Posts Tagged ‘fatherhood’

Thursday Thinkers: Write a Letter to Your Kid

Thursdays. Interactive parenting tools for budding critical thinkers?

I don’t give out much as much advice on this blog as I do opinion. Occasionally, however, I like to stick my nose out and suggest something for all the dads out there. Today is just such a day. If you read this blog because you want to discuss ideas for being a better parent then may I suggest you pull out some paper, fire up the computer, or pull out an audio recorder and write a letter for you kid. Don’t know where to start? Here’s some pointers from my own experiences.

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Full text from October 2, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Critical Thought Toolkit, Skeptical Mindsets

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Monday Meta: Literary Skepdad

A little more than a year ago when I started this blog there was such a clear purpose in my mind: fill the apparent gap in rational insight into being a dad that wasn’t awash with the stereotypical stuff. I mean, I looked around for all sorts of “fatherhood” information, a new baby on the way and all, and what I found was drenched in some kind of sports metaphor, psuedo-science drivel, end-of-life reconciliation with dear-old-pop stories, or pure religious holier-than-thou-isms. (Like you need to be a Christian to be a good father!) It wasn’t the point to just write about “skepticism and parenting.” But when I started piecing together the bits and pieces of what I thought I could meaningfully contribute the legacy of paternal experiences, I started thinking of — honestly — the father in the movie Contact. You know the one — Jodi Foster, SETI, message from Vega, based on a book by Carl Sagan — and you may or may not remember dear old dad, but he was the kind of soft spoken, knew the right answers to science-type-questions, let you tinker with ham radios kind of dad that every well-meaning science geek tells himself he’s going to be for his daughter.

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Full text from September 8, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Encounters of the Mind, Meta-Skepdad

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New Perspectives on Fatherhood

The Girl is approaching the ripe old age of one, and I’m finding that my perspectives on this whole skeptical parenting thing are become less abstract by the day. Call it what you will — early confusion, naive over-extension — but my views on what it means to be a father, particularly a father attempting to raise a critically thinking kid, have evolved and refined since a little more than a year ago (on the very verge of fatherhood) when I set out to build this blog.

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Full text from September 5, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: The Three Eyes, Thinking Back

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I just wanna be…

… the dad who can lay back on the summer grass with his starry-eyed kid and not just answer her questions about the planets, galaxies, and random mysteries of quantum physics, but who can also inspire an persistent and probing curiosity about the universe in a young mind.

… the dad who knows why bugs have six legs and spiders have eight, and encourages his kids to come home with a jar full of crawlies so he can explain the local ecosystem and why we need to set the bugs free when we’re done.

… the dad who can build a mean snow fort.

… the dad who doesn’t buy his kids ’stuff’ to make-up, replace, or apologize for anything, but rather comes home with a sheath of paper and a rainbow of coloured pencils to spend a Saturday afternoon side-by-side laying on the living room floor tracing random shapes and abstract arts onto a hundred sheets of paper.

… the dad who avoids the easy-route of plugging in a head-rest DVD, and instead sings ridiculous songs in the car, negotiates the countryside with observational narratives, and carves away hours with dozens of meandering games that point out the colour of the passing vehicles or silly words extracted from the letters of license plates.

… the dad who knows the lyrics to all the crazy kid’s songs.

… the dad who can invent elaborate and entertaining fictions from the lives of his kids, mixing, blending, and extrapolating elements of their personalities and realities into playful narratives to be enjoyed under the safety of their blankets and explored as they drift off to sleep.

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Full text from February 5, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Skepdad thoughts

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