4 ms·

A few thoughts after reading this (very compelling) article: * It's strange to see a patriarchal over-protection of girls being called liberal. I think we've c

A few thoughts after reading this (very compelling) article: * It's strange to see a patriarchal over-protection of girls being called liberal. I think we've come full circle on this one. * Why does this thirteen-year-old have full, unfettered access to the entire internet? That seems like a recipe for disaster. My kids will have dumbphones and access to the desktop computer in the living room, with age-restricted filters and probably internet activity logs. I would not invite random strangers into my home to teach whatever they wanted when I wasn't around. * I love parenting articles that teach me what I have to teach my children. The parents here loved the trusting aspect of their son, but this really burned him. First he overtrusted the adults at his school, then he overtrusted google search results. I can relate to this! My parents admired my trusting, sweet nature as a kid, too; looking back, I think I was trustful to a fault, especially of adults. "Naive" would be a better description. For example, when an adult said something really unacceptable, I would always try to justify their words and try to learn from them. This led to confusing lessons and some self-esteem issues that needed to be corrected when I had grown out of my naive adult trust.

mango7283 7y ago
I'd be curious to hear how you plan to teach your children to not be overly trusting/naive of adults/authority figures while simultaneously ensuring adhere to your oversight and regulation. It sounds like a fine line to thread.
- garfieldnate 7y ago
  I think I said the wrong thing when I said not to "trust" adults; what I really meant is that it's dangerous to teach kids that adults are infallible; otherwise they can be taken advantage of by those in positions of power. I think it's important to teach children proper behavior and to show by example that adults are beholden to the same rules as they are, including their parents.
garfieldnate 7y ago
I spoke with my wife about the article and realized I missed a really important negative point about the parents. If the son had become a gung-ho "SJW", espousing extreme views and causing hurt to other people (whose word would of course be unheard as his was), would they have worried about him or would they have encouraged it? The son says he was happy to be out of the "cult" of the alt-right, but the culture at his school was also essentially a cult, which he was violently ejected from when it turned on him suddenly. The parents weren't doing their son any favors by being so consistently biased; the mother could only barely except that her son was discriminated against for being a boy. The article seems to say that the mother realized how badly she had written off anything her son said, but doesn't really hint at any introspection or rethinking regarding her own world view. And at the end it sounds like they are going to go be protesters at the next rally, which fuels the them-or-me mentality that caused their troubles in the first place. The moral seems to be "my son was wrong for a year and I finally convinced him." Wouldn't it be a better ending if they reconciled the experiences of their terrible year with the other wonderful things they believe about human rights and dignity in general? It's like they still think you have to choose between women's rights and men's rights.

mango7283 7y ago

I'd be curious to hear how you plan to teach your children to not be overly trusting/naive of adults/authority figures while simultaneously ensuring adhere to your oversight and regulation. It sounds like a fine line to thread.

garfieldnate 7y ago
I think I said the wrong thing when I said not to "trust" adults; what I really meant is that it's dangerous to teach kids that adults are infallible; otherwise they can be taken advantage of by those in positions of power. I think it's important to teach children proper behavior and to show by example that adults are beholden to the same rules as they are, including their parents.

garfieldnate 7y ago

I spoke with my wife about the article and realized I missed a really important negative point about the parents. If the son had become a gung-ho "SJW", espousing extreme views and causing hurt to other people (whose word would of course be unheard as his was), would they have worried about him or would they have encouraged it? The son says he was happy to be out of the "cult" of the alt-right, but the culture at his school was also essentially a cult, which he was violently ejected from when it turned on him suddenly. The parents weren't doing their son any favors by being so consistently biased; the mother could only barely except that her son was discriminated against for being a boy. The article seems to say that the mother realized how badly she had written off anything her son said, but doesn't really hint at any introspection or rethinking regarding her own world view. And at the end it sounds like they are going to go be protesters at the next rally, which fuels the them-or-me mentality that caused their troubles in the first place. The moral seems to be "my son was wrong for a year and I finally convinced him." Wouldn't it be a better ending if they reconciled the experiences of their terrible year with the other wonderful things they believe about human rights and dignity in general? It's like they still think you have to choose between women's rights and men's rights.