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Old 07-14-2009, 08:28 AM   #10
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Should there be a 'parenting' skill?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mgellis View Post
This suggests that child care is treated as part of IQ (and Will and Perception and...). This is not to say that taking care of children is not hard work (trust me, fellow gamers, if you don't have children...being a parent is the hardest, best work you will ever do), but the actual tasks--heating up fish sticks in a toaster oven, telling a story, playing Candyland, changing diapers, handling basic discipline like time outs, fielding questions about why Mr. Squirrel had to die or why that lady over there is so fat, etc.--are mostly common sense things anyone can do without special training, education, etc.
I would buy that more if I didn't regularly see parents obviously not getting the basic discipline thing right.

Here's a couple of bits from my campaign:

"Gianni takes Constanza home, prepares dinner, and then talks with her about the memetic crisis. In the course of the evening, he gets in touch with Fred’s father and learns that Fred didn’t make it—his brain had been oxygen starved too long and he was flatlined. There was a small chance that he might be uploadable, but as the family is Traditionalist Catholic, that’s not an option. So Gianni has to break the news to Constanza, who is upset and angry, and wants to know why God didn’t protect Fred—a question Gianni can’t really answer."

"Early in the morning, not long after he drops Constanza off at her weekend playgroup, Gianni gets a call from the Montréal Child Welfare Agency. The caller, an SAI named Adrian, asks if Gianni wishes to view some video of his daughter’s recent activities. When he agrees, he gets to view images of his daughter talking, mildly flirtatiously, with a slightly older boy, and smoking a cigarette while she does so. Closer attention to the details shows that it’s his own brand, and it doesn’t look like her first cigarette.

Gianni is taken aback. Adrian assures him that the Child Welfare Agency does not plan to take further action; their role in such incidents is simply to notify the parents. Adrian is willing to refer Gianni to someone else in the agency if he feels a need for advice. Gianni thanks him, but isn’t interested. Instead he calls Blake, and asks her to explain to him why Constanza’s implant didn’t notify him. Blake suggests calling the implant privately and asking it.

. . .

Gianni talks with Constanza about her smoking; she apparently is expecting this, presumably because Terpsichore warned her earlier that weekend, and seems a bit ill at ease all day. She tells Gianni that she thought it looked cool, and one of the characters she played in a virtual realm smoked, and she wanted to do it in the real world; she pointed out that there are filter lungs like her father’s and nanotech lung scrubbers, so what was the problem? Gianni isn’t moved, and she finally backs down. She asks him to stop using Terpsichore to monitor what she does, because it makes her feel that he doesn’t trust her; he points out that his trusting her got him a call from the Child Welfare Department."

In both cases it was mainly an influence/psychology type of thing, and thus a specialized human relations skill. The physical tasks are mostly trivial by comparison, I think.

Bill Stoddard
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