A woman describes how her parents made her and her brother debate newspaper articles at the dinner table, with her father deliberately taking the opposite side. They had to summarize, argue back, and defend their own thinking. It became how she learned to think for herself.
My parents never shied away from talking to my brother about heavy topics. They never spoke down to us like kids. My parents were always challenging the way we thought. My dad would make us read the newspaper, pick an article, and we'd have to summarize it. But my dad would also pick a contrarian opinion just to be on the opposite side so that I would have to articulate my debate back. I realize now that was on purpose so that I could learn how to formulate my own argument, formulate my own opinion, and then articulate it with passion, but also eloquence and still assertiveness. With their parenting, this was just another day in the, in the household of my family. This was Diet Coke? Surely.
