My Son, the Sadistic Villain

The Place of Wormly Doom

Yesterday afternoon, my nine-year-old son imprisoned and brutally tortured helpless living creatures. He surrounded them in walls of stone and left the poor devils to starve and die under the sun's cruel rays. Proud, and smiling broadly, he bounded into the house to tell me about it.

"Dad!" he said. "I made a house for worms out from some bricks on the old picnic table! I hope you don't mind -- I gave them two apples."

"Apples?" I said, looking up from my book. "Worms don't eat apples . . ." Then, I remembered all of the pictures from school with the little bespectacled fellow popping out of a red-delicious. "Earthworms don't, anyway. That's a waste of apples."

What's Worse?

I've touched on this before, but it is hard not to revisit something that basically amounts to the world force-feeding my children its prevailing attitudes.

I'm constantly amazed at the things people worry about -- the things we think we need to protect our children from. Let's play a game of "What's Worse?"

Here we go:

Accomplish Nothing?

Two nights ago, I truly sat in the presence of greatness. I watched the legendary classical guitarist, John Williams, give a concert at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Many consider him the greatest living master of the instrument. (By the way, he's not the same guy who wrote the music for Jaws and Star Wars.)

As a student of the classical guitar, I catch him whenever he comes through the area. I fear he might retire soon, so I take every opportunity. He is a true master -- his concentration is superhuman; his technique is flawless. His Greg Smallman guitar is a perfect instrument that fills a small concert hall with its delicate power. Let me give you a sampling of Williams playing a famous classical guitar piece. (The "synch" is a little off -- sorry. On a musicological note, it was originally written for piano, but the transcribed guitar version may be better known.):

Three Houses (A Parable)

It was late on a Saturday morning. Three houses stood on a street, one next to the other, in a quiet suburban town. 

One house was perfect. The shingles were tight and new. The bushes were smooth and round. The lawn glowed emerald, like a square carved from a Irish hill. Not a door squeaked, in this house. Not one wall, within, ran even the slightest crack. The tool shed stood in order; the lawnmower enjoyed regular oil changes; rakes hung on racks in the garage, like soldiers in file, eager to claw away the enemies of the sacred grass.

The man of this house kept his metric wrenches in their plastic indentations in a great red, rolling tool cabinet. He washed his car whenever the sun shone, and on this day, he was buffing its glassy hood as he looked toward the next house, shaking his head in disgust.

First Friends, Best Friends

A friend of mine just wrote a blog post that got me thinking. He presents a conventional, age-old idea in parenting: that one should not be his kids' best friend. Many parents agree with this. You guessed it: I don't. The catch is that you need to really understand what it means to be your kids' best friend. See, it is a little different than being your best friend's best friend, but maybe not all that much, in a few ways.

I have seen forty-something moms in the mall dressed like their daughters and attempting to blend-in with a group of teenagers. I have seen fathers cursing and making lewd comments about women to their teenaged sons. I have seen parents who think it is okay to drink with their high school aged kids. I have also seen parents who are afraid to discipline their children -- who think their kids won't like them if they "lay down the law." These people are all fools. These people act more like buddies than parents and I trust this is the kind of thing my friend is objecting to in his post. I object to them, too.