For a long time I believed in raising my children gender neutral. I believed that teaching my daughters girly things, and my sons boy things is pushing them away from who they naturally are and into something I want them to be. I no longer hold the same views.
Tag: teaching
Dealing with Princess Snowflake, a Government Employee
The woman sends home a list of math words, stripped of context, and defined with other words the kids probably don’t know. And my daughter has a much better vocabulary than most of her classmates, so if she has trouble understanding what is being said, I can only imagine the trouble other kids are having.
Home Education: A “Public Benefit?”
Random comment from the ‘Net: “I think a tax break for home schooled families is a great idea. However, you forget that we live in a community, and no man is an island. Those families do benefit from living in a community where others are educated.” Whoa! This argument cuts both ways: the community arguably benefits more from brilliantly-educated home schoolers than home-schoolers benefit from badly-educated children at government schools; therefore, the home schoolers might deserve a break.
Libertarianism is Self-Empowerment
One of the things I have been trying to do with this blog is look at why libertarianism isn’t widely accepted by the masses and how it can effectively be sold. In one entry I used Isaiah Berlin’s discussion of the Hedgehog and the Fox to argue that libertarians were hedgehogs in their thinking whereas Joe Public thinks like a fox.
The Broken Infant Fallacy
The period between birth and roughly the age of five is troublesome for central planners. As long as children remain dependent on their parents — and not “society,” as controlled by the state — there’s a risk of them developing habits that will become impossible to break once they enter a state-sanctioned institution, i.e. Kindergarten.
A Parental Right?
Whenever I hear people saying things like “Unschooling obviously wouldn’t work for everyone, but parents should have a right to choose what’s best for their kids,” or one of the hundred other variants on that same sentiment, I always feeling a niggling sense of unease. It’s never a statement I’ve agreed with. But until recently, I wasn’t entirely sure why it bothered me!
The Assumption of Ignorance
Assuming that the world is ignorant brings society down. We’ve begun talking, teaching, and working to the lowest common denominator. We assume that people need to be taught, led, coddled, and motivated. When you presume that other people are ignorant, you do both yourself and them a disservice. You create more work for yourself and increase the dependency of others on you. You become the hub at the center of a wheel, and the spokes don’t know how to think independently because they’ve been brought up in a system where there is always someone else telling them what they need to know.
Compassionate Connection: Attachment Parenting & Nonviolent Communication
How do we deal with a two-year-old when he grabs every toy his friend plays with? What do we say to a four-year-old who screams in rage when her baby brother cries? How do we talk with a ten-year-old about the chores he has left undone, again? What strategies will keep our teenager open with us – and safe? Nonviolent Communication (NVC), sometimes referred to as Compassionate Communication, offers a powerful approach for extending the values of attachment parenting beyond infancy. A process for connecting deeply with ourselves and others, and for creating social change, NVC has been used worldwide in intimate family settings as well as in organizations, schools, prisons, and war-torn countries.
What I’ve Learned in 10 Years of Zen Habits
Unbelievably, this month marks 10 years since I started Zen Habits. I’ve had an amazing decade, and I’d like to reflect on those years today. I’ve seen so much change in the last 10 years that I can’t possibly reflect on all of it.
An Open Letter to The Left: No, Libertarians Are Not Selfish
Dear progressives, Democrats, socialists, social democrats, democratic socialists, and those that generally identify with the colloquial version of the word “liberal”: No, libertarians are not selfish people. We don’t hate poor people, and we don’t want to see the less fortunate of our society left behind in what you might describe as “economic Darwinism.” My goal here, is to dispel this misconception and to help you gain an understanding of how libertarian principles relate to the concept of caring for the less fortunate.