Picket Fence Post

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.