So, the latest trend in graduation gifts is plastic surgery. Yup, if you fulfill your high school requirements, maybe Mommy and Daddy will buy you a new nose or bigger boobs. Plastic surgery is now tops on teen wish lists for gifts for grads.
Let’s not even go into the inherent risks of plastic surgery or the icky message that Daddy buying your bigger breasts implies. Let’s talk about the core values we should be teaching kids. High school graduation is important, but let’s face it, it’s a pretty minimum requirement these days. You can’t do nearly as much in the future without a high school diploma. High school dropouts make less money (most below the poverty level) and have higher unemployment rates that those with a high school diploma. So yes kids, celebrate your accomplishment. But don’t expect extravagant gifts for it. The gift you should be grateful for is the economic opportunity your diploma affords you, as well as the advanced education you can now go on to.
The problem in this situation is parents with more money (or credit) than brains. In the ‘My Sweet 16’ generation, hoards of spoiled children are milking their rich parents for extravagant gifts. Plastic surgery is a natural extension of the desire of these over-indulged youths to have whatever they want without any regard for consequences.
Now, granted, I didn’t have rich parents. They couldn’t have thrown me a thirty thousand dollar birthday party even if they had wanted to. But what’s important is that they didn’t want to. They wanted to teach their children the value of working hard for something that they wanted, and the feeling you get when you achieve it. So for my graduation from high school, they patted me on the back and promised me free room and board at home while I attended the local university. My grandfather gave me an unabridged dictionary and my grandmother paid for some of my college freshman textbooks. Not exactly a trip to Europe, brand new car and a nose job, but they were gifts of love and learning, exactly what a newly minted high school graduate needed.
If your kid has a deformity and needs plastic surgery, by all means, help your child. But small breasts are not a deformity. There is no NEED for a double D chest, unless your daughter’s goal in life is to be a stripper. If you can provide your child with a vehicle to make their life easier, great, make it a low end used Toyota, not a high end new Lexus. The Toyota will still get your kid to school, it’s made by the same company and if your kid wants a Lexus, let him earn the Lexus.
In a few years, some of today’s high school graduates will be graduating from college. If they got an Escalade for their sixteenth birthday and a boob job for high school graduation, what can they possibly hope for next? Mansion in Malibu? A yacht? The Space Shuttle? How about we start a bit smaller, and give them something to look forward to, something to work towards? Let’s bring back that age old graduation gift…the pen and pencil set.
Let’s not even go into the inherent risks of plastic surgery or the icky message that Daddy buying your bigger breasts implies. Let’s talk about the core values we should be teaching kids. High school graduation is important, but let’s face it, it’s a pretty minimum requirement these days. You can’t do nearly as much in the future without a high school diploma. High school dropouts make less money (most below the poverty level) and have higher unemployment rates that those with a high school diploma. So yes kids, celebrate your accomplishment. But don’t expect extravagant gifts for it. The gift you should be grateful for is the economic opportunity your diploma affords you, as well as the advanced education you can now go on to.
The problem in this situation is parents with more money (or credit) than brains. In the ‘My Sweet 16’ generation, hoards of spoiled children are milking their rich parents for extravagant gifts. Plastic surgery is a natural extension of the desire of these over-indulged youths to have whatever they want without any regard for consequences.
Now, granted, I didn’t have rich parents. They couldn’t have thrown me a thirty thousand dollar birthday party even if they had wanted to. But what’s important is that they didn’t want to. They wanted to teach their children the value of working hard for something that they wanted, and the feeling you get when you achieve it. So for my graduation from high school, they patted me on the back and promised me free room and board at home while I attended the local university. My grandfather gave me an unabridged dictionary and my grandmother paid for some of my college freshman textbooks. Not exactly a trip to Europe, brand new car and a nose job, but they were gifts of love and learning, exactly what a newly minted high school graduate needed.
If your kid has a deformity and needs plastic surgery, by all means, help your child. But small breasts are not a deformity. There is no NEED for a double D chest, unless your daughter’s goal in life is to be a stripper. If you can provide your child with a vehicle to make their life easier, great, make it a low end used Toyota, not a high end new Lexus. The Toyota will still get your kid to school, it’s made by the same company and if your kid wants a Lexus, let him earn the Lexus.
In a few years, some of today’s high school graduates will be graduating from college. If they got an Escalade for their sixteenth birthday and a boob job for high school graduation, what can they possibly hope for next? Mansion in Malibu? A yacht? The Space Shuttle? How about we start a bit smaller, and give them something to look forward to, something to work towards? Let’s bring back that age old graduation gift…the pen and pencil set.
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