When children grow rebellious...

Time goes by, entourages change. Gone is the period of formal education when every day I used to meet my peers who look at the world from roughly the same perspective as I do. People I am surrounded by these days, at least a few years older than me, have different problems, grew up in different times, spend their leisure time differently. What we usually have in common is a certain part of our background – we are almost all graduates of Warsaw School of Economics. And despite this we are all “normal”, I mean we do not fit the image of a stereotypical rat-racer. This is what probably marks the boundary between slightly “backward” Polish commercial banking and Anglo-Saxon overgrown financial sector which favours alpha-males with specific set of traits and predispositions…

All (except one, single girl aged 28) my colleagues have spouses and most have children. Their offspring are usually in pre-school or early-school age, only one colleague’s children are in their teenage years. He sometimes talks over his observations of his daughter (aged 16) and son (aged 14) with a woman from the other department whose son is also adolescent. While listening to their conversations, I finally realised what sort of problems I will have to tackle in several years, when my currently unborn children grow to the age of defiance. From what I observed, my colleagues strike a good balance between strictness and leniency in upbringing their children. They are aware it is natural that teenagers begin to have their own opinions, often totally opposite, as a matter of principle, to their parents’ views, want to dress the way they want, spend the time the way they want, meet with who they want and arrange their lives in their own way. They talk a lot to their children and forgive some misbehaviours (one-off occurrences of returning home inebriated or nasty behaviour at schools).

I sometimes butt in to their talks and present them my point of view, but more often they make me look back on over past ten years, from the moment I came into age of adolescence, until my 24th birthday. Much can be said about me, but I was anyone, but a problem child / problem teenager. For some reason, maybe because my parents would talk with me a lot, I did not have inclination stir up troubles. I always did good at school; in good and bad times, for 12 years of primary, middle and high school I passed with flying colours. I did not have to retake a single exam during four and a half years of my studies and unlike fellow students I finished my studies in time. There were some incidences of inappropriate behaviour at school, but they have never been really inexcusable and never sullied my good reputation. There were some disputes between my parents and I, there was a time when I was 16 and in a relationship with two years older girl, when we argued a lot. They told me she was not good for me, after a few months time and my ex-girlfriend proved them right. I have never experimented with drugs, never had a cigarette in my mouth (I owe it to my parents, until November 2003 chain smokers, whose addiction filled me with abiding disgust for smoking), I would hit the bottle from time to time, I used to come back home tipsy, yet in my lifetime I have not got hammered more than five times and never I had I drunk so much that I could not remember what I had been doing; I have never let the alcohol turn my stomach. Plus I was a “frugal” child – I did not need private tuition (korepetycje), I did not demand from my parents that they bought me some stuff others had.

Yet my colleagues, who patiently put up with their children, point out it is better if teenagers get through a period a defiance before they grow adult, because this has to come sooner or later, and the later it comes, the higher the magnitude of cheekiness is and the more severe outcomes of stupid decisions might be. I suppose the belated adolescence crisis has hit me recently. I am putting it down to changes that have taken place over the last year around me. The transition from school-oriented to work-oriented life, drifting apart with my schoolmates and hitting it off with older, more mature people, gaining the long-awaited financial independence; all these factors have been a source of joy and excitement, but to some extent they turned my life upside down, I am not a man I used to be a year ago. To put if briefly – I sometimes feel as if I was living someone else’s life… Some changes are positive – at work I can spread my wings. I left behind the unpleasant experience of being one of hundreds of anonymous students, which used to hurt during the years spent at SGH. I realise this might be an illusion, but where I work at least I am recognised and my accomplishments are appreciated (one day someone might recall my name and put it on a redundancy list – would it pay off not to stand out and keep a low profile?). Some changes, i.e. aforementioned tangle in my head, are a bit disturbing. When making up for the time wasted on being an obedient child, I hold off on taking stupid, emotion-rather-than-consideration-driven decision and wait. I believe by the 25th birthday it should pass…

Polish teenagers and assertiveness

Lesson from the last weekend (everything ended up happily) learnt: unfavourable circumstances will happen, but they should not serve as an excuse to hold back from blogging. The only fix are short, up-to-the point postings, like this one.

Commuting to town by train, though not as convenient as in one's own car has the same advantage as travelling by bus. Being tinned like sardines with fellow passengers means overhearing their chats and going unpunished with it. Apart from listening to ordinary grumblers who gripe about how much work they have, how stupid their boss is, one can hear what contemporary teenegers talk about with one another. I have commuted to Warsaw for almost eight years and have watched the subject matters of those talks drfiting from school goings-on, family affairs and friendships towards... partying. Almost every day I hear teenagers reminescing last weekend's booze-up, bragging about how much they drank, what they did after they got hammered, who puked first, who licked whose... Never mind... I have to say when I was 14 or 15 I wasn't an exemplary teenager. I wasn't a problem child, but I partying didn't affect negatively my performance at school, I never got really badly pissed, I never smoked, never did anything I would regret or could be ashamed of. Generally it has never occured to me that indulging in boozing can be something I can be proud of.

Yesterday I took the fast train from Radom at 7:07 from NI. I travelled with a group of first-year students who tried to cadge some money from fellow passengers, because they were suffering from hangover. They planned to knock back a few bottles of some kind of low-budget alcohol to survive first two lectures, then get hammered again and sober up during the last class. Fortunately, none of the passengers granted their request. I also said 'no'. Without hesitation, yet I wonder whether I should have used foul language to give them to understand what I thought about their stupidity. On the other hand, this could provoke at least a verbal scuffle and I actually wanted to spend the day at work, not somewhere else.

Today I took the 7:55 Warsaw-bound service. On my way to the station, as I was passing a local shop, I spotted a girl. Somehow she immediately caught my eyes. With hindsight I realised she had reminded me of someone (another long story, should be titled "I could kick myself for what I desisted from"). She looked kind of strange - unzipped jacket and low-cut blouse exposed her cleavage to easterly, chilly wind and she staggered a bit. We moved closer, staring at each other's eyes. Passing me by, she smiled, as the one she reminded me of used to smile, grabbed my arm and asked if I could buy her something... Before she finished the sentence several thoughts ran through my head. Was she hungry and wanted me to buy her food? Did she stagger because she had not eaten breakfast? Should I give her money or go with her to the shop? Surely the latter. ...because I'm under eighteen. "I'm sorry, I won't help you", I rebutted and walked away, still slightly mesmerised by her smile and bufuddled. I knew I had done what I had been supposed to do by refusing to grant her request, but unanswered questions kept nagging me...

Should I have told her off?
Should I have asked her what exactly she wanted me to buy (she could mean only cigarettes and alcohol)?
Why did she look like a tart?
How old was she? She looked like 16, but it was just next to middle school so she could be younger...
Why was she desperate to get what she wanted to get?
Should I have asked what the hell she was doing with her life and why?
Should I have tried to show interest in her situation, should I have stopped for a while and talk to her?

I have been thinking about the sitaution for some 13 hours. I told the story my colleagues at work, they treated it as an anecdote and expressed their concern about their teenage children. I worked normally but I had the girl in my mind all the time. It even prompted me to do what I do very seldom - I posted something in the middle of the week!

If I happen to meet her, provided I recognise her (I have no memory for faces), should I react anyhow? I'm not indifferent, yet I can't honestly say I care about her fate. She was a splitting image of my 'wasted chance', she reminded me about her, what actually was a reason for my emotional reaction...

Problems always around

Everyone has them and it can’t be helped. For PO-voters these are mistrust, bureaucracy and limiting civil liberties, for PiS-voters conspiracies, manipulations, ookwud, lies, distortions, dependence. For PSL-voters privileges in pension system, for SLD-voters social welfare privileges. For one of the readers of this blog a key problem are gay rights. Everyone has different priorities, some are serious, other not even worthwhile. And finally we should draw a thick line between the serious and diminutive ones.

Look at what has been making the headlines for the last weeks. Actually there are two topics: accursed presidential campaign and the flood. Under the former ten candidates run for the office of the head of state, but only two of them stand a real chance to win. Many Poles are put on the spot and can’t settle on who to vote for. For many educated and open-minded ones none of the two candidates has making of an outstanding stateman. Many voters will put a cross against Mr Komorowski only to prevent comeback of Kaczynski’s presidency. A funny sacrifice – choose lesser of two evils just not to face a disaster. Choose a mediocre one just to fend off the mistrustful one. I made a decision to not to vote for Mr Komorowski in the first round. I have a certain vision of Poland and its president so I’ll vote for Mr Olechowski even if he’s going to get two per cent of votes.

The former is much worse. Candidates put on their shiny shoes and stroll around the embankments built of sandsacks. They come and go and the flooded are left with their problems, damaged houses, washed away belongings and no hope for the future. Whenever my thoughts are with them I discern how negligible everything what bothers me is. I have no reason to be unhappy – I’m healthy, quite well-off, study for taxpayers’ money at one of allegedly best schools of economics, I got a decently-paid job, my future prospects seem bright despite the wobbly labour market.

Yesterday I rode home a 709 bus and almost lost my temper listening to a conversation between two stupid teenagers for whom the biggest problem was what to wear for a Friday party. The generation pampered by welfare is unable to distinguish between real problems and what we make up whenever we don’t have real problems. Did they think about people whose houses collapsed in a landslide on Ursynów escarpment? Did they think about tens or hundreds of local residents whose houses in Jeziorki, Pyry or Nowa Iwiczna were flooded?

We help the flooded and the hype is over we forget, they have to carry on and their trauma lasts months or years. On Sunday TVN Warszawa crew was in Jeziorki to film houses under water. Yesterday they turned up to my school alerted by the students appalled by a recent scandal that had broken at SGH. I usually advocate the system which gives students a lot of freedom, but somehow it also creates anarchy, dilutes responsibility and secures jobs for the untouchable academic staff. The problem is that rule of law is not what can be observed at SGH. The untouchable do whatever they want, are not familiar with what they deal with and make flawed decision that wind up students and waste their efforts. That chaos has reached its ultimate limits – incensed students decided to contact TVN Warszawa and TOK FM to let the rest of the world know their university is run (partly) by incompetent people. Just try to imagine – you complete a course, pass exam in it and then you find out it has been deleted, God knows why exactly. Watch the footage I’m linking to above, read the article in today’s Gazeta Stołeczna. This is not the first time such things happen and not the first time we tell on our authorities to media just to claim our rights.

Beware, there are two sides of the story. On there is a totally incompetent Mrs Dean who cocks up everything she does and shirks responsibility for the mess she creates. Mrs Dean is accompanied by an incompetent spokesman, both have no idea what’s going on around, what’s in the curriculum and even where the heart of the problems lies. On the other side there are some other representatives of school’s authorities and student council who pull all-nighters to straighten the matter out – it’s always heartening. I deeply believe everything will shape up and students won’t have to get credits in many courses once again. The courses will be returned to their study documentations but the problem will actually be swept under the carpet. In private company someone responsible for such a mess would be fired right away. In a state-run university guilty of this mayhem won’t be dismissed, heads won’t roll as they should. We have plenty of untouchable, complacent people and “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” system under which pathologies thrive…

There’s always a glimmer of hope – reporters of “hostile” media want to pay attention to students’ problems. Unfortunately I couldn’t be present at the rally they filmed as I had to attend another event (look out for my name in Monday’s Gazeta Wyborcza, insert Gazeta Praca), but I wish I could have been there – there should be no indifference and no tolerance for professional misconduct…

Come to think of it – look at your tribulations, put yourself in a certain perspective, don’t get carried away, life’s too short to worry about trifles…

Generation gap

I generally don’t favour washing dirty linen in public, but there’s an observation worth sharing with the readers. A family quarrel gives the opportunity not only to exchange pleasantries such as: you always…, you never…, you don’t care…, you don’t give a shit…, I wish you would…, etc., but also to rediscover some truths about society. Those short musings below are only generalisations, but I suppose there’s more than a grain of truth in them.

The generations of my parents and mine both in general think they deserve something. The older tend to claim what they deserve from the state – they believe the government (an imaginary body) has a duty to provide them with job security, (lifelong) unemployment benefits, decent pension benefits (when they are too tired of working), health service and some other privileges, for free. Those people, born and brought up in the socialist country often have little notion of economics and its principles. The belief that the state is responsible for their fate was built up in the years of communism, the times when the myth of omnipotence of the state was spread. Meanwhile they do not wonder where the state gets the money, they’re claiming the government is dirty bound to give them, from and gripe about the bad state when it collects taxes. They see no link between revenues and expenditures of state budget as if they believed in a piggy bank which can be broken whenever the trade unionists, unemployed or pensioners demand more money (in the US uncle Ben has a machine to print money, fortunately in Poland it doesn’t work). The sad truth is that the biggest link is between what you produce and what you get. The other story is that in many cases employees are not remunerated fairly (in a relation to how they contribute to company’s profits or overall welfare) – they may be both under- (usually private sector) and overpaid (usually state sector).

The older generation ware spoiled by socialism, the younger one begin to be spoiled by affluence. Their economic views are more liberal – they don’t expect the state to help them in life but only to make their lives easier. As they (or we?) have grown up in the new reality, they demand more from their parents, from others, from life. They often get for free what their parents had to work hard for. Their parents in their age or when they were older would dream about a black&white TV set, a voucher for a car (Fiat 126p probably), or a pair of jeans from Pewex. Most of today’s teenagers and my peers get it without any effort. Trips abroad, new iPhones, cars, brand clothes – they take for granted they should get all of this. “These are my best years, I should have fun, someone else is going to pay for this” – this kind of reasoning is still not alarmingly common, but I see it more and more often around, mostly among people younger than me. Then you may see a string of comments posted by some frustrated adults under an article like the one about a next studniówka whim. I read almost all 311 comments, one reassuring conclusion that emerges is the frequent opinion that you are adult when you earn money and can take responsibility for your deeds, not when your parents give you a few hundred zlotys to rent a room in a four-star hotel to shag your girlfriend after a school ball.

Thank God the two stances above to not apply to my family, but somehow infect us and our perception of the world. There’s no catch-all solution on how to live to be happy. My parents’ friends gave their children everything they thought they deserved: private English classes (needless to say they speak English much worse than the author of this blog, who has learnt mostly on his own), at least two holiday forays abroad in a year, when they grew up they bought them cars and even flats (quite affluent the were indeed). They were breaking their backs for years, working from dawn to dusk to give their children everything that could make their lives more comfortable. Now the children not only don’t show any gratitude for what they were given but also hold out for more and are too lazy to work and earn money. “Why, if the parents will give…?”

Galerianki, sponsorówki

The non-Polish readers are likely to find the title of the post confusing, since both words used there are neologisms in Polish. The former is a combination of the word galeria [handlowa] and the –anka suffix. Galeria handlowa translates into English as “a shopping mall”, whereas –anka in the old-fashioned Polish was added into girl’s surname to emphasise she is still a maid. Hence, after the short processing, galerianka is “a [female] child of shopping malls”, or as the up-to-date net dictionaries offer “a mall girl”.

The phenomenon itself is not new, but it was x-rayed and highlighted anew in the film “Galerianki”, by Katarzyna Rosłaniec, released and generously awarded this year. Some critics have torn the film to pieces, as it’s not a work of art actually, but in this particular case the message is more important than a form. The debuting director gives her audience an insight into the world of teenage (aged approximately 13 – 16) girls who hang around the shopping malls, looking for men, who’d buy them new stuff in return for… sex.

“It’s all because of poverty”, I heard from my friend, who also had watched the film. The characters of the film don’t come from really poor families, their households are far from affluence, but their families make ends meet. The heart of the problem lies in and outside their homes. They grow up in broken families, where the relationships between family members are very poor, everyone pursues their own interests, nobody cares much about the children, who are left alone with their mounting problems. The second factor is the rampant consumerism – teenage prostitutes fall victim to the vision of the world, where the social position is determined by the clothes you wear, handset you call from and a car of your boyfriend. Pathological is such order and the film implicitly points it up. The “veteran” mall girls are ugly, clothes their sponsors buy them are more than kitschy, their white boots and belts stand for the type of fashion typical for a disco-polo tańcbuda somewhere beyond Białystok. Their sleazy beauty, revolting outfits, greyness of their real world (from what I’ve read on forums the depiction of a middle school is very accurate – much has changed since 2003!), contrasted with the riot of colours glittering from the displays in the shopping malls. The film would have lost its educational value, if it hadn’t had a tragic ending. The failure of love is not unexpected in this, no longer innocent, yet devoid of inhibitions, world.

A sponsorówka = a girl who has a (steady) sponsor, is a few years older than a Galerianka (the age usually ranges from 19 to 25), who hails from a provincial town or rural area and has come to a big city to study. Soon it turns out costs of living are prohibitive or she aspires to higher standard of living, better clothes, cosmetics. Money doesn’t grow in trees so she’s looking for an asset which could bring some decent revenues and finds… her own body.

Is it another phenomenon? Age and purpose of their prostitution are not the only features that distinguish them from mall girls. They have a steady partner, by and large a well-off, mild-mannered, well-read, businesslike male, who in return for an intimate relation will provide them with an accommodation, pay the university fees, buy books or ask out for a dinner. In typical prostitution, prostitutes have to serve every client, in sponsorship deals, they can pick and choose. A mall girl as a rule takes pride in their attractiveness and resourcefulness that allow her to make profits on her body, a sponsorówka is mature enough to conceal her disgraceful activity. Her family and friends are never meant to find out about what and with whom she does.

Where’s the thin boundary between prostitution and… And what? According to the narrower definition, prostitution is having sex in exchange for money, the wider one covers all acts and practises related to sexual activity for hire. An average Galerianka wouldn’t call herself (in her peculiar language) a slut. Aside from her way of reasoning which implies what she dabbles in reflects upon her resourcefulness, she might claim she doesn’t do it for money.

So what is the prostitution? Any sex acts committed with a view to obtain any material benefit from it, doesn’t matter if it’s cash, flat to live in, new tacky boots, promotion at work or anything else. In the light of the definition above, both galerianki and sponsorówki are prostitutes. If there’s any commonly morally unacceptable practice to be mistaken for prostitution, it can be sleeping around, for pleasure, fun, or any other, non-material reasons. What is noteworthy in this particular respect is that a man, who often changes sexual partners is frequently called “macho” and a promiscuous woman is a “whore” – still I see some room for improvement in equal opportunities.

The quirky student who runs this blog could argue the sociological analysis of the problems discussed is classical, not Keynesian and some of the readers would rack their brains trying to figure out what he has meant. Everyone who puts the problem of prostitution focuses on the prostitutes, but few researchers try to find out more about the men who are their clients. The transaction on this particular market are entered into, because demand meets supply. The main question then boils down to a chicken or egg dilemma. Are the men paying for sex, because there are girls ready to get paid for having sex, or are the girls ready to hire their bodies because they know there are men ready to pay for it? Rare were the studies of psychological profiles of men, who were clients of escort agencies. And the ones who sponsor students? A typical sponsor is a wealthy, married or unmarried (there’s no regularity), well-educated man in his thirties or forties, who can afford to have pleasure of shagging a young piece of arse without obligations. But who are those creatures who prefer mall girls? Has anybody been interested in their mental health? Has it occurred to anyone that they can also pose a social problem?

Crossroads

At the beginning I would like to thank Mr Santa Claus for a quite decent Santa Claus Slide (Zjazd Świętego Mikołaja) – Warsaw Stock Exchange Blue Chip index (WIG20) dropped by 4,67 per cent in the passing week – it could have been better (bigger drop) of course. I am looking forward to seeing a battlefield on the SE charts next weeks, when two players, or maybe without mincing words – two American investment banks will stage a nice battlefield on the trading floor. For those who are not privy – next Friday is the settlement date for December series of futures on WIG20. One of the players is likely to end up black and blue before Yule.

Secondly, I am delighted to thank all the ones who remembered and whose wishes somehow squared with my wishes, dreams, goals and aspirations.

In the third paragraph of my post, I’ll copy what I wrote on Pinolona’s blog some two weeks ago. It is on why my contemporaries feel disturbingly old.

I have my own theory on why Poles in their early 20's feel oldish. There's already a kind of gulf between us and contemporary teenagers. Those fluorescent-adolescents who are now attending middle and high schools are a totally different generation. Mostly girls, my female friends from teenage years didn't look like that, didn't act like that, talked about different things. The change is visible - all my former teachers who I meet recall my peers and me as "good as gold" children and gripe about rowdy teenagers of these days - those born in the nineties and brought up in affluence, much bigger than the one my generation experienced.

I hear it almost every day, but only from the my female friends – either they gripe about being so old (so old means around 22 – 24), or they declare it is high time to get married and have children. Men in their early twenties, in turn, feel oddly comfortably with their year count.

The feeling of observing the different generation does not ebb, however, I can share with one crucial observation. Those of you who live next to middle or high schools or travel often by public transport probably have noted it as well. All those teenage girls look basically the same – similar coats, trousers, shoes, hairdos, scarves, etc. – there’s no diversity among them (unless you classify two most popular types of coats or shoes as diversity). None of them wants to stand out, a basic goal of a teenager is to blend into the scenery set out by fashion styles. They’re not like my peers and me a few years ago… They behave in a different way, they look like teenagers I saw when I was abroad at the beginning of the new millennium and believe me or not, I was shocked. And I can assure those of you, who complain that your homelands are in decline because of the youngsters, that Poland will meet the same fate. The best proof of this theory are the results of school leaving exams (it concerns the one after primary, middle and high school leaving ones – PL: egzamin szóstoklasisty, egzamin gimnazjalny, matura). The exam papers are getting easier and figures are getting worse. And I wonder what is amiss here, where was the mistake made?

And to conclude, a thought for today’s evening.

Mamusię oszukasz,
tatusia oszukasz,
ale życia nie oszukasz.

In English it reads:

You can fool your mum,
you can fool your dad,
but you won't fool the life.