Settling into a wide curved booth, my oldest boy noticed a woman in very high heels at a table across the way. He asked my wife why women did that, how it could possibly be comfortable and if it had a permanent negative impact on their bodies.
As we are wont to do in our family, this led to a series of tangential discussions to include foot binding, head binding and the potential for genetic mutations from environmental and human induced pressures. The kid is smart and he thinks deeply, never ceasing to impress us with his comprehension. We indulge that whenever possible.
At one point he brought up Lucy in regard to a sidebar involving evolution, and I took the opportunity to remind him that as he grows up he is likely to encounter folks who will tell him it's impossible for there to be a human ancestral skeleton that old, because the Earth has only been around for about 5000 years and thus, the record is wrong.
As a public school student here in Texas, he is often up against other students who are being raised with these beliefs and he finds that frustrating. "I don't understand how or why anyone would think it was ok to push their beliefs on anyone else" was his exact statement today as we arrived at the issue of creationism in the classroom. "All they need to know they can find in Amendment I of the Constitution, and if they need more than that they should read and learn to understand the Declaration of Independence."
As my wife and I looked at one another in surprise amusement, the boy began to recite the Preamble, from memory, right there in the middle of the restaurant.
If Texas State Senator Dan Patrick had his way that kind of thinking would be officially unwelcome in Texas public schools.
Join me over the fancy longhorns for more.