Scifi/fantasy versus The Bible: guess Who wins?
I've had an interesting fortnight as a parent. I've come to realise I'm as hardcore and take-no-prisoners in my approach as the most zealous fundamental Christan; only for my child it's a lefty social justice dogma. My daughter is being socially engineered full of attitudes towards LGBTQ folk, racial difference, refugees, the poor, differently abled, and so on. There is never an opportunity missed that I don't ram home the lessons, and when I reflect on that, it's no different, in its style, to a god-botherer in full flight claiming Jesus and God in everything that happens. I can only hope she doesn't react completely against me as a teen and go full-on neocon.
Small and I sit and watch the news together. She's ten. I don't know if this is good parenting or not. I just know that parents kind of /sort of reproduce themselves, but in the updated, better model; 'me but better' is what's going on. And the news matters to me; it's not so much that I can do anything about death in Iraq from car bombs, but at the least, at the very and insignificant least, I can acknowledge the passing of 48 people in another car bomb attack. Does this matter? I don't know. But I comment: I tell her, how sad. That's awful. If it happend in Australia, we'd do nothing but talk about it for a week. How come we only have it down the news, and we won't really care? That's what she's hearing.
What will shape another human being? I think parents can only do so much. I do believe there's a genetic component; creditable research tells us that left wing people use more of their brain than right, so maybe we can look at them as disabled? Not quite as evolved? I think, already, that Small is there: she makes comments that are beyond what I drum into her, that tell me she's thinking about multiple causes, multiple needs.
And something else is helping: she'd wildly into Dr Who. The Sarah Jane Chronicles. Star Wars the Clone Wars. Lord of the Rings. And as we hear and watch these stories, I'm talking afterward; how hard it was for the Doctor to make that decision. Did you think Donna made the right choice? What would you do? Was Ahsoka right? Do you agree with that stuff at the start of Clone Wars?
Now, here's an interesting proof of the pudding: Small has seen, and we've discussed, the situation in Syria. Is this good parenting? *I don't know!!* It just seems right to me. So as we were watching Dr Who, Chris Eccleston, Ep 1 tonight, she turned to me and said, "It's really important, Mum, that they give Syria a choice. You shouldn't attack someone without giving them a chance to make a good choice."
Wow. I will argue, vehemently and to my dying day, that nothing in the Christian Bible is so clearcut as the Doctor saying that to Donna and Martha when he beams back up to the Sontaran ship. I have to give them a choice. And Small extrapolated that to Syria, and how bloody right she was.
When we watch scifi/fantasy together we can talk about courage, and sacrifice, and morality. What did it cost Frodo to undertake that mission, gradually realising that he wouldn't come back? What does that mean to us as human beings; what causes do we take up unto death, what do we consider worth dying for? When do you give up? When do you insist on the courage, even when everything is aligned against you? Rose agaionst the Sycorax, stepping forward. It's brilliant. It's breathtaking. It's more real than anything the Bible has to offer, because it's not about pleasing a spaghetti monster in the sky. It's about deciding for yourself what constitutes a good life, and a good death, and deciding that in the service of others, you've found that goal.
Sigh. I suspect that many would disagree with my parenting choices. But finding a moral guide in fables worth exploring - yeah, I reckon that's good education, at least.
Small and I sit and watch the news together. She's ten. I don't know if this is good parenting or not. I just know that parents kind of /sort of reproduce themselves, but in the updated, better model; 'me but better' is what's going on. And the news matters to me; it's not so much that I can do anything about death in Iraq from car bombs, but at the least, at the very and insignificant least, I can acknowledge the passing of 48 people in another car bomb attack. Does this matter? I don't know. But I comment: I tell her, how sad. That's awful. If it happend in Australia, we'd do nothing but talk about it for a week. How come we only have it down the news, and we won't really care? That's what she's hearing.
What will shape another human being? I think parents can only do so much. I do believe there's a genetic component; creditable research tells us that left wing people use more of their brain than right, so maybe we can look at them as disabled? Not quite as evolved? I think, already, that Small is there: she makes comments that are beyond what I drum into her, that tell me she's thinking about multiple causes, multiple needs.
And something else is helping: she'd wildly into Dr Who. The Sarah Jane Chronicles. Star Wars the Clone Wars. Lord of the Rings. And as we hear and watch these stories, I'm talking afterward; how hard it was for the Doctor to make that decision. Did you think Donna made the right choice? What would you do? Was Ahsoka right? Do you agree with that stuff at the start of Clone Wars?
Now, here's an interesting proof of the pudding: Small has seen, and we've discussed, the situation in Syria. Is this good parenting? *I don't know!!* It just seems right to me. So as we were watching Dr Who, Chris Eccleston, Ep 1 tonight, she turned to me and said, "It's really important, Mum, that they give Syria a choice. You shouldn't attack someone without giving them a chance to make a good choice."
Wow. I will argue, vehemently and to my dying day, that nothing in the Christian Bible is so clearcut as the Doctor saying that to Donna and Martha when he beams back up to the Sontaran ship. I have to give them a choice. And Small extrapolated that to Syria, and how bloody right she was.
When we watch scifi/fantasy together we can talk about courage, and sacrifice, and morality. What did it cost Frodo to undertake that mission, gradually realising that he wouldn't come back? What does that mean to us as human beings; what causes do we take up unto death, what do we consider worth dying for? When do you give up? When do you insist on the courage, even when everything is aligned against you? Rose agaionst the Sycorax, stepping forward. It's brilliant. It's breathtaking. It's more real than anything the Bible has to offer, because it's not about pleasing a spaghetti monster in the sky. It's about deciding for yourself what constitutes a good life, and a good death, and deciding that in the service of others, you've found that goal.
Sigh. I suspect that many would disagree with my parenting choices. But finding a moral guide in fables worth exploring - yeah, I reckon that's good education, at least.