Son#1 is a high-school junior this year. At his school, both juniors and seniors can attend the prom, so he took his own hard-earned money and bought a prom ticket (I'll save the discussion for what he did to make his money "hard-earned" for another post). He was at the dance for four hours, and then I drove him to the after-prom at a local bowling alley, where he stayed for another five hours. I finally picked him up just before 5 am.
Charity (short for CharityBrow, which my wife has as an online time from time to time) was worried about him for weeks leading up to the prom. What if kids pick on him? What if he gets confused and forgets how to call home? What if some less-than-honorable kids offer him a ride (a recurring demon we both suffer from)? I had a little more confidence, in that I at least persuaded her we needed to let him attend, but I won't pretend I didn't worry about the same things. However, none of that happened. He danced, and a couple of times even danced with a girl. He kissed a girl on the cheek. He bowled. He called when he was done dancing, and again when he was done bowling. Each time, he had a huge smile on his face because he had so much fun.
Because he's the oldest, I still wonder how my worries for him will compare with the other four. I think my mother worried as much about my youngest sibling (#4) as about me (oldest), at least in the out-late-at-night situations. Will I worry as much about Sons#2-3 and Daughters#1-2? If I don't, how much of that is because of experience, and how much is because their problems are much more manageable than pdd-nos (although the ADHD of Daughter#1 isn't that far off)?
Son#1 wants to take driver's education next year. I don't know how I feel about that, either. It's been hard enough trying to sit in the passenger seat when Son#2 (who is 16) is driving. Still, I plan to let him go to college and try to become a band teacher. If he can do that, I should probably at least give him the chance to learn to drive. Maybe.
If I thought that the questions would ever end, this would be easier to deal with. But I don't think they ever do.
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A discussion of skepticism, logic, math, intelligent design creationism, board games, the Utah Jazz, marriage, having three children on the autism spectrum and two that not on the spectrum, being a DBA, teaching, the St. Louis metro area, my health since being diagnosed with ALS, and anything else that comes to mind.
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- One Brow
- Metro-East St. Louis, Illinois, United States
- I'm a father of five, happily married since June 1989, former student of mathematics, currently full-time software engineer and retired part-time math teacher. You can reach me at one(underscore)brow(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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Isaiah 1:18
Come now, and let us reason together
HRG, on CARM (paraphrased with his approval)
With formal systems, such as mathematics, you can have certainty and demonstrability, but not reality.
With science, such as physics, you can have reality and demonstrability, but not certainty.
With belief systems, such as Christianity, you can have reality and certainty, but not demonstrability.
G. K. Chesterton, in St. Thomas Aquinas
After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours. We may do other things instead of arguing, according to our views of what actions are morally permissible; but if we argue we must argue "On the reasons and statements of the philosophers themselves."
Bertrand Russell, in The Analysis of Mind
Any habitual action, such as eating or dressing, may be performed on the appropriate occasion, without any need of thought, and the same seems to be true of a painfully large proportion of our talk.
2 comments:
{This comment actually goes with a couple of your posts. Sorry for the confusion.}
My grandmother always said that everybody should learn how to drive and how to swim. She also warned her grandkids to not let a dentist talk you out of your teeth and into dentures! Sound advice all around I would say.
I have found it cost prohibitive to allow my two youngest, who are teenagers, (son, 17 and daughter, 16 next Sunday), to get even their learner's permits. If they get a license, the DMV alerts auto insurance companies that another driver is registered at their insureds' address and the insurance companies will raise your rates automatically.
My children know how to drive but a better skill is to know how to navigate through public transportation.
It seems like your Son#1 would fair better in a big city anyway vs. a small town. A bigger city would allow him access to the scaffolding he may require in life; I hope my own children will move to a bigger city and take advantage of the services that city has afforded its citizens.
[This comment is actually on a few of your posts. Sorry for the confusion.]
My grandmother told us that everybody should learn how to drive and to swim. (Hopefully those will never have to be actualized simultaneously!) She also told her grandkids not to let a dentist talk you out of your teeth and into dentures, as this had happened to her.
That being said, only one of my children knows how to swim and only one has a driver's license. I have found the cost of teenaged drivers in my home to be prohibitive and instead have concentrated on teaching them how to navigate the public transportation in my city.
It seems that your Son#1 would fair well in a larger city with a decent public transportation system that he could master and thereby avoid the cost of vehicle ownership. Also, it seems that in a larger city, he might have better access to the scaffolding he might require later in life. I wish that my three would settle in a city with services they can take advantage of.
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