Committed to finding ways out of the coercion/self-sacrifice mire of conventional parenting. We are variously critical rationalists, libertarians, home educators, attachment-parents, but we take our ideas where we find them.
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Life with small children involves the kind of stresses and challenges the rest of you lot can only dream of. No wonder coercion is the popular mode of child-rearing. It is extremely difficult to be such a bloody genius that you can actually solve all your problems with real small people in real time at least when they are of a certain non-stop needy constantly help-requiring pre-verbal age. Which doesn't make beating them OK, but it does mean that parents who successfully solve those problems without the use of violence or force are total fucking geniuses whose phenomenal store of skill and brilliance is rarely appreciated either by the "Just whack 'em cheerfully and lock 'em in their rooms!" brigade or by the "Coercive parents are Nazis!" smart-asses who've never looked after a child for more than five minutes in their life.
When I say "annoying day" what I mean is "day with lots of hard problems to solve". Which, so far, I solved. Meaning now, I am mentally exhausted. Which is a bit inconvenient as in one hour I have a commitment to go out and look after twenty small kids belonging to other people, for no money, for an hour and a quarter. Which is why I am announcing that I will no longer be running the kids' club after the end of this term.
So: nobody be horrible to me until I say I can handle it without spinning round and rolling-pinning you to death. I've been protecting my vulnerable young from vultures, piss-takers and the general stresses of having to be Small all day, and I am Not In The Mood. Not one single unwanted criticism. I don't even give a toss whether you dislike my hairstyle, frankly. Be nice, or give me a break.
(Note to any people with friends/spouses who are hardworking caring parents anywhere and everywhere: that applies to you too).
Follow this link to Samizdata.net then this other link to an article from Wired about how good computer games are for learning.
We couldn't agree more. The thing about computer games is, they don't necessarily teach you the dates of the Kinds and Queens of England (although, they might): but what they do teach you is far more important: how to think.
From John Mortimer, on the back page of the Sunday Telegraph magazine:
"My father talked to me as an equal from the time I could talk back and I have tried to do the same with my children. Being a child is pretty bloody awful. No-one takes you seriously and you're always at the height of everybody's crutch. My parents helped me grow- they never went to the theatre or a restaurant without me. I would wear a little dinner jacket and go out with them to see Noel Coward."
