It's absolutist statements like this that I really can't see being helpful. Especially as you contradict yourself later on by pointing out that you *do* say no to your son, as Q insists is necessary.
Imposing mortal military-style discipline on a Q is either going to create a creature with no ability to engage in independent thought, which will destroy him as a Q, or it'll create a creature who takes the first chance to rebel as soon as he's old enough to stand up against us
Not necessarily. Again, wasn't your purpose in having a child to create a new kind of Q that hadn't existed before? Perhaps you will manage to raise him to be a self-disciplined being, based on the example and patterns you've set for him. That *both* of you have set for him. It doesn't have to be an 'all or nothing' proposition, that either he's an automaton with no mind of his own or else an out-of-control rebel. Even for the Continuum, there has got to be a happy medium.
My mother uses to say that raising a child was like handling a wind-up toy. You can prepare him and point him in the direction you wish him to go, but where he actually ends up is ultimately his choice. But that doesn't mean that all the preparation is futile. You just have to hope you've given him a solid enough foundation that when he *can* make his own decisions, he makes them wisely.
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branchandroot
Re: *Everything* is a contest in the Q Continuum.
Date: 2003-04-28 01:50 am (UTC)It's absolutist statements like this that I really can't see being helpful. Especially as you contradict yourself later on by pointing out that you *do* say no to your son, as Q insists is necessary.
Imposing mortal military-style discipline on a Q is either going to create a creature with no ability to engage in independent thought, which will destroy him as a Q, or it'll create a creature who takes the first chance to rebel as soon as he's old enough to stand up against us
Not necessarily. Again, wasn't your purpose in having a child to create a new kind of Q that hadn't existed before? Perhaps you will manage to raise him to be a self-disciplined being, based on the example and patterns you've set for him. That *both* of you have set for him. It doesn't have to be an 'all or nothing' proposition, that either he's an automaton with no mind of his own or else an out-of-control rebel. Even for the Continuum, there has got to be a happy medium.
My mother uses to say that raising a child was like handling a wind-up toy. You can prepare him and point him in the direction you wish him to go, but where he actually ends up is ultimately his choice. But that doesn't mean that all the preparation is futile. You just have to hope you've given him a solid enough foundation that when he *can* make his own decisions, he makes them wisely.