Lies We Tell Kids
paulgraham.com
Lies We Tell Kids
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Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#2This deliberate, although not new.
deception: Century of the Self protection: Power of Nightmares
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22century%20of%20th...
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#3A very well articulated thesis and something every parent should be aware of as they are doing it.
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#4My least favorite pg essay. It's too easy to generalize about parenting, and so little of this essay applies to me.
1. Raising a kid in the city, and quite happily. 2. No prohibitions on swears in my house. Just at Grandma's, and only because it would offend her, not because swearing is inherently bad. 3. He goes to a school where they only teach you how to read, write, and do basic math. Everything else is a child-led research project. 4. We don't lie about turkeys. Turkeys are not very smart, and have no concept of "wanting to die." If he asked this question, I'd explore vegetarian options with him. 5. Pastafarians. He can make his own spiritual allegiences when he feels the desire to do so. 6. Drugs and sex haven't come up much, beyond the basic "where do babies come from" conversation. We've done that, he's satisfied for now.
On and on. I'm not the only parent like me, either. Be careful about generalizations.
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#5PG: what does suburbia mean to you? You paint it in an extremely negative light, and so I'd just like some more detail of how you define that term. I know it means different things to different people.
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#6"I used to think I wanted to know everything. Now I know I don't."
I'd be interested to know what caused the change, and what types of knowledge you'd prefer not having.
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#7"Probably the biggest lie told in schools, though, is that the way to succeed is through following "the rules." In fact most such rules are just hacks to manage large groups efficiently."
Reminds me of something Seth Godin (?) once said - that the whole purpose of school is to institutionalize mediocrity
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#8Am I the only one here who disagrees almost completely with everything that is said? I don't mean to be disrespectful or offensive here. I'm just trying to get a feel for whether or not I'm the outcast in this corner of the Web.
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#9Most lies are of a statistical nature. Moving to the suburbs is a good example. You're seeing lots of true things that aren't statistically representative. The extensive coverage of protected groups in history texts is the same way.
Look at some different lies:
1. "Grandma went to heaven." False.
2. "God doesn't kill good people." False, but containing a moral lesson.
3. "Your parents won't die." False, but translated properly ("Your parents won't die while you are a dependent"), probably true.
4. "2,998 people died in 9/11". True, but statistically at odds with its public perception.
The only harmful lie among those is the last one--the one that isn't a lie--and only because the "lesson" its constant repetition is designed to convey is disconnected from it.
..............
When I was a kid, I was told, literally, that bad people went to a hell and slept with burning maggots. This cartoonish lie has done me no harm.
Re: Lies We Tell Kids
#10My least favorite pg essay. It's too easy to generalize about parenting, and so little of this essay applies to me. 1. Raising a kid in the city, and quite happily. 2. No prohibitions on swears in my house. Just at Grandma's, and only because it would offend her, not because swearing is inherently bad. 3. He goes to a school where they only teach you how to read, write, and do basic math. Everything else is a child-l…
Turkeys are not very smart, and have no concept of "wanting to die."
Turkeys are very smart birds and their behavior is very finely geared around not dying.