would not have done that because she also was somewhat of a pack rat herself. Apple didn't fall very far....

As for adult children, my son didn't move out until 4 years ago when he was 30. He did work and always paid us rent for his room and board. Then it was only because I bought a place that had a house on it. I gave him the house for the fixing up and we put in another across the drive. We share a well, the phone line (2 numbers), and the outdoor wood boiler. He helps with the work around the place and since he's the only child, will end up with it all anyway. It is a good deal for us and him as if either of us wants to go away for a few days, the other is here to look after things. He just married a Thai woman who is very frugal and wants to garden and have chickens. I think she'd also like to see me put in a place for a pig or two. She was from a farming village in Thailand and probably knows more about subsistence living than we do.

FWIW, this may seem tough, but giving up control is hard. My wife still tries to control our son. I've told her time and again to let it go. It's harder for a woman to do that, I think that for a man. I felt like the only way I was going to get our son to move out, was to put him in a house of his own. He didn't have to pay me back, he only had to move out and pay to fix the house up. Oh, he can't borrow money on the house unless I sign and he knows he can't sell without me signing either. Control, I still own controlling
interest in the home, even though I had a deed made up for his part, I kept my name on the deed as well. But, our adult children's affairs are their business and we can only try to help not tell them what to do.

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Yup. All of us travel at the speed of time. We just don't see the contrast as well as one who could skip the intervening years. Boilin' the Frog, you know?

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LT Dan, your wife sounds like an exceptional woman. I wish she would check in and post once in a while. Well it sounds like you got your son out on his own set him up in a good position. Its really hard for young people to get started on their own these days. My first apartment rented for $100 dollars a month. Even with low paying jobs that was only a quarter of your monthly salary. The harsh truth is many of the kids are going to need help if they are gong to live on their own.

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LOL! Doubt you'll ever get my wife to post on one of these forums. I can't even get her to read email unless I forward it to her, then tell her to check her email. She thinks I waste too much time on the computer. She has to use one for her job, she convinced me to buy one for home. When we did get one, I didn't rest until I learned to type and that was back when we used DOS. That's also back when you got a book that told the DOS commands when you bought a new computer. Then we got the Internet when our son needed it for school research. Now we have three working computers in the house. I am trying to convince her to let me build another to replace this laptop. One of these days, the components will just start showing up on the door step. As a man I've learned that, "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." That's how I ended up with so many guns, ammo, fishing rods and reels and just about anything else I have.

OTT, I learn much more on the forums than I would doing what she wastes her time doing, which is watching dumb TV shows.

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"Ding Ding Ding, Tell her what she's won!" The standard of living of the lower class is falling (middle class is maintaining mostly through withdrawing equity, savings, or borrowing...but they too are seeing their expenses go up (in $'s and %'s) more than their revenue). Let's look at a hard working, single young mall employee:

$7.50/hr * 60 hr/wk * 4wk/mo = $1800. After all your taxes you're looking at around $1200 take home. That leaves $700 for rent, $200 for food ($100 just 4 years ago), $100 for gas ($50 just 4 years ago), $100 for car insurance/repairs. That leaves $100 which after 60 hours of putting up with crap from annoying customers is basically needed for entertainment of some sort (cable, cell phone, internet, movies, video games, dating; pick a couple). Normally they live food to mouth until some unexpected expense pops up and gives them some credit card debt. Instead of going this route, many tweens are choosing to live rent free with their parents (and likely eat their food too). Unfortunately, they often use this $700/mo positive cash flow to work 40 hr/wk and buy more entertainment and eat out more instead of saving anything. That subset deserves criticism.

I could lay out the situation for entry level programmers or EEs with large college debts (and lower starting salaries than 7 years ago) but it really isn't much prettier (and worse if wages stay stagnant...the mall worker has no debt and can find something that pays more than $7.50).

But give the men children the benefit of the doubt.

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Jaima, I have not heard of that particular book, though I have heard similar versions of that hypothesis. The one I seem to remember is that the reaction occurs with microwaving foods in plastic, and it produces estrogen. Basically the same effect on boys as your author's theory. As for girls, it explains girls reaching puberty at 8 and 9 years old.

Still, I could stand on my soap box for hours (as could many of us here) and lament about the causes of why our younger generations are unprepared for life. I just look back at my childhood and think about all the societal changes that have happened in just a few short years:

The disintegration of the nuclear family. Single parent and mixed parent families are the norm rather than the exception. It's hard enough raising kids with two adults in the house - nearly impossible with only one.

We spend less time with our kids - even familes that are still whole in the traditional sense. Moms work, dads work, just trying to keep afloat or get just a little bit ahead.

Kids have no free play time. No, I don't mean latchkey kids coming home and sitting in front of an XBox or the TeeVee. I mean kids don't usually go out to play on their own (a current exception seems to be skateboarders). What I mean is that my brother and I used to leave the house in the morning during the summer, come home for lunch, and then stay gone until dinner. We were always out playing football, baseball, riding bikes or something because there were always enough kids around to do that stuff with. Now because of all the perverts around (or perhaps better reporting of perverts), people are afraid to let their kids out of their sight for more than 10 minutes. As a result, all of their physical activity comes in the form of organized youth sports.

Add the above together, and parents feel a whole bunch of guilt. So we try to make it up to our kids by giving them material things. We hate to see them fail, so we rescue them. We don't want them to fall victim to some pedophile, so we smother them. Then when it comes time to turn them loose into the world, they're not ready.

I don't know - just some random thoughts from a guy who's almost 50 and has 3 kids under 16. And who sees 100 eighth graders every day - 90% of whom, without some sort of epiphany, will be utterly unprepared to compete in tomorrow's job market - thanks in part to our their parents, and in part to our nanny state.... :rant:off

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Excellent points! Heck, when I moved here 10 years ago, most jobs paid minimum wage, but people could still make a living. The real estate boom killed that - people that owned trailer parks and cheaper housing sold their properties so they could be converted to McMansions. Wages crept up while prices on EVERYTHING soared.

Oh, and all these increases in the minimum wage helped. About time the gubmint did something for the working stiff. And nope, I'm sure none of the businesses around here passed that extra cost of business on to the consumer. No way.... :sarc:

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Well if you think about it, raising the minimum wage is predominantly a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the (employed) poor. Some jobs will go away as business models adjust and some employees will be rendered unemployable (walmart greeters, 16 yo's, felons, etc), and products and services the poor consume will go up slightly in price but not nearly as much as minimum wage earners' revenue. There are certainly positive and negative effects and the dynamics change considerably based on what it's placed at. It certainly has no reason to be imposed at the federal level and the federal government has no constitutional right, authority, or mandate to impose it. It may be unconstituional at the state and local levels as well.

Hah, I just reread my previous post...food to mouth...what a horrible way to live... :-P

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LT Dan, I remember the old Dos days ...ugh! I also remember going to take a shower while waiting for the web pages with pics to load..

I have been spending too much time online at GIM too. I have to for now. The world is a very seductive place. I got seduced by a purse at the mall yesterday. I went to see an old friend the other day. He is rolling in money [ or debt]. He just build a million dollar home started a vineyard and build a winery. Its a lifestyle I simply can not fathom and it freaked me out. Here I am trying to figure out the basics of food , water and warmth gearing up for survival mode and the biggest concern he had was overseeing construction and decorating his massive new home. It messed with my head and sense of reality. Its very easy to get sucked into that stuff. Must stay grounded...

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Lars don't get me started on Latchkey kids. I was one of them and I know the dangers. I probably went too far the other way and hoovered over my kids and made them too dependent and was too available. I'm not sure I did them a favor. Maybe balance is the key???

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Not sure what you kids do for work but maybe they have secure jobs? Maybe they will be fine. My version of a SHTF scenario isnt as bad as most others though. Everyone is not going to be unemployed and when inflation really kicks in people will still have time to buy pm's or other assetts that will at least keep pace with inflation. For now I just have pm's and cash. I am looking for land in another country as well. If it gets to bad I will be gone in an instand. If my daughter wants to join me she can but she will probably stay here. I have been buying her pm;s as well and I add to that every month.
I am also going to be doing some traveling soon, South America looks like the destination unless they remove the travel restrictions from Cuba. Lifes to short to worry about what might happen all the time. You do have to cut loose and enjoy yourself too. If my entire life was devoted to simply work and prep I would just end it now. Whats the point.

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Cigar lover, my one Daughter works in for a TV station in news. Her job will be secure because someone will have to be around to report all the chaos of the falling economy. My other Daughter is managing a movie Theatre while she looks for a job in social work. She just recently graduated college.
I have also been buying PMs for one Daughter. My other Daughter blows all her money. We will take care of her when the time comes.

Funny you should mention leaving the country. My sensible Daughter asked me yesterday if we would consider it. I recently found out I have been part owner in some property in Greece for a long time. I would have to buy out the other owner. Its something to consider although Greece has seen its fair share of political horror over time too.

I never ,ever thought I would consider leaving the US but now I am not so sure. I think Australia would be my first choice although I have read good things auto South America too.

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Stop hanging around wolves and cut your hair. That's my advice. :tongue_ma: