dessa_dangerous

ENOUGH.   Get back on the topic of Brexit.  BMurphy, stop posting in this thread, or I'll help you.   Thanks.

full disclosure, not a parent, but once a kid (although of course in the pre-smartphone era).   Just from a kid's, and also normal human's point of view, the idea of super closely monitoring every little thing they do and one person even mentioned demanding the passwords to their social media accounts, is pretty invasive, no?  No one likes the idea of their parents reading their diary, or correspondence with peers.  I kept a diary (I knew my mom read it) plus a fancy grownup journal on my BrotherTM word processor (offline, natch, files password protected) and I also passed and received about four billion full-length letters to friends and love interests between the ages of 11 and 16, sometimes with pictures, very often with intimate thoughts and feelings intended only for the receiver's eyes (these I managed to guard a bit better--maybe).  Point is, kids, and non-kid people too, need some things for themselves that are private, and not even parents can get into.  No clue if kids still pass notes nowadays, but that secret communication between one kid and another is sacred, somehow.   My total non-parent opinion is that a parent *COULD!* decide whether their kid was ready for a smartphone based in part on when they thought the kid was responsible and mature enough not to do anything stupid with it, to follow rules laid out in regards to its use and possibly pay for their own extra data.   yourkeau's comment about being addicted to the landline hit home with me--I was also addicted to the regular phone and my girlfriends and I actually used it to prank people, call party lines and arrange meetups with grownup strange men (we would just go see who showed up, but still, we could totally have used it to hook up), we were allowed to go downtown and stay out late, there was all manner of perfectly offline trouble we could have gotten into if we'd have wanted (but we were mostly good kids and definitely as virginal and drug free as it came).  Point is, after a certain point, you can't staple a teenager to the sofa and force them to be good--you have to trust them a little.  Trust them to make mistakes, but also, trust them to listen to you and take your advice and follow your rules.  I'm not sure if this capability to monitor every little thing your kids does is so great.  I HATED when my mom invaded my privacy and acted like she couldn't trust me.   tl; dr: when is the right age?  When you can give it to them with a minimum of restrictions and monitoring, maybe?

Even after all these years in Berlin, I can't get used to people breathing down my neck in the grocery store line.  I am like, so fast, organized and prepared with loading, paying and unloading, and not laggy or standy-in-the-way-y or anything.  Yet somebody always has to stand directly in my hip pocket while I type in my PIN.  Where I'm from, you don't want anyone to get the idea you're trying to see what's in their wallet.  Even after all these years, I still want to elbow people in the nose that are standing so close to me they can see exactly everything in my wallet when I take it out to pay.  Never get used to it.

I don't live in Hamburg and I don't have any recommendations for you.   As for whether the bans work or not, I think is a lot up to the general mindset of the local population.  In Munich, pot is heavily frowned upon and the people are more conservative.  Maybe even fewer of them per capita were tobacco smokers before the ban (since smoking is a poor man's hobby, that could even make sense) or are more likely to be wearing clothes that are dry clean only when they go out (as opposed to the standard Berlin outfit of rags and Chucks).  In Hamburg there is also chill, whereas Munich is kind of known, outside of Munich at least, for having NO chill.   AFAIK smoking is still totally illegal in Berlin bars over a certain size, but after the first six months or so, the Ordnungsamt appears to have basically given up on controlling it.  Possibly because they're also working class people who enjoy a smoke now and then after Feierabend?   One of the first things I noticed when I first stated working in Berlin was the concept of Privatsphere and Freizeit.  I would meet parents of my students on the street and immediately chuck away my cigarette or put it behind my back, if I was smoking one.  Let's say this happened six or seven times--each and every time, the parent, present there with their small child, waved this gesture away, assuring me that I was perfectly within my right to do whatever I wanted in my free time and it was none of anybody's business.  I was still each time mortified to be setting a bad example as a person of maybe even "authority" in a child's daily life.  The parents were having none of it, though.   tl; dr: majority rules in Germany, for better or for worse.  If more people in Berlin would expect and demand that bars be non-smoking places, they would be.  IMHO.  And for chillige Hamburg it is probably the same.

@anne k I respectfully disagree.  Maybe the board has mellowed a bit in its overtly exasperated tone and for sure enough of those who are content in their situations do a shit-ton of shushing and scolding of anyone who dares to complain.   Toytown Germany is supposed to be about connecting with other foreigners and a HUGE part of that is having a good old moan, whether it be run-of-the-mill culture shock or actual persistent issues that never get fixed, ever, Because Germany.  No one is compelling you to read relative new arrivals' moans, rants, growing pains, troubles understanding, fitting in or getting along.  Sometimes a good old moan is just what the doctor ordered, and if not here, then where?  All you have to do is not read it, if it's boring and old hat to you.   A lot of people are/were the only foreigner in their village and being able to swap stories of shock and intrigue really got/gets them through tough times when they feel they are stuck in a crazy place, and all alone with their experiences.  I definitely don't agree with discouraging people from letting out their frustration or looking for others who are going through the same just because it's all been said already or it's boring to you personally. 

  We need a "Things that made you throw up in your mouth a little" thread.

That's true.    Maybe smells a bit smurfy, but no one on God's green Earth will ever convince me that SL was a troll.  That kind of crazy doesn't come in cans.

Unless I've missed something, OP hasn't specifically said that the cat is dead yet.  For all we know, it could be sick or ailing and the plan is to put it down for humane reasons.  I'm not sure why the jump to some nefarious conclusion.   Someone discovers an active forum and has a few questions at the same time and now we've got them down for murderers or some such.  Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed @Sir Percy B's bullet points conspiracy theory and who the hell knows what's really going on over there.  Some people's stories, or the way they tell them, ALWAYS sound dodgy, even when they're not.  Fact is, as active as all of our imaginations can be, I don't personally see anything really fishy except that OP is holding her cards to her chest, for reasons best known to herself, which almost never aids in getting the information one wants in a prompt or efficient manner.

  I don't know how it is where you live, but the Berlin government tried, several years ago, to "civilize" the Roma and Sinti groups by putting them in apartments, sending the kids to school and the adults to vocational training.  Plus benefits on top.  They were having none of it.  Part of their culture is staying outside the grid and they don't have a lot of papers on them in general.  Without health insurance or even proper ID, they're not getting anything more than emergency medical attention, and, as already mentioned, they're not interested in sending the kids to school.  If they don't have addresses, they can't get benefits.  So in terms of those groups, anyway, that's just populist scaremongering, to say that they take and take from the system but don't put anything in.  As far as I can tell, they don't put any income taxes in, but they really don't take much, if anything, out either.   However, they do of course pay sales tax, as do we all.  So their contribution does make it back around in the end, somehow.   None of the above is meant to endorse or denounce traveler culture and customs, I think that's just how the situation happens to pan out most of the time.

  jeremy, please try to stay somewhat on topic.  I realize this thread is a long clusterfuck of tangents and side-bitching but this article and a couple others recently really had nothing to do with the topic or discussion at hand...    thank you in advance dessa for the reports-fielding team

For the life of me I can't see how that's optimista's problem.  The father will have shamed the kid, not she.

and the guy knew you wouldn't make a stink because his kid was there.  In my opinion, that's maybe OK when it's meeting the neighbor you absolutely can't stand in the Treppenhaus (I honeydrip all over a couple of neighbors who I'd otherwise be quite cool toward when their kids are around, because I don't want their kids to pick up on the animosity and/or think people/black people/strange people/people who are me are nasty and to be avoided and that the world is an unfriendly place).  Or when someone's cut you in line at the grocery store etc., maybe you don't want to fight in front of their kids.  But what comes down to verbal sexual abuse?  Nonononononono.  And the kid is 11, not four.  A little kid maybe won't understand what's going on, for sure doesn't understand the words or the gestures but picks up on the negativity and is confused and possibly scared.  But personally I think it would be a good lesson for an 11-year-old--a boy no less?!!?--to see what a creep his dad is, how inappropriate it is to talk to women like that, and so on.  Absolutely shame the asshole in front of his own kid, if for no other reason than he doesn't think you'll do it.  Do it loud, do it in French, do it in front of everyone, it shouldn't be your secret cross to bear.

she will see him again tonight, because band practice, one might guess?

please don't junk up the Vent with chat about a parked car.  Mike opened this topic because he wanted to discuss it and wanted the forum's feedback.