Affluence and conformity

It’s an interesting debate, the one where you explain to your ten year old daughter that it’s in her best interests to be told what to do by her dad.

As opposed to her just doing what the hell she likes.

‘It makes no sense’ she says.

‘What, not to just eat sugar, watch tele, and sleep all day?’

I ask her if she would go to school if not forced to by her parents and the system.

She answers, ‘Of course not’.

‘There you see, if I let you do what you just wanted to then you would end up fat, lazy, uneducated and with no teeth. Later on you would struggle to get a job that pays well and then you wouldn’t have any money to do all the things you will want to do.’

I sense a slight hesitation in her surety.

And yet I hate resorting to arguments of conformity and affluence.

But it’s all she really cares about at this stage.

The whole point of an education is to learn that that conformity and affluence are false gods. But that takes a bloody good education, that does.