Tagged: parenting

Yesterday Was A Good Day

Took A- and J- on probably their longest hike and highest summit yet (4.2 miles/8000’). Sausage, cheese, crackers, and a cutie at the top.

Stopped at Crumbl for cookies on drive home.

Watched Starship 11 test flight (success).

Ate at Freddy’s.

Traditional Archery club at night, before driving in to work.

One Set of Lyrics to Newsies’ “Carrying the Banner”

“We need a good assassination
We need an earthquake or a war
How ’bout a crooked politician?
Hey stupid, that ain’t news no more”

****

The young kids were taking so long to eat dinner that I three on this oldie but goodie soundtrack from childhood in the hopes of keeping my sanity.

One Macro-Scale Reason Charlie Kirk Was Killed

Check this paragraph out. It is from Robert Shaplen’s New Yorker article “Life in Saigon: Spring 1972 We Have Always Survived”, April 15, 1972.

There is no need to complete the paragraph. You get the point.

This was 1972. This was the behavior of the “good guys”. This was conducted in essentially a third world, war torn country, without computers.

I don’t know about you, but I am astounded by the (new to me) information therein.

So I want to ask you: What do you want, my fellow Americans? Do you want to continue to feign outrage at the Left and its lunatic adherents and make wild claims about a coming civil war? Do you want to teach each other that there must be a response, even if it is simply at the polls? Do you want to appear totally shocked by the fact that someone who wasn’t a threat to anyone was assassinated? Do you want to task Tan’s special police to find the next lunatics?

What do you want?

I’ll tell you what I want. I want to be left alone. I want to have a private life. I want my thoughts about, my opinions about, and mostly my actions while living life on this third rock from the materials fusion process we call “the sun” to be officially unknown to any government entity.

Will you give me what I want?

Because of my desire for privacy, I am not particularly concerned about the Left and their lunatic adherents. Because of my desire for privacy, I am not particularly interested in pontificating about the meaning of assassinations. And I am not particularly surprised that harmless people are murdered.

In place of these concerns, I am particularly concerned that my kids grow up understanding that while there might be a way of life which tries to prevent assassinations (or keep the peace in general), that way will never be the way to live life. Practically, then, this means that I spend time preparing to teach them the history of the Vietnam War. Will you join me?

Two Updates on the Boy Child

First, during my attempt to get more of the cookie for myself, when I told him that the cookie was very big, J- innocently said, “My mouth is big!”

Second, we have this game Poop Tracks which is actually a pretty fantastic board game for little kids (if you care to have them turn into Tom Brown Jr.-like trackers). You spin a spinner and do what it says. The options are, “Draw 1 (or 2), Trade, Swipe, or Skip.” Naturally, I take it upon myself to teach my progeny the proper way to trade and swipe. And, naturally, the proper way to swipe is through distraction. So my kids now look forward to the spinner landing on “swipe” so they can say, “Look at that, Dad!” before proceeding to take one if my cards. Well, just now, as J- and I (A- is now in kindergarten 😦 ) were having a donut, he says, “Look out the window, Day-ad!” Obviously he was priming me for the take, but for what? I played along and then he swiped my napkin. What a guy!

Attention School Teachers and Administrators: The Emails Have To Stop

For fun, this week I copied the text from all school emails over to a MSWord doc in order to learn a word count. (I have two kids in this school. H- is elsewhere and I did not add that school’s emails. I didn’t want to come across as extreme. Time will tell.)

The total—not including a PDF attachment late entry of today—was 1410 words.

For reference, Cat in the Hat is 1600ish and One Fish Two Fish… is 1300ish.

Depending on your speed of reading aloud, those books take somewhere over 10 minutes, but shy of 15 for sure. In your head, maybe 5 minutes.

What were the emails about?

  1. The need to comply with unnecessarily dynamic drop-off and pick-up procedures.
  2. Visit to nurse for complaint of splinter.
  3. Homework completion is required.
  4. A case of head lice was discovered.

29 words. 5.2 seconds. And I wasn’t trying. Trying would be:

  1. Don’t be a knucklehead in the car line.
  2. N/A
  3. N/A
  4. Check your kid for head lice.

14 words. 1.7 seconds.

Please keep in mind none of our parents ever communicated with the school while we were in school. Parents, in the 80s-90s (and I’m sure many ignore everything today), could literally never talk to anyone at school, not just for one week, but for the entire year. And the school didn’t care. And the parents didn’t care.

The emails have to stop.

I am happy to report that in recent reading about Vietnam, I came across the best concluding anecdote I could ever imagine.

From a 1971 NYT article regarding border crossing operations in Laos:

“The sign ‘Warning! No U.S. Personnel Beyond This Point’…On the back, facing Laos, is a faintly scrawled message to the North Vietnamese Army: ‘Warning! No N.V.A. Beyond This Point.’”

In short, there are limitations to what the written word can accomplish. One would like to think the educators would understand this best of all.

When I Think Of Russia and Ukraine, I Think of My Mom

My brother “blocked” me over a year ago. When there are in-person events we are cordial, and even able to have conversations. But he won’t accept texts or calls.

Naturally, he still chats with our mom.

Naturally, I still chat with our mom.

But my mom will not play the middle man. She has never had interest in playing the middle man—between anyone. That is just her prerogative.

This is why I think of my mom, when I think of Russia and Ukraine.

America (meaning “Americans”) does not want to play the middle man. I believe this is the fullest truth that can be asserted regarding the situation.

The Idea: Keep My Kids Out of War

How best to accomplish this?

My method is simple. I will teach them of the utter madness of most wars. If I am successful, then my kids will be so distrustful of the concept of destruction-based-improvement, that they’ll only engage in it when it is absolutely the best decision.

Why this post? Because I am not certain my simple method will work.

What say you?

Parental Bliss

Your 4 year old is eating a watermelon wedge.

She loves it.

And you love watching her bite diligently closer and closer to the rind.

You turn away to talk to your spouse.

You turn back and there is no more watermelon. No red part. No rind.

Behind the empty plate on the table is nothing but your little girl wearing the satisfied expression that only comes from a job well done.

That is bliss.

Education Cannot Result In Less Education

I have two HS Freshman and two more kids that will soon be entering kindergarten in sequence (this fall and fall 2027). Faithful readers already knew as much. Likewise, you know that I read, for pleasure, as much as any human. The substance of what I read, with only limited deviations—mostly enacted to prove I am not AI—includes great books, great essays, and great articles.

Consequently, education is always on my mind—whether my own education, my kids’ education, or your education.

Education.

What is education?

One of the great articles I recently read was from, “Reporting Vietnam: Part One”. It was written by Susan Sheehan, and entitled, “A Viet Cong: A Defector Tells His Story 1965”.

This defector, this poor soul, this (Victor) Charlie was recruited and had to sit through, and later lead other Charlies in, “political studies”.

I doubt any of us would consider what the VC were doing was “education”.

If you read any current news on the subject of education, you’ll come upon articles and propaganda about school choice. How long has it been? Since GW Bush, right? Maybe earlier.

The anti-school-choice folks run an argument that insists that because available money will be directed to White Christian Nationalist Schools (my understanding of their latent fear), the already poor blacks will receive a worse education.

But this simply is not true. I know, because I am educated. And education cannot lead to less education anymore than there is only one everlasting total of wealth to be divided among Earth’s occupants. Less education is possible. But it is never the result of education.

People who are educated, to a man, know that the poor blacks find themselves in one of the most fortunate positions fate has ever given humans. It is theirs to either exploit or abuse.

The available money that these anti-school-choice folks seem to believe will be siphoned to the White Christian Nationalist Schools in some manner of a deviously rich-get-richer, power helps power, or even plain ol’, unpunished theft, believe it either A. will be spent on indoctrination or “political studies” (NOT education) or B. will be spent on education in its true sense. (The truth, of course, is even in the best educational institution, it will be some mix, as purity is hard won.)

If A., then the fight isn’t about money, but about the definition of education. If B., then the folks arguing against school choice aren’t making an argument. Instead, they are manifesting envy in their wish to sabotage the education of others—an immature, “I can’t have a good life, so you don’t get one either” attitude.

I know this to be true because I believe education cannot result in less education.

So, to my anti-school-choice readers: if what you fear is White Christian Nationalist Schools are not conducting education, then say so. But be ready to be asked to explain just what exactly you wish to do with the poor blacks if you had enough political clout to direct the available money to them.

As for me, I say that the most natural thing in the world is to deregulate education. It should be completely pay-to-play, every parent for themselves. Public schools must be abolished. The educated rich will more than happily subsidize earnest poor black families who agree to attending institutions which conduct education. (Yes, I am suggesting written plans/agreements, which could be broken/dissolved, that include formal declaration of what the education will include and how the student and their family will perform.)

How do I know? Because education cannot result in less education. There are many ways to be confident that education is occurring. For today, I’ll simply say that one certain, though incomplete, way to discern that the so-called “educational” experience is not education is that accountability is never agreed upon or assessed.

Public schools must be abolished. Always supporting “school choice” seems the most natural first step. On the other hand, supporting “public schools”, or what is the same, supporting “the perfectly even or fair expenditure of money per student”, seems the most natural expression of “doing the same thing and expecting different results”.

No matter how you frame it, education cannot result in less education.

How An Old Eagle Scout Gives A New Eagle Scout A Knife

I don’t really have a relationship with my nephew who is a graduating HS senior. Without directly asking my sister why she got him involved in Boy Scouts, I imagined the answer to be fairly obvious and plain: she saw how it helped me in life, both with enjoyment as a kid and professionally in acceptance into USAF Pilot Training and ability to complete it successfully.

Her son is riding fairly high right now, with several notable achievements under his belt, including Eagle Scout and acceptance into a unique college program. When I visited recently for his birthday, I directed the concept with him to knives, just for fun. I was surprised that he knew a bit about metals being used these days. He also surprised me by an earnest delivery of how he was super practical in being content with cheap knives that got the job done. Being the uncle who was consistently tardy or absent on birthdays and Christmas his whole life, I figured I would take a moment and a rare handful of cash and get him a knife he would never buy for himself—and likely never use. I also wanted it to be one that he would forever associate positively with Uncle Pete.

To my shock and dismay, when he finished opening the gift, my sister and mom took turns nastily cautioning him about the dangers of bringing it to school. Essentially they warned him that he would lose many opportunities that are available to him today over such a thoughtless mistake. They both then looked at me with apprehension, bordering on respect, a kind of, “I hope you know what you’re doing” attitude. I credit them for not “disagreeing” or “revoking” the gift.

Keep in mind, this was only a week or two before the black kid murdered the white kid with a knife.

How did I, the Eagle Scout uncle, caution the newly armed man?

Later, and one-on-one, I homilized, “I had no idea that your mom and grandma would react like that.” This opening keeps me credible and trustworthy. “On the topic, I just want to say this.” This establishes that the sermon is brief and likely worthy. “I got you the knife partly because of all these recent achievements of yours.” This is a compliment; hard to not like a compliment. “But please know that if you were to do something stupid like ignore reality and bring it to school, besides the consequences, by my thinking, it would mean that all the achievements were counterfeit.” This was the respectful and powerful punchline.

He blushed hard and seemed hurt.

Then he shed any maturity he had just revealed unintentionally, if winsomely, and smiled and nervously giggled in what I supposed must be counted as a teenager’s acknowledgment of unsolicited guidance.