Update 27 feb 2010
Got talking about money today. At 16 he has alredy saved a lot of money and bought his second car for some $3500. Praised his step father for teaching him about saving money and led it to how i never did. Talked about buying a block of land after his apprentichip is finished, and about investing, how the stock market works on a basic level, superanuation (is that the 401k to americans?) and realestate. Basically the diference of each one when it comes to returns.
I said you have to plan for the future... i didnt because well, i was scared armageddon would come before i got my drivers licence! We lived like it was so close that we shouldn't go to university, shouldn't put into our super etc because we were never going to need it! And here i am now, no assetts at all and facing retirement in 15 or so years.
I then said, actually that happened to a lot before 1975 as well, because the end was so close that some even sold homes and spent all the money pioneering, only to find that 35 years later they have almost nothing to retire on... in fact even back into the decades before that i told him they all thought the same.
so son, i said, plan for 50 years time! the smart ones do because what if it still hasn't come by then? how will you provide for your wife and family?
I was very careful to not give the impression that i though the JWs were wrong though. Just some seeds of doubt that may spring to live one day!
oz
Edit; oh, and another funny thing... the kids and i made guns today... we were going to work on the hotrod but we took the kids to my wifes sisters house for her mothers birthday... they has these wooden rubberband guns that the kids spent hours playing with. This morning they decided they wanted to make their own and thats what we did. One 'rifle' and one 'machine gun'. All steel, they did the cutting, grinding , i did the welding on my daughters as she was scared to and my son welded his.
do ya think i should inroduce them to poker next? LOL!