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Jan. 27th, 2010 04:15 pmI have got to stop coming out of my amazing political science class and immediately thinking "I should totally call Dad." Apparently my lizard-brain has gotten to the point where it hears "intelligent discourse about political ideology" and thinks "DADDY!" I should probably call my father and compliment him on this.
Today the discussion mostly revolved around whether or not we thought inheritance taxes were a good idea. I'm inclined to believe they are; for one thing, the taxes only apply to absurd amounts of money in the first place, so it's not like they're hurting anyone, and I figure that rich kids getting such huge chunks of money should be obligated to give a bit back--to people who could use it, say, or to governmental use programs.
I think part of it is also my own projections. I internalize very strongly that I should be on my own now, and that anything I get from my parents is kind of a massive bonus. (They do still pay for my room and board, and I'm not going to be financially independent for a minimum of two years yet, but they haven't paid for random things I want outside of birthdays and things since I was twelve.) I was certainly never raised to feel entitled to things they owned--I actually had a pretty annoyed smackdown from my mother on the subject of my thinking that it was some sort of right for me to borrow her giant Tupperware box last month.
This is the second time I've done something like this recently. The last one was when I completely failed to realize that some people think they can "coast" by on life and sort of drift along and sponge off of other people. Part of that probably comes down to my own very specific anxieties about being able to provide for myself, but part of it is definitely just that that sort of behavior would not be tolerated in my family among any generation. Of my cousins, six of us have graduated high school; of those, two (me included) are in college, one got herself in some serious trouble, one is in graduate school, one is working, and just one dropped out of college--and he's currently in the Navy, which is my extended family's solution to problems of what to do if you're not sure what you want in life.
I'm not really sure I'm going with this, except that it's very interesting to get that occasional "whoa, the entire world doesn't work this way...?" moment. Before this class, I don't know that I had them very often at all--right now, I seem to be averaging one a week. It's certainly a learning experience.
Today the discussion mostly revolved around whether or not we thought inheritance taxes were a good idea. I'm inclined to believe they are; for one thing, the taxes only apply to absurd amounts of money in the first place, so it's not like they're hurting anyone, and I figure that rich kids getting such huge chunks of money should be obligated to give a bit back--to people who could use it, say, or to governmental use programs.
I think part of it is also my own projections. I internalize very strongly that I should be on my own now, and that anything I get from my parents is kind of a massive bonus. (They do still pay for my room and board, and I'm not going to be financially independent for a minimum of two years yet, but they haven't paid for random things I want outside of birthdays and things since I was twelve.) I was certainly never raised to feel entitled to things they owned--I actually had a pretty annoyed smackdown from my mother on the subject of my thinking that it was some sort of right for me to borrow her giant Tupperware box last month.
This is the second time I've done something like this recently. The last one was when I completely failed to realize that some people think they can "coast" by on life and sort of drift along and sponge off of other people. Part of that probably comes down to my own very specific anxieties about being able to provide for myself, but part of it is definitely just that that sort of behavior would not be tolerated in my family among any generation. Of my cousins, six of us have graduated high school; of those, two (me included) are in college, one got herself in some serious trouble, one is in graduate school, one is working, and just one dropped out of college--and he's currently in the Navy, which is my extended family's solution to problems of what to do if you're not sure what you want in life.
I'm not really sure I'm going with this, except that it's very interesting to get that occasional "whoa, the entire world doesn't work this way...?" moment. Before this class, I don't know that I had them very often at all--right now, I seem to be averaging one a week. It's certainly a learning experience.
