Posted on 11/13/2004 12:26:56 PM PST by WillRain
If I take twenty years off to raise them, my training is worthless, but the other message of "Podkayne of Mars" is that if you have kids, you'd darn well better raise them.
I'll be check Poka out too. I commend this kind of attitude ... save for the part where the training is "worthless" simply because it takes at least 10-15 years to get a brood to fulltime schoolage.
I think a lot of women realize too late that ANYONE could have fulfilled their stinkin' career job as well or better than they but that it's not so easy to pop out according to Daytimer Plan the kids they figured on having once the More Important things in their life were established.
Women who worry that their training might become worthless if they have kids should just have themselves sterilized and be done with it. I feel sorry for children-as-desk-accessories. I find it pathetic and depressing in the extreme to hear the daily phone calls and the oft-repeated: "But Mommy's got to work -- along with Daddy the doctor -- so you can HAVE [insert anything but a fulltime Mom here]."
Well, I thought it was funny.
"Training is worthless" only because if I don't stay current (and have the resume to prove it) in computer science, there's no way I'd be able to get back to work... Not that that's more important than a family, but it's a consideration. I would never work full time (unless horrible financial situations required it) while raising children.
And your numbers are low because if I have kids, they'll be homeschooled, which means at least 16 years from the birth of the last kid.
Oh my gosh!!! I think I'm gonna be sick!!!
Too funny!!! I didn't think there existed an image which made him look even more dimwitted than the digging-for-gold shot.
In fact, I think we can overlook the usual punishments for posting a Mr. Hankie pic without a Surgeon General's warning.
I'm going to post a beer thread later at TOS for the Sat-Nite drunkards. I'll ping you. It's from this curious 1952 entertainment tome of my great-grandmothers I found in my cookbooks.
Did you know that sauerkraut became "Liberty Cabbage" during WWI? The more things change ....
Oh boy!!
Well, get on it, JenB. As interesting and critically important as I'm pretty sure computer science can be ... =) ... I don't think you're ever going to find anything so rewarding as spending time with, educating and forming the consciences of your children.
My sister's one of the happiest people I know. The difference between her kids (very little TV, fulltime Mom, homecooked meals) and their peers is sadly stark. They attend a very good Catholic school (there still are some good ones out there) but I TRULY commend your opting to homeschool. Best decision you could make.
Cheers.
Why do you think "frankfurter" was changed to "hot dog"?
Heh, well, it's a theoretical situation at this point. First I have to meet Mr. right (one clue he's not would be if he didn't agree on the homeschooling bit)
I look at some of the career women I know, and at my mother, and I know which one I'd rather emulate.
And I already have devious plans to start future children on Heinlein as early as possible. If nothing else it might motivate them to learn their math.
=== And I already have devious plans to start future children on Heinlein as early as possible. If nothing else it might motivate them to learn their math.
lol ... My sister is also one of the sneakiest chess players ever come down the pike as well. Oh, she plays with their heads. (But they get even ... very bright, witty children with hearts of gold and brains like sponges.)
I shall keep you in my prayers, Miss JenB. You sound like you'd make a wonderful wife and mother.
Are you serious? That's how we got "hot dog" too?
I thought the blows to the solar plexus were over once I realized George H. Bush was our first ambassador to China, Israel wasn't a nation until the 40's and abortion was a GOP policy!
I'm never going to get an edge on my FR learning curve, am I? =)
Well - it's been 6.5 years...
I suspect Tolkien was fully aware of these issues. Our technology certainly has the potential to dominate us, rather than we using it.
Do it soon - I'm about to hit the rack (it sucks getting old).
Hi Jen! Hey, thanks for that suggestion. I have really found it subversively fun to share my young reading likes with my niece. All that part of the family is pretty sure I'm not a good influence on kids, but it's *so* delightful to turn this little gal onto some thinking girls books.
It's really been nice because this niece has had lots of troubles with some learning disabilities and the school has pretty much labeled her as somebody "not smart." She'd be a perfect candidate for home schooling but her parents are afraid to try. It did my heart lots of good to hear her so jazzed over Citizen of the Galaxy. You or Rose should have been there to hear her! She's grokked Heinlein. :-)
Let's see. If she likes that one - well, she has good taste! I recommend "Tunnel in the Sky", "The Rolling Stones" "Podkayne of Mars", "Double Star" (a good lead-up for Moon is a Harsh Mistress) and if you're being really subversive, "The Door into Summer".
Sigh. I was lucky to have a dad with good taste when I was 12 and star-struck. Sounds like your niece is lucky to have you around.
The ones I got her are: Starship Troopers, Rolling Stones, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Podkayne of Mars, The Star Beast and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (still debating on that one - might not give that one to her).
BUT, based on your recommendation - and because I trust you wouldn't choose something inappropriate - I just bid on Ender's Game on ebay. I wasn't going to spend anymore... but... :-) books is worth it! :-) She's getting much more from me than any other niece or nephew with just those. Somehow, I feel too much empathy for her to *not* let her be a favorite this year. :-)
Wait for a year on "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". It is a wonderful, wonderful book, but at her age she might get distracted by the weird marriages (clan, chain, line, and other polygamous structures) and the light sex. Read it for yourself, if you haven't, and decide when she'll be ready.
I would urge caution on "Starship Troopers" but... that one's only going to instill a rabid love of those who put their bodies between us civvies and danger, so what's the harm? And "The Star Beast" is great. It's still a favorite of mine... has some of the best characters. Lummox, and John Thomas Stuart the whateverth, Mr. Kiku and Beulah Murgatroyd and Piggy-Wiggy... "Have SpaceSuit" is good, it might just inspire her to start learning on her own (it did me!)... oh, you have good taste.
Ender's Game is recommended because one of the messages - if you're ignored, what you do is make them unable to ignore you by being the best there is - is so true for a troubled kid. And she'll never, ever wonder if there's an "up" in space. "The enemy's gate is down".
I tend to agree. He was pretty much gone into the esoteric by the early seventies. But from 58 until 71 or so he was a machine - Troopers, Stranger, Moon (my favorite) Glory Road, even Farnham's though I know not everyone likes that one.
I like pretty much all his shorts though, and his early novels were fun if a bit superficial at times (Double Star, Puppet Masters, Sixth Column, Tunnel in the Sky, etc.) I've read most all of them just because I like his style.
It saddens me that a man who could write such razor crisp shorts as "All You Zombies..." and "...He Built a Crooked House" could lapse into writing something like Number of the Beast.
The animated series is seriously underrated. I long for the day when Cartoon Network is wiling to risk something like that in their "Adult Swim" block. It should have gotten far more respect than it did.
As for Niven, Well, with Poutnelle he rocked. Lucifer's Hammer is still my all time favorite SF novel. But alone? Well, after years of hearing how it was a classic, I came across a used copy of Ringworld and was...underwhelmed. It was a nice enough read, but I didn't pick up on the characters nearly as well as I do with Heinlien. Card, though, I have enjoyed- what little I've read of his work (so much to read, so little time!!)
Actually, it was seeing a 4 year old Heinlein thread turn up during my Googling that gave me this idea...
That might explain why he did reign in some on his last few novels (though Job was still "out there" at least it wasn't massive). Still though, I don't remeber hardly anything about "Friday" or "The Cat who Walks Through Walls" yet I can describe the whole plot of "Moon" and "Glory road" and ST and "Stranger" so even if he was more coherent, I don't think he was writing as well.
If he had stopped writing fiction in 1970 we wouldn't have lost anything significant except perhaps "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long"
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