No thanks, I will take a next taxi...

Gross? Funny? Whose idea was it, anyway?

 

I suspect that it was a design oversight on the artist's part and the people implementing the graphic did not care. I bet that the cab driver cares...

 

In some European countries this is considered funny and totally acceptable. Not sure why.

 

Wow. Would not fly well here in New England (most of the U.S., in fact.)

 

Not sure about acceptable but come on...it IS funny, especially if not done deliberately

 

Yeah, I guess it is funny to me as an adult on many different levels. I am thinking more about young girls, like my pre-teen step-daughter, for instance, who I, most definitely, don't want to see anything like that let alone try to explain to her that it's funny and she should find some humor in it. When you put it that way, all of sudden, it doesn't look funny at all.

 

Well hopefully she is still in her innocent years and even encountering that she will not "see it" the way the adults do.

The harsh reality though is that kids nowadays are left wide open to all kinds stuff we had limited to no access, resulting in them growing up too fast and missing on the magic of childhood. All kinds of electronic devices, Internet, "the cool kids" at their school who are quick to dress up like mommy, wear lipstick and be provocative. Parents should indeed execute their influence and try to form a decent behavior in their children but there is so much one can do...

 

Boy, have you ever spoken the truth. My 13-year-old son has been exposed to so much gratuitous sexual information in media, in public, in video games, etc., that the very definition of childhood seems to be changing. The above taxi is just one more symptom of this trend.

 

Indeed. Though I doubt they (the parents) generally will have much say on the matter. I'm something in my twenties and I can safely say to you that kids will have completely different character when at home and when out in social life. In fact, if you do act and talk like at home, you are socially stigmatised, maybe even harrased or made fun off.
Society as a whole has a "spri of the age" if you will. Things happened too fast for your parents too when you were young. They would have liked you keep strong patraiarchal family values for example.

 

Their intention I suppose is probably to make it funny.

 

This would highly depend on where you were born and lived. Living in Bulgaria under the influence of Communism and the Soviet Union, I can't really say much happened for my parents. Things were running pretty straightforward back then and exactly because they missed many of today's comforts, they were able to build values and morals that they fortunately passed to me and my brother.

The real changes in Eastern Europe happened after the fall of Communism, somewhere after 1989. The Children of Democracy, as we call them, grew up in entirely different conditions. Being in my late 20's I also mostly grew in times of democracy but even I see the deterioration of every coming generations. One of the biggest problems I see is freedom. Everyone demands freedom but in reality most people don't know what to do with it. If you miss your evolution as a rational and well-behaved human being until its your time to become a father/mother then its only natural you will have nothing to pass on to your children...