teach the kids their future is fucked, earlier in life?
One thing Iâve never understood is why we teach children that itâs wrong to lie, but we feed them crap like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
What utter hypocrisy.
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just crossed into âmiserableoldgitâ territory there. nothing wrong with preserving the magic of Christmas, for the right reasons. being joyful, bringing family together, etc.
Just crossed? Iâve been there for decades!
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I think the issue is the allure of getting something for nothing - we teach our kids that it is a reasonable expectation.
The concept of working is for the help.
Yeah I was going to carry on the Santa tradition with my three boys but the wife wasnât keen on the lying so she told them that itâs just a tradition but the presents come from us. Wasnât sure myself - although I remember being devastated when discovering Santa list my mum had when I was about 7 - but itâs worked out well and we have three very credulous almost seven and nine year olds who have a sense how adults sometimes operate performatively without the experience of their parents tricking them and feeling betrayed.
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There was not a single christmas in my memory where I believed in the fairy tale, and have still always absolutely loved christmas. I do not begrudge anyone keeping the tradition, and I will respect that when Iâm around those families, but I absolutely reject the idea that kids lose out once they know the presents come from their parents.
*When I was 3 I allegedly got out of bed in the middle of the night, went down stairs, opened all the presents under the tree and went back to sleep buried under the torn up wrapping paper. The following year my mum gave my older brother the brief of making sure I donât leave the room until the morning when everyone is up and ready. He told me some horrific story about Father Christmas being some malevolent shithead who murdered our oldest brother to frighten me into not wanting to take the risk of going downstairs too early and bumping into him. In the morning when my parents got up I was so scared to go downstairs in case he was still there that they had to convince me it was all a big made up story.
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Your older brother got the dad⢠scary story skillz early!
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We told that story to his kids recently and they looked at us incredulous that my brother, their dad, was not subjected to years of therapy to get to the bottom of his black heart and decayed soul 
An excellent article. Cheers for posting it! 
Inflation going through the roof again in Pakistan.
Bailouts can only do so much. No structural changes and IMF and indirectly other countries would have to further provide loans.
First time in our history that a cabinet minister in Singapore is being charged in court for corruption.
I donât know whether to be comforted that we are charging them regardless of their political standing or concerned that a member of a government that purported paying high salary to reduce corruption now has a member who accepted bribes less than a third of his salary. Stupidity, lack of judgementâŚa political leader for almost 3 decades. We certainly hope itâs an exception.
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If anything, it should undermine the argument that their high pay will prevent corruption.
Definitely wonât be the first time that there is corruption. He just happened to get caught.
All politicians are corrupt.
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Definitely agreed, all politicians are greedy in one way or another and corrupted. The thing for Singapore though that they have never say that high pay eliminates corruption, it just made it more difficult for them to throw away a good living for illegal means, like our police reminded us, low crime does not mean no crime. 2023 was actually a big year for us in terms of politicians getting caught out for corruption and illicit affairs with colleagues.
What amused in this case is the seemingly petty bribes he took in terms of type and value considering the salary he has. I think he is just so stupid to take free F1 tickets and tickets to football matches 
might as well take higher value items
While the world is debating as to how to solve problems , Pakistanâs establishment is busy making fools out of themselves.
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Fify
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And starting wars too.
Remember the Iran Pakistan confrontation?