Monday, October 16, 2006

So Jesse has (via his darling, and my darling friend Kat) posed the question:

"Do you have a trampoline?"

No, I do not have a trampoline, nor have I ever had a trampoline.

Let me explain.

I wasn't raised Mormon, thus, no trampoline, and I have no children as of yet, thus, no trampoline. So, one might ask, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China. Well, nothing actually.

So I wrote recently about how we value children, there are a lot of children in Mormondom, and the chaos of raising multiple children is a common "issue" Mormon moms deal with. Enter the trampoline.
I have hear rumors that when children get to be a certain age you can buy them a trampoline and tell them that if they jump high enough, long enough, they will be able to jump up to Heaven.
Now, it's not that we actually believe such non-sense, but kids do, and if they are jumping continually on a trampoline, they are not running around driving their mothers' crazy.
They are, in a single known location, doing something physically active, that's only somewhat dangerous, perfectly legal, and may even be thinking about Heaven. (Though I personally am not convinced. I have taught children's Sunday School before. If they aren't thinking of Heaven in Sunday School. . .well I guess we'll invoke "benifit of the doubt" here.)
One might ask if it's moral to lead your child to believe such a thing. In my opinion it is very healthy to teach a child skepticism. They must learn it somehow. In fact, the LDS church expects it's members to question every gospel principle. We believe that every person must find out if things are true for themselves. I think the trampoline method is an excellent way to introduce this concept.

Now, things to add to my to do list:
1. start saving for a trampoline
2. find out from Mormon moms how young it too young to get kids started on this (do they have to be able to walk first?)

2 comments:

manic hispanic said...

do you think this is applicable to the really stupid people i come in contact with in a day?
send them out to the trampoline to put their thoughts heaven bound and sufficiently have them out of my hair?
manic hispanic checklist
1. start saving for a trampoline.
2. thank the duchess for her wonderful idea.
3. assure that I know this isn't what she was intended to be done with her bits of mormon wisdom.

Megan said...

Hey, if my "wisdom" can make your life better in any way then please partake.