Three for Thursday: Your Tweens Are Watching YouTube, 33 Percent Negative Rating & ‘Glam-mas’ Don’t Want to Babysit?
Item #1: Your Tweens Are Watching YouTube
General public announcement (particularly to parents of children who attend my kids’ school): Do you know WHAT your young children are watching on YouTube when you’re not monitoring them? Maybe you should ask. Or use the “History” function on your computer. You might be surprised. Unpleasantly so.
I’m just sayin’ . . .
Item #2: 33 Percent Negative Rating
My monthly GateHouse News Service column is out. It’s a missive on why I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the fact that one out of three of my kids is always complaining, no matter what I do. Whatever I place on the dinner table, at least one kid will protest. Pick a movie for family movie night, nearly every time a film is selected, somebody’s ticked. Surprisingly, they were all in agreement about going to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop during February vacation. I was the one who was quietly crying on the inside.
Item #3: ‘Glam-mas’ Don’t Want to Babysit?
Give me a break. I so do not buy the notion that the New York Times’ Style section is trying sell, that a significant portion of Baby Boomer grandparents, specifically grandmothers don’t want to babysit or even hang out with their grandkids (why they’re blowing off the grandfather angle is a sexist mystery to me). It’s a terribly anti-grandma article, the tone set with the nasty headline, “When Grandma Can’t Be Bothered.”
By the way, the term “glam-ma” that I read for the first time in this story, HATE it. With a passion.
Author and columnist Meredith O'Brien gives you a peek behind the picket fences of modern day life and parenting in the 'burbs. With humor and candor, it's her take on real parenting in the real world.
