This is a follow-up to my Plakids post and Barry’s thoughtful reply.

Somewhere in between instilling one’s values and handing a child a semi-automatic weapon is taking them on protests and rallies… but then again some might say that a July 4th rally is no better or worse than an anti-war rally (both being unquestionably correct to the person taking them to the rally)… but I view them in entirely different contexts.

It’s an interesting question, philosophically, where instilling one’s values begins and indoctrination or even brainwashing begins. Most Christians will raise their children as Christian, which some might liken to what I’m complaining about above, though I don’t find anything wrong with that as long as it has appropriate restraints. I have little patience for those that would turn out their own kids for being gay, getting pregnant, etc. On the other hand, if one believes the Bible to be the literal Truth of God and take Leviticus to view homosexuality as a sin, then it’s hard to take a squishy ‘tolerant’ view of gays.

Similarly, I don’t have a problem with taking kids to an Independence Day Parade. How different is that from an anti-war protest? Both are intuitively true to their boosters. After all, who’s “pro-war” or “Anti-America”? The answer is a lot of people, of course, and a lot of people who attend the former will view it as attempted indoctrination later in life (particularly when in college).

In some ways I think parents are somewhat duty-bound to pass on their values to the next generation. Their kids may accept or reject these values later on, but I have difficulty putting my arms around the notion that values should be determined from a blank slate from one generation to the next. Just the practical implications are horrifying. In some ways, I think, generations have been too liberal in rejecting the wisdom of their elders. It seems to me that the curse of the baby boomers has been a reluctance to acknowledge that their parents were right about some things. At war with growing up to become their parents and therefore in many cases choosing not to grow up at all.

I guess it’s somewhat the difference between passing on values and passing on worldviews. Values, such as justice, freedom, or morality, can be applied in a number of ways. Values imply questions while worldviews suppose answers. Maybe that opens up a slippery-slope back to complete moral relativism, but just as I think it’s important for children to acknowledge the wisdom of their elders, it seems to me to be important as well for them to build upon it with new ideas.

An Independence Day parade represents, to me, a celebration. Not the proclamation that America is perfect, but a day to celebrate where we are. Some years that seems harder to do than others, but it seems more important when we have a President with approval ratings in Hooverville and an opposition that’s faring little better. War protests, on the other hand, often seem less to me about building peace than going after war (and the elements that have driven us to war). The same goes for an anti-abortion protest, seeming less about celebrating life than screaming and shouting.

In both cases, I guess, the stakes are high. Thousands or tens of thousands dying in war or millions dying by abortion. But in some ways that makes it even more important to me to leave the children out of it. They will have time later to attack the weightier issues of the world. They will, hopefully or unfortunately, pick their own battles to fight. It just seems wrong to enlist them in someone else’s.

Sometimes work is a constant search of things to listen to while you’re working. Simon has taken to the whole podcast craze. A while back he stumbled across TheChurchIsNOTTrue.com. It’s by two former members of The Brethren that have dedicated themselves to “exposing” The Church. In a testament to Simon’s intellectual honesty, he also listened to the pro-LDS Mormon Stories podcast. I actually listened to some of both as well and found it all interesting, though I’m obviously more ignorant of some of the backstory than is Simon, who was raised in The Church.

But one thing that caught my attention in the anti-LDS podcast was an episode with his daughter. He took issue with something his daughter was being taught in school about Deseret and LDS history and sent his daughter back to correct the error. I’m not going to get into what the disagreement was about, but it was a pretty minor affair. Even to the extent that he was right and the teacher wrong, it rubbed me the wrong way for him to drag his daughter in to it. He can say that the school is the one that dragged his daughter into it, and though he may be correct, it is unlikely that the lesson plan will change and if that’s his goal he should take it up with the school directly. Considering local culture, I would probably not even do that as it would likely change nothing except make my child’s life just a little more difficult as an outsider. Of course, it’s fears like that which would prevent me from raising a child in Deseret to begin with, so being that he is binded to the area I can appreciate his dilemma a little.

It reminded me a little bit of Michael Newdow, the atheist father who sued on behalf of his daughter (without the legal standing to do so) to get the pledge stripped from public schools. Honestly, I think the words “under god” ought not be in the pledge and to the extent they are, Newdow was probably technically correct. But point-of-fact he used his daughter to make a political point. It would be one thing if the daughter went home in tears and was already distraught, but that was not the case.

I feel the same way (except much more strongly) about involving kids in political events. I grouse at parents that have a little three year-old girl holding a placard supporting a position that they could not possibly understand or an eight year old who may understand it somewhat but is not aware that there is another point of view that may be equally supportable. There’s a reason that they’re not allowed to vote, because they’re not old enough to understand the issues. The children of most Republican parents will become Republicans. The same goes for Democrats. Fearly on you eye current events with the perspective you are raised to. This is true even when parents don’t talk politics. It’s not even a bad thing as it is important for parents to pass on their values to children. But the leap from “You should help your fellow man” or “You should earn what you get through work” and representing your own opinion as your child’s is not a small one – even (and especially) when they’re perfectly willing and happy to do so because they love their mommy and daddy.