"I sure wish I came from a family that would call it 'detritus'."

This is not an attitude necessarily shared by my children. They were raised on good literature from a tender age, taught to speak several languages before they matriculated, ate at a dining room table where there was a dictionary at hand every night, were dragged to classical theatre, and challenged to write well, and complained bitterly when they were around 16 "Why did you make us different from everybody else?" Why indeed.