General discussion - Mom and Dad Esq.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
If he/she/it is that smart, I'd aim higher. At that age level, go for adult popular press level for whatever the topic is. No idea for creative writing, but I'd look for the writing equivalent of Scientific American or the Economist, not Seventeen (or for that matter, Nature or the Harvard Journal of Foreign Policy).

Playboy has good articles, but the younger kids like Club.

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by Sparklehorse
I'm making the query for someone else but I inferred that the interest was in finding something like Granta or the New Yorker that publishes pieces by younger writers. I believe that is more or less Stone Soup's niche but the audience is the 8-13 age group.

your question sent me to McSweeney's for a laugh or two (I have to be reminded from time to time to check it out, and "literary magazine" is the perfect cue), which resulted in a post with a Michael Ian Black piece on the FB, which resulted in Ty learing more about his sister's sex life than he might have wanted to know. So Ty either says "thanks" or "fuck off." I'm not sure which.

[pony_trekker]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Playboy has good articles, but the younger kids like Club.

Nah, just go right to the top:

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
your question sent me to McSweeney's for a laugh or two (I have to be reminded from time to time to check it out, and "literary magazine" is the perfect cue), which resulted in a post with a Michael Ian Black piece on the FB, which resulted in Ty learing more about his sister's sex life than he might have wanted to know. So Ty either says "thanks" or "fuck off." I'm not sure which.

I'm trying to picture my sister now, but I keep seeing Chuck Norris instead. So, um, thanks.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm trying to picture my sister now, but I keep seeing Chuck Norris instead. So, um, thanks.

What context is this in? Because if it's the one I'm thinking of, for you Chuck Norris is slightly less icky. And I hate Chuck Norris. Walker Texas Crap worst show ever.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm trying to picture my sister now, but I keep seeing Chuck Norris instead. So, um, thanks.

I know a guy who has pix, if you want to see 'em for a refresher.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by pony_trekker
Probably the wrong board. What level of religious involvement does a Catholic High School have? Let's say one's child was born Catholic but never formally baptised or confirmed because of religious indiference. Would a Catholic high school (which the kid wants to attend for other reasons -- athletics -- be inappropriate?

It will surprise no one that I have extensive thoughts on the subject. For reasons that are outable, I have a bit of experience on this subject, too. PM me if you care to hear any background for caveat purposes.

Anyone who says "it varies" is right. With regard to religious tolerance, a Jesuit high school is about a 9 (on a scale of 1 to 10) and an Opus Dei school would be a zero. So the threshold question is not whether your kid will be made to be a Catholic, but whether you want to send your kid to a school that has the temerity to believe that values can and should be taught by people in addition to parents, and then to decide whether the overall values that the school seeks to inculcate are consistent with (note: not necessarily the same as) your own. If you're constantly going to be pissed off that your kid's education will have at least a moral, if not explicitly religious, component at its core, stay away. Even the most hippy-dippy religiously tolerant HS will make value statements like "become the evidence of Christ in the world" and other shit that spooks the atheists.

High school is a time when kids seek out things that piss off their parents; can you live with the possibility that your kid asks to get baptized or confirmed or go on voluntary religious retreats when you think God is total bullshit? Are you prepared to send your kid to a school where, if he gets caught with drugs, he can and probably will get expelled without much handwringing by the school's administration? Will you entrust your kid into a value system that will not rigidly track your own personal priorities, for the sake that your kid will come out the other end with a sense of coherence and shared community values, even if these are not entirely your own?*

All the things that make Catholic education attractive to some parents make it anathema to others, including the thought that kids will be taught that their parents aren't necessarily the final authority here on Earth, much less in the afterlife (if any).

I attended Catholic school K-12, BTW. I am not presently a practicing Catholic, but I attend church with my family in another denomination. My school was infamously liberal, so YMMV.

*The idea that one's adolescence is a time for rebellion against everthing is kinda a crock of shit. It's a time for rebellion against your parents; teens are actually the world's most skillful followers. The benefit of religious education of any creed is the sneaky way in which it capitalizes on the "I'm a vulnerable sheep who does what the cool kids do" stage of adolescence by making it possible for your kid to latch on to a kind of Groupthink that is (in most people's view, at least) essentially harmless, or at least far less harmful than what might be available in an unregulated marketplace of ideas. Bad example of this would be a Pakistani madrassa; good example of this is Notre Dame football. Either way, the effects are pretty permanent, like imprinting baby ducks.

[tmdiva]

We're (obviously) not Catholic, but my husband went to Catholic school grades 7-12. It was a boys' school in Washington DC run by Benedictine monks, and he had a graduating class of 22. They did have some mandatory religious education/observance, but since he was already involved in another church with his family, it didn't affect him much in terms of religious belief. The one thing it may have affected, temporarily, in a couple of instances was thinking on severity of sin. For example, both Mormons and Catholics think masturbation is not a good idea. However, for Catholics it's a mortal sin, and not quite so bad for Mormons (or at least most Mormons).

Anyway, in terms of class size, individual attention etc. it was apparently great. So I would look at the totality of the circumstances before deciding one way or another. We may end up sending Magnus to private school, depending on a number of factors, and we would consider the Catholic schools (except for the best one, which is only girls) as well as the Episcopal and the non-denominational.

tm

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by tmdiva
We may end up sending Magnus to private school, depending on a number of factors, and we would consider the Catholic schools (except for the best one, which is only girls) as well as the Episcopal and the non-denominational.

FWIW, the non-denominational high schools in our area are $22K+. The most expensive Catholic school is $18K, but two of the best ones are more like $9K. In other words, apparently it was a good idea to make all your money in the 15th century, before the income tax. I wish my family had had the same foresight.

[viet_mom]

I guess I should chime in here. I went to Catholic grammar school, an all-girls Catholic High School, I started at a Catholic college and then went to a Catholic law school. My favorite part of the "Catholic" portion of the schooling was the nuns. They really invested a lot of emotion and time into their students and being single without a family, they were always available to talk after school or just be there for you. Some people didn't bother with them, but I did and found many of these women were very interesting, tremendously educated and had travelled around the world.

In grammar school, I didn't feel that we had religion crammed down our throats. It was presumed you were Catholic so no proselytzing was necessary. The only awkward thing was the school allowed the local anti-abortion lady to come in and show that movie Silent Scream to us. But that was the only day we heard about abortion and nobody brought it up after or encouraged us to go on that yearly walk in DC. The day of the movie (I was in 7th grade), I went home and told my Mom that I was going to get involved in stopping the "killing of babies" and she sat me down to "tell me the other side of the story." Besides allowing the lady in that day, none of the Catholic schools I went to wanted to be involved in the Right to Life thing. They wanted to just run their school/churches.

In high school, we had mass at the school on holidays, some teachers were Nuns, etc. but it did not seem religious. Our theology class was where we learned about religions around the whole world, not Christianity. Two of the teachers at the school are Jewish and some students were non-Catholics. They were all embraced. I do not recall even one of my 65 fellow graduating students ever talking about God/Jesus or anything else. It was an atmosphere of discipline but we had the same interests of high school girls everywhere.

Just my experiences.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Groupthink that is (in most people's view, at least) essentially harmless, or at least far less harmful than what might be available in an unregulated marketplace of ideas. Bad example of this would be a Pakistani madrassa; good example of this is Notre Dame football.

I followed you up to this point. What's the difference between your two examples?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by tmdiva
The one thing it may have affected, temporarily, in a couple of instances was thinking on severity of sin. For example, both Mormons and Catholics think masturbation is not a good idea. However, for Catholics it's a mortal sin, and not quite so bad for Mormons (or at least most Mormons).

Got a cite on the mortal sin issue? I really thought it was regarded as a mere venial sin, but could be wrong.

{Just curious about whether I'm going to hell.)

S_A_M

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I followed you up to this point. What's the difference between your two examples?

I think that in the latter case, the "crush the heathens" mantra is simply metaphorical.


And, in recent years, relatively ineffective, at that.

[tmdiva]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Got a cite on the mortal sin issue? I really thought it was regarded as a mere venial sin, but could be wrong.

{Just curious about whether I'm going to hell.)

S_A_M

Sorry, no. And I could be wrong. I do think he thought he was going to hell for it, though.

tm

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Got a cite on the mortal sin issue? I really thought it was regarded as a mere venial sin, but could be wrong.

Huh. Mortal it is, according to this.