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by sbarker 2248 days ago
Do you worry about your children having large blind spots in pop-culture making it difficult to relate to peers later in life when discussing things and relating the childhood? I've wondered how music taste was going to continue with out FM, but just today my daughter had a google meet with her class where they have to have teams and discuss songs. Between tiktok, youtube, and dance class she did quite well. I imagine 13 year old boys will talk about fortnite how we talk about mario or zelda...
3 comments
searchableguy 2248 days ago
I don't think that's a huge problem. I almost had no interest in anything my classmates talked about but in the morning before going to school, I would open few trending pages and check up news for about 10-15 minutes and drop small hints to start conversation and let them continue since I lacked depth. Discussions are pretty cyclical and repetitive in nature. It's easy to pretend that you care about something superficial because deep down, people are also aware of it.
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seneca 2247 days ago
> Do you worry about your children having large blind spots in pop-culture

I home school my children, and it's intentional that they wouldn't relate to people in a discussion of pop-culture. That's what we're very much trying to avoid. The difference is that you seem to think that's a bad thing, and my family intentionally sacrifices quite a lot to achieve it. My son has never even heard of tiktok, but he talks about the Illiad with his friends.

I get how strange that sounds to someone who doesn't value the same things. We do worry that he may regret the decisions we've made later in life, but that's part of being a parent. Luckily the home-school community is larger than it used to be, and more secular, so he's not as isolated as home school families were in the past. There are plenty of like-minded families around that he'll be able to relate to.

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DiffEq 2247 days ago
What seneca said below is about what I think/experience too. Pop culture is just that = Pop Culture. It comes like a bubble and pops and is no more...I focus my children on the things that are lasting. By the way, I never played Mario or whatever other game that was. I know my peers did but we didn't have the money for such games.
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