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Parenting’s Unexpected Gift As we walk into the old, sprawling new and used bookstore to join their monthly book club for the first time, I can feel the eyes of the group on us, their curiosity plain, though they are generous of spirit and welcoming. It will be four more months before one of them works up the nerve to ask how we know each other, trying to decipher our relationship. We make an odd pair, I suppose. Jan is the older of us two. Same age as my own mom, in fact. She exudes warmth and acceptance, which draws people to her. Then they become smitten by her wit, intelligence and self-deprecating grace. She is also, to use her word, “butch.” Everything she wears was purchased in the men’s department. She’s got a wallet in the back pocket of her Carhartt pants. Her ears, however, dangle silver Native American art. She once lived on a reservation in Montana where she worked with Native Americans and their culture has held sway in her heart ever since. I, on the
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Go To Hell, It's Summer!

 Yesterday was the last day of school for my three oldest kids. I feel like I just crossed the finish line of a marathon, hands on my knees gasping for air.  The past few weeks I’ve passed other parents at bus stops, in school hallways, on field trips and returned their dazed looks with “how are you?” The predominant refrain is, “you know, June is crazy.” Yes, I know. Here is a sampling of what has been added to my already full schedule this month. Three separate choir concerts, a dance recital, 6 field trips, an end of the year medieval celebration, my daughter's formal “spring fling dance” and middle school graduation. Somewhere in there is the pressure to get (or even worse- make) a grand thank you gift for all my kid’s teachers and the guilt of failing, again, to do this simple task that everyone else seems capable of. Top that off with under-slept kids frantic about finals, excited about yearbooks and over sugared from end of the year celebrations. As I drop my daughte

Let's Play!!

Photo Source NPR  recently ran a series on the the pressure to cut recess in favor of more academic time in American schools. My youngest is about to start full day kindergarten. He is my fourth child to do this, but my first boy. In light of this TED  talk on boys in our schools, I’ve been wondering what it will be like to watch a son go through school. I’ve felt more apprehensive than I did with my girls. The NPR spot on the decline of recess in our schools alarmed me. I immediately looked up how much time my son would have at recess this fall. Turns out he will get 70 minutes a day, which I am happy with, though I wouldn’t complain if he got more. Apparently, many American kids aren’t so lucky and will have to make do with much less play-time. The decline in play time in American schools is a response to failing schools and dropping test scores, which became mandated with the No Child Left Behind Act. The faulty premise is that if we have more time to cram knowledge into ou

Media Literacy How-To

Following my last post on media literacy, which focused on girls, I received this question from Lindsey, “ Can you share some dialogue examples for pointing out the dehumanizing tricks? I want to help my boys recognize this, but I haven't been able to come up with a succinct way of talking about it.” Photo Source  I hate to include examples of advertising that I find so abhorrent, but we must understand what we are up against. Since I didn’t acknowledge it in my last post, let me say here that the harm wrought on girls by media and advertising in no way exceeds the damage to boys. Levin and Kilbourne  explain, “Boys learn to look at girls as sex objects, they really learn a lot about how to treat girls. At the same time, boys are seeing images of being violent, tough and macho which go against being able to have caring connective relationships when they grow up.” How sad. Our boys are hit constantly with a double whammy (be tough and girls are objects to be manipulated