Yesterday at a play date I told a little girl how pretty her dress was. Her little brother immediately piped in, "What about my clothes?"
What about his clothes? I didn't notice them - at all. I complimented the girl on something completely superficial and looked past the boy's clothes to his actions.
I have officially lost any claims I have to being a feminist. This may be the crux of raising girls without beauty confidence issues. We should never tell girls they are pretty or beautiful. Yet I do this with my own kids and other girls EVERY SINGLE DAY.
"Your haircut is so cute!"
"That dress is beautiful."
"You're so pretty."
"What a beautiful princess."
"What a lovely ballerina."
At best these phrases are setting the stage for girls to strive for external beauty. At worst girls will build a sense of self around being told they are beautiful by their parents only to feel crippling self consciousness the first time another girl questions their beauty. The very worst part of this dialog is that I'm teaching girls that the packaging is more important or as important as what's in the package. And thus we elude feminism for yet another generation.
My goal is to stop telling my daughters they are beautiful. Instead I will tell them they are hardworking, smart, fun, funny, caring and strong. They happen to also be beautiful, but that's not important.
Video Bar
Friday, April 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
On Santa
Is it just me or is there a divide between parents who "do Santa" and parents who don't? Honestly, like we need one more thing to debate. But I'm gonna jump on it anyhow...bwhaa haa haa.
Anyone who has ever uttered something remotely close to "be good so Santa brings your presents," can take their "it's magical for the kids" and shove it up their chimney. If Santa is being used as an external motivation to keep kids in line, then the whole game is simply a power struggle disguised as a discipline tool. There is nothing magical about it. Magic is a relationship between two people built on resolving conflict without one party manipulating the other. I don't claim to have a parent-child relationship void of power struggle and I'll admit that when all else fails I bring the "I'm the adult with more experience" gavel down. But I don't play games with it; it's not funny. And that's coming from someone who thinks most inappropriate things are hilarious.
Also, what is with the claim that non-Santa folks ruin the true meaning of Christmas for their children? What is magical about focusing on gifts Santa brings you? Really. Christmas (in it's celebration as a winter holiday) is as old as humanity. It is a time where food and shelter are redistributed so that disadvantaged members of the society won't freeze or starve to death before Spring comes. It is in this concept that Santa really does have a place. St. Nick gave profusely to the poor. So if we're going to celebrate Santa Claus shouldn't the emphasis to our American children, who have all they need, be on giving to those who don't have their needs met?*
For those who are afraid that your child will be told about Santa, I have to say that if you want your kids to have faith without proof (which I assume some people do) then this is an opportune time for your kid to have the chance to stand by their beliefs while learning that different people have different beliefs. Unless you lied to you kid about believing in Santa, in that case I can hardly apologize for ousting you. ;o)
My final gripe, and I swear this will be the last for this season, is the idea that somehow children who don't "do Santa" sit in a grey corner and have no pleasure in the month of December. There isn't a day that goes by in our house that isn't spent in celebration. We make gifts for friends, bake, make dried foods, set up train villages, have at least a dozen parties with our friends, donate gifts to those who need them and generally find something to celebrate every day. And, yes, my kids, who have everything, even get more gifts.
A very Merry Christmas to ALL!!!!
* Iphones and Wiis aren't classified as needs.
Anyone who has ever uttered something remotely close to "be good so Santa brings your presents," can take their "it's magical for the kids" and shove it up their chimney. If Santa is being used as an external motivation to keep kids in line, then the whole game is simply a power struggle disguised as a discipline tool. There is nothing magical about it. Magic is a relationship between two people built on resolving conflict without one party manipulating the other. I don't claim to have a parent-child relationship void of power struggle and I'll admit that when all else fails I bring the "I'm the adult with more experience" gavel down. But I don't play games with it; it's not funny. And that's coming from someone who thinks most inappropriate things are hilarious.
Also, what is with the claim that non-Santa folks ruin the true meaning of Christmas for their children? What is magical about focusing on gifts Santa brings you? Really. Christmas (in it's celebration as a winter holiday) is as old as humanity. It is a time where food and shelter are redistributed so that disadvantaged members of the society won't freeze or starve to death before Spring comes. It is in this concept that Santa really does have a place. St. Nick gave profusely to the poor. So if we're going to celebrate Santa Claus shouldn't the emphasis to our American children, who have all they need, be on giving to those who don't have their needs met?*
For those who are afraid that your child will be told about Santa, I have to say that if you want your kids to have faith without proof (which I assume some people do) then this is an opportune time for your kid to have the chance to stand by their beliefs while learning that different people have different beliefs. Unless you lied to you kid about believing in Santa, in that case I can hardly apologize for ousting you. ;o)
My final gripe, and I swear this will be the last for this season, is the idea that somehow children who don't "do Santa" sit in a grey corner and have no pleasure in the month of December. There isn't a day that goes by in our house that isn't spent in celebration. We make gifts for friends, bake, make dried foods, set up train villages, have at least a dozen parties with our friends, donate gifts to those who need them and generally find something to celebrate every day. And, yes, my kids, who have everything, even get more gifts.
A very Merry Christmas to ALL!!!!
* Iphones and Wiis aren't classified as needs.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The School Lunch Program
According to a recent Washington Post poll nearly half (46%) of Americans do not support providing dinner to hungry children in the Washington D.C. school system. Ed Bruske writes for Grist Magazine that he is outraged at the lack of humanity left in the American heart. Bruske laments that “[t]hey [Americans] see no problem with our junk-food culture, and do not buy into the idea that children -- least of all poor black children -- should be eating better than anyone else” (2010). Bruske is hands-thrown-in-the-air out of ideas on how to deal with heartless Americans who would deny food to underfed children in Washington D.C.
Perhaps it’s time to give up on the hearts of Americans and focus on something more effective: the wallets. School children around the world are gobbling poisons masked as breakfast, lunch, and presumably dinner; meals that are chocked full of chemicals, fat and nutrient-free calories only to end up the most undernourished, obese and sickly people in the world. And we’re paying for it, multiple times over. We can feed children less expensively and more nutritionally using less tax-payer dollars than we are now.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) the idea of feeding needy children in schools stemmed from the book Poverty written by Robert Hunter in 1904. Although food programs were established state by state in the early 1900’s, it wasn’t until Franklin Roosevelt’s Congressional Address in 1943 that food subsidies and the school lunch program merged. President Roosevelt’s goal was to “see that the food for our civilians at home is divided as fairly as possible among all of the people in all sections of the country, and that it is obtainable at reasonable prices” (Roosevelt to Congress, 1943). Roosevelt’s goal was realized through increased food production in the U.S. using farm subsidies. This situation seemed to benefit everyone involved; the poor were fed and farmers were kept producing. The farm subsidies focused primarily on dense foods, or those which carried the most calories, as the starving children of the World War II era needed the densest of food to survive. Calorie dense foods included primarily fatty meat, and schools were given excess, subsidized meats that could not be sold on the open market. Corn subsidies were established during this time as well, only to swell in coming decades. What was once a system that saved children from the real threat of starvation, has become the primary source of preventable disease for the poor.
Our country has changed, but our food subsidies have not. Our children are starving, not for fatty, dense calories, but for nutrient-rich calories. Our farms, with their subsidized crops, are owned not by individuals, but by gigantic corporations who spend millions of dollars on lobbyists who keep these outdated subsidies in place. Our schools are still receiving excess foods from these subsidized crops: meat no one will buy, and corn that no one can eat unless it’s turned into high fructose corn syrup.
According to the Food Research and Action Committee (FRAC) the federal government spends only $2.40 per child for children who qualify for the free lunch program. Supporters of the current system rally around this number, because it truly is such a low cost. This number, however, is grossly inaccurate. Not included in this number are the costs for subsidizing the food generated or the medical costs that are generated from poor quality food being consumed on a daily basis. There is such a direct correlation between children who qualify for the free lunch program and children who qualify for free healthcare that we use the school lunch program to identify those who need healthcare. Both programs are paid using tax dollars. When we add the taxpayer funded subsidy program to taxpayer funded school lunch and health-care, we have to include all three when determining the cost of our current program.
The Washington Post reports that the U.S. hands over about $19 billion per year to the agricultural industry in the form of farm subsidies (2007). Roughly $300 million is spent on healthcare costs for children under the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP). The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reports that the majority of claims in the CHIP program are for “children with chronic conditions” (2010). Among new chronic conditions that poor children are developing is Type II Diabetes. Type II Diabetes was until recently unheard of in children; in fact it used to be referred to as Adult Onset Diabetes. Type II Diabetes is a direct result of poor eating; it is found primarily in obese children. What used to take decades to develop is debilitating our school aged children. The National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) indicates that Type II Diabetes can lead to other chronic conditions including high blood pressure, lipid abnormalities and hypertension (2008). These treatments are costly, preventable and cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
Let’s save taxpayer money and increase the health of our nation’s children. Currently, schools can only afford to operate within budget if they integrate excess overly processed, fat-laden foods into their programs because these subsidized excesses are free and don’t require a cooking staff. Because it will take time to untangle the subsidy programs, the first step should be to work with local schools to find a low cost way to bring back healthy food. One of the most effective ways to integrate healthy foods into the lunch room is through a school garden.
The school garden is an attractive part of the solution, because it is low cost and can be integrated into the curriculum. Also, because the students grow the food themselves they are more likely to eat the resulting fruits and vegetables. Grants are available to help fund the start-up costs for a school garden. For example, the North Dakota Department of Agriculture gave an $1000 grant to the Circle of Nations School to begin on their school garden. The resulting produce not only fed the students, but the surplus was donated to the local food pantry. This $1000 of taxpayer money went directly to the task of feeding children and the poor healthy foods, with $0 of excess being skimmed into the pockets of big corporations. Let’s turn our acres of school land into learning laboratories that let kids grow their own healthy lunches.
A second part of the solution is to bring cooks back into our schools. Currently, the lunch staff at a typical public school are reheaters, not cooks. Food comes in boxes and is mass reheated. In order to integrate fresh produce into the school lunchroom we need to redefine the job description of school cafeteria workers and let them create nutritional meals. This can be done through providing the current school cafeteria staff with tools and training. Popular chef, Jaime Oliver, has accomplished such a task in Britain and is now bringing this program to America. One doesn’t need to wait for Jaime to appear on the doorstep to get started. Talk to your school district. See who will help with integrating healthful steps into the cafeteria. The cost for training cooks is negligible compared with the cost of continuing on our current track of obesity induced disease.
At the high school level, get the students involved. Let students who aspire to become chefs or simply create a healthful meal for their family meet those goals through learning about nutrition and making nutritious meals for their fellow students. Students with learn about biology, nutrition and the chemistry of cooking if they are introduced to it in a way that is both fun and embedded with the concrete results of creating food that their friends enjoy. The more kids are involved the more likely they will be to support their creation.
Eventually the food system will have to change at the national level. Although the above steps can be taken on a local level, school by school, it behooves us all to demand our federal representatives make overhauling our national food system a priority. The need for farm subsidies is past, the need for healthful foods for all children is present and the need for those children to live without preventable disease is our future. Our hearts and our wallets depend upon changing our national food system.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. “Health Care Costs and Financing.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/oct10/1010RA7.htm taken 19 Oct. 2010.
Bruske, Ed. “Americans Hate Feeding Poor Children at School.” Grist Magazine. 19 Oct. 2010. Web.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Policy Basics: Where Do our Federal Tax Dollars Go?” 14 April 2010. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258 taken 20 Oct. 2010.
Food Research and Action Center. “National School Lunch Program.” Child Nutrition Fact Sheet. 2009. http://frac.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/cnnslp.pdf taken 20 Oct. 2010.
Gunderson, Gordon W. “The National School Lunch Program Background and Development.” United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service. 27 May 2009. Web.
Morgan, Dan, et al. “Harvesting Cash: How to Spend an Extra $15 Billion.” The Washington Post. 4 Dec. 1997.
National Diabetes Education Program. “Overview of Diabetes in Children and Adolescents.” http://www.ndep.nih.gov/media/Youth_FactSheet.pdf taken 19 Oct. 2010.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Message to Congress on the Food Program.” The American Presidency Project. 1 Nov. 1943. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16337 taken 20 Oct. 2010.
Perhaps it’s time to give up on the hearts of Americans and focus on something more effective: the wallets. School children around the world are gobbling poisons masked as breakfast, lunch, and presumably dinner; meals that are chocked full of chemicals, fat and nutrient-free calories only to end up the most undernourished, obese and sickly people in the world. And we’re paying for it, multiple times over. We can feed children less expensively and more nutritionally using less tax-payer dollars than we are now.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) the idea of feeding needy children in schools stemmed from the book Poverty written by Robert Hunter in 1904. Although food programs were established state by state in the early 1900’s, it wasn’t until Franklin Roosevelt’s Congressional Address in 1943 that food subsidies and the school lunch program merged. President Roosevelt’s goal was to “see that the food for our civilians at home is divided as fairly as possible among all of the people in all sections of the country, and that it is obtainable at reasonable prices” (Roosevelt to Congress, 1943). Roosevelt’s goal was realized through increased food production in the U.S. using farm subsidies. This situation seemed to benefit everyone involved; the poor were fed and farmers were kept producing. The farm subsidies focused primarily on dense foods, or those which carried the most calories, as the starving children of the World War II era needed the densest of food to survive. Calorie dense foods included primarily fatty meat, and schools were given excess, subsidized meats that could not be sold on the open market. Corn subsidies were established during this time as well, only to swell in coming decades. What was once a system that saved children from the real threat of starvation, has become the primary source of preventable disease for the poor.
Our country has changed, but our food subsidies have not. Our children are starving, not for fatty, dense calories, but for nutrient-rich calories. Our farms, with their subsidized crops, are owned not by individuals, but by gigantic corporations who spend millions of dollars on lobbyists who keep these outdated subsidies in place. Our schools are still receiving excess foods from these subsidized crops: meat no one will buy, and corn that no one can eat unless it’s turned into high fructose corn syrup.
According to the Food Research and Action Committee (FRAC) the federal government spends only $2.40 per child for children who qualify for the free lunch program. Supporters of the current system rally around this number, because it truly is such a low cost. This number, however, is grossly inaccurate. Not included in this number are the costs for subsidizing the food generated or the medical costs that are generated from poor quality food being consumed on a daily basis. There is such a direct correlation between children who qualify for the free lunch program and children who qualify for free healthcare that we use the school lunch program to identify those who need healthcare. Both programs are paid using tax dollars. When we add the taxpayer funded subsidy program to taxpayer funded school lunch and health-care, we have to include all three when determining the cost of our current program.
The Washington Post reports that the U.S. hands over about $19 billion per year to the agricultural industry in the form of farm subsidies (2007). Roughly $300 million is spent on healthcare costs for children under the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP). The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reports that the majority of claims in the CHIP program are for “children with chronic conditions” (2010). Among new chronic conditions that poor children are developing is Type II Diabetes. Type II Diabetes was until recently unheard of in children; in fact it used to be referred to as Adult Onset Diabetes. Type II Diabetes is a direct result of poor eating; it is found primarily in obese children. What used to take decades to develop is debilitating our school aged children. The National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) indicates that Type II Diabetes can lead to other chronic conditions including high blood pressure, lipid abnormalities and hypertension (2008). These treatments are costly, preventable and cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
Let’s save taxpayer money and increase the health of our nation’s children. Currently, schools can only afford to operate within budget if they integrate excess overly processed, fat-laden foods into their programs because these subsidized excesses are free and don’t require a cooking staff. Because it will take time to untangle the subsidy programs, the first step should be to work with local schools to find a low cost way to bring back healthy food. One of the most effective ways to integrate healthy foods into the lunch room is through a school garden.
The school garden is an attractive part of the solution, because it is low cost and can be integrated into the curriculum. Also, because the students grow the food themselves they are more likely to eat the resulting fruits and vegetables. Grants are available to help fund the start-up costs for a school garden. For example, the North Dakota Department of Agriculture gave an $1000 grant to the Circle of Nations School to begin on their school garden. The resulting produce not only fed the students, but the surplus was donated to the local food pantry. This $1000 of taxpayer money went directly to the task of feeding children and the poor healthy foods, with $0 of excess being skimmed into the pockets of big corporations. Let’s turn our acres of school land into learning laboratories that let kids grow their own healthy lunches.
A second part of the solution is to bring cooks back into our schools. Currently, the lunch staff at a typical public school are reheaters, not cooks. Food comes in boxes and is mass reheated. In order to integrate fresh produce into the school lunchroom we need to redefine the job description of school cafeteria workers and let them create nutritional meals. This can be done through providing the current school cafeteria staff with tools and training. Popular chef, Jaime Oliver, has accomplished such a task in Britain and is now bringing this program to America. One doesn’t need to wait for Jaime to appear on the doorstep to get started. Talk to your school district. See who will help with integrating healthful steps into the cafeteria. The cost for training cooks is negligible compared with the cost of continuing on our current track of obesity induced disease.
At the high school level, get the students involved. Let students who aspire to become chefs or simply create a healthful meal for their family meet those goals through learning about nutrition and making nutritious meals for their fellow students. Students with learn about biology, nutrition and the chemistry of cooking if they are introduced to it in a way that is both fun and embedded with the concrete results of creating food that their friends enjoy. The more kids are involved the more likely they will be to support their creation.
Eventually the food system will have to change at the national level. Although the above steps can be taken on a local level, school by school, it behooves us all to demand our federal representatives make overhauling our national food system a priority. The need for farm subsidies is past, the need for healthful foods for all children is present and the need for those children to live without preventable disease is our future. Our hearts and our wallets depend upon changing our national food system.
Works Cited
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. “Health Care Costs and Financing.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/oct10/1010RA7.htm taken 19 Oct. 2010.
Bruske, Ed. “Americans Hate Feeding Poor Children at School.” Grist Magazine. 19 Oct. 2010. Web.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Policy Basics: Where Do our Federal Tax Dollars Go?” 14 April 2010. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258 taken 20 Oct. 2010.
Food Research and Action Center. “National School Lunch Program.” Child Nutrition Fact Sheet. 2009. http://frac.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/cnnslp.pdf taken 20 Oct. 2010.
Gunderson, Gordon W. “The National School Lunch Program Background and Development.” United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service. 27 May 2009. Web.
Morgan, Dan, et al. “Harvesting Cash: How to Spend an Extra $15 Billion.” The Washington Post. 4 Dec. 1997.
National Diabetes Education Program. “Overview of Diabetes in Children and Adolescents.” http://www.ndep.nih.gov/media/Youth_FactSheet.pdf taken 19 Oct. 2010.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Message to Congress on the Food Program.” The American Presidency Project. 1 Nov. 1943. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16337 taken 20 Oct. 2010.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Movie review - Shrek Forever After
Disney found a new audience with Shrek Forever After. Do I speak of children? No. If you are a parent who doesn't remember what an non-kid movie looks like this one is for you. Literally. Your kids will drag you to this movie so that you may commiserate with the tired and overwhelmed green dad (Shrek) who has been transformed into a child-entertaining machine and can hardly remember who he was before he became the Dad.
There is even a shout out to the attachment parent. Cosleeping? Check! Baby-wearing? Check! Weird green liquid in a bottle instead of lactation from what we assume is a mammal with mammary glands? Well, two out of three aren't bad. It's not like the relationship between attachment parents and Disney has always been harmonious anyway.
You may find yourself inching toward your partner to hold hands in solidarity by the time this movie is over. The idea of appreciating what you have only after you have lost it is pretty in your face, but some will enjoy the message it sends to parents and kids alike.
Would I recommend this movie to parents? Absolutely! And kids? With the sarcastic humor and somewhat nuanced message I would wait until they are solidly in their concrete operational stage of development. Unless they are only there for the bodily function jokes, of which there are plenty.
There is even a shout out to the attachment parent. Cosleeping? Check! Baby-wearing? Check! Weird green liquid in a bottle instead of lactation from what we assume is a mammal with mammary glands? Well, two out of three aren't bad. It's not like the relationship between attachment parents and Disney has always been harmonious anyway.
You may find yourself inching toward your partner to hold hands in solidarity by the time this movie is over. The idea of appreciating what you have only after you have lost it is pretty in your face, but some will enjoy the message it sends to parents and kids alike.
Would I recommend this movie to parents? Absolutely! And kids? With the sarcastic humor and somewhat nuanced message I would wait until they are solidly in their concrete operational stage of development. Unless they are only there for the bodily function jokes, of which there are plenty.
Monday, August 23, 2010
We like our Mike, and this is why...
Mike.
He is Avalon's K-1 teacher. Not Mr. Mike, Mike. He is the absolute perfect teacher for Avalon and here's why:
1. He's Waldorf trained.
2. He's totally chill, ya know, like Avalon chill.
3. Avalon spoke to him for 5 minutes and then leaned over to whisper, "I really like him!"
4. He uses a harmonica to call the kids in from recess instead of a whistle because it's gentler.
5. He bought all the kids school supplies with his own money because, "we're a family group and we share our classroom supplies."
6. When Avalon asked her one question, "Do we get to paint?" he replied, "You can paint every day at choice time if you want to."
7. He has a teenage son and is a Kindergarten teacher and is still relaxed with relatively few gray hairs.
School starts tomorrow!
He is Avalon's K-1 teacher. Not Mr. Mike, Mike. He is the absolute perfect teacher for Avalon and here's why:
1. He's Waldorf trained.
2. He's totally chill, ya know, like Avalon chill.
3. Avalon spoke to him for 5 minutes and then leaned over to whisper, "I really like him!"
4. He uses a harmonica to call the kids in from recess instead of a whistle because it's gentler.
5. He bought all the kids school supplies with his own money because, "we're a family group and we share our classroom supplies."
6. When Avalon asked her one question, "Do we get to paint?" he replied, "You can paint every day at choice time if you want to."
7. He has a teenage son and is a Kindergarten teacher and is still relaxed with relatively few gray hairs.
School starts tomorrow!
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