Grandpedant

So, Nini was over yesterday and while we were making Outrageous Oatmeal Cookies from Starbucks (cut the salt and cinnamon by half, okay?), we somehow got into a conversation about: economics. And I mean a serious conversation about goods and services and pricing and value and why monopolies are bad. We must have talked about this for fifteen minutes, waiting for the cookies to bake. And if I used lollipops and Littlest Pet Shops instead of guns and butter- she's eight.

In the last year or two, I've noticed in myself a tendency to teach almost all the time I spend with the babies, especiall with Ni, since she's older. Oh, it's not that we don't have fun, and giggle and act silly and tease each other- but I sneak ethics lessons into the doll house and onto the farm and include some sort of life-lesson- gardening, cooking, sewing, cleaning, handcrafting- into our time together. I know to stop when she gets bored- but it's there.

Now, it's not that Sis and Jas don't do this as well- they are excellent parents with good values. But I know I paid more attention to certain things my grandparents taught me, than my mom and dad. And we have the extra time to back them up, that they don't, trying to make a living and bring up three kids.
I think I look back at when our own kids were young, and think of all the things I wish I had known to emphasize, but just didn't, and want to fill in the gaps with the g-kids.

But most of all, I think my motivation comes from the urgency of these scary times- and the conviction that they will have to be so much stronger than I thought my own children would ever have to be to have a life of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.