A persuasive effort

Kids have been bugging their parents to let them have a pet ever since pets were invented, and probably before that ("Can I have a pet, Daddy?" "What's a pet?" "I don't know, but Timmy has one.")

But their techniques for accomplishing this have become much more sophisticated now, thanks in part to the schools, whose job it is to teach children to become smarter than their parents, preferably without the parents realizing this. As a consequence, kids are learning things much sooner than they used to.

Take writing, for instance. Here is a comparison of the writing curriculum when I was in school, and a typical writing curriculum today:

Writing assignment, first grade, circa a long time ago: Write something. Try to stay on the paper.

Writing assignment, first grade, present day: Write a persuasive essay on a topic of your choice. Your essay must involve complex philosophical ideas or political arguments and be accompanied by a 10-slide PowerPoint presentation.

So now when kids want a pet, they can write up an impressive persuasive essay and make a formal presentation to their audience, Mom and Dad. Unfortunately, though techniques have changed, kids themselves have not changed all that much, and a kid who writes a persuasive essay on having a pet is statistically no more likely to actually take care of the pet than a kid who has to rely on more traditional methods, such as begging. A smart parent will see right through the child's persuasive points on why the child should be allowed to get a pet:

1. Having a pet will teach me responsibility. (Or how to foist responsibility on others.)

2. Having a pet will help me get exercise. (Or help Mommy get exercise.)

3. It will be fun. (Until the pet relieves itself in an unapproved location.)

4. We can be friends. (Until Ashley moves in across the street.)

5. I will feed it and take care of it and take it for walks and wash it and... (For about two nanoseconds after the pet first arrives.)

My friend's first grader was given one of these persuasive essay assignments in school. He chose to write about how he might, hypothetically, benefit from having a pet, in the hopes that, hypothetically, his parents might get one.

"Are you persuaded?" the father asked the mother after reading the persuasive essay.

"Not exactly," she said. "Maybe he should have done the PowerPoint..."