This is freaking awesome

The timing of this, along with the Portman story, is a little...uhh...suspicious?

 

Portman is from Ohio. Maybe this was staged by the same people as Kent State. [/crossthread]

:

 

I wish I had crazy-good photoshop skills so I could photoshop a picture of her standing over Portman's son, with Portman's face on her body.

 

Growing up with all brothers & going to all boy Catholic schools from 1st through 12th grades stunted my social growth as it relates to women.

But, yeah, having no privacy made the prospect of talking to a girl on the phone even more terrifying than it already was.

Back then, we were envious of families that had a second line. A couple of kids had actual phones in their bedrooms, but that was pretty rare.

Now, every kid has a cell phone, and girls don't even expect you to call. You can flirt, or set up dates via text. That's not terrifying.

And, I know it stresses my brothers and sisters-in-law that they can't act as gatekeepers in the way that our parents could.

God, we had to ask some poor girl's mother if we could talk to her daughter. Kids don't have to deal with that anymore.

 

This will (or at least should) be the one time the boy doesn't mind that dad was listening.

Kind of makes me think that a good newspaper or mag story could be reactions of parents when their kids come out -- if that story hasn't been done already on a large scale.

 

Ha. We had four boys and a girl (all within six years, good Irish Catholics that we were) and one landline -- in the kitchen. A parent always answered the telephone. I had more awkward telephone conversations with Mrs. Fradella than with her daughter.

 

Cranberry is Danny Noonan

 

Kids today are stunted, just in different ways. They're so used to using mediated forms of communication that they're not as good at asking a girl out by calling her or asking her in person. And the chances that something gets misconstrued is much easier online, which is how you have relationships that aren't really relationships to one side of the equation, and lots of general confusion.

Also, this may come as a surprise since I'm a good bit younger, but I had a similar situation to you. I went to Catcholic school grades K-12 and had three older siblings and one phone line. I didn't get a cell phone until I was in college. We did have dial-up so I could use AIM, but that would end up being annoying because I'd get kicked off when someone needed to make a call. Also, the computer was in my parents' bedroom, which also had a TV so there were often siblings in there and they could easily look over my shoulder.

 

Your brother knows the same about you, but does not know which name goes with which one

 

Which of you is adopted?

 

Except Danny had a better golf game.

 

IMHO, if you give your kids the same privacy that say you would give your parents or siblings living in your house? You're not being a very good parent.