When I talk with my older daughter about my views I try to keep in mind what might happen if she adopts the same views and shares them with friends. I don't want her ostracized for having weird thoughts, is what I mean.

The other day we were lying in bed and I told her how much I used to love pretending I was walking on the ceiling. I remember doing this a lot in the nurse's office at school where I'd go, not really sick, and lie there bored out of my mind. She and I pretended together that we were stepping over door jams, seeing what was different as we imagined that up was down.

Hanging in the girls' room is a map with two sides. On one side is the Peters Map:
Of course, the earth is flying around in space and the only reason we feel there is a "down" is because of the pull of gravity. In her school they have been studying gravity and other cool forces so it was one of those rare times that we were talking and she got really into it (instead of whining that I sounded like I was giving a lecture). We feel there is a "down" because we have a metaphorical understanding of up and down, that's it. Otherwise the idea of "up" and "down" are just made up ideas.

In the late 90s I got some kids in trouble with their parents for my wild and crazy thinking. In this case, what I was thinking about wasn't all that nutty or different. I simply told the twin four year olds that they were, in fact, animals. Humans are animals was my crazy idea. Their parents got really angry with me. "We're not animals!" they actually said. Of course, what they meant was we behave in polite and kind, "civilized" ways.

Because I know my daughters will likely embrace a lot of my ideas (until they reject them as they approach their teen years, then settle on their own ideas which may or may not be like my own) I always try to include the fact that lots of people feel differently about these things. Or, some people might be upset if you say xyz. In the case of same-sex love, for example. I won't pretend there's something strange about two adults being in love who are of the same gender. I won't pretend it's okay to say that romance is between boys (men) and girls (women) only. I will tell her, though, that it's not surprising some of her peers disagree.

All of my parenting is done from my gut. My feelings. I try to strike a balance between sharing ideas with my daughter honestly while not dousing her with really weird ideas that might get her in awkward situations at school. So far, we're both doing really well with all of it. Neither one of us tripped over the ceiling fan in the kitchen, either.