In the category of “long overdue” comes a new product from the Barbie makers that encourages girls to get into the car race (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fi-pollywheels26feb26,0,6336470.story?coll=chi-bizfront-hed). At the recent Toy Fair in New York, Mattel introduced Polly Wheels and Polly Pocket Dolls who can drive the pink, purple, and glittery sisters to the die-cast Matchbox and Hot Wheels lines. While girls have been revving up the imaginary engines of boy-geared cars for generations — and real-life racers such as Danica Patrick have pulled fast car driving into the forefront — this new female friendly lot of mini autos should further break down gender walls on the playing surface. Who knows, perhaps we’ll get to see some more macho-looking dolls for boys, now?
I can’t get this song out of my head. No, it’s not the latest from The Fray or Fall Out Boy, but it is darn good for a family music tune. It’s “Tuna Fish,” performed by the inimitable Gunnar Madsen, from his Ants in My Pants! CD (http://www.gunnarspot.com/). The song’s a few year’s old, but it works in its irregular way as it tells the tale of a child named after his mother’s favorite food (to paraphrase a sample lyric: “kids ask me, ‘are you cooked or are you raw?’). The song, and the album, are too good to be overlooked, so check it out.
When I was in kindergarten, my best friend was a kid who loved building tunnels with me out of these giant blocks. We raced across the playground all the time and told each other knock-knock jokes. We also shared a name, only he used it as a first name and spelled it “Kear.” The only other difference we seemed to have was our skin color. He was black and I was white. We noticed this difference as a matter of fact, but it was never something we focused on because we were kindergartners just out to have fun in school.
This anecdote is just a slice of my childhood, but it’s something I often think about. I left that school the next year and still wonder whatever became of Kear. I’m not sure what other effects my friendship with him have had on me, but I do know that I’m thankful for that beginning to what has become a life filled with diverse people, from various ethnicities, races, and orientations. I’ve tried to nurture my own children’s multicultural friendships and education, though I often think they do not have have the same pull of significance that my upbringing in the late-’60s and ’70s gave me. In my early years, the Civil Rights Movement was still fresh and the victories felt especially sweet.
Today, though, while our society sometimes appears more respectful of differences, it also seems that we often accept racial territories and do not cross over for lack of comfort. For this, among many other reasons, we must celebrate Black History Month by teaching our children the lessons of our youth and modeling the principles of our adulthood. We can also simply sit with a calendar and go through the various holidays that may be foreign to our kids, but can be excellent touch points to teach about many cultures.
Frustrated by my pacifist son’s willingness to let an opposing soccer player stiff-arm him away from the ball, I told my child that it’s OK to push back because it’s part of the game. So, my kid did just that, rather lightly — and apologized quickly before continuing the action. I’m lucky because my son’s better nature overcame my soccer-dad drive, which allowed me teach something that is a little dicey since it’s hard for many third-graders to understand the diffference between the playing field and the everyday world of classrooms and playdates. This is just the kind of issue that worries the Josephson Institute of Ethics, which recently published the findings of a nationwide survey on the ethics of student athletes (http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/reportcard/). The study concludes that athletes cheat more on tests and in other situations than students who are not on athletic teams.
The survey has also caught the attention of the Los Angeles Times, which interviewed experts with opinions from various angles, from coaches to league administrators (http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-ethics18feb18,1,7160649.story). Under scrutiny is how students come to cut the corners of fairness to success. Are coaches to blame because they’re more driven or pressured to win? Are parents pushing their children too hard without seeing the off-the-field consequences? Are professional athletes — who use steroids, spike the fuel in their race cars, and trash talk — too influential on our children?
I agree with Michael Josephson, who heads the Josephson Institue of Ethics as well as the long-running Character Counts campaign, in my concern that winning at all costs at the youth level will often lead to the same philosophy among adults. This is not a new worry, but it is one we must continue to address if we are to raise children with integrity and honor. Reality dictates that many of our most successful adults are liars and cheaters, but that does not mean we cannot have some effect in changing that.
According to a United Nations study looking at what countries do to ensure child welfare, the United States ranked 20th out of 21 of the world’s wealthiest nations. Finishing last in the assessment is Great Britain (http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8N9PH282.html). Among the factors looked at were poverty, inequality, family services, infant mortality, and school drop-outs. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explained that the U.N. study uses standards different than ones used by the U.S.
However we analyze the data, it’s difficult to make the case that the U.S. does enough to help the disadvantaged children of our country (certainly not as much as the study’s top-ranking countries of Sweden or Denmark, which arguably have a less complicated task of attending to its populations’ needs). It remains utterly confounding how, with all of our vast resources, we can leave so many children below the poverty line and without much hope for a decent future. What can we do? What should we do? One suggestion is to do some community service work for at-risk kids as a family on the weekends, even one weekend every so often. This can teach our children the value of giving to others and help them understand how good they have it as well. Some other ideas can be found at the site for the Children’s Defense Fund (http://www.childrensdefense.org/), but please write in with your own thoughts.
In an effort to update the research comparing biological parents to adoptive parents, a new study concludes that parents who adopt invest more in their children when it comes to finances and time (http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/4865.html). Sociologists at the University of Indiana and the University of Connecticut discovered that in homes where there are two adoptive parents, the parents not only spend more money on their kids, but they spend more family hours in doing such activities as reading together, eating meals together, and talking to their children than do biological parents. As adoptions are expected to increase in the coming years, the research could become important in debating the quality of parenting by adoptive heterosexual and gay couples.
P.E. time is constantly being cut or completely removed in too many schools. Computers, TV, and video games frequently outcompete sports for children’s leisure time. Childhood obesity reaches epidemic proportions in America. What can we do before our kids become mashed potatoes, let alone spuds of the couch variety?
A new study shows that an innovative series of exercises, called Energizers, can improve a child’s physical fitness and — this is key for all of us achievement-oriented parents — help a child focus in the classroom (http://www.ecu.edu/cs-admin/news/poe/2007/107/energizers.cfm). Researchers from East Carolina University tested the 10-minute workouts with elementary school students and had positive results. Given the time challenges to kids’ days, this may be a viable option to keep our youth fit in mind and body. You can actually download the exercise instructions here: http://ncpe4me.com/energizers.html.
I’m venturing to provide quick suggestions in this posting category. Of note, recently, is a bilingual video called Voy Baby: Discovering Colors Colores (http://www.voybaby.com/videos.html). With Latin music and other culturally inspired design, this is a fresh contribution to the baby video market. In the music department, new kindie rock record lable, Little Monster (http://www.littlemonsterrecords.com/) offers its first release: All Together Now: Beatles Stuff for Kids of All Ages. It has spot-on productions of Fab Four tunes with adults leading the vocals and a children’s chorus uplifting the arrangements.
This is a subject that just will not go away, especially when we’ve got young female celebrities flaunting their wares minus underwear (yes the rhyme was intended). Newsweek magazine’s new cover story called ‘Girls Gone Wild: What Are Celebrities Teaching Kids?’ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16961761/site/newsweek/) investigates the growing influences of such attention grabbers as Paris Hilton as Britney Spears on teens, tweens, and maybe even younger girls. These young ladies — their attire (or lack thereof, behavior (worthy of rehab for some), and their fabulous wealth — cast quite a spell over young girls thinking there is power in copying the celebrity image.
Realistically, girls have been imitating naughty celebrities for a very long time. In fact, boys have been doing the same, mimicking rebellious male youths. I’m willing to be corrected on this, but the difference is that the bad-girl celebs are more overtly displaying their sexuality and the guys seem less so. A lot of this has to do with the feeling that girls can wield more power with their body parts, while boys are still granted certain authorities merely by being male.
I’ve discussed this issue, in part, back in October, with regard to the sexiness of Halloween costumes (http://www.familymanonline.com/?p=30), but some of the comments bear repeating. We have to deal with the ubiquitousness of the Lindsay Lohans (who has tremendous talent and beauty, in spite of her often outlandish behavior) and understand that we can still teach our girls to respect themselves in order to gain respect from others. We have to educate our daughters from an early age, because the bad-girl influence is reaching younger and younger girls. We parents have to be firm about the clothes we buy our daughters and what we allow them to wear, even if they protest. We also have to model the appropriate clothing and behavior we want from our children and point out other good role models in the media and everyday life for our children.
As a pretty open-minded person, I understand that we need to accept the right to free expression from celebrities and even our kids. It’s difficult to not sound like a fuddy-duddy when I recommend modesty in dress and behavior. And it’s hard to answer those kids who say that I’m doubting their ability to control their own bodies and prevent others from seeing their attire as an invitation for sex, be it wanted or unwanted. But I’m also a father who wants kids to be kids as long as possible and to find all the glorious ways they can still exert their power, from doing well in a classroom to starring in the school play. Perhaps one way to engage our girls is to use humor and poke a little fun at the falseness of these famous images. Get to know the details of the celebrities and converse with our children. Tell them about our own fallen idols. And, for parents of sons, teach the boys to value and praise girls with self-respect.
There’s so much more to say, and I will, yet I do want to hear your thoughts. Is this really much of a problem? How can we deal with it?
A few weeks ago, I watched the season premiere of one of my all-time favorite shows, 24. Jack Bauer has become a kind of postmodern superhero — he’s invincible, even after his most recent torture in a Chinese prison. I must admit that I’ve become pretty immune to the violence on the show, one I watch on my DVR, late at night, with my kids safely asleep. But that season opener started at 8 pm, while two of my under 10 children are still floating around, finishing homework and brushing teeth. While I watched the program later, I kept wondering what would’ve happened had I been unable to resist the “power of Bauer” and watched at the show’s regular time? One of my son’s could’ve walked in at the moment — which aired before 8:30 pm — in which Jack escapes from near death by (VIOLENCE WARNING) biting out the jugular of a terrorist. Blood went everywhereand, while I was viscerally impressed by the character’s ingenuity for escape without a conventional weapon, I also thought that this was not exactly one of those toothpick-as-a-projectile MacGuyver moments.
The producers and network of 24 would have done well to play the scene more subtly, or opted to show it later in the evening. Although there are TV ratings and a clear warning before the show, many parents still don’t get the picture. As I always believe, the responsibility is first with the parents to safeguard children from seeing such images. But it would be a great service to everyone if the producers and network showed a little extra caution as well.
