Buridan’s ass’ mom
May 16, 2008Background: We’re often on Oz about not drinking enough. He doesn’t like a big variety of drinks, and now that it’s getting warmer again, we have to work a bit against his getting dehydrated (or as he says, in that joke by an 8-year-old way, “de-hyphenated”).
So: Recently, I was having a little moment with Oz where I was telling him about Buridan’s ass (because, you know, he’s a kid, and sometimes just can’t decide, and as his dad, I’m supposed to use the wisdom of the ages to help him flourish, or whatever). Turns out, he knew about it from somewhere (maybe me, I’m old and forgetful now), in the version where the ass is between water on the one side and food on the other. So he says, “Too bad the donkey’s mom wasn’t there!” I asked why that was, and he said “because she would tell him: drink, drink, drink!”
The moral of Buridan’s ass then is apparently not “sometimes you just have to pick, even if there’s no good reason to prefer one over the other”, but “always bring your mom, because she’ll know what to do”.
(Yeah, it’s been forever. Tough end-of-Spring period. But the end is here.)
