Posts tagged “parenting”
Yes, I want to expose your children to homosexuality. Not for political correctness, but because some of those kids are gay, and shielding them from any depiction of it tells them something is wrong with them. Explaining two boys kissing is no harder than explaining a prince kissing a princess.
A throwaway comment from my mother when I was eight has defined my entire life: "It's never cool to not know something." I'd been performing ignorance of cricket to seem cool. That mild rebuke turned me into the insatiable infovore I am today.
I started a Facebook group dedicated to keeping parents off their kids' social networks. Nobody needs their mum reading their risque status updates or their boss seeing their job complaints. Join up and resolve to never crash your children's social networking party.
I'm not advocating mandatory parental licensing, but we should be teaching parents how to parent. Research shows parenting styles meaningfully predict children's educational success. We already offer financial support to disadvantaged kids; teaching parents evidence-based parenting skills is another tool worth using. The question is how.
Watching a little girl wobble on training wheels reminded me of how desperately I wanted a bike as a kid. My overprotective mom finally caved at 12. Funny how she worried so much about a bike, then handed over the car keys at 16 without a second thought.
I've rediscovered my love for Jeff Vogel's writing about his daughter Cordelia, now a toddler. His parenting philosophy? Skip shielding her from swear words and instead teach her to deploy them with maximum effectiveness. Highly recommended reading.
A poem about the suffocating cost of "perfect" religious upbringing, where every thought, touch, and doubt is controlled. The model child, shaped entirely by his parents' will, has nowhere for his rage to go. Until they find the body.
A poem about a controlling mother who sees her son as an extension of herself, unable to accept who he really is. When he finally asserts his own identity, both find imperfect freedom.
Conducting an informal survey on a possible correlation between breastfeeding and sexual orientation. Mail me your age, orientation, and breastfeeding history. Also stumbled on the alarming "Ban Breastfeeding" website while researching. Results forthcoming.
