Tuesday, January 12, 2010

What are we teaching our children?

Since I have two boys, I've gotten used to reading books about big construction equipment and I've become an expert on the differences between a regular "truck" and an "articulating dump truck." They are no longer clumped together in one category in my brain. Thank you Quinn and Chase for opening my eyes to this fact. Without you, I would not be paying proper respect to the many construction workers around the world.

With that said...I've been reading this book to the boys for the past 2 years. It came to our house via a garage sale where a woman was closing her daycare and selling her books. Chase has become particularly fond of this book and likes to read it every night before bed..

EVERY NIGHT!!!!

EVERY SINGLE DINGLE NIGHT!!!

I wasn't exaggerating when I said EVERY night.
It has great pictures of construction equipment from the late '70's and early 1980's. But what caught my interest was the van on page 15.
Now what would you think if you saw a van like this in real life?

Several thoughts and associations come to my mind.. like "don't park next to that" or "there are no rear windows, I wonder what they are smoking in there" or "stay away from the child molester van."

I didn't expect the story line to take this twist..



So what are we teaching our kids again? To get rides in "crack" vans????

After reading this page (and having a silent laugh to myself) I promptly told Chase, "No we don't go for rides in construction worker's vans."

Fortunately, Chase is a smart boy and remembers this every time we get to page 15.