Hacker News Reader

Comment by namelosw | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in a region parents would randomly say something like the following to their kids on daily basis and I hated it:

- You’re eating too much and we can’t afford you, we will giving you to human traffickers for free.

- If you go out and play before finishing the homework you will be eaten by wolves.

- If you don’t obey the cops are going to arrest and execute you.

- Stay away from dogs or it will bite your pp off.

- Oh we thought you were useful when we found you in the trash can, it turns out we’re wrong and we’re going to throw you back.

And there are hundreds of variants or so. They must have an anti-fortune cookie database kept under their pillow… So pathetic.

View on HN

Guess now you get to return the favor and spend a decade talking about sending them to the nursing home.

“If your grades don’t improve you are off to Military School.” Used to terrify me when I was really young because I believed everything they said. As I grew up and the threat never materialized I shrugged it off.

Cultures that think this behavior is ok are the fucking worst. I would never ever do that if I had a child.

It's okay! Anyone with 20 or so years' experience with the culture's “humour” will understand that it's clearly a joke. Duh. Stupid 10 year old for believing it.

I found the tone of voice most significant in this kind of situation. When it was “smiley, jokey”, I would get it was a joke – but even mock seriousness or, worse, exasperated parent, was completely credible.

Jesus, where did you grow up. Where I grew up we would make the first part of the joke but not the second. You are going to jail. Not "you are going to get shot in the head". Dogs biting dicks off?! America is too puritanical for that kind of imagery to fly.

Yeah, I should have guessed it sounds too much for fellow Americans. I'm sorry.

I grew up in Asia. I guess it's one of those cultural differences, like calling people "fatass" or drinking on the street without a shirt is not too inappropriate in some places. So people would have to shrug it off, try to adapt, and try to think those are just jokes without bad intentions. But still, it hurts and it does have life-long negative impacts on many people as far as I can see.

On top of that, I find people from better-educated families, or people from many other provinces in the same country don't share the same experience as us. My guess is economic and education status helps. From what I can see, the current generation of kids does receive substantially less abuse than say three decades ago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com