Happy Weekend Readers! The school year is coming to a close and Summer is rapidly approaching. That means it is probably past time to get your kids signed up for summer camp. Camp Quest Ohio is looking for volunteers after coming up short on staff and having to waitlist some kids. I stepped up and will be putting my aging body on the line to help a bunch of great kids have a positive secular camp experience. Check out the national Camp Quest site to see if there’s a way you can help where you are.
Child poverty in the US is appalling for such a rich country. The rest of the industrialized world has some form of child allowance, Vox looks into why we don’t.
Most parents worry about how to help our kids navigate growing up safely. This Dad came up with a simple system to help his kids get themselves out of situations where they feel pressured to use alcohol or drugs or any other unsafe behavior…
I’ve been both a working mom and a stay-at-home mom, and they are both difficult and rewarding at different times and for different reasons. Like when I had to drop my baby off at daycare and listen to her cry as I walked back to my car, trying not to cry myself. Then, I rocked a presentation and scored a huge grant for a great cause, which was so awesome.
I thought staying home would be easier after being a working mom, but then I found myself hiding in the bathroom in an attempt to escape my whiny toddler and realized that I hadn’t showered in a week. Then I remembered that it wasn’t a big deal, because it wasn’t like I had anyplace to be, which was so bittersweet.
A lot is mentally expected of an athlete at any age. Beyond learning how to work with a team, they also need to learn how to control their own emotions. It takes a lot to learn how to lose and win, how to deal with challenging interactions when something was unfair, and how to block all of it out and do it again the following week. Despite my cartwheels in the field my first season of soccer, it turns out that I am super competitive. That is a trait that, while helpful, needed to be worked out so it had a positive outlet. Sports taught me perseverance and acceptance, both positive characteristics that would serve me well later on in school and the work force. My participation trophies didn’t teach me to be a unique snowflake who expected handouts; my participation trophies helped me value hard work.
A lot of the pushback against participation trophies comes from a nostalgia for the more free range and free wheeling childhoods of the 70’s and early 80’s, when we drank from the hose and played until sunset. Author and teacher Maureen O’Leary pokes some holes in that nostalgic picture in We Weren’t That Resilient.
Look, if we take away the sepia tones of nostalgia, we might also remember things like the fact that we said “gay,” “retarded,” and “Jewish” as put-downs in my Catholic high school and nobody stopped us. God forbid someone was actually gay, learning disabled, or of another ethnic or cultural background than most. Kids who were in any way off the extremely narrow line of the norm were persecuted ruthlessly, and I don’t know anyone who just got over it. We pretended it wasn’t happening, when we could. When we couldn’t, we just counted the days until we could be out of our Wild West childhoods and into someplace that made sense.
We weren’t pandered to with the myriad of diagnosed anxiety disorders of today’s kids. Naw, we just had eating disorders and mental illnesses that we suffered in secret, silence, and shame.
For example, one of my high school friends lived in terror that the devil was trying to grab him from underground, one among a number of his quirks that in retrospect point to at least a concern for adolescent onset schizophrenia. No one was concerned. He couldn’t be convinced to stop climbing onto the roof of the school to escape the devil so he was expelled. The boy didn’t end up surviving his twenty-first summer.
And finally, two excellent articles about how we shouldn’t compare our Cheeto Tinted Tyrant to a toddler. First Alison Gopnik in the New York Times argues that 4 Year Olds Don’t Act Like Trump
Four-year-olds understand the difference between fantasy and reality. They certainly enjoy pretend play, imagining that the world is full of villains and that they are all-powerful heroes. But studies show that they know they are pretending and understand that their imaginary companions are just that: imaginary. Mr. Trump seems to have no sense of the boundary between his self-aggrandizing fantasies and reality.
And Matthew Iglesias at Vox uses his own new Dad experience to explore how Trump Isn’t a Toddler- He’s a Product of America’s Culture of Impunity for the Rich.
My 2-year-old son misbehaves all the time. The reason is simple: He’s a toddler.
He stuck his foot in a serving bowl at dinner Tuesday night. He screams in inappropriate situations. He’s terrified of vacuum cleaners. He thinks it’s funny to throw rocks at birds. He has poor impulse control and limited understanding of the consequences of his actions.
But he’s also, fundamentally, a good kid. If you tell him no, he’ll usually listen. If you remind him of the rules, he’ll acknowledge them and obey. He shows remorse when his misdeeds are pointed out to him, and if you walk him through a cause-and-effect chain he’ll alter his behavior. Like all little kids, he needs discipline, and he’s got a lot to learn. But he is learning,and he has some notion of consequences and right and wrong.
Trump is not like that — at all.
This is 20 minutes you will never get back but they are well spent…
Lou Doench is a 52 year old father of three. Twelve years ago he married the coolest woman in the world and gave up the lucrative career of being a photography student to become a stay at home husband and Dad, or SAHD. An atheist geek, or a geeky atheist if you prefer, Lou likes reading, photography, video gaming, disc golf, baseball and Dr. Who. He has been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1976. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is also an excellent home cook, not that his children would know because they only eat Mac & Cheese. Follow Lou on Twitter @blotzphoto or check out his photography at www.flickr.com/photos/blotz/
