Skeptical Parenting: Raising Young Critical Thinkers

There comes a moment in every parent’s life when your child asks you
the question you most feared hearing from your dear one’s lips.

“Mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Where did people come from?”

“You mean babies? Well, um, first the man takes his penis and . . .”

“No, no, I mean the very first people. Where did the first people on Earth come from?”

I was dumbfounded. What could I say? I knew this moment was coming
and yet was completely unprepared. I would be more than happy to
discuss sex with him, but evolution? How could I explain evolution to
my three-year-old when I myself was fuzzy on the process? I was, after
all, the product of the South Carolina public education system.

And that is when I said the worst possible thing any parent can say
to a child asking about this controversial subject. No, I did not tell
him that we came from God or that we were planted here millennia ago as
an extraterrestrial experiment. I told him something much, much worse.

Go to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry to finish the article!

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This post, Skeptical Parenting: Raising Young Critical Thinkers, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on December 15, 2009.