What about the situation of a family, in Nazi Germany, hiding Jews? If they lied--either by omission or comission--about whether they had Jews in their house, were they wrong? And, if they were wrong, was it okay to be wrong in that situation because the alternative was even more wrong? Does it matter whether we judge a person's decision to steal medicine to save their dying child to be right or wrong, if in the end it was the least wrong of the alternatives? I guess I'm just wondering what the usefulness of absolutes is, in practice, given that we always make moral decisions in contexts. Unfortunately, it seems to me that in many cases absolutes are only really used to judge the actions of others. But how do you, or anybody who says that God is the standard, figure out what that means? It still involves interpretation, evaluation, and subjective decision making.

But is it the job of public schools to teach a certain type of morality? Obviously schools promote the types of morality that are necessary for the schools to function: don't cheat, don't lie, don't steal, don't get into fights, don't be mean to others, etc. But, do we want schools to be making absolute pronouncements on other moral issues that are not relevant to the orderly running of a school?

Yes, it is up to the store. When it's a situation of a sandwich, a pregnant woman, and a toddler, and they agree to pay as soon as they are informed of their mistake, you can safely assume that it's not a theft. I hold Safeway more responsible than the police. Once the police are called, they are going to treat it like a theft, since that's what was reported to them.

Did they think they were perfectly acceptable, or perfectly acceptable under some circumstances? Because, historically, many cultures--including the culture in which many parts of the OT were written--believed that raping, murdering, and stealing from "the other" was okay. No, you weren't to do those things to people within your in-group, but it was okay to do to those outside of it. And, to a large extent we still believe this. The same people railing against "moral relativism," IME, are the ones most likely to be in favor of torturing, bombing, and claiming the resources of "outsiders." I'm very curious, honestly, how those who think that the Bible is the place where we find absolute morals reconcile that with the fact that in the OT God is presenting as condoning and sometimes even commanding the pillaging, rape, and murder of people groups. If it was okay--even right--to perpetrate the genocide of the Canaanite people, then how can you say that genocide is absolutely wrong?

FWIW, I'm on sure how useful the poll will be, because many people are moral absolutists, who will probably be collapsed into the "moral universalist" position in the poll. For me, it depends. I was reading an essay a while back which presented the following scenario: You have promised a good friend that you would be the best man at their wedding. You have the rings. But, at the train station, you lose your ticket and don't have money to buy another one. You see a man who you have good reason to believe is very wealthy get up and leave his ticket on his seat. What do you do? Do you not take the ticket and not fulfill your obligation to your friend? Or do you steal the ticket and fulfill your obligation to your friend? Almost all Western people say that you absolutely do NOT steal the ticket; that would be morally wrong, while missing the wedding would be understandable/acceptable. Nearly all Eastern people say that you absolutely do NOT miss the wedding; disrupting the relational ties would be morally wrong. I'm not willing to say that the Western view on this is the right one. On the other hand, genocide is always wrong. But, in general, I don't really think it matters or makes much difference whether people believe morality is absolute, universal, or relative. For one thing, it doesn't seem to make any difference in behavior. The vast majority of people are not raping, pillaging, and murdering, no matter what their view of morality. And, the vast majority of people do tell white lies and break the speed limit. One's view of morality seems only to matter in terms of how they judge others, and not in terms of their own moral code. For another, in practice morality is always contextual. We make moral decisions (or judge moral decisions) in contexts. Abstract discussions of morality may be interesting, but morality always plays out in situations. When you get down to it, it doesn't matter what your view of somebody else's actions is, or how moral or immoral you judge them to be; what matters is your own actions. And, quite frankly, most of the moral relativists I know have personal moral codes that are just as strict if not stricter than the moral absolutists I know. So, I really think it's a non-issue. It only affects how we judge the morality of others, and I don't think we really need to be in the business of doing that, anyway. My personal experience has been that moral relativists are people who hold themselves to higher standards, morally, than they hold others; moral absolutists/universalists tend to have lofty ideals that they hold others to but, in the context of their own life, allow themselves a lot more leeway. So, I don't find it even a tiny bit troubling if most people describe themselves as moral relativists.

I'm actually surprised that anybody here would think it was weird; isn't one of the much-touted benefits of homeschooling that it doesn't limit children to age-segregated socializing? I had a neighbor growing up who was about six years older than I was. She had two brothers but no sisters. When she was in high school, she used to sometimes hang out with me and my sister, and do big sister-little sister type stuff with us, like doing hair and taking us to the mall for ice cream. It was fun. I've also always had older cousins who would do fun stuff with us. I guess I don't see anything weird about a 21-year-old wanting to spend time with a 14-year-old. Those kind of big sister-little sister friendships can be nice on both sides.

I'd let her know that you're sorry to hear that she finds your posts painful to read, and she can block your posts if she wants to. I certainly wouldn't change the way you post. I use FB primarily to keep my parents, ILs, sister, and other long-distance relatives updated on the kids. If somebody had an issue reading updates about my kids, I would have no problem with them unfriending me or hiding my posts, but I wouldn't change how I posted, because there'd be no practical point to my using FB if I did.

I'd probably want to meet the 21yo, but assuming they seemed responsible, I likely would. I went to a concert in NYC with two of my cousins who were 19 and 21 when I was 13, and I had such a great time.

We're not actually planning on doing school with the babies, but we've been thinking about Christmas, feeling wholly unmotivated to do much shopping, and were thinking that we could get that, wrap it up for the two babies (mostly DD at this point, but YDS would be ready to play with some of it in a few months), and be done shopping for them. If you have it, what do your little ones think?

I have this one and I love it. It works really, really well, and it's pretty. It was purchased during the Great Pencil Fiasco of 2010, during which DS was so frequently breaking the tips of his pencils that I began to take away screen time each time it happened. It continues to serve us well. (I figure if anybody can understand why I own a $38 pencil sharpener, it will be you all. ;))

Oh, I believe the evening went the way he said: I saw the FB photos after. My DH just has weird social anxiety issues that make him reluctant to do things that I think most people would consider completely and totally appropriate, because he thinks they'll be interpreted as a huge breach of polite behavior. And no matter how many times I try to explain that, no, normal people do NOT think there's anything wrong with it, he either refuses to believe me or still can't bring himself to do it.

That happened to me the last time I did a somersault! I was pregnant at the time, though, so that could have been it. Still, you would not catch me attempting a cartwheel.

I think the quality of ON's tees has declined considerably. I have a few shirts of theirs from a while ago that I love. Everything I've bought from them in the last few years has been a disappointment, though. The material seems much thinner and the cut just isn't as nice. I've had good luck with the Sonoma Life + Style t-shirts from Kohls. The material is a perfect weight and the cut is pretty flattering.

I obviously agree. ;) You know Elisabeth Elliot's whole 80/20 thing? Not calling when he's running late (well, more like not keeping track of time AND not calling when he's running late) is a BIG chunk of my DH's 20%. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't completely nuts for being miffed, given how absolutely certain he is that I was asking him to do something inexcusably rude. (I'll admit that I have the issue of often forgetting to take my cell phone out with me, or turning it off when I'm teaching or out and then not turning it back on, so I'm not super-easy to get in touch with, either. But, darn it, if I'm going to be home later than DH expects, I always call!)

I hate that the Old Navy shopping cart makes you delete items one at a time, rather than being able to change a bunch of quantities and then updating the cart once.

He's working as a research associate right now, so in general he's working on a project or two at a time, but things seem to come in waves. He'll have weeks where he's running subjects or analyzing data for 10 hours a day, and weeks where there's no big projects going on and he's got a single grant proposal he's working on.

Even after explaining that everybody on this thread was on my side, he still maintains that he would have been rude to excuse himself to make a call. He claims that he is from staid Connecticut stock and as such does not interrupt conversations to make or take a phone call or text. He referred me to last week's episode of Suburgatory, where the neighbors all refused to answer their doors during dinner. I told him that he had almost had me sympathizing with him. ;) I'm from an extremely loud, boisterous Italian family, and he's from a very, very reserved German-and-English family, and we have a number of disagreements about what constitutes appropriate public behavior.

I think the thing I find frustrating is that this expectation only seems to work one way. If my husband has a day when he finishes what needs to be done in three or four hours, he's still expected to put in a full 8 or 9 hour day. But, he's expected to stay for a 10 or 11 hour day if there's a lot to do. It really doesn't bother him, but I get frustrated by it. I feel like so much of the time put in at salaried jobs is often more for show than for completing tasks. I know that he's worked with several people who prided themselves on the really, really long days they put in--and looked like hard workers because they were staying until 8 or 9 at night--but who were either extremely inefficient or just spent much of the time they were at work not actually working. So it seems like it becomes this contest to see who can spend the most time at the office, rather than being about who actually gets stuff done, and I do think that's unfair because it puts people with children, and particularly those with many children or young children, at a disadvantage even if they are doing just as much if not more than the other workers. I know this is a major concern my husband has about working in academia. He's 33 and has three kids, which is not at all the norm among the people he works with. So he always feels like he can't leave at 5, if everybody else is still there, even if he's done everything that needs to be done and even if they came in later or took a long lunch or have been chatting for much of the afternoon, because it will look like he's the one who doesn't take his job seriously. And that's my rant for the day about jobs, I guess. ;)

I think everybody thinks it's a shame that your children are upset. It is. But, while your kids wouldn't have been upset if AWANA hadn't been cancelled, they also likely wouldn't have been upset, or upset for long, if you had presented this as a chance to do something fun tonight as a family. I do think saying things like this is showing an enormous amount of ingratitude to the volunteers. Do you really want your kids to think that the volunteers are somehow not as great and spiritual as your family and put sports before God? If that's the case, why aren't you volunteering? What are you putting "before God" on Wednesday nights? (Those are rhetorical questions. It's not my business what you are doing Wednesday nights, and I'm not in any position to judge what you are or are not putting "before God.") I just find the way you talked about this with your kids very upsetting. You are not victims in this, and it does no good to present it that way. They are missing one week of a program that the volunteers sacrifice their time and energy for every other week, most likely for good reasons, many of which have been mentioned here. It is a shame that your kids are sad, it really is. But if you hadn't allowed them to feel punished and like they are suffering over this, by explaining this as the generous volunteers who give their time to them every week spending one week with their families at an event that was important to them, and wouldn't this be a great night for you all to spend as a family, too, then there probably wouldn't have been tears.

I'm a big believer in the 40-hour work week, so I don't think people should be asked to work more hours. But, realistically, I think 50 is pretty common and even 60 isn't unreasonable in most fields.

I think that was part of it, because it was kind of unclear to him whether this was a "work" or a "social" function, and if he should be treating it like a dinner with friends or like a meeting, because his friend's advisor is his boss's boss. I wouldn't call him during a meeting or expect him to have his phone on. I don't know, now I'm feeling more sympathetic. I know that he generally hates these kind of social dinners with people from work, because he's never sure how much he needs to keep up the level of professionalism he'd maintain at work. It's particularly awkward for him because he was the only person at the dinner with kids, and I think he feels like he needs to make a point of showing that he isn't prioritizing his family over his job because so many of his coworkers don't have any family commitments. So is a dinner-with-friends-who-are-colleagues different than just a plain old dinner-with-friends? I hate etiquette. ;)

One would think. However, my DH does have some weird issues about not ever wanting to do anything that seems rude around people he doesn't know well (and he didn't know two of the people at the dinner very well), so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he didn't excuse himself a single time the whole dinner, because he couldn't think of a non-embarrassing way to say "I have to use the restroom." But, I'm glad to see I'm not totally off about this one.

If your kids feel like they are suffering and being punished, I think perhaps they are taking this a bit too hard. How often does the group meet? I'm assuming other meetings will be going on as planned? One missed meeting just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. We usually go to our neighbors' house for a small group on Wednesdays. DS really enjoys it; the kids get together and play in the basement. I've been feeling kind of sick today, and have a bunch of papers to grade, so tonight we're not going. DS is a bit disappointed, but he also knows that it's not a huge deal. He'll get to go again next week. I don't see my skipping the group in order to stay home, rest, and grade as putting grading before God. Yes, we pray and we sing and we discuss spiritual things, but the group is mostly about fellowship and hanging out and having some fun with other adults during the week. I like to go, but if there's a reason for me to miss, I don't feel badly about it or force myself to go. As gently as possible, I think maybe part of the reason your kids are so upset is because you are explaining it that way. The adults also have made, quite likely, a commitment to the football game. As mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised, if it's a small town, if many of the volunteers are the parents of players or cheerleaders or band members or otherwise involved in the game. And, it's much easier to cancel an AWANA meeting than to reschedule a football game. I think that telling your kids that the adults at AWANA don't take their commitment to it as seriously as they should is a mistake. It's disrespectful to the adults, as you don't know what sent into the decision-making process or why they decided what they did, and it's making them out to be the villains in a situation where no villains are required. I'd try to encourage my kids, in that situation, to look on the bright side: maybe plan something fun like a movie night. And then remind them that they'll get to go to AWANA next time.

DH and I have a very long-standing disagreement about how and when it's polite to send a text or take a phone call when you're out with other people. I think that it's rude to spend the whole time texting or talking, but sending a quick text or excusing yourself to take a call is fine, especially if you have a good reason to do so. DH thinks it's rude and inappropriate, no matter what. Two weeks ago, he went out to a small going-away dinner for a coworker. There were only four of them at dinner. The dinner started at 6:30, and he didn't get home until about midnight. Now, it turns out that the woman they were having the dinner for actually got married that day--she and her new husband are having a big ceremony in Taiwan, where their families live, so this was just a formality and they didn't want to make a big deal out of it--so the dinner turned into a wedding celebration, and that's why it lasted so long. However, starting about nine, I began to get worried, and I sent him a couple of texts to see what was up. He did not reply, although he did call me after the dinner, before he drove home. I was pretty annoyed. I didn't see any reason why he couldn't have either sent me a quick text back, or excused himself for a moment to give me a call. If you're having a five-hour dinner, is it really unreasonable or rude for somebody to make a quick text or call home? I don't think so. But, DH disagrees, thinks that there is no excuse for that, and that he was in the right to wait until the dinner was over to call. So who's right, etiquette-wise? Is it always rude to send a text or make a call? Is it rude if you excuse yourself first? Is it rude to be at a dinner significantly longer than expected without a call home? What's the right way to handle the situation?

None. Monday and Wednesday mornings I teach, but I'm home by 10 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday nights I'm out (Tuesday to take DS to breakdancing, Wednesday to a small group that I bring the boys to), but not until after dinner. So I'm pretty much in between 10 and 6, at minimum, during the week. We take trips out around the neighborhood, but DH brings the car to work, so we stay within walking distance. Saturdays are when I run errands and do most of my teaching prep. I'm usually out most of the day on Saturday.