It’s About Making Babies!

The old “Kung Fu” TV show was perhaps the best non-denominational exposition on ethics that I can recall in the mass media.

Several of the wisdoms imparted to Kung Fu student Kwai Chang Cain still seem true today. One was “From frugality comes generosity.”

Say no. Often.

What brought this one to mind was the insight Seth Godin shares, about saying “No”. Frequently.

A business strategy

Seth is a Marketing guru. He is popular, his books widely read, and his common sense applies to business – and everyday life. Seth doesn’t game the system, he understands it, he works it – and takes a path that avoids the pitfalls and traps of get-rich-quick schemes.

Sound ethics

Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.

I have worked projects that the company won – that I felt we should have passed by. A project should bring revenue to the company. It should also increase experience and skill levels of those involved, it should conform to quality standards that the company expects from all, and should be respectful of resources – no wasted effort, no promises to meet ill-conceived schedules, no demands for overtime when the effort was ill-conceived. Saying “no” might have let the project be redefined in a way that saved the customer money and time, improved functionality of the product, and rewarded those working with success and respect, as well as financial reward.

Frugality

Frugal means to be economical in the use of anything, sparing. You save up your food, your money, your time, your possessions.

And thus you have the assets to use, when generosity, giving freely, is appropriate.

Parenting

Any parent must realize, that teaching a child to ask for things does not mean granting all – or even most – requests. Not only do you waste family resources, you harm the child with unfair expectations, you warp his sense of the value of things, and you hamper his development of ethics, fairness, and balance. Plus, you create a self-centered bully.

Mating.

But what about your mate? When dating – should anyone agree to every request? Certainly not. Should you even ask for everything? Not if you don’t want to come across like a self-centered bully.

What about later, as a handfasted or married, or othewise life-mated couple or family?

Family life is very much about responsibility. We fall into patterns, this one makes breakfast, that one does laundry on Sunday night. This ad hoc sharing becomes expected – a responsibility. The tasks and gestures, the participation and activities become expected, and the one taking the lead on that task or activity becomes responsible for managing any changes. There is little room here for “no”.

Except.

Nagging – attempting to coerce a partner to do something or agree to something, using repeated requests, reminders, and annoyance. This is disrespectful, and is, in Seth’s terminology, a “loud voice”. Nagging is disrespectful, if one isn’t a parent, and is ineffective as a tool for teaching or training even then.

Seldom, but at times, then, “no” should always be an acceptable answer between mates.

Just a persona note – I consider all fund raisers to be “loud voices.” Most fund raisers are even less efficient than the US Government, for “hand us money, so we can help someone.” If they really wanted to help, let them produce something salable for fair value.

OK – I adore Sharon Astyk. Her writing ranges from pro-peak oil concerns to gardening, to surviving a decline in availability of energy. And she writes very well. Wonder of wonders, she is often longer winded than I am.

Today she wrote about This Place We Know on Casaubon’s Book. How a visiting toddler knew farm animal sounds better than some of the words in his vocabulary.

Sharon posits that farms, and the relationship of man to domestic animal, is inherent in childhood. She uses the experiences of her kids to explain the universal recognition and bonding of child to farm.

Poppycock.

The issue here is storytelling.

The idealised farm often portrayed in infant and toddler books often touches on simplified, old-reliable stories. The fireman, the policeman, the farmer. These stories have inspired children, for months to years, sometimes for a lifetime, to take these stories to heart.

Many authors recognize that a cow can be described in a story easily. Few people spend the time to study how a cow (bull, steer, calf, oxen, etc.) behave, so the storyteller is free to project and simplify. Dogs are more familiar, so the storytelling is more encumbered, and fewer easy stories about dogs, cats, etc. are around.

Reading to the child.

Picture: Mom reads to child. “The cow eats grass. See the cow inside the fence? The cow says ‘Moo’.” And goes on. Now consider what the child hears and observes. Mom identified a simple object – a cow. Everything Mom says and does is important, so the cow must be important, too, right up there with spoon and breakfast and diapers. The cow makes a noise – Moo. Mom makes a game of the noise, one that the child is invited to play. Game equals reinforcement. The time Mom spends on this page, with this picture, and this sound game is greater than many other things that Mom considers important – so the cow, too, and the Moo sound, must be important – and the toddler masters the Moo game and recognizes the cow, to please Mom.

How many important lessons do you know, that can be told that simply? It is no wonder the child picks up on the Moo sound, and the cow. And it has nothing to do with how child-appropriate a farm might be (a farm is highly desirable and highly child appropriate, I agree with Sharon on that). It is all about storytelling.

The simple children’s stories about police and firemen focus on the uniform, the siren, and rushing to help – no explanation of how the fire started, or how someone became the crook the police protects everyone from – or the people harmed in turning the crook into an outlaw. Really simple stories.

Two generations from now.

Will the generation after the next one tell stories that Mr. Greenjeans might have told on Captain Kangaroo? (Yes, I do remember the Grandfather Clock, Bunny Rabbit, and jingling the keys to the clubhouse.) Will infant and toddler literature be updated past the 1930′s farm technology? Time will tell. I expect that storytellers of the time will use history to identify simplest objects and concepts, and historical literature for examples of the simplest stories and games.

Who knows? We might start teaching our children lullabies and children’s songs, so they will have them for their children. It could happen!