RE: 55 - The Banning of Anonymous Cryptocurrencies

Well, I reckoned 10 was enough, but demonstrated in my own childhood, as well as observed at every hand, that not all offspring work out as intended. I figured when I got old and toothless taxing my kids 10% each of their income would deliver me 100% of their average income, which was likely to be more than I ever earned during my own productive life. So, I better have a couple extra, because some of them were sure to turn out to be drug addicts I'd have to support until they were 26 (that didn't happen because they had to work if they wanted, say, heat, splitting firewood living with me. They all had heard of wonders like hot and cold indoor plumbing from their friends and jumped ship as soon as they were legally competent).

I have had to learn everything the hard way. I thought having kids would be about tossing the ball back and forth in the back yard, going fishing together, answering their questions about girls, and etc. I hadn't read the fine print in the Daddy contract. What really happens is that fathers have to crush their kids' hopes and dreams (No, you can't grab the red hot stove. No, you can't jump my truck with a motorcycle. No you can't go on tour with your band at fourteen, etc.) until they're old enough to escape. Turns out none of them are going to replace Social Security for the old asshole they finally managed to get away from, so I'm going to die with a hammer in my hand, preferably falling off a ladder onto my head without extended suffering.

I attended public school which created a terrible aversion to institutions and formal education I had to overcome. My kids were homeschooled and were earning wages on construction jobs by the age of 10. Because extracurricular programs don't require participants to be public school students, my kids were Vice President of everything and champions of debate, band(s), sports teams, and so on. My eldest was Captain of the football team (comprised of kids from several small towns) and took them to the State competition for the championship for the first time in 47 years. His younger brother was in a metal band that would get ~1M downloads of their songs and had groupies when he was 14. His younger brother was reading at 2. They were black belt competence in Tae Kwon Do (I didn't get them the actual belt because it is better to keep such martial expertise on the down low) and all of them were >6"taller than me after they went through puberty, better looking, and a lot smarter. I think kids got awards for breathing successfully in public schools, while I showed my kids that if they started buying $1k/month of shares (of companies like Coca Cola that sell them directly, instead of paying brokerage fees) when they were 15, they'd have >$3M by the time they were in their late 20's and they could live off dividends for the rest of their lives. I let them build their own computers so I could kick their asses at Duke Nukem on our home network, and buy 4x4's they could drive around the 'roads' I punched through the forest on our compound innawoods, but they had to repair them when they crashed (at <10 miles an hour, because the roads were so shitty). I taught them biology by having them come along with me to take genetic samples and track the data at hatcheries when I was working as a marine biologist for a state agency. They knew the best things in life were theirs to create and they themselves were the only thing between them and whatever they wanted.

Headhunters from elite Ivy League schools were offering them full ride scholarships, and paid corporate positions in the fields of their choice by their majority. I was still living on a boat and logging 6 days a week at 18. How the hell could I compete with them?