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Copernicus's avatar

We were discussing with our young person the strange phenomenon of one of the neighbor kids who seems capable only of playing video games or watching YouTube. If this kid can’t do those here at our house (say, our young person has used their screen time for the day), the kid leaves. We have plenty of other alternative entertainment.

Our young person remarked that they don’t think that kid’s family has any books in their house. Now, I would imagine they have *some,* *somewhere,* because owning absolutely none just is so unfathomable to me.

However, our young person has never seen any.

Meanwhile we have so many books that we need to buy several more large bookshelves. We probably could pass for an underfunded small town library with all of the books we own. 😆

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Based Florida Man's avatar

Parents got us a Britannica Encyclopedia set (in the 70's).

I read the whole set! Over the course of a year.

But these days books are old fashioned I guess.

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Amy's avatar

Me too! Childcraft, too.

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Jay Horton's avatar

My Sister told me last week that she still has the set my Dad bought us back in like 71 or 72. I could not believe that she has been keeping those all this time.

Later Jay

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Copernicus's avatar

Oh, man, if I could pick up a used encyclopedia set somewhere cheap…. Of course then we need a shelf for it. I’m serious. We have bankers boxes of books, and it’s even worse now that we homeschool, lol. I have the boxes labeled by historical era, or by which field of science they contain….

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CMCM's avatar

My parents got a set of World Book Encyclopedia in the 1950's while we were living in England, where my Air Force dad was stationed. My entertainment was to choose a volume and start reading it. I would choose a different one each day. I loved it, and learned so much from just that particular reading activity. I'm sure I read everything in all the volumes!

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JSR's avatar

I have a book buying problem lol

I tell my family that someday there may not be libraries so I will be ready

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CMCM's avatar

😆 My husband says my book habit is out of control. I'm always trying to figure out where to stash all my books. My many bookshelves are full.

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Emumundo's avatar

Books are important. Ebooks can just disappear at the whim of Amazon. I had a book disappear once when Amazon banned it and even scrubbed it from peoples libraries. Buy books. You’ll always have that knowledge.

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LamedVav disavows all vaxes.'s avatar

Books are better than gold.

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Lynn Faulkner's avatar

That's my excuse too.

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BBS's avatar

Just curious. Why do you say "young person" instead of son, daughter, niece, nephew, 17 year old neighbor etc.

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Copernicus's avatar

Someone somewhere suggested it as a term of respect, referencing the personhood of the son, daughter, etc. As an alternative to “child.” That’s all.

I have no problem with the other terms, although in this public forum I preserve as much anonymity as possible and so do not refer to our son/daughter with gendered terms, no to myself or my spouse with gendered terms. I assume you all can understand that. Given the age of our child, who is growing out of childhood, I sometimes refer to them as a young person. That’s all. Nothing complicated about it.

Same reason for not identifying the sex or age of the neighbor. Protect and respect privacy and anonymity.

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My Favorite Things's avatar

I just asked the same question before reading your post. It’s bizarre liberal speak.

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Copernicus's avatar

How is it liberal speak? Genuinely curious.

I don’t even use it all the time.

Someone somewhere suggested it as a term of respect, referencing the personhood of the son, daughter, etc. As an alternative to “child.” That’s all.

I have no problem with the other terms, although in this public forum I preserve as much anonymity as possible and so do not refer to our son/daughter with gendered terms, no to myself or my spouse with gendered terms. I assume you all can understand that. Given the age of our child, who is growing out of childhood, I sometimes refer to them as a young person. That’s all. Nothing complicated about it.

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MayBella82's avatar

I agree that is liberal speak.... it reminds me of preferred pronouns. I personally thinks it de-values the person you are talking about. It also distracts from what you are trying to say... because it sounds so weird.

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My Favorite Things's avatar

Paranoid much? It’s liberal speak. You could have said son, daughter, niece, nephew, cousin etc. and not given your identity away. A few years ago, that’s what you would have said son or daughter.

Now I know you have at least one child. So what? Millions of people have children. I have two children. Please tell me who I am with only that information.

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CMCM's avatar

When my daughter was 5 in 1975, I remember going to a used book store and getting her an armload of books to read (she already liked to read at 5!). When I was paying for the books, the woman who was doing the transaction commented how rare it was for moms to come in to buy books for their children. She said women usually bought romance novels, but rarely a book for the children who were there with them. I grew up without TV, and when our kids were young we didn't have one either. By choice. We were all voracious readers, which has continued to this day with not only me, but also my three siblings.

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Copernicus's avatar

Most of the books I buy are for our kiddo. Not for myself. 😆

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Roman S Shapoval's avatar

Thanks for sharing that Copernicus. Hey, you never know! You just may have to bail us all out and become that library when no one knows anything anymore.

Ever see the movie The Book of Eli?

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My Favorite Things's avatar

Is your “young person” gender neutral? Why can’t you say son or daughter? Asking for a friend.

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Copernicus's avatar

It’s called protecting their privacy and our family’s anonymity.

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Anecdotal Anonymous's avatar

Worked out of the country for quite a while, all involved spoke very general about home relationships. Until you understand targeting and the way it works, allow the unenlightened to live the binary dream. The best security practices are the ones you use, not the ones that are odd to others...speaking for a friend.

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