Such violence

    During the Lump's short tenure in the local public education institution, she developed some struggles with reading.  Being a small school in a federally-designated "frontier," said institution lacked the resources to provide diagnostic and remedial action(s) unless the child in question was failing to read at grade level.  Since our children all have an abundance of raw horsepower, the Lump was able to compensate, and therefore was unable to get the assistance required to reach her full potential.

    "But wait," one might say, "Aren't their laws in place to require all children receive necessary assistance?"

    Yes, but unless everyone is willing to nationalize all teachers for military-style deployment regardless of the individual teacher's wishes, mandates will never be truly enforceable.  So instead the "necessary" in "necessary assistance" gets redefined to prioritize certain students over others.

    So the Shieldmaiden and I were on our own to troubleshoot the problem.  One of our first steps was to get her eyes checked.  The doc took a look and informed us that our daughter lacked the muscle tone to hold focus at a fixed distance.  Furthermore, she told us that she sees this quite often, because in the American on-size-fits-none traditional education model, reading is pushed at a younger age than is compatible with many children's eye muscle development.

    So we got her reading glasses, and she was suddenly able to read beyond her grade level.  Eventually, the Shieldmaiden and I pulled her out to homeschool.  We really should have done that sooner, and spared her some learning trauma.  Even home, though she still primarily stuck with larger-print books.

    Which brings us to violence in literature.  How?  Because this Christmas, we decided to try to help our daughter level up her reading by getting her a Kindle Paperwhite so she could blow up text and choose fonts to her heart's content.  She's probably swiping 6-12 times per actual page of text, but her reading has exploded.  The first book she tried was Robin Hood. 

    Howard Pyle's Robin Hood.  From 1883.  And written in pseudo-Middle-English.

    The Shieldmaiden and I take our kids' instruction and well-being seriously, and therefore, our movie selection for the kids up to this time has been pretty much 1950's-1970's Disney classics.  As a result, our daughter had only been exposed to the Robin Hood legend in the form of animated foxes.  So as my girls and I sat in the chair the other day perusing our respective books, the Lump spoke up and said, "Wow.  This is violent!"  Followed a few minutes later by, "So much violence!"

    The Dot just shrugged and said, "So?  I read Redwall books."

    The Shieldmaiden's Christmas book was Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett, who observes that all the classic stories are bloody.

Later on they took the blood out to make the stories more acceptable to children, or at least to the people who had read them to children rather than the children themselves (who, on the whole, are quite keen on blood provided it’s being shed by the deserving*), and then wondered where all the stories went.

*That is to say, those who deserve to shed blood. Or possibly not. You never quite know with some kids.

    Indeed, I'm quite surprised by the sudden objection to violence, given that the girls used to take almost perverse delight in asking for the "gory stor[ies]" during our nightly Bible reading.  Second only to King Solomon's wisdom, and that was mostly because I read the climax in my best John Mulaney impression (NSFW&K).

    Of course, said desire for gory stories predated the short stint in the public education system, so perhaps that's what explains it.  The US public education system is rather notorious at this point for it's zero-tolerance policies against violence.  Indeed, when a kid can get suspended for how he eats his pop-tarts (and judges uphold that suspension), one might be forgiven for calling them zero-sense policies.  So perhaps a year and a half spent in an environment that eschewed any discussion of violence as possibly positive in any context is where this aversion to even thinking of violence (or physical contest, even).

    Of course, the answer is more adventure books.  Though the girls' current shared love of Nancy Drew might not be the best, since she has an alarming propensity for getting kidnapped.

Musing on honesty

Some years ago, my eldest went on one of her many, many book kicks.  In this case, it was the young readers subseries from the A Dog's Purpose series.  These were the halcyon days when she still liked me to read to her.  Not that she doesn't occasionally like me reading aloud to her (mostly from The Elements by Theodore Gray) any more, but these days most of our reading together is done silently, with me looking over her shoulder, the two of us racing to see who can finish the page first.  

    She usually wins.

    Anyway, I have no idea which book it was, but the plot appeared to center around a girl running away from home and staying with a variety of friends.  I say, "appeared," because I only ever read the last few chapters to her.  I picked up with the protagonist overhearing her latest friends' parents talking about how she wouldn't be able to stay with them any longer.  In order to try to get around going home, the girl comes around the corner and tells them that it's okay, because she's staying with her aunt next.

    At which point, my beloved daughter was very puzzled.  

    "I don't remember her having an aunt."

    "She doesn't," I replied.

    "She just said she does."

    "She's lying."

    "Lying?"

    "Yes.  I mean, I haven't read the rest of the book, so I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure she's lying to them so that they don't call the police or her parents and make her go back home."

    At which point, my daughter gave me a look that suggested that I'd taken leave of my senses, because obviously, no one would ever knowingly say something that was wrong.  Fortunately, before she went total BSOD from the illogic, she simply said, "Well, I guess we'll just find out," and I went back to reading.

    So the girl goes back to the house, the dog beats up the bully or something, and all ends happily ever after.  At which point, my child looks at me and says, "Huh, she didn't have an aunt."

    /sigh

    A couple of years reading Redwall books seems to have introduced her to the concept of deception, but she still doesn't quite get the concept as a practical matter, as evidenced by a semi-recent incident in which she was asked to cover up some misbehavior by a peer.

    Yeah...not the wisest pick of coconspirators.

    Of course, while it is useful to have a child incapable of deception, and obviously in the vast majority of situations, honesty has a greater level of morality, it does raise an interesting question:  what is the nature of virtue or character?

    Does it exist in doing right or not doing wrong?  Aristotle's Virtue Ethics would say that behavior becomes character, and so a person who cannot understand deceit would be at an advantage in developing honest character.  And of course, Kantian ethics would just fall all over itself celebrating the rigid adherence to "Do not lie."

    On the other hand, does character exist in the absence of temptation?  Most accept that one must be strong to be able to be meek:  it's not restraint to hold back from doing something violent if you lack the capacity to do violence.  And most also accept that if you do not feel fear in the face of danger, you're not truly being brave.  You may just be ignorant of the danger.

    It's a puzzling question that I'm not entirely sure can be sorted out.  For now, I'm just happy that there's one person in the world who will always give me a straight answer.

Doing Justice

I celebrated Thanksgiving 2020 with my family.  It was unplanned, as I was scheduled to work that day, however, on the drive down to start my seven on, I found myself an insatiable appetite.  It was so bad, I blew through my driving snacks in less than the first hour and had to stop in the first town to hit McDonald's.  Hunger tends to be my warning that I am coming down with something.  I assume it's my subconscious telling me to stock up on calories while I can before I lose my appetite.  I also had a mild headache and a slightly scratchy throat.

    Being the conscientious healthcare worker that I am, I immediately got tested upon arrival.  And an hour later, I was headed back home with the week off.  I got home, filed for time from the extended illness bank, and set out to get in an extra week of work on the house.  While the Shieldmaiden was laid out for most of a week, I was upright the entire time, if easily winded.

    Among the challenges our family has faced is Sensory Processing Disorder in at least two out of three of our children.  Arguably, it's five out of five members, but only two have formal diagnoses.  While intense intervention has rendered our oldest mostly in control of herself, our youngest is not nearly as self-regulating.  So after a few days of Dad hammering and cutting on things, complicated by the lack of being able to go anywhere, and his own runny nose, the Squirt had had enough.  We threw on his weighted vest and earmuffs to no avail.

    At that point, the Shieldmaiden suggested that I stick him in our oldest daughter's "stretchy."  The stretchy is 15 feet of Lycra hung from the ceiling in a body sock/chair/swing/hammock that's part of her extensive collection of SPD equipment.  It's her happy place these days, with a particular emphasis on "her.  I was in a hurry to get back to my renovations, so I grabbed my son and stuck him in the stretchy, which calmed him substantially.

    But while I had helped the Squirt, it backfired when the Dot came around the corner and found him in it.  She was obviously distressed.  The Shieldmaiden tried to calm her down, but she was very, very hurt.

    Meanwhile, as I worked on my project, it occurred to me what I had done.  I had taken her property to provide mental health benefits to her brother.  If someone eminent-domain-ed our house to put in a psychiatric clinic, I'd certainly have some negative feelings.  Might even say a few choice words.

    And I really had no excuse, because in the past, we have often rented her equipment for him with no problems.  She's never said no, and usually only charges us 50 cents or so.  Rarely more than $1.  Instead, I'd violated her property rights because I was in a hurry.  

    This sort of thing does not fly in our family.

    I went to my beloved to ask where our daughter had gone and was informed that she was outside on the swing cooling off.  I brought her inside and apologized.  After she forgave me, we entered negotiations for restitution.  I offered her $1, expecting her to counter with $5.  I mean, after all, that's over twice the maximum amount she would have charged us for 30 minutes of stretchy time.

    Instead, she thought for a moment and then said, "I guess $1,000 is probably too much, isn't it?"  I informed her that her gut was right on that one, and she countered with $10, then proved markedly reticent to decrease.  Eventually, we settled for $4 and a trip to McDonald's for ice cream.

    Really, though, what's a conscience worth, right?  Though next time, the Shieldmaiden handles arbitration.