Leave them alone!

[Camy]

Once again they're in the world news...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6698753.stm

[blue]

"No kielbasa for you, busybody-person!"

No one ever questioned why Solomon Grundy spent all that time in the bathtub, or whether he was hygienically challenged, or busy doing something other than bathing....

Oscar the Grouch was dumpster diving and antisocial...and Snuffleupagus was an imaginary friend with inhalation issues....

Winnie the Pooh had a hunny pot habit and dangerous eating habits...and Christopher Robin was running around talking to his stuffed toys....

...If we look too closely, we can find fault with anything or anyone, and even ruin friendships or lives that way.

Let us rush with paranoid zeal to protect our children, for they might have to deal with real life, and we all know how terrible that would be!

(The preceding sentence was sarcasm, intended to point out the follies of human nature, so that at least someone might change.)

[DesDownunder]

"No kielbasa for you, busybody-person!"

No one ever questioned why Solomon Grundy spent all that time in the bathtub, or whether he was hygienically challenged, or busy doing something other than bathing....

Oscar the Grouch was dumpster diving and antisocial...and Snuffleupagus was an imaginary friend with inhalation issues....

Winnie the Pooh had a hunny pot habit and dangerous eating habits...and Christopher Robin was running around talking to his stuffed toys....

...If we look too closely, we can find fault with anything or anyone, and even ruin friendships or lives that way.

Let us rush with paranoid zeal to protect our children, for they might have to deal with real life, and we all know how terrible that would be!

(The preceding sentence was sarcasm, intended to point out the follies of human nature, so that at least someone might change.)

One of those follies is to misunderstand the intelligence of thought, irony and satire often contained in such sarcastic remarks.

I have never been happy with the phrase that "Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour," or even the response: "But it is the highest form of wit."

Both phrases seem to me to be rhetoric that seeks to cloud the truth behind the sarcasm.

The point is to realise that sarcasm is a wonderful and quite sophisticated tool to alert us to the misinterpretation of what is relevant, worthwhile or even enlightening.

Sarcasm is, to a degree born of a cynical attitude, but the midwife must I think be compassion.

All too often the midwife acts as a selfish smartass. That is not helpful, though I quickly add it can be a most entertaining device in story writing. The trick here is to know the difference for the sake of the story-telling.

Blue's sarcastic remark offers (for me) an insight into a desire to protect our children from misappropriated danger, when the real purpose and concern of parenthood should be to prepare them for reality so that they gain the ability to recognise threats to their freedom of thought, expression and life itself. By all means protect the kids from harm, but not at the expense of their ability to reason and think for themselves. That is the real danger of censorship.

I believe good parenting does not enslave the child's thinking process, it liberates it. It does so not by imposing its own values but by encouraging the freedom of the child's individuality and independence, alongside respect for the rights of others to have similar freedoms.

Of course if you want the masses to conform, controlling their ability to think at all, works every time, especially if you let them believe they are thinking for themselves. <------ another sarcastic remark.

[Trab]

Coping with reality is only learnt by coping with reality. If one has no experiences, there is no effective way to deal with anything new that comes along.

Shielding children from extreme harm is obviously necessary, but shielding them from any harm at all, is pure folly. Shielding them from something that isn't harmful (like the knowledge of homosexuality) is almost criminal.