Teaching your children about the history of the United States � through reading and travel.

Is this something you've done or will do for your children? Did your parents do it for you? Mine did, a bit, with trips to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. I appreciate what they did, and I wish I'd done more. It's too late for me now to take any inspiration, but I was quite moved by a description I read yesterday of American History Parenting on a truly grand scale. I read it in in Robert A. Caro's "Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson)," but it's not something Lyndon Johnson did with his daughters. It's about Johnson's rival in the 1948 Senate election, Coke Stevenson. Stevenson had remarried (12 years after the death of his first wife) when he was 66, and a daughter was born 2 years later:
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"What are we doing when we teach fiction to kids?"

Asks Jaltcoh:

When we teach children fiction � reading it, writing it, understanding it, loving it � as important as those teachings are, I think they also have a negative side effect. By teaching fiction so often and beginning at such an early age, we condition children to expect the �just right� results to flow inexorably from the writing of those who are good and bright.

Before kids learn about economics or law, politics or psychology, they learn that we�re supposed to treasure writing not primarily based on how well it corresponds to reality, but primarily based on whether it makes us feel good. And I intend the double meaning of �good� as in both �contented� and �moral.�

This could explain why well-educated, intelligent people, all across the political spectrum, so often make the unspoken assumption that good intentions and well-crafted words are sufficient for making good public policy....