About that "War, Class Issues" Thing

[kyra_ojosverdes]

Mark: [very seriously] *sigh* I'm sorry, Eliza. Your people are dead. They were too close to the nuke. Your people fled to the wrong country. They fled to the country where the nuke exploded. Now all your villagers are dead and you're left only with your warriors, who don't know how to grow food.

Eliza: Oh! Please help me! My country is destroyed and I'm homeless!

Mark: You're not homeless. You have your castle. You just have no people anymore to produce food and goods and support your country's economy. You'll have to grow your own food now and weave your own cloth.

Eliza: But I don't know how to weave!

Mark: I'm sorry. You'll have to learn.


... Mark is ten. TEN. See why I've forbidden TV news in our home?

Comments

[hopeevey.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I'm stunned at how well he understands the implications of the situation. There seem to be plenty of people in government who don't get the basic realities your boy seems to have grasped.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

This kid thinks about social issues. He absorbs all the information he can get, then he spends a lot of time and energy ruminating on it and pumping adults for information on their views, other views, what if this, what do you think of that, etc. I generally refuse to reveal my views on a given issue to my kids until after they've formed their own opinions, because I don't want them to take the easy shortcut of just adopting my views. When they ask my opinion on an issue, I say "some people think this because of this, some people think that because of that, some people think yet another thing because of yet another thing... what do you think?"

But yeah, of my three kids, Mark is very interested in and passionate about social and socioeconomic issues.

[hopeevey.livejournal.com]

I'm very, very impressed.

[canyonwren.livejournal.com]

Oh, I couldn't help laughing. "I'm sorry. You'll have to learn."

That kid...

Poor Eliza, having nightmares about spinning wheels and looms. Maybe if she whacks herself with the spindle (how does that fairy tale go?) she'll fall asleep for a hundred years and her people will have come back. Frankly, I'm surprised she didn't suggest it herself, the romantic that she is.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good point. She didn't make the Sleeping Beauty connection, just fretted over having to learn all these new skills that had never been the least bit relevant to her life as The Princess.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

... and it was "prick her finger on the spindle." ;-)

[canyonwren.livejournal.com]

LOL. I was thinking that "whack herself with the spindle" sounded kind of odd.

[roguespirit.livejournal.com]

I think that would actually make more sense... they never did explain how pricking her finger would make her sleep for 100 years. Other than that whole magic thing.

[gryphonwing.livejournal.com]

Spindles aren't sharp, really. I always figured it was a splinter. In some stories the splinter falls from her finger when she wakes up.

It's bad luck to prick your finger while weaving or spinning, but I don't know if that tradition comes from the story or the story comes from the tradition.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry. You'll have to learn."

His tone of voice was perfect, too. Outwardly serious, sad, grave... with just the slightest hint of "take THAT you useless overprivileged bit of humanity!" Just the slightest hint, but enough to make me really glad I wasn't eating or drinking at that moment.

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

What on earth are they playing?

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Just their usual freeform "make up the story as we go" play.

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of something... but I can't think of what.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Bob the Angry Flower?

[smoonn.livejournal.com]

Yesss! The Ayn Rand aftermath episode. Awesome.

[sweet-byrd.livejournal.com]

Lordee! -- We ought to put your kids in charge of the government a la Ender's Game. It sounds like they'd do a pretty good job.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Mark would be a benevolent and thoughtful ruler. James, on the other hand... "They'll do what I say because if they don't, they'll be arrested and thrown in jail."

Working on that. The problem with my "Want my kids to learn critical thinking skills rather than to parrot my views on Everything" is having to deal respectfully with views I find abhorrent. Damned liberalism. ;-)

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

Their debates and discussions of political issues are utterly fascinating, for both the "it's interesting to watch children's cognitive abilities develop" and "holy shit, when did they make THAT connection, I think I was 16 when I got that" moments.

[sir-cat.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Outta the mouths of babes...

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

kid sounds way too bright for his own good.