Originally Posted by gruffbrown

Girls are worse, although watching the angst from the boys about who to take as a date is scarey

Originally Posted by paul_TX

Trouble is, both are girls ....girls without SSN's so cannot work, but still want to keep up with their friends (who do all work part-time). So, muggins here is funding everything.

Tried putting the wife out on the streets to earn some extra money last week, she came back with $20.50...I asked her who gave her the 50c and she said "all of them"

Originally Posted by Patrick

she's my 17 year old babysitter, there is no way I could commit to any kind of an answer

Originally Posted by Patrick

Tonight I had my first experience with teen scholarship princess pagents. My babysitter 'Spirit' (her real name) was in one tonight and we went down to support her. At first I thought spending two hours looking at 17 year old girls would be fun, my God these things are awful.

From 38 contestants in the first section it was wittled down to 15 semi-finalists - out of the 38 there where 8 black girls and not one made the semis - even though they were all excellent. The interview question was "what have you learnt from this experience" and no-one answered the question, they all went on about how wonderful all the other girls where.

The winner was so obvious from the get-go that the previous two hours seemed pretty pointless.

Another piece of Americana tasted, another thing to spit back out.

Originally Posted by paul_TX

Trouble is, both are girls ....girls without SSN's so cannot work, but still want to keep up with their friends (who do all work part-time). So, muggins here is funding everything.

Tried putting the wife out on the streets to earn some extra money last week, she came back with $20.50...I asked her who gave her the 50c and she said "all of them"

Originally Posted by Patrick

she's my 17 year old babysitter, there is no way I could commit to any kind of an answer

Originally Posted by rushman

That's a big fat "YES"!!!!!! then.

Originally Posted by Yorkieabroad

Oh *ugger

We sat down last week and had a long "state of the union" chat about where we are going to be in 5 years time - and decided we are (ie I am) going to make a real effort to try to build a "real" life here. I've tried really really hard to be positive this week, and its been working....

And then I read this and all of a sudden I'm checking out this evenings flights back to England!!! And my daughters only 9 months......

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl

I was gobsmacked at the amount of money spent on sweet 16 parties as this is not something we celebrate in the UK. Some of the parties my daughter attended cost $60K+.

Originally Posted by lolly

My Mum alwasy told me kids got worse as they got older, I always used to think what rubbish. But now that I have 2 sons of my own ( 22 & 16) I really do believe her !!!

Originally Posted by rushman

$60K????? Who's your daughter....Paris Hilton?

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl

I was gobsmacked at the amount of money spent on sweet 16 parties as this is not something we celebrate in the UK. Some of the parties my daughter attended cost $60K+.

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl

OMG nooooooooooooo she didn't have a sweet sixteen party. That's what some of her schoolfriends parents paid for their daughters' parties.