Latest Additions - Opinion

For all you dads, here are some stats that show how much your involvement means to your child and your family.

| Read More »

Whether you are a mom who works in the home or outside of the home, you likely experience the pressures described in this article.  Some feel that the “mommy wars” are due to the continuous presumption that the woman is the primary caregiver, and others feel that we haven’t had enough time in history to sort out the details of what it means to be a working mother.

| Read More »

The American Medical Association released results of a study indicating a trend that the AMA calls “disturbing.” From the press release, “...about one out of four U.S. parents with children, aged 12-20 (26 percent), agree that teens should be able to drink at home with their parents present.” Consequently, “Nearly one in four teens, aged 13-18, and one in three girls, aged 16-18, say their own parents have supplied them with alcohol....” Medical professionals are obviously discouraging this practice, but then there is the practical angle:  what if you have a teenager who you know will leave home to attend college, and you want to make sure they understand how to use alcohol responsibly when they are on their own?  Having attended a large college, I remember how alcohol use was rampant at parties, and many of the kids felt that they were really showing defiance by drinking.  If parents expose the kids to alcohol beforehand in responsible ways, it isn’t so much of a mystery.  This wouldn’t work for every family, and everyone needs to assess their own situation, but I can see some terrific parents thinking this way.  Obviously, I’m not encouraging heavy alcohol use among families, because that introduces other negative dynamics, but is it possible for parents to teach their children responsible drinking in the home before the kid gets into a peer situation?

In my opinion, the most alarming statistic in this article is “Two out of three teens, aged 13-18, said it is easy to get alcohol from their homes without parents knowing about it.” To me this means that parents are not running their households and checking on their kids as they need to be.  How hard is it to check your liquor cabinet once in awhile, especially if you know you have a problem?

| Read More »

Good article in Salon covering one parent’s story of having a child expelled from preschool.  Also contains some interesting statistics on child expulsions.  The prevalence of this practice is scary, as are the implications for individual and societal school performance.

| Read More »

The University of Utah has released results of a study on divorce trends, and the marriages of children from divorced homes.  The reseacher has concluded that these children are likely doomed to repeat history because they tend to marry younger and they have learned different lessons about marital commitment than their peers from non-divorced families.  This sounds pretty plausible until I ask a few questions like....HUH?  We have experts telling us that our kids’ friends at school have as much or more impact on them than their parents.  Which is it?  How do we know if the subjects of this study had good parenting in a divorced household and just got mixed up with the wrong crowd?  Also, this Utah report claims that divorce is more traumatic on a child THAN A PARENT DYING?!?  Don’t even get me started on that one.  I don’t know how you measure trauma in a research setting, but I would think a child would rather have both parents alive in separate households than lose one completely.  This article also mentions that lots of transitions are hard on kids, so then we should be factoring in other factors such as how much the family relocated in these statistics I would think.

Just a few questions that came to mind.  Not to say there is isn’t any measure of validity to the findings, but I think before we pin all future divorces on currently divorced parents we need to dig a little deeper.

| Read More »

Here we are reviewing mounds of evidence regarding vaccinations and their potential link to autism.  No one can give us a straight answer, but leave it to our medical researchers to complicate things even more.  Now, there is a 5-in-1 vaccine that is supposedly safe and effective.  Researchers in Italy have come up with this wonderful invention, and they say it has mild side effects.  It is understandable that they may have a problem with a certain percentage of children not receiving all of the shots according to the recommended schedule, but is Hib a really big problem in Italy?  Couldn’t the good folks at the University of Ferrera try to address cancer, AIDS, premature labor, or another larger issue?  And, is the entire world going to be forced to use the 5-in-1, or can we still separate the shots if we want to - unlike the current situation with the MMR, where a parent cannot find an independent measles shot to make sure it doesn’t contain a mixing agent or preservative that will turn our children purple? 

| Read More »

Some houses are Martha Stewart clean and decorated all the time.  Children in these homes spend their free time on crafts, singing and shredding any incriminating insider information.  Our house is different.  We run on a binge-and-purge system that has emerged by default.  The basis process works something like this:

• Accumulate detritus in the form of unprocessed mail and stuff that interests the children for 10 seconds or more.
• Reach a critical mass until one or both homeowners become frustrated, or we’re going to have company over.
• Launch a full assault on the mess, throwing out anything that isn’t nailed down or that doesn’t protest too loudly when picked up.
• Repeat cycle as often as needed.

The folks at RealSimple suggest something different.  They believe that a little bit of cleaning every day can keep things looking their best.

| Read More »

Well, this is interesting news on the heels of the last report regarding preschool expulsions.  It is great to see that someone feels preschool should not break the bank for working families.  You’d think that these opinions would come from the coasts, but apparently governors in the South feel very strongly about preschool for young children.  More power to them---we’ll probably see their high schools on the cover of Newsweek in the next 15-20 years.

| Read More »

So, we know schools are overcrowded and that teachers are therefore overworked.  But is this actually true?  We have machines grading our kids’ essays now?  The next time you are at work and wonder why one of your co-workers prepares an e-mail with improper grammar, tone, misspellings, etc.  think about this one and how it could affect your kids.

| Read More »

Having kids can change the dynamics of your marriage for sure.  This article explores the soul mate aspects of marriage.

| Read More »