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Civility in critiquing the ideas of others is no vice. Rudeness in defending your own ideas is no virtue.


Sat 20 May 2006, 11:36 AM
One of the interesting things about having a college age daughter is finding out how little you know... about anything and everything.  It is not so much that you discover this on your own as that she informs you of how wrong/ignorant/unenlightened you are on a regular basis.  Having been through college myself, and having presumably treated my parents in much the same way, I think we are fairly tolerant and understanding of the sudden omniscience of our daughter.  Still, it is good once in a while to let her see that there might be one or two things she doesn't know yet.

When my daughter is home from college, her ten year old brother and she tend to fall quickly back into old patterns of sibling behavior, which is to say they make five year olds look mature sometimes.  My son was driving my daughter particularly crazy by holding a Lego creation to his forehead and making incessant high pitched squeals which he said were mind rays aimed at her, and she was providing him with lots and lots of reinforcement for that irritating activity, but couldn't seem to stop him.  I let it go on for a while, and then I said to him "Hey, I hear there are slugs outside!", and he says "Cool!" and drops the Lego contraption on the counter and runs outside.  My daughter looked awe-struck.

There are limits to knowledge when you are dealing with ten year old boys.  Sometimes, instinct works best.

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