resisting beerpeer pressurePeer pressure exists everywhere not only when we were children, but even now as adults. There is so much peer pressure that it affects many people in a variety of ways. As young children, there was the peer pressure to do better in school, athletics, the arts, etc. How many times did you hear, “Well Jane or Jim passed with an “A”, why didn’t you? Or, Jim scored the winning touch down, or the home run, why couldn’t you do that?” The parent or guardians were using your peers to try to make you excel in whatever you were doing. As we approached the teenage years, it changed to our actual peers trying to pressure us into drinking, cheating in school, trying drugs,  smoking cigarettes,or even having sex. There was also peer pressure in our appearance, whether we made the team or became a cheerleader, landed the big part in a play, or made the honor roll. Today peer pressure is completely different. Now children are faced with the latest and greatest in electronics including mobile phones, video games, tablets, designer clothes, etc. and if they don’t have it they feel pressured to own it and in turn put pressure on their parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, guardians, anyone who will listen and pay.  The peer pressure in the work place is subtle, but still there.  Its fairly obvious that if you see a work mate with a new expensive car, or upscale clothes and shoes, that they received a big raise and you didn’t.  The subtleties of their good fortune in turn relates to their co-workers feeling the peer pressure to do a better job and secure the same type of raise.  For some people, its almost humiliating to see others succeed even if they are doing a good job.  I hope that the child or children in your life do not feel peer pressure regardless of their age and that you as an adult reading this blog don’t feel peer pressure yourself.  In the Good Gus Series, there is no peer pressure.  Almost everyone has homemade clothes, and there were no electronics so there could be no peer pressure there.  As you discuss peer pressure with your children, at least the younger ones, I hope to will cite the Good Gus Series as a way of life that although different, didn’t have peer pressure and the stresses of today.