Want in one hand... Shit in the other...

And then mom would say, "See which one fills up first." And she was probably right every time.

If you want something, nobody's going to do it for you so do it yourself. I've written about troubled youth before. Not troubled like homelessness or disease but the youth in decent schools who aren't getting a 'real world' education. The schools that cut out recess, the schools that think math and science is the end all be all. The schools where part of the class is chronically failing and another part is above and beyond the studied subject. And then to top it off, when they all graduate none of them will have a clue about personal finances because they were forced to study crustaceans and alogrithims instead of credit scores and interest rates.

I sponsor a child through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. He just turned 12 the other day and I took him out for his birthday. He's changed a lot in the two years that I've known him and the biggest change is that he's now at an age where he recognizes the different class structure in this country. Simply put: the haves and have nots. Lately he's been showing an increasing interest in material objects, from iPods to as something as silly as cell phone minutes. He found it fascinating that I didn't know how many minutes I had on my phone.

He comes from a world where every cell phone minute, every dollar spent must carefully be thought out because there are not many to go around. He's a good student but, now in 6th grade, is showing signs of struggle, I believe, because he's more worried about social issues. I tried to talk to him about growing up and choices and college and such and his answer for it is, 'I just want to play professional baseball.' I told him that was fine but that he should probably join a little league team first. He's played football in the past and I asked him why not a football player and his reply was 'Because they don't make as much money as baseball players!'

While it's important to encourage kids to pursue their dreams and choices I couldn't even come up with a reasonable response to his desire to pursue a sport he doesn't even play because the money is better over a sport he loves but also isn't currently playing. I know, he's only 12 and dreams will change so I took the high road and explained how college athletic scholarship programs work (like I really know) and how he can pursue two careers at the same time, academically and athletic.

Then I helped him with his homework, which was in Social Studies. He was having the most difficulty on the chapter about Russia. Publishers, McGraw Hill came up with a nicely spun view of Communism. And we wonder why the kids are so damned confused.