Every weekend we video chat with our son who is away at college. He is doing great with his schoolwork, which we knew he would do. And even thou he has cerebral palsy he is figuring out all the life skills issues which to us was the bigger issue.
One of the reasons he chose the school he is at was because of the strong debate team. He has always been involved in speech and debate and wanted to be able to continue competing at the college level.
A few weeks ago, we talked after he had competed over the weekend in a tournament. He had not done as well as he had hoped for. If you are unfamiliar with how these things are run in each round they are given a topics and they are put on either side of the argument. They then have to defend or speak against the issue. While most of the questions are on serious in nature, they also throw in a few less serious ones. In my son and his partner’s last round the question was, should the government spend money to encourage inter-racial marriages.
He didn’t tell us what their arguments were but at the end of the round the judge gives each of the teams a critic of their arguments and lets them know what they did well and what they can improve upon for next time.
This judge informed the teams that their mistake in defending the issue was that they argued as if marriage had some intrinsic value other than economical.
While my son told of the shock of this judge’s evaluation, it made me think. I believe marriage has more value than both parents ability to work and help to better their economic standings, but can I articulate what those reasons are? I think I can, and I think that Families dealing with special needs are the greatest example of the value.