Teach your children to think, and then let them

When I first heard that people had their panties in a bunch over President Obama addressing schoolchildren, I laughed.  I dismissed it as just the latest in a long list of issues conservatives have decided to go crazy over.  Whatever the president does, they have a problem with it - why should a video encouraging children to study hard and stay in school be any different?

But after reading more about it, I stopped laughing and got mad.  Taxpayer money being spent indoctrinating children.  It's my job to teach my kids values, not the government.  School is no place for controversial issues.  That's what's being put out as reasons not to "force" schoolchildren to watch the speech (since it's merely being made available to schools, along with a supporting lesson plan, I guess it's the same as forcing kids to learn algebra or spelling).  But I've heard all of this before.  The same things have been said about sex education, religion, homosexuality, and other hot-button issues.

I would love for my kids to grow up with the same values I have, but not because I've shielded them from every other option.  Exposing them to other ideas helps them learn how to think for themselves, how to define their own values.  I really feel sorry for people who show up at protests these days knowing only how to regurgitate what someone has told them without being able to think it through themselves, look at things critically, and form an opinion.  Those people are putty in the hands of attention-seekers in need of a dumb army of parrots.

A few weeks ago I was watching MSNBC and Ron Reagan was asked why people were bringing guns to debates and protests about health care.  He said, "The future is coming, and many people are scared of the future."  Nothing brings about fear more than ignorance.  There are a lot of people out there who never learned how to think, how to analyze, how to listen and process and call bullshit.  People who were only taught that there's one way, one set of values, and anybody who thinks different than you is wrong.  And they're scared.  They're so scared that they don't even want their children to hear a stay-in-school pep talk from their president.  It's sad.  They fear losing their children to ideas, but they're making that a self-fulfilling prophecy by not teaching them how to think for themselves.

Expose your kids to people and ideas you don't agree with.  Use it as an opportunity to talk to them and see how they feel.  I'm an atheist, and I'm not thrilled when my kids come home from their public school talking about God and prayer.  But it's what their classmates are talking about on the playground, and keeping them in a bubble would just keep them ignorant.  So we talk, and we debate, and they think about things that they might not have thought about.  And I get a chance to try to convince my kids that I'm right, and they get a chance to weigh everything and form an opinion.  And that's a skill that's going to serve them well for the rest of their lives.  

So, back to the president's speech to schoolchildren.  There's a movement afoot to keep kids home from school today, so that they won't be faced with listening to their president talk to them about how important education is.  Let's say you're a conservative.  Let's say that you disagree with everything President Obama says and does.  What do you think is going to happen if your child listens to the speech?  Are you afraid that your child might learn something from someone other than you?  That's how it should be.  If you're secure in yourself, and in your own intelligence and beliefs, and in how you've raised your child, then you have nothing to fear.

This is an original post to NYC Moms Blog. Amy also edits the NYC section of Famplosion, blogs about parenting in Brooklyn while keeping herself sane and comfortable at Selfish Mom, and attempts to keep one step ahead of the stalkers and paparazzi at Filming in Brooklyn and Examiner.com.