Message from a hard working Aussie

[Louwai]

I am sure you have seen that ad about kids watching the parents. Where the old man is cracking Mum, and the kid is there having a shot too? Thats pretty accurate (disturbingly so). The kids are just what values we pass on.

Damn right, kids watch & learn.

My ex-wife left me before my son was born. (hence he has never lived with me). The guy she married treated him & his older sister like someone elses kids. They both grew up in a really shitty, low income, relatively violent neighbourhood.
AND the ex did everything she could to keep them away from me.
I have only been in contact with my 2 oldest kids for the last 11mths, after not seeing my oldest for 18yrs & never having seen my son.
My daughter has grown up with an amazing attitude to life & other people considering the growing environment, but my son has taken on all the shitty aspects of his mother & her (now 2nd ex) husband.

So now I'm trying to get him to see the "other side" of life without actually handing it to him. We'll see if he's smart enough to go where he's pushed.