I tried to point out in my initial Who are you? post (p.504) how civilization plays a major role in educating its citizens who they are and who they should be. This contrasts sharply with the natural intuitive way that our ancestors acquired a secure sense of self. Religious stories have been central to every […]
Continue reading…parents
Science’s Baby Steps
Every now and then I’m bowled over by the “Well, duh” discoveries science finally gets around to making. My “Well, duh” relationship with science began early. As a preteen child who liked to play with fire, I discovered that putting ice or cold water on a burn worked great. However, the standard nursing / medical […]
Continue reading…A Tao of Parenting
First, Google: Bringing Up Baby – Hidden Brain and listen to this research on raising children, especially the last half, where it summarized the natural approach to parenting I discuss here. Breeding, and the parenting that follows, are the most significant things we do in life; without this, none of us would be here. Most […]
Continue reading…It’s Time We Changed Our Name
It’s time we changed our species’ name from “Homo sapiens” to something else. “Homo sociâlis”, would be my best Linnaeus guess. We are not the great “wise” or “knowing” animal that we claim to be. We are instead more profoundly social than we realize. Research reported in the Science News article, In-laws transformed early human […]
Continue reading…The Family Purse
The money in our family is family money… really. It is one big pot that each takes from as needed. This is radically different from the independent model my parents used to raise me. I did chores for which I got a salary. I suppose the idea here is to prepare their child for the […]
Continue reading…Significant Others
There is a curious thing I notice in the life of my two sons. They are not chasing girls like I was at their age. They aren’t gay either, so what gives? I look back on my youthful lust and see a disconnected lad looking for companionship that my independent upbringing never fully provided. All […]
Continue reading…Innately Ethical
Chapter 38’s A man of the highest virtue does not keep to virtue and that is why he has virtue served as a model for raising my sons. Yet, given their Taoist upbringing, it is odd to see how rigidly law abiding they are at times. For example, we headed down the street to order […]
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