Daddy, Papa and Me

Ugh. It’s just never good news. Last year was bad, this year will be worse: Over 900 pink slips likely for S.F. schools.

Because of the state’s continuing and worsening budget woes (due to a host of issues stretching all the way back to prop 13, our referendum system and our legislative budget system and to the current recession). The biggest budget item the state has is education, it will be hardest hit.

It’s a downward spiral in several ways. Poorer elementary, secondary, community college and university schools mean more poorly educated students, mean a more poorly educated citizenry and workforce, mean a poorer economic situation.. which brings us to poorer schools…. and it goes on.
It also means that parents are more likely to keep their children out of public schools as they see the class size increases, the fewer teachers and support, fewer resources. They put them in private schools if they can afford the money, or homeschool if they can afford the time and money. Then schools have less money allocated to them, and then that cycle starts.

You can’t blame the parents, who individually have to make decisions for their children (as we do), but as a parent who sends their kid to a private school (for various reasons, not because we don’t like the public schools here), I am a firm believer in public schools and strongly believe a strong public school system is the one single important thing we can do as a state to ensure our future.

I just wish the voters and especially the legislator (who both are the blame for our situation) will make some radical changes, and soon.

That was the topic of a forum at the Cato Institute. Jason at Positive Liberty (who is employed at Cato) attended and wrote a brief commentary at his blog.

What struck me is the question he was able to ask Maggie Gallagher, and her answer:

We have a disclosure meeting today for a child younger than Emma for adoption. I can not now, nor in the near future, tell you the name, gender or age of the child. From here on out I’ll refer to the child as “D.”

Many of you, our readers, family and friends, have enquired about our adoption process. And many of you have seen the brutally long and roller coaster ride of a process we have been going through.

It’s not going to stop any time soon .

But today, at least, it moves forward. Perhaps a big step, or none. That’s the nature of this process :/. Today is the disclosure meeting. Let me reiterate the process:

This is pertinent to us considering the ordeal we just went through with violin and Emma: Want Passionate Kids? Leave ‘em Alone .

The research here suggests that the kids that were most passionate about their hobby/talent/career were the ones that were given the most autonomy in which hobby they pursued and when and how they practiced. The authors don’t suggest you ‘let your kids run wild’ but it does suggest you allow your children to find their passion and then give them autonomy to pursue it.

Emma wanted to play violin for a few years and then took lessons last year. She wanted to quit, but when I suggested I’d pick it up again (after a hiatus of 20+ years) and practice with her, she decided to do it this 2nd grade year to.

But it didn’t go so well. She resisted practice and lessons and kept wanting to quit. My first inclination was that she made a commitment (to me and the teacher) to do it for the year, but after discussing it with my online parenting community and some thought, we decided that if she wanted to quit, she should be able to.

We had a talk about it and she decided to quit.

Of course when she asked me if _I_ was going to continue, I said yes (i’m enjoying it!) and she thought that was “unfair” and got upset. She wanted me to quit my lessons and practice too.

We talked about it, she understood that i have my own interests too. We left it open that she could take up violin again at a later date if she desired. She also asked if she could practice with me sometimes even if she’s not taking lessons. I said of course. She said she might want to do it again, but she’d want another teacher and group lessons. So, if she asks later this year, or next or much later, she can and we’ll do the practice sessions differently this time (as in a bit more autonomy!).

Funny, just last night she asked me when the next time I was practicing was. She wanted to do it with me .

Autonomy.

(and on a side note, last year she went to Shakespeare Camp and loved it, she attended at least 9 plays last year, including two full Shakespeare productions, and loved them. When we asked her if she wanted to Shakespeare camp this year she gave a hearty YES! and “can I do it a couple times?” So maybe drama will be her passion, or not.. we’ll give her autonomy .)

New research suggests that that one of the reasons that homosexuality persists in the population is kin selection. It’s one of the evolutionary/genetic reasons I’ve postulated before.

Kin selection basically states that an individual who forgoes reproduction to help their siblings raise their children to reproductive age will pass on their own genes (since their siblings share on average 50% of their genetic variation). This might be, for some individuals and species, a better way to ensure that offspring make it to reproductive age. Lots of species do this, from birds who help their siblings raise their young to to the eusocial extreme of bees (which is a LOT of sisters helping their queen sister). That humans have very needy young (heck they can’t feed themselves or walk for nearly a year or more) that need lots of care and young that need lots of training to survive compared to instinct, it would make sense that ‘kin selection’ might have a role in human evolution. Well, new research suggests that this might be the case with being gay.

How Gay Uncles Pass Down Genes.

So nephews and nieces… We helped your parents so that we could pass on our genes .

(though I’ll caveat this with saying I have yet to read the full research report, so I reserve judgement on how well this nails down the possibility of kin selection when it comes to human sexuality.)