It has been quite the hiatus, and I’m not sure if it’s just me but it seems like in that period, the world has been careening to hell in a handbasket. Either the oceans are going to take us all, or we’ll fry in our own complacency, and THEN the oceans are going to take our charcoaled corpses.
Too Christmassy?
This state of cheery optimism might have to do with the fact that I have a newborn and therefore haven’t slept in a geological age. But, it might also have to do with the fact that world over, people seem to be comfortably adjusting to the idea that political power can be abused with impunity in a wide range of situations.
For example, hard political capital is being expended/earned in separating asylum seeking children from their families, and then caging said children in conditions that, if they existed in relation to eg hamsters in mall pet stores, there would be outrage and petitions.
Also, Nazis are back.
And Trump 2020 is a real thing.
Between this and the melting ice sheets, what should I be teaching my children? What kind of world should I be preparing them for?
Soft handed desk jockey skills such as those that I do have, like decent email management, seem pointless.
Should I be teaching them survival skills such as, I don’t know (because I don’t have any)…useful knots? Learning how to obtain clean water in a post apocalyptic scenario? Good navigational intelligence? How to hunt and gather and preserve food in the rubble of a destroyed urban environment? How to make and use a cross bow and spear both defensively and in attack?
I should at least be encouraging good upper body strength. Might be a little tough for a baby who still largely resembles a gathering of unbaked croissants. But that’s no excuse. Take a spoonful of cement baby and harden up. (Is this what people mean when they refer to tiger parenting?)
There’s a book in this. Or at least an instructional youtube video.
Microwave Minutes 