"The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence." -Dennis Waitley
New friends are always unfamiliar with the procedures of a Scanlon family dinner. The agenda usually starts with the family prayer. My dad constructed a prayer that he felt embodied the important values that he wanted to share with his family, which luckily includes me! After this family creed, the first question we ask is "Dad, what's the debate of the day?" To me, this was such a common term growing up that I was confused not to hear it at friends' houses. Each dinner, my dad, or anyone feeling particularly philosophical, would pose a question: the debate of the day. The questions ranged from opinions on current political events to hypothetical moral dilemmas: "If you had a time machine and could go back in time and shoot Hitler as a child, would you do it?" Each debate challenged me to think critically, choose a side, and support it at all cost. My dad, the smirk-adorned Devil's Advocate, tried to poke holes in any response that I proposed. Family dinners were the incubator for my critical mind. From the age I could talk and hold a fork, I was arguing and backing up a point with evidence.
New friends are always unfamiliar with the procedures of a Scanlon family dinner. The agenda usually starts with the family prayer. My dad constructed a prayer that he felt embodied the important values that he wanted to share with his family, which luckily includes me! After this family creed, the first question we ask is "Dad, what's the debate of the day?" To me, this was such a common term growing up that I was confused not to hear it at friends' houses. Each dinner, my dad, or anyone feeling particularly philosophical, would pose a question: the debate of the day. The questions ranged from opinions on current political events to hypothetical moral dilemmas: "If you had a time machine and could go back in time and shoot Hitler as a child, would you do it?" Each debate challenged me to think critically, choose a side, and support it at all cost. My dad, the smirk-adorned Devil's Advocate, tried to poke holes in any response that I proposed. Family dinners were the incubator for my critical mind. From the age I could talk and hold a fork, I was arguing and backing up a point with evidence.
“Teach us to be loving to treat each other as we want to be treated, to seek the truth, to approach things with a sense of humor, to stay positive, to find you in the details, to seek excellence in our lives, to appreciate the moments of the day. Teach us humility and responsibility. Amen.”