The Prodigal Son

[Brian37]

Several thoughts

- The father's reaction is understandable and justified. His one son was obviously not fit to lead the business, and while he squandered a lot of money, it was, effectively, invested in his becoming a better, responsible person through life experience, which can arguably be more important than the money lost and pay off manifold in the future

- What a sucky job where you have to tend to the swine, but don't even get food in return? That's just ridiculous. I'm sure he could have gotten a better one *somewhere*.

- It is really difficult to raise several children with very different characters and keep everything fair and balanced, and envy at bay. Ideally, the brother who stayed home loves his brother so much that he, too, will be in a mood to celebrate once done with the butt-hurt. Also, it's not like he doesn't get a nice piece of the fattened calf once he joins the partey.

I give the story a 7/10. Today it seems a bit trite, but I guess back in the day it was a innovative idea not to kill everyone over the dispute.

I don't think the prodigal so has learned anything about responsibility.
He wasted his inheritance on prostitutes and fun. couldn't even negotiate a job that gave him enough food to live without feeling like he was starving to death, ran back home looking for work but instead got more freebies.

The story does leave out some details like how long the son was working in the swine farm and what happened after the celebration, but I think in general the brother has a good right to be annoyed.
He's not annoyed that the brother is getting the celebration exactly, he's annoyed that the other brother basically spent a gap year in a town full of prostitutes while he had to slave away in the fields.

Frivolous spending +  failed negotiations + quiting your first job to run home and grab some more freebies won't equal learning to be responsible.

I hate this mentality. It isn't that anyone should advocate everyone be poor or addicts, but that this mentality leads to society doing the worst possible thing to those with theses issues and causes us to do the most expensive things that yield the least results. It creates the very things like a caste system like India has. It enables poverty and demonizes those with issues. Then we put non violent people in violent prisons which causes them to be dumped out even worse off than when they went in.

It also causes people who really want help to be paranoid to the degree they don't ask for it. It is irresponsible to demonize those with problems. Instead we should be addressing the totality of economic issues that lead people to end up in those positions. "Fuck you I got mine" doesn't help society. 

The best charity humans can give is investment, especially in better worker pay, and ditching the idea that it is the worker's job simply to drive their health into the ground not having a life outside work.