Time for a clarification: B2 and I are not married. We came very close early in our relationship, and in a fit of total madness, B2 almost had surgery to reconnect her female plumbing so we could have more kids. But the hurdles of blending two very different families took precedence and we were quickly overwhelmed by the stress of juggling five teenagers. Last year we compromised and got a dog.
So strictly speaking, JayToo, Tenacious, and Perfecto are not officially my “step-children”. But at an emotional level, they are very much my kids. I never wiped their fannies or got up at two in the morning to give them a bottle, but they will forever be on my short list of blessings that came directly from God. B2 and I may not be getting along, but she has done a yeoman’s job in raising three wonderful children.
Virtually all of my immediate family are liberals. B2 comes from an old Irish Democrat family whose uncle and great uncle held national cabinet posts in past administrations. Before her first marriage, B2 had a long relationship with one of the most powerful men currently in Washington D.C.
Her kids are either apolitical (Tenacious), or have aligned themselves closely with their mother (JayToo and Perfecto). Everyday we get the Boston Globe, and once a week we get the New Yorker and the Sunday New York Times. B2 pays for this expensive propaganda. I happily take it to the dump.
While predictable in their leanings, JayToo and Perfecto are serious and smart young adults who work hard in trying to understand and rationalize the world. JayToo is like her mother, politically correct to a fault. Her greatest strength and weakness is her inherent trust and faith in humanity. It is a deeply endearing quality but one that will need to be tempered by a colder look at some of the less pleasant aspects of today’s human condition. She is a pet project of mine and I’ve started to challenge her assumptions.
A week ago, just after coming back from college she was parked in front of the television watching Al Gore pontificate while I was getting a beer from the fridge. I opined with some disparaging remark, and we were off to the races, fighting tooth and nail about global warming. When I challenged the relationship between CO2 and warming, arguing that there is very good evidence that the causality is just the opposite of what Gore would want you to believe (i.e. that the differences in temperature in the sun drives differences in CO2), she resorted to one of her mother's favorite tactics of denial.
"I've never heard of that."
Well that's what happens when your primary news source is the Boston Globe.
Perfecto has a slight libertarian streak in him and has a keen interest and passion for history. His natural interest in the world and his keen intellect make for a potent combination. (I’ve nicknamed him Perfecto because of his academic achievement. He was a straight-A student in high school and scored perfect SATs.) What I love about talking to him is his studious, non-emotional, and detached manner of analyzing things. He is a natural academic who is always open to hearing diverse opinions. The last time I talked to him about Mark Steyn's thesis on the fate of Europe in the twenty first century. Originally he balked at the notion, but after thinking it through conceded that Steyn had a point.
My eldest daughter, JayWon, is a certified, card-carrying moonbat who argues that George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden eat dinner together in the basement of the White House. Her political disorientation is probably the by-product of a lethal stew of nature and nurture.
JayWon has never had an interest in history, and has always been impatient when it comes to thinking through and untangling complex problems. She gravitates towards simple answers. She has also been indoctrinated into the political climate of Howard University. Howard is the largest black university in the world and is overtly hostile to anything remotely approaching conservative opinion. She is fun to engage in political discussions, simply because her opinion is so wacko and patently unserious.
Adie, like Perfecto, is passionate about history. Unlike Perfecto she hasn’t spent enough time hitting the books and has a way long way to go before achieving a sustained level of academic discipline.
She was a terrible slacker in high school, a side effect of an ongoing battle with depression, but she is turning around and is making up for lost time. Adie is the most interesting child, in the sense that she always surprises me with the depth of her insight into human nature. She studied the Greek and Roman history and is already starting to challenge and question what she is hearing from MSM and her professors.
She got into a heated discussion a few weeks ago just before coming home from school. She was arguing that Bill Clinton will be rated in history as being an average president. Of course, virtually everyone else thought that his visage should be carved into Mount Rushmore. Adie dug in her heels and held her ground.
When all is said and done and she blossoms into her own, I think she is going to continually surprise people.