Picket Fence Post

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: Obama’s Sweet Parental Leave Policy

While most parents I know who try to simultaneously work and raise kids — or juggle the needs of multiple kids at the same time — struggle to make an appearance at every kid-centric event their children have, I found myself feeling envious of President Obama’s ability to put everything aside, including budget talks and national security, in order to attend one of his kids’ events.

In a recent New York Times piece entitled, “He Breaks for Band Recitals,” a senior advisor to the president told the paper: “There are certain things that are sacrosanct on his schedule — the kids’ recitals, soccer games, basketball games, school meetings. These are circled in red on his calendar, and regardless of what’s going on he’s going to make those. I think that’s part of how he sustains himself through all this.”

I think I need a presidential advisor handling my schedule.

Item#2: Seinfeld on the Poison ‘P’s’

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, the father of three kids (ages 4, 6 and 9) told Parade Magazine recently that he’s figured out what’s wrong with today’s kids, something he calls, “The Poison P’s.”

Praise: “We tell our kids, ‘Great job!’ too much.”

Problem-solving: “We refuse to let our children have problems. Problem-solving is the most important skill to develop for success in life, and we for some reason can’t stand it if our kids have a situation that they need to ‘fix.’ Let them struggle. It’s a gift.”

Pleasure: As in, “giving your child too much pleasure.” Seinfeld said that because parents believe that today’s children aren’t as innocent as we used to be when we were young, “We feel so guilty for destroying that innocence — which is what we did — so we’re now trying to repair that by creating perfect childhoods for our children.”

Betcha his kids would reply with a nice, “Yadda, yadda, yadda.”

Item #3: Bullies in the Bull’s-Eye

Remember that horrific story a few weeks ago about the bullies in the Massachusetts town of South Hadley, who, according to news reports, drove a 15-year-old girl to commit suicide? Well the school superintendent has announced that the students involved in harassing the girl have faced disciplinary action and may also face criminal charges, according to Fox and the Boston Herald.  

In the meantime, the issue of students harassing other students in school to the point where the victims are fearful and can’t focus on their lessons, has become a hot button issue. Even Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick who, while relating his own personal experience with being the victim of harassment from fellow students when he was a child, said that harassers should be held accountable.

“Whatever we can do to create a safe environment for kids, that’s what we should do,” Patrick said, according to the Boston Herald. “If we can give teachers and administrators some extra tools, we should do that, and do it swiftly . . . Parents have to take responsibility, especially ones who are themselves parents of bullies. There is nothing in the [pending anti-bullying legislation] that absolves adults from their responsibility to teach kids how to behave respectfully.”

He said he was contacted by a 9-year-old boy from a Massachusetts school who needed help in dealing with kids harassing him and when Patrick met with the boy, the child appeared frightened. The governor said he went on the school’s intercom and told the students that there was to be no bullying at the school and that if there was, he’d have to return and deal with it personally.

Item #4: Trending Toward More Chores? I’m Skeptical.

On Valentine’s Day, the Boston Globe ran a story which claimed that a “modern trend” has been evolving where today’s parents are making their kids do more chores, like we all used to do back in the day, otherwise known as the Stone Age. Citing research from a Wellesley College sociology professor, the article said that parents have been “reasserting” the importance of chores in the past 15 years.

I don’t buy it. Not that we here in the Picket Fence Post household don’t make our children do chores — we do — it’s just that I find it hard to believe that many other parents are doing the same thing. I’d be shocked if even half of today’s kids have to do regular chores.

What do you think? How prevalent do you think chores are today?

Image credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters via the NYT.

Item #1: Banning Kids’ Photos on Christmas Cards

Who amongst you, my dear readers, has sent out Christmas/Hanukkah cards with images of your kids on it? I’d venture to guess that if you have any children who are of grade school age, 99 percent of our holiday cards included some form of a photo of said kiddos.

After looking over the array of holiday greetings that  have been delivered to the Picket Fence Post family’s home, I couldn’t find a single one from a family with young kids that didn’t include a photo of said cherubs.

The Picket Fence Post’s family Christmas/Hanukkah card included photos of the kids and our dog Max, however they prominently featured anti-perfectionist snark. I included an image of the pillow fight the kids had in the middle of our disastrous Christmas photo session which was marked by tears, puffy red eyes (from the crying) and arguments over the fact that I was supposedly “torturing” my children with a cruel and unusual punishment of having the nerve of asking them to put on some nice duds and sit still on the sofa. They might as well have called it Gitmo-New England the way they were acting.

Anyway . . .  a former college newspaper colleague of mine at the Boston Globe penned a sarcastically funny column this week decrying the flood of generic, processed photocards with the “grinning moppets” on them that he’d been receiving, the kind you get from Shutterfly and the like (Full Disclosure: I got mine from Snapfish):

“I know this may come across as mildly offensive, but I am asking as nicely as possible: Please keep your kids off my Christmas cards . . .

Simply put, it’s a Christmas card, not an advertisement for your blissful existence. If I’m interested in seeing your children, your vacations or your dog dressed as an elf, I’ll look at your Facebook page, thank you very much.

. . . Before you paint me as a total ogre (I only admit to being half-ogre, on my mother’s side), let me say if you’d like to send a photo of your family inside an actual greeting card, along with a quick handwritten message, I’d be very happy.”

What do you think of the nearly unanimous use of photocards among families with young children? Do you think they should have something handwritten on them?

Item#2: Fluff-Eating Pup

I was on a tight deadline and was thisclose to completing a column. I needed some quiet and some major physical distance put between me and the three bickering kids, who’d still managed to maintain their near-constant arguements as they were cozily set up in the family room for their TV hour, though these days the definition of the word “hour” is more concept than reality.

“Please watch Max, I need to go upstairs to finish this column,” I said, referring to our now-7-month-old puppy who’ll still chew stuff up if he’s not watched carefully. Just this week, he’s killed a couple of Star Wars figures, gnawed on slippers and socks left within his reach, and has pulled kids’ backbacks off of kitchen chairs to root around for stuff inside.

The children all acknowledged that they’d heard me and acted as though they had it all under control, with Max curled up next to The Girl on the sofa.

About a half-hour later, The Spouse came home and I could hear his shouting from my upstairs bedroom to which I’d retreated with my laptop: ”What happened here? Argh!” Max had somehow eluded the TV-addicted children’s supervision, walked over to the pantry (which was open but I don’t know why) and found our big plastic tub of Marshmallow Fluff lying on the floor, its cover, as always, only partially snapped down. Then he’d proceeded to gorge on Fluff.

The Spouse came upstairs a few minutes later to inform me of the goings-on while I tapped away at the keyboard. “I don’t even want to see what he looks like,” I said. When I returned to the kitchen, I learned that The Girl decided it’d be easier to cut off clumps of the pup’s hair around his mouth covered with the sticky substance. Oy.

(more…)

Most people who possess reason and rationality were outraged yesterday when they heard news reports quoting a father who said that a Massachusetts school sent his second grade son home from school and ordered him to have a psychological evaluation after he drew what officials deemed a “violent” sketch of Jesus on the cross after his class had been asked to draw something that reminded the students of Christmas.

Following a national media uproar and a demand from the city’s mayor for school officials to apologize for the incident, Taunton school officials have finally spoken up. (Took ‘em long enough. Maybe they should’ve returned reporters’ calls and this would’ve never happened.) School officials are saying that the dad isn’t telling the complete story, that the child wasn’t suspended and that the drawing in question that raised concerns among the school’s staff — not the one circulated in the media (and posted here on this blog yesterday) – had nothing to do with Christmas, according to the Boston Globe, quoting the school superintendent, Julie Hackett. The Globe reported:

“Hackett said the student, age 9, was never suspended and that neither he nor other students at the Maxham Elementary School were asked by the teacher to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas or any religious holiday, as the[Taunton Daily] Gazette and other media reported and the father suggested, although his story changed as he explained it.

. . . She said the drawing was seen as a potential cry for help when the student identified himself, rather than Jesus, on the cross, which prompted the teacher to alert the school’s principal and staff psychologist. As a result, the boy underwent a pscychological evaluation.

She declined to comment on the results of the evaluation or whether the teacher had reason to believe that the student was crying out for help. The boy’s father showed reporters a report indicating his son was not a threat to himself or others and could return to school.”

The sad thing is, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to believe that something like this could’ve occurred as originally reported. In school districts which take a no religion approach — as opposed to embracing and celebrating multiple faiths and cultural celebrations enjoyed by their student population so kids obtain a wider perspective — it wouldn’t be surprising to read that a student got into hot water for creating anything with a religious connotation.

Okay everybody, a few deep breaths now . . . onto the next scandal of the day. What should we complain about now? Tiger Woods? The fact that Friday Night Lights got no Golden Globe nominations? That my Christmas shopping’s not done yet?

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: Stranger Slaps Crying Child

Say you’re in a big box store. There’s a 2-year-old girl who’s with her mother, and the kid is crying in another aisle. The screeching sound is making you nuts. The mother is unable (or unwilling, you don’t know which) to stop the child from crying. And crying. You’re thoroughly and completely annoyed. What do you do?

Do you threaten the mother to make the child stop? And then, if the kid doesn’t stop, do you march up to the child and slap her across the face? Of course not. Unless you’re a ticked off 61-year-old Georgia man who allegedly did just that in a Wal-Mart, according to CNN. Here’s what CNN reported:

“The mother said a stranger . . . approached them and said, ‘If you don’t shut the baby up, I will shut her up for you.’

A few moments later, while the mother and the crying child were in another aisle, [the man] allegedly grabbed the girl and slapped her across the face.

Police said he hit her four or five times. ‘See, I told you I would shut her up,’ the suspect allegedly told the mother.’”

What’s that old adage about a village raising a child? That saying sometimes — oftentimes, actually — seems like such a fairy tale, a fantasy. The village doesn’t really help you, not these days anyway. Only your friends and family do. Everyone else could care less. When I hear about insane stories such as this, and think about the sanctimonious comments judgmental people routinely hurl toward other parents, I sometimes feel like we’re all marooned on our own little islands. At least in this case, the slapping stranger was charged with first-degree “cruelty to children,” CNN said. That’s something.

Item #2: Mom Cited for Swearing at Kid, Causing Scene

On the flip side of things, we have this story from Pennsylvania, where a mom of a 10-year-old was cited by police for allegedly “yelling profanities” at the child in a video store “yelling at a level that the people around her became very concerned, very annoyed, and the officer did approach her and she was subsequently cited for disorderly conduct,” according to the Pittsburgh ABC affiliate.

The mom said the whole thing was a misunderstanding and that she wasn’t swearing at her daughter, but was actually ”angry at an adult friend.” The Pittsburgh Channel reported that the mother “told them she did nothing wrong.”

If we’re going to start busting moms for swearing in front of their kids, I’m afraid that one of my next Picket Fence Post entries may have to be written from behind bars, however I’m not apt to use blue language in public. Or cause a scene.

Item #3: High-Pressured Kindergarten Classrooms

Kindergarten’s no longer just for naptime, circle time and Show & Tell. The Boston Globe ran a story this past Sunday about how some kindergarten classrooms are becoming so pressure-filled that children are breaking down because of the stress:

“. . . [I]ncreasingly in schools across Massachusetts and the United States, little children are being asked to perform academic tasks, including test taking, that early childhood researchers agree are developmentally inappropriate, even potentially damaging. If children don’t meet certain requirements, they are deemed ‘not proficient.’ Frequently, children are screened for ‘kindergarten readiness’ even before school begins, and some are labeled inadequate before they walk through the door.”

The article details a dizzying number of times very young children are assessed and “drilled in literacy and math” throughout the school year, at the expense of playing, specifically dramatic play, which isn’t measured in assessments. Do we really need to stress kids out in kindergarten? With 5 and 6 year old children? Do we parents really need to know if they’re ready to read when they’re only in kindergarten?

Mad Men Returns

Have I mentioned that Mad Men’s third season premieres on Sunday night on AMC? I think I may have, once or twice.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a tad bit obsessed with the award-winning drama set in the 1960s which follows the (mostly) men who work for a Manhattan ad agency and their families. I’ve been counting down the days until new episodes air, so much so that I think The Spouse is jealous of my crush on Don Draper (Jon Hamm). He jokes that Mad Men is all I’ve been talking about lately. Of course he’s wrong. Kind of.

Speaking of Don Draper . . . when we last saw the character at the end of the sophomore season,  his wife/at-home mother of his children, Betty (January Jones) had just allowed him to move back into their suburban home. Betty had made Don spend several weeks in a hotel after he humiliated her by cheating on her AGAIN, this time with an older business associate whose husband was Don’s client. However after learning she was pregnant with her third child, Betty reluctantly decided to proceed with the pregnancy (after flirting with the idea of obtaining an illegal abortion, it was 1962) and let Don back home. The question remains about whether she’s forgiven him or whether he’s going to stop his rampant cheating.

My Pop Culture column this week at Mommy Track’d is all about not just Betty, but all the women of Mad Men.

Oh, Miley

Miley, Miley, Miley. I don’t know what to make of the recent evolution of this 16-year-old Disney star, the face of the Hannah Montana franchise, of which my 10-year-old daughter is so fond.

 What I’ve been seeing as of late has not been promising.

Take, for example, her performance at this week’s Teen Choice Awards – and the ensuing debate over whether she was actually pole dancing while dressed in sexy, butt-revealing attire backed up by dancers in bras and short-shorts – which made me deeply sad. Sure, a tween/teen star needs to evolve into a more mature image, take on older material in order to continue growing as an artist, but this road that Miley appears to be traversing . . . nothing good seems like it’s gonna come from this. Lest we forget, Britney Spears was once a squeaky clean Mouseketeer. And when Spears, I mean Cyrus, invoked Britney during her Choice Awards performance, I shuddered.

John Hughes, Creator of 1980s Teen Flicks

You might’ve heard that the director/writer of some of Generation X’s best loved teen films — Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink– passed away last week. Since then, there’s been all manner of tribute and appreciations for Hughes, including a great one in the Boston Globe by Wesley Morris.

An excerpt, referencing the world of Hughes’ films:

“There was no war, no sweeping social movement during this period. Just Ronald Reagan and sad old Grenada. No one talked about race or AIDS. The world revolved around detention, crushes and proms. Sometimes it was just ‘Pretty in Pink.’ But what redeemed these movies was their sideways cool. May all so-called misfits be as hot as Eric Stoltz and Mary Stuart Masterson. And on his uneven playing field, Hughes did come up with achingly human characters. They were always on the sidelines or reluctant to get in the game — even their own. [Molly] Ringwald’s Samantha in ‘Sixteen Candles.’ [Jon] Cryer’s Duckie in ‘Pretty in Pink.’ Masterson’s Watts in ‘Some Kind of Wonderful.’ And, best of all, Jeannie Bueller and Cameron Frye in ‘Ferris Bueller.’ Jennifer Grey was the seething Cassandra of that movie, desperately trying to expose the little brother as the brat [Matthew] Broderick so star-makingly was.”

Do you have a favorite 1980s/Hughes flick? Mine’s a tie between Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.

Image credit: Chris Pizzello/AP via Star-Ledger.

Item #1: Meet Max

After nearly seven hours of driving to a dog shelter in New York State and back, the Picket Fence Post family now has a new member: A three-month-old wheaten terrier/Havanese puppy whom we named Max. (At least we think he’s a wheaten terrier/Havanese. That’s what we were told by the shelter folks, though his paperwork mentioned something about a Skye terrier. . . )

Max didn’t sleep well in his crate last night, even though I quasi-slept on the sofa near him. The scared little thing whined intermittently, reminding me of a baby awakening and crying during the night. After dusting off our baby gates and using caffeine this morning like a controlled substance, I feel as though I’m returning to my “new mom” days. A column on our search for Max is in the works.

Item #2: Papi Letdown

I was out on the road all day yesterday with the Picket Fence Post family getting Max, so I didn’t catch up on the heart-rending news regarding Big Papi until late yesterday and then read full coverage in the newspapers this morning. (Reading newspapers, on dead trees, how old school.) Hearing that David Ortiz in 2003 tested positive for performance enhancing drugs felt like someone had taken away Christmas, especially because of how it endangers the perspective on the special, glittering gem of a 2004 season. It’s a gut-level disappointment for someone like myself who hopes and wishes that seemingly good, decent guys like Ortiz wouldn’t and don’t mess around with such things. This, according to the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan, makes me “terminally naive.” However I think it’s one thing for a show-off of a guy like Manny to test positive, quite another for the quiet, affable Papi.

Item #3: Pot-Dealing Mom on ‘Weeds’

Over on Mommy Track’d, I wrote about my recent Weeds-a-thon, where I OD’d (pardon the pun) on the Showtime comedy/drama about the widowed, pot-dealing soccer mom who used to peddle her wares to fellow suburbanites in order to provide for her kids. However after watching the Nancy Botwin character evolve over several seasons — in a recent episode she gave birth to the baby of a Mexican drug lord — I wasn’t thrilled by the transformation. Despite all this, the show continues to be riveting.

Item #4: Potter is the New Skywalker

In my latest GateHouse News Service column, I make the argument that, for kids today, the Harry Potter series is to them what the Star Wars series was to us in the days when Star Wars was merely a trilogy and not a six-pack. I also think that, as heroes go, Potter is better than Skywalker, writing, “. . . [U]nlike Luke Skywalker, who had the tendency to whine and be gratingly self-absorbed, Potter suffers and doesn’t whine, which sets my kids’ favorite childhood character several notches above the one I admired as a kid.”

Item #1: ‘Imperfect,’ ’Confessional’ Parenting

The Boston Globe shined a spotlight on “confessional” parenting blogs (like True Mom Confessions)and the spate of “imperfect parent” books (and “Bad Mother” by Ayelet Waldman). Saying that this is the best time to be a “bad parent” and tell the world about it online and in books, Joanna Weiss wrote of the “bad parent” genre:

“They sell you on cynicism. Then they give you the bait-and-switch. The bad parent, they argue, maybe the best parent of all . . .

Perhaps it’s the ultimate expression of irony, the perfect parenting stance for Generation X. Confessional parents see their badness as a way of striving to be good: Less overstressed, overscheduled, and fixated on perfection than the boomer parents who came before them. And they’re arguing that more relaxed parents — the slackers, slobs, oversleepers — might lead to happier kids.”

Or, another way of looking at it, is that if the “confessional” parenting blogs are honest about child-rearing and don’t offer pithy and nuggets of ridiculous parenting advice like the bulk of the parenting media do, they might collectively help to reduce their fellow parents’ stress levels when we realize that we’re all going through the same things and coping with the same foibles.

Item #2: Sick

I’m sick. The Girl is slightly feverish but on the mend. The Eldest Boy has a slight fever but is otherwise feeling okay. *knock on wood* The Youngest Boy and The Spouse are healthy right now but overall, this is a sucky way to start school vacation. Plus my head is throbbing and it hurts to read.

Item #3: Supreme Court Says ‘No’ to School Strip-Search

When I first read about this case a few months ago in the New York Times, it really disturbed me. A 13-year-old Arizona girl who was accused of hiding prescription ibuprofen somewhere on her person, was strip-searched by two school officials. Her parents rightfully sued. And today the Supreme Court ruled in the girl’s favor saying that the search was unconstitutional. Here’s what happened at the Court today according to the Washington Post:

“The court ruled 8-1 that such an intrusive search without the threat of a clear danger to other students violated the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search or seizure.

Justice David H. Souter . . . said that in the search of Savana Redding, now a 19-year-old college student, school officials overreacted to vague accusations that Redding was violating school policy by possessing the ibuprofen, equivalent to two Advils.

What was missing, Souter wrote, ‘was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear,’ Souter wrote.

. . . The strip-search case was one of the most dramatic of the term of the court, prompting an intense oral argument and leading to charges from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that her all-male colleagues had failed to appreciate the trauma that such a strip search would have on a developing teenage girl.”

The notion that school officials would proceed with a strip-search of a young female student boggles my mind.

Item #1: Grandparents Want Hip Names

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about how I thought the media were unfairly maligning Baby Boomer grandparents — specifically grandmothers – portraying them as too narcissistic to be bothered to do “grandmotherly” duties and pitting them against one another.

This week I saw yet another grandparent-centric article which deepened my suspicion that the media have grown tired of the old working mom/at-home mom “mommy wars” and is trying to drum up some excitement for the so-called ”nana wars.” This page one article in the Boston Globe focused on the fact that some grandparents don’t want their grandkids to call them by traditional names and prefer either their first names or something quirkier, hipper. The article entitled, “They love being grandparents, but call them something else,” begun this way:

“As the youth-obsessed baby boomers advance, albeit reluctantly, into the next phase of their lives, they are embracing grandparenthood with the same gusto they have expressed for everything else, be it exercise or adventure travel. They’re loading the grandkids’ video games onto their own iPods, listening to their music, and taking them on trips.

But grandparenting comes with a catch: It means you are getting old — or at least older. And that’s not sitting well with a generation that grew up on The Who singing, ‘I hope I die before I get old.” Sure, they want to be grandparents. Just don’t call them that.”

The article offered examples of grandparents who prefer to be called by their first names or unusual monikers such as Bubbles, Sharky, Pebbles, Rock, Gram-E and Nanno. Somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the this-generation-of-grandparents-isn’t-playing-by-the-so-called-”rules” stories.

Item #2: ‘Free’ the Kids

I’m currently finishing reading the book Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy, with whom I’m hoping to conduct a Q&A for posting on this blog next week. She makes the compelling argument that we’ve become too over protective of our children in all areas of their lives. And she’s not the only one who thinks so.

In my June Parents & Kids Magazine column entitled, “Free the Children: Not a Slogan for This Generation of Parents,” I addressed how different childhood is for kids today versus when we were youths (like when my parents used to regularly send me to the store to buy them cigarettes whereas today they’d be jailed for doing so). The column calls attention to an incident this spring involving the police, a 10-year-old boy and a mother who let said boy walk down the street solo to soccer practice and got harassed about endangering her child.

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