Another opinion piece written by me for AP Lang. Enjoy!
Aha! Now, what better topics to expand upon, then on what our very dear mommies and daddies and aunties and uncles have taught us? What little golden nuggets of knowledge have they lovingly placed into our hands? (And by our hands I mean our American hands.)
Firstly and lastly. The Alpha and Omega piece of wisdom that they wish to give us: Money is God. Family matters, of course, but Money is what matters most. Why else would there not be a national limit to how many hours you work? Why it seems your life revolves around dollars and cents, how much you are reminded the amount it costs for you to just stand there. Understand the fact that you live on a ladder called career, and you must constantly be looking at the rung above yours. It is your moral obligation that at Thanksgiving and during the holidays you look at a rung below yours, but by January 1st, your eye better be on the top rung.
In sequential order with the last tidbit, stuff is important. By stuff I mean houses, cars, computers, horse-drawn carriages, and you better pray to Money if you don’t have the most recent iPhone. Make sure you have more or as much as your neighbor. This may be difficult if you and your neighbors haven’t spoken a word since your neighbor knocked on your door and you promptly discovered at six on a Saturday morning, that he was a Jehovah’s Witness, and he discovered you wore pajama pants with duckies on them. Be sneaky, peek through windows and make sure you always have a trusty pair of binoculars with you. Send your children to borrow cups of sugar, and then interrogate them on the inside of the neighbors’ home. Remember, stuff is imperative to life.
Comparisons are also part of life. It is totally okay for you to look at a celebrity and compare the size of your anatomy to his/hers because that body part is totally real. It is also okay for you to have a low self-esteem and feel the need to change yourself, because honey, even models think they’re fat. I mean, if it wasn't why would our magazines, TV, and the beautiful wonderful Internet be covered with images of these individuals and ways for us to cure this apparent ailment? This is also a challenge, you can have her size thighs, haven’t you heard if there’s a will there’s a way? Achieve this challenge, and all doors will be opened, you will be the life of every gathering you attend.
The final parting words on every dying adult’s lips are two words. Be yourself. No matter what that entails, getting a tattoo you’ll regret when your 35? Go for it. Experimenting with sketchy substances? Proud of you. Risk being stuck paying child support for an ungodly amount of time? You go kid. Because you’re being yourself, and as long as you’re being yourself, no harm no foul, no wrong can come from you being yourself.
So there you have it peers, all the things you are being taught by grownups. Now, all you have to do is pass that onto your children. They’ll appreciate it, I guarantee.
NOTE: The author's parental units have not taught her these values. Although the author has had to knock on a neighbor's door and awkwardly ask for two eggs because her mother refused to go all the way to the grocery store for two eggs.
What Grown-folks Teach
by Cailin Rogers
Trust me, as much as I would love to rip
my claws into the debate and have people lose respect for me merely for
making scathing remarks, I don't want blood on my hands. This
unfortunately leaves me with zero writing ideas. Let's see...abortion,
already done...homosexuality…written...obviously, everything is taken!
by Cailin Rogers
Aha! Now, what better topics to expand upon, then on what our very dear mommies and daddies and aunties and uncles have taught us? What little golden nuggets of knowledge have they lovingly placed into our hands? (And by our hands I mean our American hands.)
Firstly and lastly. The Alpha and Omega piece of wisdom that they wish to give us: Money is God. Family matters, of course, but Money is what matters most. Why else would there not be a national limit to how many hours you work? Why it seems your life revolves around dollars and cents, how much you are reminded the amount it costs for you to just stand there. Understand the fact that you live on a ladder called career, and you must constantly be looking at the rung above yours. It is your moral obligation that at Thanksgiving and during the holidays you look at a rung below yours, but by January 1st, your eye better be on the top rung.
In sequential order with the last tidbit, stuff is important. By stuff I mean houses, cars, computers, horse-drawn carriages, and you better pray to Money if you don’t have the most recent iPhone. Make sure you have more or as much as your neighbor. This may be difficult if you and your neighbors haven’t spoken a word since your neighbor knocked on your door and you promptly discovered at six on a Saturday morning, that he was a Jehovah’s Witness, and he discovered you wore pajama pants with duckies on them. Be sneaky, peek through windows and make sure you always have a trusty pair of binoculars with you. Send your children to borrow cups of sugar, and then interrogate them on the inside of the neighbors’ home. Remember, stuff is imperative to life.
Comparisons are also part of life. It is totally okay for you to look at a celebrity and compare the size of your anatomy to his/hers because that body part is totally real. It is also okay for you to have a low self-esteem and feel the need to change yourself, because honey, even models think they’re fat. I mean, if it wasn't why would our magazines, TV, and the beautiful wonderful Internet be covered with images of these individuals and ways for us to cure this apparent ailment? This is also a challenge, you can have her size thighs, haven’t you heard if there’s a will there’s a way? Achieve this challenge, and all doors will be opened, you will be the life of every gathering you attend.
The final parting words on every dying adult’s lips are two words. Be yourself. No matter what that entails, getting a tattoo you’ll regret when your 35? Go for it. Experimenting with sketchy substances? Proud of you. Risk being stuck paying child support for an ungodly amount of time? You go kid. Because you’re being yourself, and as long as you’re being yourself, no harm no foul, no wrong can come from you being yourself.
So there you have it peers, all the things you are being taught by grownups. Now, all you have to do is pass that onto your children. They’ll appreciate it, I guarantee.
NOTE: The author's parental units have not taught her these values. Although the author has had to knock on a neighbor's door and awkwardly ask for two eggs because her mother refused to go all the way to the grocery store for two eggs.
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