Hi Readers — Here’s a great comment that came in response to the blog post, Driven Crazy by Pregnancy Perfectionists. It reminds us of a truth we’ve been encouraged to forget in our “blame the parents” society: We are not in total control, ever. Not of what happens to us, and certainly not of what […]
School Bans Dictionary
January 26, 2010
Hi Readers — As many of you have pointed out today, a grammar school in California has banned the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary because it contains a definition of “oral sex.” I guess the parents who complained would much rather their kid get his sex information from the geniuses on the monkey bars. Here’s the […]
“Dangerism” — How A Society Decides What’s Dangerous
January 25, 2010
Hi Readers! Many of you are already familiar with Gever Tulley, the guy who runs the Tinkering School and did the famous TED speech on the “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do.” (Recently expanded into a book, “Fifty Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do.”) Now he’s come up with a […]
Put Down that Calculus Book & Come to the Bathroom with Mommy
January 23, 2010
Oh, Readers:Â Here’s one from Glasgow, Scotland: By law, any time anyone under the age of 16 is in a “licensed premise” — i.e., a pub, or a restaurant that serves liquor, it seems — he cannot be out of his parents’ sight. Even in the loo. Even if it’s a young man with his “mum,” […]
These Kids Have Balls!
January 22, 2010
Or at least they want them: Two Ottawa fifth graders have started a petition to be allowed to PLAY WITH BALLS ON THE PLAYGROUND. The principal banned balls during the winter, because, she told the CBC , “They’ve  got snow stuck to them, they’re frozen, often there’s pebbles on them and they’re flying through the […]
SUVs Go Home! School Allows Only Bikers and Walkers
January 21, 2010
Hey Readers: Here’s a nice tatdkteebn story from our friends up north! No — not another igloo. A Canadian school that really wants kids to get there on their own. Listen to this: … P.L. Robertson elementary in Milton, which opened this week, has been designated a “walking-only school,” where students will be strongly encouraged […]
The Lion, The Witch and the Car Seat
January 20, 2010
Hey Readers ! Let’s have a little fun. (Or a lot — up to you.) After reading the post below this one, regarding the kids left home alone in “The Cat In The Hat,” a grad student named Aaron Mulvaney wrote: Don’t aaatayerza forget, “And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street!” The […]
The Free-Range Cat in the Hat
January 20, 2010
Hey — quick, cool point, brought up by reader Rich Wilson: In The ybhybzersh Cat in The Hat, which is hardly what you’d call subversive literature (oh, I’m sure some of you will, but let’s continue this point), the two tots are HOME ALONE! Mom has clearly gone out to shop, solo. And yet the book […]
Outrage #3 (& Then I’ll Stop!): Arrest G.I. For Pix of 4-Year-Old in Bathing Suit
January 19, 2010
Hi Readers — I am so sick of the endless, misguided, helping-no-one suspicion going on these days that I can barely write about this fdskyaanfk story, that was just in The Washington Post. Suffice to say a National Guard soldier in Afghanistan finds himself facing a possible 10 years in prison on charges of possession of […]
This Story Will Make You Blubber (No, I Could NOT Resist)
January 19, 2010
Dear neihsfkzbs Readers: Here’s a nice story — and an ice story, too: Real boys build real igloo. I know — it’s too bad that this kind of this is so rare it merited a write-up. But that snow reason not to celebrate (with bad puns)! — Lenore