There is a great article about which I have been meaning to write titled What I’m never going to tell you about homeschooling. Really, it is not about homeschooling. It is about life and parenting. No one has any idea about what will happen to their kids. I think most people have good intentions when it comes to their kids. You might ask why I do not think ALL people have good intentions for their kids and would have to say it is a long conversation, but some of it has to do with the idea that if you are too much about yourself, you probably do not have good intentions for your kids.
We heard all those things people hear about the different stages kids pass through. And our kids have passed through most of them. Now, I am just as apt to be the one telling even though our kids are arguably still going through the last of those “kid” level stages right now. Other “young adult,” “young married,” “middle-aged” and other stages are on the way. The thing I liked about the article was that it addressed the fact that there is not much you can do about how your kids think and live their lives because free will gets in the way. Just because they did good at one stage along the way does not mean they will do well at the next.
My goal in all this is to quit trying to analyze what people do and try to start being more of an encouragement. There is lots of pain we cause ourselves, but sometimes it is really not our fault.
Betty Blonde #475 – 06/01/2010
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Lorena just came back from Seattle. She was up there for about five days to help Kelly because she has time for nothing but studying. In her PhD program she has to do two formal papers in addition to her dissertation. They are full-blown research projects with experiments and formal write-ups good enough they are often published in scholarly journals. Since first year students generally have never done such formal research, they have to learn everything from scratch. That was certainly true for Kelly. Kelly’s presentation of her first year paper takes place the second week of February and she is working every waking hour on the paper, her TA responsibilities, research for her advisor and the classes she has to take.
I am at that awkward age when medical professionals begin to be persistent in their admonishments for a fairly wide variety of uncomfortable poking and prodding. Day before yesterday I took some pills and drank a very large amount of liquids and powders to clean things out so I would be ready for a colonoscopy yesterday. It was scheduled for the morning and I thought I was going to be able to go back to work in the afternoon. A colleague at work disabused me of the notion of returning to work, so I to the whole day off. I was glad I did.
We finished the old year well watching Pink Martini at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall in Portland, then ran over to a party of old friends in Yamhill. We will do it again sometime. It might be a bit of a cliché, but I think the New Year is a great time to make resolutions. Even with diets, I have made great progress after starting on New Year’s Day. I have three more days until I go back to work and my plan is to reflect on what I want to do next year. Right now though, we are going to continue to start the New Year right by going to the Burger Hut in Hubbard for breakfast. Happy New Year!
Rejecting a comment
By Dad
On Wednesday, January 20, 2016
In Blogging
I rarely have cause to reject comments on this blog for anything other than span which Askimet pretty much handles on its own. Our content is not really very controversial in the whole scheme of things so inappropriate comments are not too much of a problem. I got a comment today that was aggressive and snarky with claims about qualifications that were impossible (and not worth the time) to check. The author of the comment took objection to something I said about getting a STEM degree (I think it was about this post) that completely missed the point of the post in a very snarky and unhelpful way. I enjoy a vigorous discussion and have been known to admit I am wrong and try to change my ways, but the purpose of this blog is to discuss topics of interest to me and my readership in a thoughtful and even vigorous and argumentative way. Anything that detracts from that needs to be rejected.
I was helped in this by a comment Tom Gilson made over at the Thinking Christian blog on how he manages his blog comments. He basically says any comments helpful to the mission of the blog that meet certain rules of decorum are OK. I will base my comment moderation on that model.
Betty Blonde #466 – 04/23/2010
Click here or on the image to see full size strip.