I treat my son like the man he will be someday. I make allowance for his brain development phases and I extend great patience as he learns, but I never treat him “like a kid.” Parents who coddle children until their teens and then say “Okay, time to learn how to live” are cruel.
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Replying to @TheBrometheus
What do you do to keep their innocence, or do you not?
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Replying to @tannerguzy
Can you elaborate on this question? There’s a number of ways to interpret it.
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Replying to @TheBrometheus
I’m of the opinion that kids should be kept innocent for as long as they can be, and then transitioned into adulthood as quickly as they can be - basically shorten adolescence on both sides. Treating my son too much like a man now seems like it would extend it instead.
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Replying to @tannerguzy
This sounds like the modern concept of childhood that got invented around John Locke’s time and quickly poisoned the maturation process. There’s an element of gentleness there to be sure, but this idea of emotionally separate stages and maintained innocence is new to our species.
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Replying to @TheBrometheus
Do you open it all up. Do you talk to him about sex and death and money at 3?
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Replying to @tannerguzy
Death and money, yes. He’s asked us about death. He’s learning about money. Sex, not much unless he asks and then only what he can handle. We look at comprehension ability and emotional security so he’s not scared by too much, but it’s not about maintaining an innocence.
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Replying to @TheBrometheus
Is maintaining innocence a worthwhile goal at all or is it something that should be removed?
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Replying to @tannerguzy
Depends what one means by innocence. Youthful naïveté isn’t something I believe will serve him in life, and the sooner he learns the truth of how the world works the more time he’ll have to process it and put it into effect. But I don’t unload on him so fast he becomes insecure.
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Replying to @TheBrometheus @tannerguzy
I also don’t bludgeon him down with bleak misery so that he can’t play with his toys because he’s busy plotting his financial growth. But he knows he’s going to grow up and work to help me provide for our family, and that his lessons are to make him a better man to fight dangers.
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He knows there are dangers around us. He knows his father works to protect him and provide for him, and that as a man he will be called on to do the same. He is learning some of these basic paths already. But he does so knowing he’s love and sheltered so he has time to learn.
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