Sunday, March 27, 2011

PARENT TALK (video)


Emily opens the topic because John Cullum was annoyed recently, when they were watching TV -- bothered by the huge emphasis that's now on kids about going to college.

John declared, "I'm not sure that getting a college education is important, nowadays. It seems to create problems, put unnecessary pressure on the younger generation."

As John continues on, clearly what's on his mind is their son. -- (JD didn't go to college; he became an working actor, even before he finished high school.)

Mom and Dad wonder if they needed to share more with JD -- not about auditions for parts in theater, television, and films -- more about plain, ordinary, daily life routines that young people need to learn to handle as they're growing up.

Mom and Dad Cullum, find themselves wondering if they should have found a way to introduce JD more formally, to religion since they weren't churchgoers.

John is adamant -- he insists that he could have been a better example for their son. It's as if this conversation is a continuation of last week's video --"Want a Second chance?"

2 comments:

Carola said...

The thing that bothers me about people I know who are in their 20s today, if they have graduated from college, think that they have a right to a meaningful job right off, and if not, they accept support from their parents. When my generation was that age, we assumed we had to earn a living with grunt jobs for a long time before we could work our way into something meaningful.

Tammy Westbrook said...

Emily and John, thanks for this touching and heartfelt commentary. It is worthy of serious reflection and valuable for instruction. I especially hope it finds its way to parents currently doing the work of "training up a child". And as a parent of young adults who still wants to show or speak my heart on some things not shown or said when my children were younger, I am encouraged by your candidness. I believe it's never too late to try to make good on whatever we feel we could/should have done better on. At the very least, our trying requires our kids to think and choose at a new level, so here's to trying. Good stuff. Bless you both.