ARGUING THE POINT:

My oldest son just left with his children, and I want to make an observation... a comparison to how I was brought up and how they are bringing up their 12 year old twin boys, and 9 year old daughter (once they have their birthdays later this month). She's getting a crash course in arguing, while basically still loving the brothers, and concerned when she wins the fight --especially if physical injury occurs. It happened, and I told my grandson, "You can't win. For one thing, she's a girl. And for another thing, she's younger."

I have brother a year older then me, and we were like fraternal twins, but we picked on my little brother unmercifully, who happened to be also 3 years younger. And, my twin grandsons, pick on their younger sib', sister unmercifully too. Being the one 'picked-on' is different than being the tease. What I saw in Anna, my grand daughter, was preparation in life so that she won't be the shy and retiring type that I once was when I set foot out into the world. Anna has already gone to school, is a leader, not a follower, and despite the age difference, several times got the upper hand in the fights they had while visiting.

I may have said before in this blog about how tough it was for me going ...just to school. It was culture shock for me, and found being in a classroom with over twenty other children a bit overwhelming. I guess that's another advantage in being in a neighborhood with other children nearby from birth on, whereas I really didn't have any friends until I went to school. My family was it. So at recess, I stayed back with the other wallflowers, while other girls my age were playing kickball, hopscotch, or complicated maneuvers with a jumprope. In the classroom I was afraid to put my hand up to answer questions because, if I didn't have the right answer, I would feel a humiliation, instead of just learning, which involves trial and error. My parents would not allow us to tease each other or to argue, and she'd settle those arguments herself with a heavy hand, as spanking was the norm back then.

With my first husband, we never fought or argued. However, there wasn't enough emotional involvement to get all that impassioned over anything. My mother and father never ran out of things to say, and sometimes they had some pretty loud arguments. But I only remember my father acting like a parent and disciplining me once. While my mother did all the parenting, and my father was the breadwinner and a good husband. But, I digress. What I'm saying here is until I married into a family who in a way enjoyed arguing, I would avoid arguing at all costs... AND, what I'm also saying here is this: When you don't learn how to argue properly, IT DOES COST, AND IT COSTS DEARLY.

It's the reason I hate being proselytized in ANY way, especially when it comes to the two no-nos of social get togethers, "Religion and Politics." If I saw a car come up the driveway and three lady strangers stepped out, I'd know that they were Jehovah Witnesses, or if two or three good looking young men walked up my driveway and I saw they were wearing dark slacks, white shirts and neckties, I knew they were Mormons. I would rather make it look like I wasn't home until they left than try to defend my own belief system.

Politics never entered the picture until it mattered to Tom, and I just couldn't deny my true self: A Democrat, whereas Tom is a right wing Republican. So, I have learned somewhat how to argue, but still can't stand doing so, so we have agreed to disagree.

In the column, Ask Amy she helps solves the personal problems in our own little world, I sometimes pick up a genius bit of understanding of why there is such a split in opinions of anything that is near and dear, as in our spirituality and in our politics. Today, July8, 2010, this woman wrote in to chastise a man's thinking in a previous letter in which she found his thinking to be offensive and antiquated. That letter must have been about womanizing and proving male superiority, and she said this PEARL OF WISDOM: "His narrated experience is a phenomenon called confirmation bias, which is selective collecting or interpreting evidence with bias."

I'll admit to my reasons for being a Democrat, and they are surely in opposition with the Republicans in general, and Bush in particular when George W. was in office. I have witnessed this process from from Republicans towards everyone who isn't in agreement in general, and Obama in particular. Now I have a name for it: "Confirmation Bias." Because, that's what they seem to do... First form an opinion that the Democrats are wrong about almost everything, then find every weapon that they can interpret evidence with bias against the Democrats and especially towards Obama.

I now realize that if I had a hockey stick like a goalie in a hockey game, and if their 'evidence' was the puck, and if I was hoping to keep them from making a goal so OUR SIDE could win by my defending my ideas, it would be impossible, as the ONLY way either side is going to know who was right and who was wrong is by HISTORY. There is just NO WAY one can argue their point against a true believer in his or her own selected with bias data. I'm not going to try, and I want them to just agree to disagree.