Recently I ran into an old friend of mine, one of the few who received a printed copy of my only fanfiction work, Memoirs of a Sith Lord. He told me that his 5-year-old got hold of it, read it, and now considers it her favorite book and carries it with her everywhere. She even tried to get her kindergarten teacher to read it. In case you aren’t familiar with the story, it isn’t even remotely a children’s story, this is one precocious little girl. The lesson here, at least for me, is that writing fanfiction can be worthwhile, even if it doesn’t line your pockets with gold.
Category: children
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My Youngest Fan
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Robot Parents
Those of you who know me, know that I’m a fan of the theory that robots are going to take all the jobs away. One job I never really thought that robots would take would be parenting. The human touch is important, and so on. But parenting isn’t just one job. One part of it, possibly the hardest part, is disciplining. What makes it tough is that many children (and some adults) enjoy seeing other people become angry. The only way to be effective as a disciplinarian is to show no emotion and be absolutely consistent. Noah has been making this clear to me, and I’ve become pretty good at the robot face. Hmm.
Okay, robots are consistent and emotionless. What about the punishment? How would they carry it out? Should robots be equipped with Star Trek style agonizers? No. Most kids in the modern world care only about one thing, getting to play computer games. Robots could completely control our access to this form of entertainment, and only enable our accounts if the children behave. Robots can take over helping children with their homework, making sure they make their beds, etc. The human parents can step in to give good night kisses and hugs. In short, we can all become grandparents.
I, for one, fully support our new robot overlords, err, parents.
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The Indians Who Don’t Exist
Recently I was on a campout with the Cub scouts. Many of the boys were worried that there were Indians in the forest.
Naturally, like a good parent, I explained that (a) that the camp grounds are owned by the Boy Scouts and there are no “Indians” living there, and (b) the proper term is “Native American” since the people in question don’t come from India.
After that, I heard the boys talking about “The Indians that Don’t Exist.” Several of them claimed to have seen them, and one or two claimed that large fire ant mounds were actually poop left by “The Indians that Don’t Exist.”
Sometimes, explanations are less effective than you expect. 🙂
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Thanks
I have an adopted son who’s 10 years old, and although he gives me many headaches he also gives great joy to my life. To all the mothers out there who’ve given babies up for adoption, thank you. You’ve done so much more good than you can know.
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Soon They Can Steal Our Children And We Won’t Know
When the robot baby is just a wire frame, it’s not so convincing. Once he puts his little sweatshirt on though, he starts to be cute. Except that his face doesn’t move. They fix that in the video below.
Robot baby’s body…
Robot baby’s face. Having it operate detached from his body is just nightmarish.
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Questions from a 5-Year-Old
I found this partial list of questions my son asked me when he was five. Thought I’d share 🙂
- What is a ‘7-day outlook?’ What is a ‘local doppler?’
- What does ‘tarnation’ mean? Is it something you say if you are from texas?
- Can you feel your blood? When you walk can it fall out of you? Or does it stick?
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Life
Over twenty years ago my daughter was born. The pregnancy was very difficult. My wife had to lay on her left side for several weeks prior to delivery (her blood pressure was very high and it was slightly lower when she was on her left side). At one point the doctor mentioned that abortion was a possibility, but it neither one of us wanted to consider that.
My daughter was born nine weeks early by ceasarean section and weighed just a little more than two pounds. I was not (and am not) an expert on fetal development, but I was surprised to see how normal the delivery was–the doctor lifted the baby up by her legs, spanked her once, and she started crying. I had imagined some sort of “pre-baby,” something that did not quite seem alive or ready. What I saw was a little person who was just like a full term baby only smaller.
Of course, another difference with a full term baby is that premies (premature babies) have trouble retaining body heat. My daughter had to be kept in an incubator for a month before she could come home with us. Fortunately, the hospital was just across the street from where I worked and I could go visit her during lunch. She could almost wrap her hand around my little finger. In a way I felt that parents of full term babies missed out. They didn’t get to see their children when they were very small.
Unfortunately, the problems that led to our daughter’s early delivery made a second pregnancy a dangerous prospect, and so we sought to adopt. People’s experience with adoption is not uniform, but in our case it was a grueling ten year process. We were judged and tested in so many ways, many of them (I think) arbitrary and unfair. We had heart-wrenching near misses and one person tried to con us. In the end, though, we finally got our son. Unlike a pregnancy in which things slowly develop and you have time to prepare, the adoption was more like ten years of hopelessness followed by sudden joy. I think it was about a week from when we found out there was a baby to when we took him home.
Our son’s birth mother has a number of problems (and we don’t know all of them), but she has some level of faith. She did not consider abortion, and she asked that her baby be placed in a Catholic home.
I am grateful to my wife and the woman who carried our son to term, whoever she is. May God bless them and all the mothers who choose life.