Nohome:
Oh, I think I understand perfectly. It is my point that is being misunderstood. It has been my observation that many of the Catholics I saw going to Church were about as Catholic as me, but I was more honest about it.
Nohome
One thing I have taught my children is that honesty is not always the best policy.
For example, I was over 40 years old before I came to the realization that people don’t mean what they say – especially people in positions of authority – and that when they say, “we really want to hear what
you think” that’s not what they mean. I was one of those dumb enough I never got the message, and it did not serve me well.
Now I teach my children that most of the time when their teachers asks this question, it really means, “can you recite what I want to hear you say?” I tell them to know the truth, seek the truth, but don’t necessarily speak the truth because it can get you hurt very badly if you don’t know how these “code phrases” work.
It turns out that many people seem to think I was naive. I really was. For years, I took heat from teachers (mostly grade school nuns – after high school it was pretty much OK) and from bosses, from women, and from other people, because I tried to honestly go about answering their questions and discovering their truth. My first struggle with any authority figure was over an issue with math where the teacher clearly did not understand but I did, so I ended up in trouble. Only in the last couple years since my dad died have I learned that teacher admitted to them at parent-teacher conference, through tears, that she found me to be a difficult student – and that no, she really didn’t know the right answer.
It is my belief that most children are not nearly as naive as I was, and by the time they get to high school the vast majority of them are experts at acting cooperative and keeping their opinions to themselves – or to the Internet nowadays!
Alan
