So I spent the last 5 days with a very sore back, feeling sorry for myself and contemplating the world and my place in it. Got to spend some quality time with my family and I feel like I learned a few things that I thought I would share.
Rhinos Have Weird Feet
A fact shared with me by my youngest son. He was sketching out the following picture of a lovely Rhino.
I asked him why he was drawing it and he said that he had been learning about Rhinos. He said that instead of going to the religious education classes (which we have chosen for him to not participate in, which I am still amazed that you have to do in a state school in Queensland) he was learning all about Rhinos, and he thought it was funny that they have weird feet. We got onto google images and it turns out they really do have weird feet! I guess there is a lot of stress to deal with and evolution has found a way.
So two things crossed my mind in this exchange (1) I feel like maybe he learned something real and (2) the world is strange and beautiful if you just have a look and these days it feels like I never have time to look. So I didn’t feel too bad about him missing out on RE, even though most kids go along and he feels a little left out (even though he doesn’t want to go, I’m completely happy for him to go along if he wants to).
Why Don’t You Teach Them How to Kiss?
So I have been a little obsessed about the economy, money, employment, the environment and human dignity. In particular, how can you balance the requirements of all with minimal intervention? This was the starting point of my last post, I’m sure I will write some more about this as my ideas crystallize. So I ended up in a discussion about the nature of work with my family, and how it seems like we (as a society) have ended up in a situation where it is almost necessary for both partners to work if they have kids and how I thought this was unfair. I feel like the fundamental dynamics of the economy are such that any free cash that would be liberated by the increased income just gets absorbed by a corresponding increase in the cost of living (maybe I can make a pretend model to show this is plausible…).
The demands of work and family are high, and I feel like you should be able to ease the pressure off if you can, but it doesn’t always feel like this is an option in today’s world. So I explained all these thoughts as best I could and my kids heads just exploded. They couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t just want more money. So I tried my best to come up with a metaphor.
“So imagine if we had 4 pet turtles.” I said. “Now we are completely happy with these turtles and then Mum goes out to the pet shop and gets 4 more turtles. So this is what it is like if you have enough money to get by with one job, you don’t really need two jobs because you were happy with what you had already. You were happy with 4 turtles and they were enough, what are you going to do with 8 turtles that you couldn’t do with 4?”
To which my son replied “You could teach them how to kiss!” I think I failed in my metaphor somewhere…
Maybe I’m just wrong. There is still the strongest sense in me that somewhere along the way we fell into a trap of our own creation. We made a machine that feeds itself and it got too big and out of control. Maybe it is just a symptom of being in my late 30’s and clinging on to the idealism of my youth. Ah well.