Kirk blAug

There are far too few parenting books that address parenting from a secular point of view. So when I was asked to take a look at McKerracher's recent offering into the parenting book realm, I was immediately intrigued. There is a strong argument to be made that the secular values of knowledge, reason, logic, kindness, honesty, and love make for a great guide in raising tomorrow's youth. Compared with many religiously motivated guides of mostly authoritarianism and fear based parenting, McKerracher shows exactly why both religious and nonreligious parents can benefit by only presenting religion to children in an objective and unbiased manner leaving them to make their own decision about what they believe once they reach a developmental age at which they are capable of separating what is real and what is not. In one chapter, she tackles the myth that I often hear regurgitated by religious apologists that children are innately believers in a god. By pointing out the logical

Yesterday morning while at the park with the boys, Jupiter suggested that we play superheroes. Since he was wearing a Batman shirt, Jupiter wanted to be Batman. In keeping with the theme of the moment, Tsunami decided to be Robin. Jupiter then asked which hero I would choose to be. I told him that I wanted to be Alfred. "We are playing super heroes, dad!" Jupiter replied. I argued, "Alfred is essential to the hero that is Batman. In fact without Alfred, I do not think there could even be a Batman as you know and love." To be honest, I had never actually thought of Alfred in this way until the moment I made the argument. But I think it holds true. How many times has Alfred been there for Batman in ways that were essential to his task? I think plenty. Without Alfred, I do not think that millionaire, Bruce Wayne, could keep his identity a secret. Alfred has covered for him often. There have even been instances where Alfred has put on the bat suit in order make

Jupiter is currently building the Ecto 1 thanks to Grandma Ernie and Grandpa Pat. I am really loving these LEGO Ideas sets. I applaud LEGO for bringing community involvement to their retail products. I am sure it is no easy task as there must be licensing hoops to jump through as well as making sure the products meet a certain degree of structural integrity. The Back to the Future set was equally fun to build. One thing that I really like is that, aside from unique paint on some of the pieces, these all seem to be built from preexisting pieces. There are seemingly no new molds created because, for example, a certain Star Wars vessel has some particular need. Maybe one day we can submit one of our own creations to LEGO Ideas to be voted on as a potential product, but for now we have been more than satisfied with what the community has come up with. Now if only we had some of that Hi-C Ecto Cooler that I loved drinking in the late 80s, we could really get the nostalgia flowi