Category: parenting

parenting

Math like Whoa

the outside lane

Now and then I do something that I am proud of without reservation.  Today, I taught Thor how to work multiplication and was able to explain the concept so that he could understand, and so that he has been creating and working problems all day since I showed him how.

I showed him that in a sample equation of 3×2, three was a number of boxes, and two was the number of things inside each box.  I showed him that if he counted how many things were in the boxes total, he had multiplied.

Like that.

We spent a happy half hour drawing boxes and counting things, or writing equations and drawing the concept of them, and then I taught him tricks for multiplying by two, five, and ten.

Now, that might not mean anything to those of you who are good at math, but for me, it’s like…  I’ll tell you what it is like.  It is exactly like Whoa.

Mainly, I’m proud of my kid, who grasped the concept and ran with it, and I’m proud to have a kiddo who begs (and I mean begs) to work math.  He’s going to be so sad to find out that I can’t do fractions.

economy, parenting, Politics, Thor

Civics and the Six-Year-Old

the outside lane

Thor loves NPR and the Classical music station, and has since he was old enough to express a preference by screaming his lungs out when I tried to change to the pop channel.  Because he listens to NPR (and I swear to you, he ASKS to listen to NPR–believe me there are days I’d rather be letting the Top 40 fill my work-vacant brain) he hears a lot of talk of politics, and he asks some pretty good questions for a 1st Grader.

Last week, on our 5 minute drive, after a recap of his understanding of the 2-Party System, he asked me, “So what’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans?”

Uh…in a nutshell?  And impartially?  Geez.

I tried to explain that the Ds were usually more liberal socially, preferred for the Government to be very involved in daily life, and were more likely to spend money on people, and that Rs were more conservative socially, preferred small government, and were more likely to spend money on industry and business.  He then asked what was liberal, and what was conservative, and I said liberal socially meant fewer rules about how people should live their private lives (which was ironic, since many liberals like the Government to make more rules) and conservative meant more rules about how people should live their private lives (with the reciprocal irony.)

And then Thor asked, “So what about the money?”

I said, “It’s kind of like this.  Say you have no money.  The Democrats would ask the Government to give you $2 a week forever.”

He interrupted, “I don’t have any money!  They would give me money?!”

“But…  The Republicans would give $5 a week to a business, hoping that business would give you a job.  The job would pay you $3 a week, but the idea is that you can work hard and get a promotion, then make $5 a week, then get another promotion and make $15 a week.  So you would have a shot at improving your life and be more upwardly mobile.”

“Three is more than two,” he calculated.  “But then I have to get a job.”

“Dude, you are going to have to get a job anyway.  No deadbeats.  So, do you understand?”

“Yep.  Which one is better?”

“Neither.  Both sides want the same thing–a strong country where people are happy.  They just have different ideas about how to get there.”

“What are you?”

“Libertarian.”

“And what are they?”

“Ask Daddy.”

“Cool.  Can I have a treat after dinner tonight?”

 

I’m sure I over-simplified or screwed that up majorly somehow, but B is the political mind in the family.  I keep hoping one day Thor will ask me a question that is easy to answer.  Like, “Mama, what kind of corsage should I get my prom date?”

parenting, Religion, Thor

There Goes Santa Claus

the outside lane

 

B and I are pretty honest and open with Thor, and even though we keep things light and on level with his maturity, we don’t really mince words.  So, it’s kind of funny that we’ve played Santa.  And Easter Bunny.  And Birthday Fairy.  Okay, that last one is me entirely.  All that changed tonight, though.

Thor came home from school very excited about a project his class is doing, collecting items for the needy, and very excited about us having chosen a little boy his age from an Angel tree.  He was chirping away in the back seat and said, “Our kid [the Angel tree boy]…I guess he’s the only kid Santa doesn’t care about?”  I asked him what he meant, thinking about the movie trailer we’d seen prior to the Muppet Movie (which is greatness!  go see it now!)  He said, “You know, Santa doesn’t care about him because he’s poor, so he can’t have presents.”

It was one of those moments I couldn’t have prepared for–who would expect that?!

I assured him that poverty had nothing to do with how much Santa cared for children, and he hummed his understanding.  “So Santa won’t bring him any presents because he’s a bad kid.  Is he a bad kid because he’s poor?”

All the logic of the Christmas mythology was suddenly cumbersome.

“No, no, no,” I promised.  “He’s not a bad boy.  No, no, no.”

“Then why isn’t Santa giving him anything?  You said he was on the Angel tree because he might not get any presents?”

And since he’s six, and since we’re honest, and since I didn’t want him thinking that Santa was a 1%’er (remind me to tell you about the talk we had about the difference between Democrats and Republicans the other day), I took a deep breath and said, “Thor, I’m going to tell you a big secret…”

I did, too.  I told my child that Santa is a wonderful character like Finn McMissile or Lightning McQueen, and that we like to tell stories about him to teach people about gift giving, and good cheer, but that he wasn’t a real person, and the reason children ended up on Angel trees was because their parents might be having a hard time finding a job, and the Spirit of Christmas is about sharing what we have with people who are doing without.

We ran into B in the parking lot, right about that time, and B agreed.  Thor said, “Great!  I’ll beat you to the front door!”  And took off.

Tomorrow, we’re going to go see Santa.

Why not?  We can all still pretend and enjoy.