On Yummy Cheap Food and Being Free

Telling kids what they ‘can do' is way more freeing than asking them what they’d ‘like to do’.

tldr; if you’re not comfortable with the kids in your house running off’t, don’t read this.

A few days ago, at home, my partner mentioned to the kids that in 20 minutes or so they should meet up because they needed to go to the market at the bottom of the hill.
40 minutes later, she got a text from them, "Where are you?"
"In the house, where are you?"
"At the market!"

— antigrav_kids (@thord_ee_r) July 22, 2022

Just thought of this: is 'running off’t' a contraction for “running off withouT me/us”?

This is a brief, brief post, and frankly maybe I should do more of these, but anyway. We have insanely yummy dumpling bakeries down the hill from us in three directions here in San Francisco. They are firggin’ delightful! They’re locally owned. Some of them only take cash. (Fuck the Man.) And—excuse the religious platitude—God they sell crazy good, cheap food!

Which is all to say, I found out this morning that a few days ago my partner mentioned to the 11, 9, and 7 year-old gang that they could just hop on a bus down the hill, take some cash with them, and consume the yummy things. The gang smiled at her, said, “All right…” and then, reportedly, she could see the wheels turning. In a few days, I expect them to be gone. We’ll hear from them in a bit that they went down the hill to eat yummy stuff. If I’m lucky, they’ll bring some things back, but either way it’s all good.

The point of all this? If you hang out with kids that you’d like to launch out into the world, dont’ say “Would you like to …” say “Did you know you could…” It leaves things open ended with a kinda obvious offer of independence and freedom.