Hi all! The Deputy here. Lenore is away for a few days and I am filling in for her. On mamapedia, the editors asked their readers to vote on this very, very dear to our free-range hearts issue: Would you let your 4th grader ride public transportation without an adult? Lenore is smiling right now… 148 readers voted. Here’s the data: 98: Hell, no! 27: It depends… 22: YES! I bet this is an excellent snapshot of our country as a whole re the Free-Range Kid issue. Only 22 felt this way: “I have no interest…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers — From time to time I like to post some of my recent tweets here, for those who are not (yet) Twittering away. So – voila, in no particular order: 1 -Whole NY Times story on whether Disney ousted anti-commercialism kids group from its Harvard home: http://nyti.ms/9y4IV3 2 – New blog from KaBoom (playground advocates): “Play Haters.” Stories of classic grumps & spoilsports: http://bit.ly/bNxgFI 3 – Best essay EVER on the way we react to any tragedy by creating new oversights we don’t need or won’t help: http://bit.ly/cQcxth 4 – I kid(ney) you not! New study shows kidney…
Dear Readers — It is with terrible sadness I report the death of a woman at about 3:45 this afternoon on the New York subway…at the station my sons use to come home from school. At that very time. My younger son, the famous subway rider, got there just as the cops were sending people out. His friend darted down to see the aftermath. Apparently the woman had dropped her pocketbook, jumped down to get it, and got smashed by a train. The kid told my son: Don’t look. Aside from sorrow, I know this tragedy will re-invigorate some people…
Hi Readers! Wish I’d written this one! Some of the lyrics: Everything Is Dangerous by Tom Smith Your kid can get salmonella from his new pet turtle, Buckle your seat belt or through the windshield you will hurtle, You can choke on anything not bigger than your head, Everything is dangerous, so how come you’re not dead? … Make sure that your sunscreen is at least SPF 30, Don’t eat food in restaurants, the chef’s hands might be dirty, Gay men want your body and they can’t control their urges, Monks have secret messages they’re chanting in their dirges. Magnetic…
Hi Readers — Here’s a bit of a blog post by a mom from Ottawa. Read it and grrrr: I’m still a bit mad about this so if I sound angry, just know I am. Yesterday my neighbours complained about my daughter’s chalk drawings on the ground. The agent from our condo’s property management company said she’d had a number of calls about it….They told me to clean it off. I want [my daughter] to feel safe in a neighbourhood that is not known for its safety….Let her light up the street and show that there’s life here besides the…
Hi Readers! A friend just wrote to tell me he was dismayed to learn that at his local grammar school the kids play soccer but don’t keep score. Why not? Because this way, “Everybody wins.” Or nobody wins, of course. If losing a schoolyard soccer game is too traumatizing for kids, imagine what’ll happenwhen they learn we don’t all have exactly the same amount of talent. Or candy. Or patience for a namby-pambified world wherein we try to obliterate even the most minor of disappointments, lest they crush a kid, when really we should realize that that the way kids…
This is ever so slightly off-topic (except that it highlights our societal assumption that everything is unsafe and everyone is super stupid), but thank you, Reader Laura, for sending in today’s product recall . The Consumer Product Safety Commission is telling consumers to immediately “stop using” the 20-inch-long, saw-tooth Gerber Gator Machete (related to Gerber hunting knives, not baby food), because stitches could result “if the user’s hand slips off the handle and slides forward across the machete blade.” I’ll bet this product could cause a lot of harm, too, if accidentally sawed across somebody’s windpipe. And imagine if someone…
Hi Readers — Today’s post comes from guest contributor Anne Collier, who blogs at NetFamilyNews.org and is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a forum for parents, kids, and everybody interested in safety on the fixed and mobile social Web. Take it away, Anne! THE SEXT TALK by Anne Collier Are we turning our kids into criminals? We just may be, thanks to the laws equating “sexting” photos with child pornography. Right now, about 4% of American 12-to-17-year-olds have sent “sexts,” and 15% have received one from someone they know, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. (Click here for more…
Hi Readers: Time to quit pickling our kids in Purell. That’s not just MY conclusion, or even just the conclusion of Slate writer Darshak Sanghavi in this TERRIFIC piece, “How To Sell Germ Warfare.” No, it’s the conclusion of scientists who were surprised that giving free hand sanitizers (and, in one case, even Clorox Wipes) to families and schools failed to cut down on respiratory infections. That’s because the flu, for one, spreads mostly via tiny droplets in the air. (ACHOO!!!) So touching things is only one way to catch it. Breathing — that gosh darn thing we keep doing…
Hi Readers! Yes, you read that right. A middle school girl in an Indiana, Rachel Greer, was in the school’s locker room when another girl walked in with a bag of ADHD pills. She put one in Rachel’s hand and Rachel said, “I don’t want this!” so she put it back in the bag and headed into gym class, according to this account. But after the girl with the pills was discovered, she fingered Rachel and Rachel admitted the truth: She had indeed touched the pill — that she immediately rejected. And, thanks to those Zero Tolerance laws we spend…