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In a message dated 7/18/2004 9:26:41 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
ecsamhill@... writes:
There are places where it is considered virtuous and even pious to "take
things on faith", but this isn't one of them.
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There are people in whose word I have great faith. There are 85% reliable
people, whom I might press, question, or verify if the info is crucial and I'm
going to act on it. There are WAY unreliable people in my life, and I won't
act on their reports.

That kind of knowledge and experience affect faith.

I have great faith in my kids' reports of what they did or what they saw.
Given many opportunities to be dishonest they have not been. If Holly or Marty
brought me change and said he didn't have a receipt, I wouldn't even count it.
They are scrupulous with money and accounting. Kirby is more likely to keep
the change, but to buy me lunck or give me gas money another time later.
That's not a problem for me either. He has money of his own.

It's not a lack of faith that would make me question them about something
they didn't know or experience directly.

Marty used to kind of bluff historical fact, and I would press him or look it
up and show him he was wrong, and should say "I think" instead of "was" which
totally gets him off the hook when he's wrong.

I e-mailed Keith and Holly witha correction after a discussion about the two
Roosevelt presidents. Holly asked if Teddy was FDR's dad, and I said uncle.
Turned out I was wrong. He was Eleanor Roosevelt's uncle. She was born
Roosevelt.. The president gave her away at her wedding. Franklin was her
distant cousin, so he was also a distant cousin (fifth, I read when I looked it up)
of Theodore.

I wan't very embarrassed to have made the mistake. I wasn't an eye-witness.
I didn't swear an oath. I had just mis-remembered what I had read years ago.
And I was willing to double-check my own answer and amend it.

Last week Marty had role-playing kids over and he yelled outto me from the
next room, "Mom what's a buckboard?" They were playing Deadlands, a wild west
fantasy game. I poured forth an answer, but realized nobody had ever asked me
that before and I had never had a true need to know. I told them it was an
uncovered four-wheeled bench in front, bed in back, kind of like a basic
pickuptruck now. So when I got a free spot, I went to google images and then to
dictionary definitions. What I had described was a buckboard, but there was also
another type with just a bench and no box/wagonbed. So I went and told
Marty and the other guys that though what I had described was right (and it's what
they needed anyway, because they needed to imaginarily carry an imaginary
wounded or dead or enchanted body), that it really had to do with the type of
suspension and the wagonbed wasn't a necessity.

Yesterday I had a bad conversation with Keith's longtime best friend, who was
the best man at our wedding 20 years ago. He is accidentally, at the age of
47, about to have his first child. They're not being thoughtful, and they've
done very little research. Many things he indicated in that conversation
disturbed me, but one thing he said was the kid will be confused (the mom is
Apache and two aunts and her mom plan to take turns taking leave from work to help
her--they all work for the tribe, mostly in the schools, and Bob works there
too, formerly as a teacher and now as the computers guy). So yeah, confusion,
no planning. But Bob said without joking "I'll just tell him to believe what
I tell him and not the rest."

I never expect my children to believe what I say because I say it. If they
have faith in my accounts or my opinions, it is or will be ultimately because
of their experience in finding that what I said matched their own perceptions
or what they double-checked later. I don't ask to take what I say on faith,
neither about which of their friends might be bad influences, or who Teddy
Roosevelt's relatives were, or what a buckboard is.

He also talked about chores (the baby isn't even born) and said "I was a
slave for my parents, and my kid's going to be raised just like I was." I said I
thought it was a really bad idea.

I sent him some circumcision links, and looked at some other more attachment
parenting things, and my chores page, but decided he's just not ready to think
about it yet. I did tell him not to make any big declarations about what he
would do when the child is six or twelve, because he hasn't even met him or her
yet, and he should make his best decisions as time goes on instead of making
advance plans. That made sense to him.

He expressed hope/faith that kid would be reading in just a few years. I
suggested he might want to go to my website at some point and read about reading.
He knows some kids who are perfectly smart never read well; he taught
English and has taught ESL (English as a second language) to adults here and in
China. I was kind enough not to say, "BOB, what good is reading if you're going
to make decisions without any reading/research whatsoever? Is it just for
reading fantasy novels and engine tune-up manuals!?" I thought it, but I didn't
say it.

Sandra


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