Fracking

The 30 Day Blogging Challenge prompt today was a bit difficult.  You could pick one of three: Mountaintop, Fracking or a tale of taking down the Christmas Tree in July.  Didn't much care for the choices, but I guess that's why it's a challenge.  I chose fracking.

According to Wikipedia, fracking is the process of using a fluid to break apart rock to get to the oil and natural gas found below.  There appears to be great controversy over whether or not fracking should be permitted in the United States due to the negative side effects, such as contamination of the water table.  I guess all the easy oil has already been pulled from the ground so now we have to resort to potentially harmful methods to extract the rest.

Raising children is very similar.  When they're young, they're easy to mold and teach.  But when they get older and have their own opinions and ideas, they can be considered a more solid person.  Solid like rock.  Of course, sometimes their opinions and ideas are obviously youthful and require correction.  However, now you can't just tell them their wrong and be done with it.  They must be persuaded.  They must be fracked.  With your greater experience you can find a tiny chink in their rock and pour your ideas in the chink like pressurized fluid.

Is it dangerous?  Of course.  The side effects can be almost as deleterious as a polluted water table, but with child-fracking it's a psyche, not a water table, that could be contaminated.  But just like fracking for oil, once you've done all the easy stuff and there's still more to do, sometimes you have to resort to more drastic measures.

Copyright © 2011 Denise Duggan