An imaginary speech about education and relationships, a short story of fiction

-- I am not much different from all of you sitting in the audience. To be completely honest I have to say that my life is nothing more than average, I am just another human being in the wast world. I was influenced strongly by my mothers views. She was... Is one of those eccentric types and her raising method was to let me do whatever I wanted. Fun times.

If somebody would have warned me that opposed to what kids are taught and shown about the freedom of adulthood, there is not such flexibility of choice for adults as we imagined, I would have never wanted to grow up so fast. But I did, as we all do and so I'm facing responsibilities now that nobody taught me how to deal with, and I am more confused than ever. That brings me to the topic of today. The reason all you are here.

Educational systems and parenting, one more messed up than the other, but both need to be talked about. For an establishment that is supposed to educate you, schools are awfully terrible at doing exactly that. When I came out of High School I had no idea about the law in my country, taxes, purchasing property and budget planning. I had no actual skills of how to be on my own.

Mathematics is the most important subject in school for some reason, but how many people actually use the math we are taught in high school? I acquired skills of how to make explosives in chemistry class, I learned how to solve complex math problems in other classes. I didn't go in science though, in fact I haven't seen a math formula for 6 years now. I did learn how engines works but I didn't go into mechanics.

What happened was a sixteen year old girl that had to decide what she was going to do for the rest of her life and the choices usually ended with nine to five jobs. Work most of your existence and get...

Wait, what do you get? How many people have I met that are in their forties and fifties and are satisfied with where they are at, satisfied with their jobs? To be honest one out of ten people in this age group is actually, truly happy with their life. And don't tell me that is not true, because I was a kid once, I saw how my parents and other adults around were, they were exhausted and grumpy after work.

They didn't have time for their own kids sometimes. And even though you, parents are not happy about your life, you push this lifestyle on your children. You don't recognize a different path anymore. Most common phrases being ''I didn't have that'', ''In my time it was not like this''. Well, guess what? This is a different time from the time you grew up in, and you should not be jealous of your kids having more possibilities in life.

Be proud instead of judgmental, times are always changing, we need to adapt, not stagnate. And most important of all, remember that your parents used the same phrases when they wanted you to act a certain way, and how did it make you feel? Don't make the same mistakes generation after generation, this is not a hamster wheel, we need to move ahead, and not get stuck in the past.

And if your daughter or son says that they don' t know what to do, that they are depresses, listen to them, don' t say ''Grow up'' or ''deal with your own problems like grownups do''. That will just make that rift between you wider, I know it is hard to remember how you felt so long ago, but relationships are built on trust and understanding, so try, for each other.

This generation is called millennials and frowned upon for being depressed and not knowing what to do. I am from this generation. We are called lazy, entitled and spoiled. Well tell me, who raised us? You, you are our parents and you constantly shame us after you, yourselves put it in our minds that we are special.

You are all here because you don't know how to communicate with your children, don't agree with the schooling system or just have deteriorating relationship with family members. So my conclusion is that you would rather listen to me than be at home and actually truly listen to a child. And all that just because I have a PhD in psychology that I achieved very early, and your child doesn't know what they want to do in life.

This is our future, that brings smiles to our faces :)

There are probably parents in this room that will take nothing good from this and will go home and tell their children “'look, this person is your age and has achieved so much in her life while you are still living in my house and don't want to do anything''. Yes there are those lazy millennials, but there have always been those kind of people in every generation, it is nothing new.

Be free.

---

I am rewriting completely and tweaking my first 7 posts from the days I just started out on steemit and there was nobody to read what I had to say. I have such amazing followers now, thank you for that!
I know only a person or two would scroll down to the ''early days'' so I am pushing this up, only the posts that got minimal reads, I think it is important to think about our future, our schools that ought to be changing with times, and the relationships we have with our loved ones. Sometimes it is easier to listen to a ''specialist'' than to your own child, but deep down, I believe we all know what we should do. This is a snippet of a book I wanted to write, but got stuck in, this is something that came before my Mars inspirations.

I hope you enjoy the story and it makes you think.
Have a great time in this world, an amazing life,
Linda