An Introduction and Philosophy

This is a touch late since Gorman and Weapon XI have already posted, but hopefully they (and the others so-far-quiet bloggers here will post).

I’m MisterBixby, I’m married to Bat-Mom and the proud father of two gifted, geek-in-training daughters, Lana and Lois. I am a geek, and a proud one at that. I read science fiction and fantasy. I read and collect comic books (mostly of the DC variety). I play console games (but not enough to legitimately call myself a gamer). I play table-top role-playing games when the opportunity arises. I am a blogger (you can see my current projects here and at Tube of the Day). I work in Telecommunications (as a Call Center Engineer) for a major online travel agent. Geek cred established, I’ll move on.

As a geek parent, I have to admit to nurturing my kids’ geeky interests and tendencies. They have seen me reading comic books from the time they were old enough to notice, and have even begun a collection of their own. I will address kids’ comics in another post sometime. Bat-Mom and I adopted a philosophy of child-rearing very early on. We strive to “Provide an environment of Satisfied Curiosity.” When I was a kid, I was, as all kids and especially geeks are, naturally curious. My dad, bless his heart, would answer my “why”s and “how come”s and “what”s to the best of his ability, but his tolerance only went so far, and we didn’t have the Internet (*gasp* Can you believe it kids?). Too often, my question was met with “Why do you ask so many questions?!” and a somewhat exasperated sigh. It has been a personal goal of mine to never utter that phrase to my kids and, to the best of my recollection, I have been successful for the last 7 years.

In my experience, when you answer every one of your child’s questions, it makes them excited to learn and excited to know things. This only makes them want to learn and know more. Every answer spawns another 10 questions, but eventually they tire of asking or feel satisfied with their knowledge until the next question hatches in their brains. But, it is kind of addicting to see the light bulb go off above their heads over and over again.

This is where the Internet is a wondrous thing. Part of being on the receiving end of questions is learning how to say “I don’t know” and have that be ok. It is sorely tempting, as a dad, to try to reinforce that image of being the font of all knowledge, but I think it is probably best for the girls to see me be ok saying “I don’t know,” especially for them as gifted kids, with all the pressure to be smart and knowledgeable – to know that “I don’t know” is a perfectly valid answer as long as it is followed up with “Let’s find out.” A quick Google or Wikipedia search later and information is available. This can be backed up with a trip to the library reference section for more information and to see if one source matches the other. I wish Google was around when I was a kid!

I have tried to insulate my girls from the worse aspects of geekiness, specifically bullies. So far, we’ve been lucky in that regard. Lana, our elder daughter attends a private school for gifted children and we expect Lois, our younger daughter, to begin Kindergarten there next Fall. With the focus of the school so targeted to the upper end of the intelligence spectrum, there aren’t any average kids who value the ability to throw a ball (curse you dodgeball!!!!!) over the ability to reason and derive answers. We are lucky to be able to do this and we sacrifice quite a bit to be able to afford it, but, to me, it is worth every penny not to have my child punished by other children for the crime of being smarter than them. It is an odd feeling to be jealous of your own child, but I think that’s the meat of another post.

Tag, Bat-Mom, you’re it.