Christmas Photos

Arlene and David and I behind the flowers and candy our friend Terry sent us
Arlene, me, David and mom
David riding the tractor my parents gave me when I was little
Dad showing David how to use his John Deere tools
David wearing the jacket our friend Yoori sent us.

Merry Christmas!

(image from http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/nativity/nativity-5.shtm)

In defense of toddlers

Recently at a conference I was having a conversation with a colleague and she asked how old our son was. I said he was two and she said something like "Isn't that a difficult age?" It's interesting because I would have asked the same question before and I think our image of toddlers is like that--very difficult time. Part of that is because we usually don't notice them until they are crying or throwing a fit in a public place. However, living with a toddler is very different. There are indeed fits, even melt downs but there are other wonderful things as well.

For one thing, I think toddlers end up lauging a lot more than crying. David often laughs and takes joy in very simple things. When people laugh we feel happy too and there is something very innocent and magical about a toddler's laugh that reminds us just how amazing it is to be alive.

Similarly, even when they aren't laughing toddlers give us a lot to laugh about. The essence of a joke is a humerous contradiction. This morning David tried to eat my hair and then said "Num num, good grass." Similarly he likes to build elaborate castles out of blocks and then jump up and down shouting "cupcake!" It's very entertaining.

Finally, as for emotional outbursts like fits, they have a reverse which are outbursts of real affection. When my dad gets up in the morning David will jump up and down and shout "Appa" and then go to him immediately. It's the same with my mom. She had to run some errands one day and he hadn't seen here much. She came in and sat down on a chair and David saw her. He instantly jumped up and down shouting amma in a very happy voice. He then ran over and jumped in her lap. I swear each time he does something like that it adds another day or two to my parent's life expectancy.

Thus ends my defense of toddlers!

Interviews

I applied for a total of nine positions. I heard back from four schools. I had two rejections and two conference interviews. So thanks be to God for that. I'll be interviweing January 8th and 9th so please keep me in your prayers!

Attempted Visit to Santa

Our parish had a breakfast with Santa. We went a couple of years ago and had fun so we thought we would do it again.

Unfortunately David was afraid of Santa so we had to leave.
We stopped by the parish and David lit a candle (with help). It's never to early to learn about fire!
Since Santa didn't work out we went to downtown Neburgh to see the Ohio river.
Someone parks a converted trolley in front of the library and it's open and there are no signs saying not to go in so we had some family pictures inside.
Never too early to learn to drive!

A curious article

I just found out that my entry for the "Encyclopedia of Infanticide" was accepted. My entry focused on Infanticide during Choson Korea (1392-1910). Though a disturbing subject, I've always been intrigued by it after studying it for a class on Japanese history. In Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) the population became very urbanized (more so than the England of that time) and infanticide became common enough to significantly affect the population (instead of growing it leveled off). Curiously this was largely not from poor people committing infanticide but from urban middle and upper class people doing so who wanted to maintain their status.

I thought I would just be able to summarize some articles for my entry but it turned out that no one has really written on this subject in Korea. When I asked around I was told that it was because Korea was an agricultural country so infanticide was not that common. In addition, the Korean government didn't keep the kind of records that Japan did and so it's hard to measure. However, there was a constant cycle of population growth-disease/famine-population loss which indicates that what infanticide there was did not significantly affect population growth.

I ended up basing my entry mostly on primary source detail from the court records. One was really odd because it was an attempted infanticide. How many attempted infanticides are there; infants can't defend themselves. In this case it seems like the woman, the wife of a slave (so actually probably lower than a slave) went crazy because she couldn't feed her child and tried to kill the infant. The neighbors apparently witnessed her doing this or heard it and stopped her. So she must have done it spontaneously. When asked why she said she had been begging and didn't have any way to feed the child. The officials debated over what to do with her. Some wanted to punish her harshly because what she had done was against nature ("Parents should love their children.") Others said the fact that it was against nature was proof itself that she had been driven by cold and hunger and that doing such a thing was not her "original intention". So they ended up just banishing her. Then, a few years later the people in banishment were in danger of starving and so they released her. The legal system in Korea is really interesting because the highest officials in the land had to make a lot of these decisions (no one could be exeucted without the king's permission).

This case seems to have led to a devate over what the punishment for parents who murder their children should be. Some wanted the death penalty. Others said no because children who killed parents were already punished with execution and punishing them in the same way would have blurred the lines between superior and inferior! It was the latter view that won. In pre-modern Korea it was very important to discrminate based on hierarhcy.

I hope to expand this research some time after I finish my dissertation. The Catholic missionaries in the 19th century received funds from a France-based organization that had the mission of baptizing abandoned babies and seeing that the ones who survived were raised as Catholics. I wonder if they kept records on how many babies they baptized. I think abandonment would have been a lot more common than infanticide. Unfortunately I can't read French (yet!). Maybe in a few years I can pursue this.

Dad's new car

Dad and mom drove to North Carolina to pick up his 2002 Zo6 corvette.