[SGVLUG] Linux Audio

[Dustin]

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005, Swantje wrote:

> On 8/9/05, Dustin <laurence at alice.caltech.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Youth Crew sailors is the 20th, so I have a problem.  My motto is you can
> > lie to adults but you can't lie to children, so unfortunately that means I
> 
> I think it's time to change your motto, it's not right to lie to adults,
> either.

If I promise to do something for you, and then tell you that I just
discovered that my little boy's voice recital (were he old enough to have
one) is at the same time, you probably understand that I have to change my
plans because I've gotten into an impossible situation.  If I tell him I
can't be there, he surely *won't*--he only knows I broke my promise.  
Adults presumably know that not every plan survives contact with reality.  
Kids don't have that perspective.

Like most things that attempt to be short and pithy, it requires
interpretation, and "lie" could I suppose be misleading.  It's not about
actual intentional untruths--it is about maturity of perception.  Adults
know from experience that with the best of intentions some plans don't
work--it wasn't a lie, it was an inability to carry through without some
other unacceptable consequence.  Kids feel you really have lied, because
they can't see the tradeoff.  So if you find you can do what you said you 
would do for an adult or a child, but not both, you'd better come through 
for the child.

In other words, it points out that an adult knows the difference between a 
lie and good but infeasible plans.  Children do not, so you'd better be 
extra careful not to do something that seems like a like a lie to them 
even if you know it isn't.

> The 20th won't work for me, either. Saturdays are not good in general,
> because that's the only day of the week I have with my husband.

Now see, that's a very good reason to change your plans (if you'd said you
would do something that turned out to be on Saturday) and I would
understand perfectly, but a kid would not. :-)

> A Friday night would work. Most Thursday nights are ok 
> Swantje

How do those work for other people?

Dustin