![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
8 ⓢ cruising
Not that I don't welcome new people into my family all the time, but I'm glad to have gone on that cruise. It's not something I'd do back home, I don't think, so I feel fortunate to have had that opportunity.
I grew up in a pretty poor family. We always had enough to eat and running water and a roof over our heads, which is more than some people can say, but there was always a lot of fretting in the Kent house about making ends meet. The farm was our livelihood, and farms with a lot of livestock don't really take breaks. If circumstances beyond our control interfered with the farm –– floods, disease, a corporation dumping toxic chemicals that kill the herd -- well, let's just say taking a vacation was never easy.
I think until I was in my teens, the furthest I'd been from home for fun was a road trip to the Kansas State Fair for the day, or to the big city. I work as a reporter now, as an adult, and it's not exactly the kind of thing that affords cruises in the Galápagos. It would probably take half my year's salary to afford it.
[An amused sound.]
So it was great to have a real vacation. It'd be nice to never have to worry about money, like my parents did, or walk into a restaurant and order a steak or lobster every night and walk out without needing to attend to a bill, and all those things.
But it's a vacation. It's only nice because that isn't life every day. I don't think a life of being waited on or not having responsibility inspires much of a work ethic in people, nor teaches them much about maturity. Some people manage regardless, but for me, I'd rather be a farm boy and a reporter and a boy scout than someone whose living accommodations could pay for the upkeep of a whole school district, or something.
... The cruise was really good, though.
I grew up in a pretty poor family. We always had enough to eat and running water and a roof over our heads, which is more than some people can say, but there was always a lot of fretting in the Kent house about making ends meet. The farm was our livelihood, and farms with a lot of livestock don't really take breaks. If circumstances beyond our control interfered with the farm –– floods, disease, a corporation dumping toxic chemicals that kill the herd -- well, let's just say taking a vacation was never easy.
I think until I was in my teens, the furthest I'd been from home for fun was a road trip to the Kansas State Fair for the day, or to the big city. I work as a reporter now, as an adult, and it's not exactly the kind of thing that affords cruises in the Galápagos. It would probably take half my year's salary to afford it.
[An amused sound.]
So it was great to have a real vacation. It'd be nice to never have to worry about money, like my parents did, or walk into a restaurant and order a steak or lobster every night and walk out without needing to attend to a bill, and all those things.
But it's a vacation. It's only nice because that isn't life every day. I don't think a life of being waited on or not having responsibility inspires much of a work ethic in people, nor teaches them much about maturity. Some people manage regardless, but for me, I'd rather be a farm boy and a reporter and a boy scout than someone whose living accommodations could pay for the upkeep of a whole school district, or something.
... The cruise was really good, though.