I can abide by most of these rules…except the alpaca thing.
Author: lskenazy
No Child Left Alone: Getting the government out of parenting is the seriously great title of a new (and first!) book by journalist Abby Schachter. It begins with this story: Do you want to see government operating as if it can and should raise your kids for you? Try enrolling your child in state-licensed daycare. When our eldest daughter was 18 months old and started at the local preschool, the intrusion into our fami ly’s decisions started almost immediately with strict rules about which foods I could send from home and how I should prepare and portion fruits and vegetables.…
Halle Berry is not, I suppose, to blame for making an entire movie based on the idea that kids get snatched by strangers in the middle of the day from sun-dappled playgrounds. (A scenario already a popular staple of YouTube “educational” videos like this and this and this and sorta this. And here’s one from Latvia!). Message: All it takes is a second and your kid could be gone FOREVER. And yet, this movie — imaginatively titled “Kidnap” — will provide more Technicolor reinforcement of the notion that any mom who turns her head away for even a second is…
If you wish you’d started your kids on camping, hiking and all that good outdoors stuff, but didn’t, and now they are teenagers, all hope is not lost. I so appreciate this article in Tahoe Weekly sent to me by its author, Tim Hauserman, on how to become a camping family even at a late-ish date. The advice strikes me as smart, straightforward and not shilling for this company or that. After suggesting that of course starting when the kids are young is probably the easiest thing to do, Tim continues: Teenagers prefer to be with other teenagers. So gather…
“Of course we ran around as kids. Happiest days of my life! But times are different today…” To those who say that, here is this, from Johan Norberg in The Spectator: ‘We have fallen upon evil times, politics is corrupt and the social fabric is fraying.’ Who said that? Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders?…It’s difficult to keep track. They sound so alike, the populists of the left and the right. Everything is awful, so bring on the scapegoats and the knights on white horses. Pessimism resonates. A YouGov poll found that just 5 per cent of Britons think that the…
Wow! I had not heard of Betteridge’s Law. But after my post about the “dangers” of kids overheating in bounce houses, a reader named Richard sent this comment, which I very much appreciate! Always remember Betteridge’s Law: Any headline that asks a yes-or-no question rather than making a statement can be answered “No.” “Do Inflatable Bounce Houses Pose Heat-related Hazards to Children?” “Was Hitler a secret Jew?” “Do socks give you colon cancer?” Always works. Most of the time. Is this law going to change your life significantly? Is it more helpful than knowing how to make ramen? How…
This entire New Yorker piece is so great: “HISTORY’S WORST PARENTS FACE THE WRATH OF THE COMMENTS SECTION,” by Eileen Curtright. It’s shocking to think how much history took place before Internet shaming. How did those rotten parents ever learn? Here’s Curtright’s take on one parenting fail you may have read about: In response to “Twelve-Year-Old Lost on Vacation Found Preaching in Temple of Jerusalem” veganmama: First of all, how do you lose your kid on vacation? I don’t care if he’s not a toddler, you watch your child every second. It’s called good parenting. I made my son hold…
Today’s post is excerpted from Erica Reischer’s WHAT GREAT PARENTS DO: 75 Simple Strategies for Raising Kids Who Thrive. Erica got her PhD from the University of Chicago and is now a clinical psychologist and parent educator in Oakland, CA. She’s also a former consultant with McKinsey & Company, and leads popular parenting classes and workshops at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Habitot Children’s Museum, and the University of California. Her website is here! And I agree with her — it is hard to resist jumping in to “fix” our kids’ bad feelings. Great parents resist the urge to “fix” feelings,…
A Houston mom identified only as Jennifer learned to her horror that the video camera she’d installed in her daughters’ room was being live streamed around the world. As Yahoo reports: “We have security cameras to protect them,” Jennifer, from Houston, Texas, told ABC News. “They’re in my house. People are watching my kids in their home, dressing, sleeping, playing.” The private webcam, aimed at the beds of her two eight-year-old girls, was intended to keep a watchful eye over them but it had been hacked and the live footage was open for anyone to view. Now, agreed: That is…
What a week it has been for Tammy O’Haire, a cowgirl (and online fitness trainer) in Bozeman, MT, who’s mom to a 9-month-old bouncy baby boy. On Monday she put him in daycare for the very first time: a warm, welcoming place in Belgrade, MT, where the food is organic. On Tuesday, Tammy got a call at work — a cattle feedlot — from Child Protective Services. The agency had to meet with her immediately. She and her husband were suspected of child abuse. The daycare center had called CPS to report a bruise on the baby’s chest. A Free-Ranger…