I think this often happens when people get sick.

We missed one of the unassailable positions for shutting down discussion, by the way. (For everyone who wasn’t at that panel, these are positions in which disagreement is labeled as attack.) We got the religious and the parents, but we missed the victims.

Parenting is scary. It’s scary because of our desire for our children to grow and develop as whole human beings. They’re born innocent little blobs of flesh, and soon become recognizable as human beings. Totally inexperienced human beings with fertile brains that we parents have the responsibility to cultivate. I’ll not be happy if my son turns out to be a religious conservative, but I’ll accept it as long as he’s a critical thinker.

No, that’s really important, especially since we live in a country where everyone in one of the two major political parties is almost always wrong almost all the time, and the people in the other major political party are close to right half the time. Big difference! But as you say, and I agree with this, individuals transcend this all the time.

In fact, just last night my friend Kammy, who was the original inspiration for this post, and me were amazing our radical leftist mutual friends by backing up Jesse Ventura on several points.

Oh, Hi Kammy!

And right… what we came to in that discussion which is still ongoing is that pushing is bad. Also, modeling from certain perspectives is bad. I know someone who had aspirations in a particular sport as a kid, but those aspirations did not work out. But, she ‘encouraged’ (mostly in a healthy and appropriate way) her child to try that sport out. The encouragement was just fine, but the idea that success would lead to a vicarious reckoning on the part of the mother ended up being a lot like pushing. And as a result, this particular young person is not going to be a championship swimmer.

The main point here is that this is all very scary.

It was just that question of how to avoid forcing the subject that I was asking Greg at the Con. I think most parents understand that emphasizing one thing or another carries the risk of tiddlywinking the child off in the wrong direction. I’m always hoping to hear tips from skeptical/atheist/liberal parents (like me) on guiding our children in what we feel is the right direction. Not pushing, not forcing, but gently leading perhaps? As a mom to a 4 year old, I was interested and encouraged to hear that Greg’s 12 year old is a critical thinker. It’s one of the outcomes I’m interested in for my kiddo.

I’m also interested in the topic of how even adults can be turn from a skeptical, possibly atheist, viewpoint into followers of a faith or a woohead.