Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie Premieres

 My kids have been counting down the days until the live action version of one of their favorite book series — The Diary of a Wimpy Kid — comes to the big screen.

And the wait is over: The Diary of a Wimpy Kid hits theaters tomorrow. Much to my relief, Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+ and called it, “a jaunty and forthright production with a lively look reflecting the book’s illustrated pages, [the movie] does a great job of being in two places at once: In the head and gangly bodies of kids, and in the hearts of those of us who have survived grades 6-8.”

FYI: I did a Q&A with the Massachusetts author of the Wimpy Kid series, Jeff Kinney, here.

Item #2: Pole-Dancing Miley vs Morning Joe’s Mika

Remember last August when teen pop star Miley Cyrus – who has legions of fans in the tween set — caught flak for appearing at the Teen Choice Awards and doing a pole dance atop an ice cream cart (?!) while singing Party in the USA? At the time, I wrote on this blog that the whole performance made me “deeply sad.” And because my 11-year-old daughter is a Cyrus fan, the messages sent by the provocative act concerned me.

MSNBC Morning Joe co-anchor Mika Brzezinski, also the mother of an 11-year-old daughter, had a similar reaction and deemed it inappropriate for a teenaged girl. Well now Cyrus is fighting back through the pages of Parade Magazine which features an interview with Cyrus in this weekend’s edition. According to MSNBC, when Cyrus was asked to respond to Brzezinski’s criticism on MSNBC, Cyrus told Parade:

“My impulse is to say, ‘Get off my case, Mika, get over it.’ . . . My job first is to entertain and do what I love, and if you don’t like it, then change the channel. I’m not forcing you to watch me. I would do that pole dance a thousand times again because it was right for the song and that performance. But, dude, if you think dancing on top of an ice cream cart with a pole is bad, then go check out what 90 percent of the high schoolers are really up to.”

Brzezinski and her colleagues at MSNBC reacted to the Parade interview in the video below:

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 I concur with what Brzezinski and co-anchor Joe Scarborough said in the video: My daughter isn’t watching 90 percent of high schoolers, she’s watching Cyrus, who became rich and famous because of my daughter — and millions like her — did watch her and her parents (meaning me) gave her money to buy Cyrus music and other Cyrus/Hannah Montana paraphernalia.

Instead of being flippant about the fact that parents think her performance was inappropriate for a 17-year-old and telling them to just change the channel, I’d be worried about the same parents not only changing the family TV’s channel, but also slamming their wallets shut, particularly given the fact that Cyrus has a new movie coming out soon to which their daughters will want to see.

Item #3: Baby & Family Expo This Weekend

Just a friendly reminder that The Girl and I will be appearing at the Baby & Family Expo in the Parents & Kids Magazine booth at the Bayside Expo Center in Boston on Saturday morning. I’ll be giving away signed copies of my book of humor/parenting columns, Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum as well as reading excerpts.

If you have children of different ages and you’d like to do multi-aged activities with them, be sure to check out my P&K editor Heather Kempskie and her sister Lisa Hanson, authors of the Siblings Busy Book, who’ll be talking activities on Saturday at 1 p.m.

If you’re going to be attending the Expo on Sunday, look for the Manic Mommies at the P&K booth recording their podcast at 1 p.m.

Item #1: Forgetful Mamas

It’s not even the insanely busy spring yet — the time when we’re overloaded with school projects, school events, national holidays, Little League & spring soccer games/practices — and I’ve still been forgetting stuff like sending my kid to school with lunch money, birthday parties, etc. So, when I was trying to get the Picket Fence Post family’s schedule into some semblance of order last week, I felt a bit better about my slacker-ness when I witnessed moms on TV shows being overwhelmed and forgetful too.

I dedicated my Mommy Tracked column this week to this topic, saying that:, “. . . [T]he depiction of two fictional moms on TV this past week screwing up in big ways when it came to their family’s schedules made me realize that, if moms feeling overwhelmed by the weird administrative complexity of contemporary child-rearing is now a punch line on TV shows, I can’t be the only one who’s feeling burned out.”

At least I haven’t forgotten my kids’ birthdays. Yet.

Do you find yourself forgetting stuff, repeatedly, despite your best efforts to get organized?

Item #2: Dysfunctional TV Families

I’ve been going on and on about how much I adore the ABC comedy Modern Family and how much hope I have for NBC’s brand, spankin’ new dramedy Parenthood. Well, the Boston Globe’s Don Aucoin mentioned those two shows when he wrote about a trend in family-centric TV shows as of late: A lack of parental authority.

In his piece, “Dysfunction Junction: Who’s the boss? TV parents these days are often as adolescent as their children,” he asserted that today’s TV parents aren’t as stable and authoritative as TV parents of years past, like on The Cosby Show. He quoted a woman who writes about media and parenting issues as saying: “Bill Cosby was hysterically funny, and yet when push came to shove on The Cosby Show, there was no question that he and his wife were the authority figures, no question that ‘We’re the parents here, we’re here to take care of you, we’re not your friends.’ We lost something there and it’s time to get it back. A better sense of parents not so much as dominant authorities but as parents.”

While I agree that we’ve lost an overall sense of authority over today’s kids, I think the TV shows are simply reflecting today’s reality.  (Ever try to lightly reprimand/correct the behavior of  a kid who’s not yours? Be prepared for pediatric snark and smirks.) If you’re going to complain that TV parents are acting too much like kids, we need to start with the actual parents they’re depicting.

Item #3: Boston Baby & Family Expo

Mark your calendars New Englanders: Next Saturday — that’s March 20 — I’ll be appearing at the Baby & Family Expo at the Bayside Expo Center to tell parents that, while they’ll see lots of products and get lots of parenting advice at the Expo, the most important thing they need to keep in mind is this: If you don’t keep your sense of humor about this child-rearing adventure, you’ll go nuts.

At 10:30 a.m., I’m slated to give a talk/book reading called, “How to Keep Your Sense of Humor (Believe us, you’ll need it!)” where I’ll give expectant and current parents a humorous pep talk and read some of the more embarrassing columns from my parenting/humor book Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum. People who attend the talk will not only get a signed copy of the book, but they’ll get the added bonus of meeting “The Girl,” (otherwise known as my daughter) who’ll be helping me out at the Expo.

In addition, my Parents & Kids Magazine editor Heather Kempskie and her twin sister Lisa Hanson, authors of The Siblings Busy Book, will be giving pointers at 1:30 p.m. about activities you can do when you have children of different ages.

If you’re heading to the Expo on Sunday, March 21, you’ll get a chance to meet my buddies, the podcasting divas that are the Manic Mommies,  Erin and Kristin who’ll be taping their show at 1 p.m.

Here’s the link for more info. Hope to see you there.

Image credit: Baby & Family Expo.

Item #1: Penn. School-Issued Laptops Used to Spy?

The family of a 15-year-old high school student in a suburb of Philadelphia is suing his school district, accusing officials of using school-issued laptops, equipped with web cameras, to spy on students in their homes, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

An excerpt from the the news story about the lawsuit said:

“In a lawsuit filed [last week] in federal court, the family said the school’s assistant principal had confronted their son, told him he had ‘engaged in improper behavior in [his] home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the school district.’

The suit contends the Lower Merion School District, one of the most prosperous and highest-achieving in the state, had the ability to turn on students’ webcams and illegally invade their privacy.

. . . Families in the 6,900-student district reacted with shock. Parent Candace Chacona said she was ‘flabbergasted’ by the allegations. ‘My first thought was that my daughter has her computer open almost around the clock in her bedroom. Had she been spied on?’”

While school officials claimed that the remotely activated webcam feature was used as a security measure if the laptops were reported stolen — an application they say was used 42 times this school year – they aren’t saying much more about the controversy, particularly because a federal judge has told them that they need to get legal permission to do so first, citing the pending civil case.  The Inquirer reported that federal prosecutors have also issued a subpoena for all school records related to this program and a criminal probe is ongoing. It’s not publicly known how many images were taken by the remote cameras.

When I read about this case my jaw dropped. How in the world, if what the plaintiffs say is true, would anyone, could anyone, think it’s okay for a governmental institution to surveil someone in his or her home without his or her permission and without a court order? It boggles my mind. Beware of school districts offering “free” laptops.

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 Item #1:  Call it ‘Harassment’ Not ‘Bullying’

What if, just for kicks, we stopped referring to the on-going harassment and humiliation of children — which interferes with their ability to function in school — as “bullying,” and, instead, started calling it what it really is, which is “harassment?”

After I read several pieces in today’s Boston Herald about children being subjected to physical and emotional harassment in school which left them feeling unsafe and unable to concentrate – along with school officials, by and large, not doing much to stop the behavior – I kept  wondering why it’s not simply called “harassment.” The word “bullying” seems insufficient. As does the word “teasing,” which I’ve also heard invoked to refer to this subject.

One Herald article, entitled “Bullied kids ‘helpless’ against attacks” started thusly:

“Hundreds of angry parents, worried teachers and even terrorized kids are reporting ugly episodes of brutal bullying at schools across Massachusetts as the heartwrenching case of Phoebe Prince continues to expose a painful nerve.

The abuse — detailed in e-mails and phone calls to the Herald – is emotionally jarring, often physical and spreading like a merciless virus in cyberspace.

Kids tell of being forced to drink toilet water, getting pummeled on the bus and seeing themselves ridiculed for all to see on Facebook.

. . . A Boston Latin High School parent said the bullying was so bad her son had to leave the elite school. A teacher on the South Shore said she’s sick over special-needs girls being photographed in the bathroom — only to learn it was all posted on Facebook.”

An accompanying Herald column, “Parents’ pleas fall on deaf ears,” painted a picture of parents feeling likewise helpless when it comes to putting an end to the harassment of their kids at the hands of their classmates:

“‘We told the school and the school did nothing.’

That’s the common refrain I’ve heard over and over since news broke of the apparent suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, who was relentlessly hounded by high school bullies.

Incredibly, her tormentors remain in class, protected by the school. Yet in conversations with parents and in more than 100 voice mails and e-mails, I learned that protecting bullies, not the bullied, is hardly unique to South Hadley. It’s now the rule in our schools.”

If the student victims were instead adult employees at a company being harassed by a peer, their supervisor would have to step in and stop the harasser from creating a hostile work environment or face a possible lawsuit. If one adult wouldn’t leave another one alone, a criminal restraining order could filed against the harasser. So why can’t the schools do more, like workplaces have done?

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Item #1: Snacks All the Time

It was something that annoyed me to no end when my children were but wee little toddlers. Everywhere we went – playdates, the park, pre-school – it seemed as though nearly all of my peers were handing their children snacks every two hours or so. If you went against the grain and didn’t provide your offspring with some sustenance at regular, two-hour intervals, your kids would throw a tantrum because the other kids were eating Pirate’s Booty while they were wasting away to nothing as you just sat there impassively, witnessing the horror of their deprivation without batting an eyelash.

It has continued, even worsened, during their grade school years, this obsession with snacking. I chaperoned a school field trip for my 8-year-old this past fall and was stunned that the students were instructed to eat their snacks (that parents were told to send in) on the bus on the way to our destination, less than an hour after the students had arrived to school. (Hadn’t they just eaten breakfast?) Some kids even brought in multiple snacks, one for the bus ride there, one for the bus ride home, and a lunch in between the snacks.

This constant feeding of children — despite all the news stories about rampant childhood obesity — has even infiltrated the sidelines of youth soccer games and the benches during baseball games. Here we are, bringing our kids to participate in an athletic activity and we give them food either during or after the games (or both) because, what, they can’t make it for an hour or two without food? They can’t just wait until they get home?

What the heck is up with all this food? Why are we, as a society, encouraging this, creating this habit that, once the kids become our age, will catch up with them and their waistlines? I have no problem with giving kids an afterschool snack, or with giving them an occasional dessert after dinner (I did blog about making cupcakes the other day) but why do we feel compelled to institutionalize this snacking throughout the day in addition to their three meals (which, oftentimes, they won’t eat — even though I’ve worked hard to make well-rounded, homemade fare – because of all of these damned snacks)?

An article in the New York Times Dining section this week entitled, “Snack Time Never Ends” made me feel vindicated. I am NOT the only parent who rolls her eyes when she sees someone pull out a box of powdered doughnuts on the sidelines soccer games or when a kid brings a series of snacks, plus a lunch when he’s only going to be away from home between 8:30 and 4. Here’s an excerpt of the story about the all-snacks-all-the-time mentality:

“. . . [W]hen it comes to American boys and girls, snacks seem both mandatory and constant. Apparently, we have collectively decided as a culture that it is impossible for children to take part in any activity without simultaneously shoving something into their pie holes.

‘Children used to come home, change into play clothes and go outside and play with other children,’ said Joanne Ikeda, a nutritionist emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. ‘There were not snack machines, and the gas station only sold gas. Now there are just so many more opportunities to snack and so many activities after school to have snacks.”

Do you think we’ve become a society obsessed with snacks?

Item #2: 11-Year-Old Skater

Here’s what my 11-year-old daughter does during any given week: Goes to school, plays basketball or four-square at recess, does her homework, reads tons of books, listens to music, draws/sketches, plays on a basketball team and goes to her games and practices, attends church, watches TV, plays Wii and plays with friends, her brothers and our dog. All in all, it’s a pretty nice, well-rounded tween life. Just the way it should be.

So when I read a profile in the New York Times this week about another 11-year-old girl who’s gunning for Olympic gold in figure skating, I couldn’t help but think of my own child and how different her life would be if she were in that girl’s skates. The ice skating girl had skates slapped onto her feet at age 2, started “formal lessons” at 4 and now is “out of bed at 5 on most school days, on the ice six days a week” and “finished an encouraging sixth on Tuesday in the novice ladies division at the United States championships,” the Times reported.

The article quoted her coach and her mother saying that, at age 4, it was decided that, as far as her career and future in figure skating went, they were going to “commit everything to it.”  While I respect that every family has its own set of values and priorities — there are folks who think I’m crazy for limiting our children to one sport per season per kid and, most of the time, do not permit playing the same sport in back-to-back seasons — I felt very sad for this child when I read this passage:

“On winter and spring breaks, her classmates can sleep in while she must spend much of her time at the rink.

‘I do want a break sometimes,’ [she] said. ‘I’d like to go to a birthday party.’

Asked if she skated for herself or because others wanted her to, she replied, ‘I guess it’s half and half; sometimes I want to and sometimes I don’t.’”

When the Times asked the child’s mother if she’d permit her daughter to drop out of figure skating if the 11-year-old didn’t want to do it anymore, the mom told the paper, “Probably not. I see her potential. For sure I would like that she continue and do her job. I think she can do it.”

Item #3: ‘Squeakquel’ Gripes

Okay, I know that I have no business griping about that Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. It’s a Chipmunks movie, so what the heck should I have expected, literary allusions and insightful observations on the human (or mammalian) condition? Of course not.

When I took my 11-year-old twins to see this screechy sequel this week (the 8-year-old saw it with friends during Christmas break), I didn’t give much thought to the film’s premise: The trio of famous singing boy chipmunks goes to high school while a trio of as-yet undiscovered singing girl chipmunks enrolls in the same school in an attempt to become international rock stars a la the original Chipmunks boy band.

The problem — other than the fact that I didn’t bring ear plugs – was watching the female chipmunks perform. I was really disappointed that their ”performances” were all about hip swaying and pelvis grinding, along with substantial booty shaking. Offstage the “Chippettes” were as innocent and sweet as the boy chipmunks, but on stage, it was an entirely different story. On stage, they turned into Beyonce.

This annoyed me, probably more than it should have. Why couldn’t the Chippettes just have been portrayed as really good singers who rocked the house with their talent and coolness? Why did they have to send the message to the girls that to be successful, gals should capitalize on sex appeal and go the rump-shaking route? After all, the boy chipmunks weren’t pulling a Justin Timberlake when he does his booty shaking thing. *shaking my head*

Image credit: Pirate’s Booty web site.

Item #1: Mass. Mom Delivers Own Baby

A story in my local paper made me think, There but for the grace of God go I.

The story was about a Massachusetts mom of a 3-year-old whose labor with her second child came on so hard and so fast that she wound up delivering her 6 pound 4 ounce baby alone in the vehicle while her mother ran into the Emergency Room to summon hospital staff for help. As the baby, Grace Emily-Marie  was making her way into the world, Meghan Aucoin’s mother drove her to the hospital and by the time medical staff returned to the vehicle, Aucoin was holding her daughter in her arms.

Makes me shudder. That was me with The Youngest Son. Eight-and-a-half years ago. Baby was coming out when I was still in my bathroom. The Spouse loaded me into the car, drove like mad to the hospital, then left me (because I was unable to walk) laboring in the car as he ran into the ER to get the doctors . . . except that the doctors got to me in time and The Youngest Boy was born shortly after I was wheeled into the hospital. I became known as “the lady who almost gave birth in the parking lot.” Now Aucoin IS the lady who gave birth in the parking lot. My hat is off to her.

Item #2: 8-Year-Old on Watch List

Reading a page one story in the New York Times today about an 8-year-old third grade New Jersey Cub Scout who’s on the Transportation Security Administration’s watch list as a potential security threat does not make me feel safe. A boy named Mikey Hicks shares a name with “someone named Michael Hicks [who] made the Department of Homeland Security suspicious and little Mikey is still paying the price,” the Times reported.

This boy has been subject to pat-downs and questioning when flying on commercial aircraft with his family, starting when he was, get this, 2 years old and was frisked at an airport in Newark because his name was “on the list.”

I was incredulous. A 2-year-old being searched and treated like a potential terrorist? Seriously? I don’t know about you, but it wouldn’t instill confidence in me to see a kid in Pull-Ups being frisked before boarding an airplane because his name is “on the list.”

As Hicks’ mother said, “Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal. A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

Their congressman, William J. Pascrell, told the Times, “We can’t just throw a bunch of names on these lists and call it security. If we  can’t get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list becomes suspect.”

Item #3: Brutal World of Politics

I’m reading the book Game Change for a column I’m working on. It’s the book that’s getting all the media attention for containing a series of inflammatory comments about the 2008 presidential campaign reportedly from the mouths of marquee national politicians (Senate Leader Harry Reid, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, etc.). And as I’ve been pouring through it — reading anecdote after anecdote about searingly private moments between politicians and their spouses (the material on Elizabeth Edwards is so devastating and so personal that I feel like I needed a shower after I read it) — it makes me wonder why anyone would want to open him or herself up to such intense scrutiny, knowing that everything you say and do — even with your spouse when you think it’s private, even in front of “trusted” aides and colleagues – would someday be blabbed to reporters and made grist for late night comedians.

Image credit: Fred R. Conrad/New York Times.

Item #1: Teacher Gifts

I thought we were in a recession, marked by high unemployment and people cutting back as they try to ride out these days of TARP and discussions of another possible federal stimulus package as industries wither away (auto, newspaper, etc.). So why did I read in the Boston Globe that Massachusetts school districts feel the need to warn parents against giving their children’s teachers “pricey” gifts? The story began as follows:

“School superintendents across the region are penning letters this holiday season to parents, cautioning them against going overboard with gift-giving to teachers, principals, and other staff members.

. . . While acknowledging that parents’ gift-giving gestures may be well intentioned the superintendents say that the state’s new ethics laws forbids public servants, including teachers on public payrolls, from receiving gifts with value in excess of $50. Violations are subject to civil penalties, the superintendents warn.”

Some of the examples of previous parental gift-giving excess, according to the Globe, were: $200 gift cards, fine wines, sports tickets, Rolex watches and HD TVs.

Hold on a sec, I thought. Who in the heck is giving teachers gifts that go for $50, never mind the ones the Globe was calling “pricey?”

Are people at your kids’ schools dishing out major cash for gifts?

Item #2: Decade of Overparenting

As part of its ode to the decade of the 2000s that’s about to come to a close, New York Magazine has a piece by writer Sandra Tsing Loh describing this past 10 years as a period of time when “Everybody Else Knows Best,” at least when it came to parenting, as parents have felt under siege by the volume of child-rearing advice. Tsing Loh focused on an anecdote involving her friend, the mother of a 9-month-old who won’t sleep. The friend didn’t know what to do about her son’s sleeping issues and fretted that she would make a mistake. Tsing Loh put a stake into the notion of relying on so-called parenting “experts” to tell us what we should do at every moment of our children’s young lives. Worth the read.

Item #3: Pregnancy Discrimination on ‘Housewives’

Desperate Housewives has had an irritating Lynette Scavo-centric storyline this season, one in which the fortysomething mom of four — who’s pregnant with twins, whose husband has gone back to college and she’s the only breadwinner — is being discriminated against by Carlos Solis, her boss/neighbor/friend, so much so, that after she was unjustly fired, she felt compelled to sue him.

She didn’t tell Carlos — who openly told her that he’d discriminated against another woman and not given her a promotion because she was pregnant and instead gave the promotion to Lynette —  immediately after she found out she was pregnant, but made arrangements, trained an underling and landed a big account so that she wouldn’t leave Carlos in the lurch. But when he found out (not from her) he acted as though, by getting pregnant, she’d let him down and hurt him, and that he was justified in forcing her out of a job.

This fictionalized version of pregnancy discrimination is the focus of my Mommy Tracked column this week, where Lynette’s situation is being played for laughs. I also asked readers what a woman in Lynette’s situation could/should do. (See video from the latest episode below for an example of Lynette being treated shabbily by Carlos’ wife Gabby.)

By the way, after this past week’s plane crash on Wisteria Lane, I began to wonder if this particular (fictional) street in Fairview is the most dangerous street in America. The results of my curiosity can be found here, where I documented every violent/criminal act that I could find that has occurred on Wisteria Lane over Desperate Housewives’ half dozen seasons. If I’ve missed any, please feel free to let me know.

Item #1: Controversy Over H1N1 Vaccine Availability

After posting on Facebook the news that this week one of my kids was diagnosed with H1N1 (swine flu), many folks lamented the fact that they’ve been vigorously trying to obtain vaccines for their children but can’t. People are, in a word, pissed.

First of all, the president last week declared that the United States is in a state of emergency when it comes to the swine flu as the media have been hyping the death stats from H1N1 with scary stories of healthy pregnant women and children being fatally stricken with the disease — like the constant, ominus, beating of a drum — and making it seem as though the plague is awaiting us on our front stoops.

Secondly, there’s been an unforeseen production shortage of H1N1 vaccines, vaccines for which the Centers for Disease Control is urging parents of young children and pregnant women to obtain. And, in the midst of this federal-government-declared emergency, there’s currently not enough of the vaccine to go around right now.

Third, another unseemly factor was thrown into the mix this week: The government has been releasing dosages of the hard-to-find H1N1 vaccine to various groups including corporations, a practice they typically utilize to distribute the seasonal flu vaccines every year. However when people read the news that Wall Street banking and trading companies like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are obtaining doses of H1N1 vaccines (for which the companies had previously ordered from health officials) while other groups like pediatricians and ob/gyns don’t have enough to meet the needs of their high-risk patients, folks get irritated, to put it mildly.

Seeing NBC’s Today Show report below, which says that New York’s Goldman Sachs got as many doses of H1N1 vaccine as an entire hospital (200), you can see how this issue is quickly spiraling into the haves vs the have-nots, or, as the Today Show put it, Wall Street vs Main Street, yet again:

Item #2: Dads Are Important

While this news story falls into the, “Well, yeah, of course, you idiot” category, I found some of the points made in the New York Times’ piece, “Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (And Mothers)” — about how having dads around is important to children — are worth mentioning. The story said that institutionally, dads feel excluded from places where parents and children gather because the physical environment and the practices utilized by staff in such locations are geared toward children and mothers, sending clear signals that taking care of the kiddos is for mothers, not fathers.

“The walls in family resource centers are pink, there are women’s magazines in the waiting room, the mother’s name is on the files, and the home visitor asks for the mother if the father answers the door,” a University of California Berkeley psychology professor told the Times. “It’s like fathers are not there.”

This happens all the time in schools as well when there’s an assumption that the volunteers for school-related tasks will be women, hence the phrase “room mothers.” (I’ve yet to hear anyone invoke the phrase “room fathers.”) One time The Spouse volunteered to be a chaperone for one of our kids’ field trips and, after the chaperones had been selected, a note was sent home saying that I had been among those chosen volunteers to go on the trip, when it was The Spouse’s name that had been submitted.

Additionally, the Times story pointed out that, in order to allow children to benefit from their relationships with their fathers, mothers need to back off and stop micromanaging everything. The paper paraphrased a child psychologist as saying, “Fathers tend to do things different . . . but not in ways that are worse for their children. Fathers do not mother, they father.”

Item #3: Parents Should Back Off Kids’ Homework

Speaking of backing off, syndicated columnist Betsy Hart asserted in a new essay that she doesn’t think it’s necessary for parents to micromanage their children’s homework assignments and drill the children to prepare them for tests, especially in the younger grades. The mother of four believes that her children should learn how to manage their schoolwork, and, when they fail to do so, learn from the consequences fo their failure. An excerpt:

“I worry that if a parent is stressing about [his or her child's] tests and advanced placement in the third grade, these might be the same parents who are literally checking in on a child’s tests and assignments in college on a regular basis. Or even going to job interviews with a grown child after he gets his degree.

But once again the older I get, the more wisdom it turns out my mother had. When it comes to what we do for our kids, she would say, so often less is more.”

Item #1: Scary Movie Previews

Back in July, I blogged about how irritated I was to find, prior to a 1 p.m. mid-week showing of a PG movie about wizards, a movie preview for a PG-13 apocalyptic film about the end of the world and one for an as-yet-unrated film which included examples of close-contact brutal violence. Both trailers terrified my 11-year-olds.

I was even more irritated a few weeks later when I went to see the PG-13 film about Julia Child — to which I’d considered taking my 11-year-old daughter — and was treated to a trailer for a movie about a homicidal stepfather who went after his stepkids with a chainsaw and a knife.

So I called a spokesman for a national chain of movie theaters and asked him to kindly explain to me: Who picks these previews to accompany the feature films, whether the time of day is considered when selecting trailers and if the expected feature film audience is taken into consideration. The result is my November GateHouse News Service column in which I argue that theaters aren’t making wise choices about which trailers they’re choosing to run prior to movies.

Item #2: Baby Einstein Refunds

Perhaps you’ve read the news that the Disney Corporation is offering people who purchased Baby Einstein videos a $15.99 refund each, for up to four DVDs per household (for DVDs purchased between June 5, 2004 through Sept. 5, 2009). Why the refunds? Because the videos aren’t quite as “educational” as the company made them seem, the New York Times reported.

Over on the web site Mommy Tracked — where I’m a contributing columnist — author/columnist Stefanie Wilder-Taylor had a snarkily funny response to the news:

“It made perfect sense to me that I could sit my children in front of a DVD that shows colorful sock puppets moving at a pace slower than my grandma on the interstate highway and expect them to come away a prodigy. The only movement any of my kids produced after watching Baby Mozart was in their Pampers.”

Item #3: The Jig is Up

Remember yesterday when I posted an item about The Eldest Boy having lost three teeth in the span on 15 minutes. Well, as of the morning, I was informed by said child that the jig is up and that he knows “the truth” about not just the Tooth Fairy, but the dude in the red suit. The news filled me with a twinge of nostalgic sadness.

Item #1: Lessons from the 1960s

Okay, I’ll admit it. I am obsessed with Mad Men. (I think some of my friends secretly cannot WAIT for the short Mad Men season to conclude so I’ll stop dropping Don and Betty Draper’s names into virtually every conversation, blog post and Tweet.)

Annnywaayy . . . this week, over on Mommy Tracked (note the new spelling of the site’s name), I wrote a column about how watching the show, set in the 1960s, has given me a new-found understanding of how women in my family were raised and the expectations which were instilled in them when they were grown women, some expectations which they never jettisoned, even long after the feminist movement went mainstream.

Watching Mad Men’s affluent, Grace Kelly look-alike at-home mom Betty Draper, newly married career gal Joan Holloway (who thinks she wants what Betty has, not realizing that Betty hates her life) and the single, aspiring careerist Peggy Olson interact with the 1960s world has consistently brought to my mind aunts, grandmothers and sometimes my mother and has helped me look at their viewpoints with a whole heck of a lot less judgement than I used to.

Item #2: Family Dinners

Also on Mommy Tracked this week is a piece by Abby Margolis Newman, a mother of five (including two teens and one tween), who challenged the notion advanced in a New York Times article (and elsewhere) that families who are interested in keeping their kids off drugs, unpregnant, engaged in school and not off toting a rifle under a trench coat someplace should strive to have family meals together at least five times a week.

She wrote: “. . . [The] National Center on Addition and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) also shows that ‘teenagers who eat with their families less than three times a week times a week are more likely to turn to alcohol, tobacco and drugs than those who dine with their families five times a week.’”

Given her family’s hyper-busy schedule and that her husband doesn’t get home until after 7:30 p.m., Margolis Newman said that even eating together three times a week is a stretch:

“The boys are at three different schools and are involved in sports and theatrical productions. This situation, needless to say, is not conducive to cozy family dinners during the week. Frankly, we’re lucky if we even get one sit-down dinner per week — and I mean at the table . . .

So, if my teenage and pre-teen boys get only one family dinner per week, does this mean they are five times as likely to turn to alcohol, tobacco and drugs? Holy crap. And do the chances of this bad behavior go up even higher if I, as the stay-at-home parent, do not actually do any home cooking but rather buy the pre-marinated chicken breasts, the frozen (but organic!) oven fries, and never vary our vegetable choices? Does eating In n’ Out burgers in the car on the way to or from baseball practice — as long as the boys are all together — count as a family meal (is there such a thing as partial credit)?”

Does your family eat dinner together at least five times a week?

Item #3: Reality Check Survey (Please Chime in Below in Comments Section!)

Statements directed at me by my children since school began:

“Everyone else on my soccer team has a cell phone but me.”

“My friend Matt can watch as much TV as he wants . . . No, his mother doesn’t stop him . . . No! Really! She doesn’t!”

“I’m the ONLY one in my class whose mom makes him pick up after the dog.”

I’ve been told all manner of tall tales by the kids — specifically my fifth graders — about what other kids’ parents are or are not allowing their children to do. Not that what other parents do or don’t do is going to change my opinion that my rugrats do not need cell phones at this time. And no matter what other parents report, I’m not putting a TV or a computer in their bedrooms any time soon. (To do so would result in my children watching TV until their eyes bleed.) And if they’re going to use the internet, it’s going to be in a public area (our kitchen, family room, etc.) so I can walk by to glance at what they’re doing. (I’ve already been asked, “If you type in ‘naked butts dot com’ into the internet what will you get?”) 

With all the smack that goes on in their school hallways (talk which prompted one of my kids to ask me to define “pole dancer” because this child heard kids joking about the subject in the hall), I wanted to do my own investigating and find out what other folks really are or aren’t doing with regard to cell phones, TVs, computers and family dog care.

Here’s where you, my smart readers come in. I would love to hear your answers to the following five questions:

1. How old is your kid(s)?

2. Does your kid(s) have a cell phone? If so, at what age did the kid(s) get it?

3. Does your kid(s) have unlimited TV watching time?

4. Unlimited computer and video game time?

5. If you have a family dog, is your kid(s) ever expected to clean up after the dog?

Please feel free to post your answers to my Reality Check Survey in the comments section below, or, if you’d prefer, e-mail me at: meredithobrien@hotmail.com.

Looking forward to reading your answers.

Image credit: AMC.