Despite my strong opinions on most things (no!) and apparent urge to share them, I continue to surprise myself by failing repeatedly to attend protests. I also don’t post political signs in my yard. Not for any good reason I can think of - or recall, anyway. Recently, though, I’ve been considering changing my ways - mostly to allow my children to experience protesting, to let them see how it can feel to strongly object to something the larger society supports, to stand up for their beliefs, and to exercise a freedom that I don’t appreciate nearly enough.

I thought about it some more one morning this week when we noticed peace supporters waving anti-war signs (OK, giant bed sheets) about a local peace protest. It took my 4 & 1/2-year-old son less than 10 seconds to start pumping the questions: Mama, why are those people holding those signs? What do they say?

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Mummy I’m Bored

Sound familiar? Many mothers I know pack their kids’ days with activities from the time that they wake up to the time that they fall asleep. And while there is certainly some logic to keeping kids busy, like adults, they too need a break. Downtime is critical not only to help kids recharge their batteries, but also to teach them survival skills. As a child I remember telling my mother that I was bored only to receive the standard reply “Only boring people can be bored.” At some point it occurred to me that I should probably figure out ways to keep myself busy rather than bugging my mother to do it for me. How can parents nurture creativity in a child who’s imagination is not given the opportunity to create his or her own pastime? How will that translate to creativity skills in adulthood? Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t yet seen Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey speaking live at the Green Our Vaccines March, please check out this awesome video that made the hair on my arms stand up. I’m so thrilled that people are continuing to speak out on this topic and Jenny is a great example of a MOM SPEAKING UP!!!!!

When I first got word about the Green Our Vaccines March, I was curious to see just how much media coverage there would be on the issue.  ABC News has a front page link to the story, under “Celeb Causes”.  There is a video from the morning’s interview on “Good Morning America“. 

As of a few minutes ago there was over a 140 comments, and folks are letting their opinion be known.  The mainstream medical community keeps saying the same thing.  Read the rest of this entry »

Kids might love Disneyland but the irony about the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ is that a natural grove of orange trees was destroyed to build an artificial land that has successfully seduced generations of kids with its media. Regardless of your personal feelings about Disneyland, the reality is that it was created out of 160 acres of orange trees and it continues to have a massive carbon footprint. Yet Disney provides the very frame of reference for kids’ media.

Like many parents out there, I am hungry for positive kids’ media and by that I mean media that is positive in what it portrays, in what it teaches and in its ultimate impact on kids. Easier said than done, finding positive media for your kids has got to be one of the hardest challenges of parenting. You might say Why worry? It’s not like my kids are exposed to a lot of the media out there. Truth be told, it might not be in their face but chances are that they will get to it. Even if you do not own a TV or even if you abstain from a certain magazine subscription, most children know (or will know by some point in their childhood) how to find just about anything on the internet.

Given all of this, I was thrilled with the release of “Gorilla in the Greenhouse,” an environmental themed web animation that inspires kids to take real-world steps towards a healthy planet. The pilot episode is about The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (also known as The North Pacific Gyre), a growing collection of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean. More than just a seven minute animation, this show and the green gorilla website includes interesting tidbits such as information about the gyre, the case for eco-friendly re-usable bags, actions that kids can take in their communities and of course, downloads of some great ‘Jack Johnson’ type music.

What I love about Green Gorilla is that it actually gets kids into action. Having seen the show, my eight-year-old has developed an ardent dislike for plastic waste. He is in the process of gathering all the plastic bags he can find…from the neighbors to create what he calls a “Mega Ball.” He has learned from Green Gorilla that a family of four consumes about 1,000 plastic bags each year. “We don’t need more in the Gyre!” says my son when we go to the grocery store. My ten year old daughter has teamed up with three other kids in the neighborhood to create a poster that encourages the use of re-usable bags. They have been calling upon local grocery stores and libraries to ask permission to post their posters. Finally, some of the teachers in local schools have actually presented the show in their classrooms followed by an entire discussion relating to the issue of plastic waste. The Green Gorilla website (www.greengorilla.com) includes two curricula for teachers, specifically tailored to this issue of plastic waste.

National Geographic Kids, one of my all time favorite kids’ websites is the ultimate positive media guru. In addition to featuring a range stories, videos and interesting animal trivia, their website includes games and tips that get kids thinking about issues. For example, their Get Green tips that actually get kids thinking about issues like recycling and improving the outdoors. Their Car Wash Kit has not only peaked my kids’ interest in washing our car on weekends but it has also helped instill in them a genuine interest in keeping the car clean. As an international parent who is constantly faced with the challenges of multicultural parenting, I love their People & Places section, a relatively new addition to their website that focuses on various people and cultures.

Check it out and let me know your thoughts. I am sure you are hungry for positive media too.

Written by Reenita, a San Francisco based freelance writer, Ayurveda Clinician and mother of two. Check out her personal blog at www.reenita.com

by Ann Bibby

When I was teaching middle school back in central Iowa, I was expected to ensure the learning and safety of every child assigned to me regardless of how cooperative, charming or innately intelligent that child was, and I took that very seriously. I cannot honestly say I enjoyed every little soul I crossed paths with but I can say that there were only a handful of them that I couldn’t manage or that I didn’t coerce into learning.

The recent incident in a Florida elementary school, where a kindergarten teacher had her students vote to remove a disruptive classmate after allowing them the opportunity to tell the boy what they didn’t like about him, got me thinking about some of the reasons I left the classroom and will probably never return. Read the rest of this entry »

I grew up on the east coast but married a gentle man and now live in the friendliest city ever (Portland, Oregon). So while I can thank the bus driver as well as the next person and hold the elevator door open for people miles away, I still have the potential to get REALLY ANGRY. Ever since I opened the newspaper on Saturday and saw the short article (in the Living section, already!) on Bisphenol A and - in a mini rage - tossed every Nalgene bottle I could find, I’ve been pissed. Why? So glad you asked.

1. Pissed that I unwittingly fed my babies breast milk in toxic bottles that may well cause cancer. In them.
2. Pissed that we’ve been drinking (oh so healthy) water out of toxic Nalgene bottles.
3. Pissed that every. single. can. of. food. in our pantry has an epoxy resin coating that is leaching crap into our food: beans, soups, mandarin oranges, and mini corns (god love ‘em). Who needs organic when you’re already dosing up on Epoxy, mamas? I mean, go ahead, toss in a little pesticide residue, what’s the diff?
4. Pissed that going to the store to buy a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g requires an advanced degree in toxicology or at the very least a few hours of extra time to research that I just. don’t. have. Is it too much to ask that I could, say, mosey up to the grocery store and leave with a bagful of items that won’t slowly kill me?
5. And SUPER PISSED that no-one seems to be doing much. And no, I don’t think the government should do all the heavy lifting for me, but in this case, I’m thinkin’ they need to be there, on the front lines, helping me avoid poisoning myself and my far more susceptible children.

OK, Phase I is over - anger. Time for Phase 2 - action. Read the rest of this entry »

At the beginning of this month, I wrote a check for $1,118 to our child care center. What for? For my two children to attend a total of five days/week - one for two days (the 2-year old) and the other for three days (my five-year old). That adds up to $13,416 for one year of part-time child care. That is one ton of money. The cost for two kids to attend our center full-time (and the income neeeded to fund it)??? I don’t want to know!

OK, so I do (thankfully!) get a subsidy in the form of a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA) through my employer. But the max is $5,000/year. Love the benefit but really, how far does $5,000 go these days toward your child care costs? If you don’t have a FSA, you can take the child care tax credit, with a max of $3,000 per child (up to a max of $6,000). Helpful? Yes. Sufficient? Hardly. Read the rest of this entry »

By Christine Escobar

When writers fail to come up with reasons to explain the multitude of ways families make sleep work for them, it seems they default to blaming other parents to make sense of children who don’t fit into a neat and tidy sleep category. Stay at home parents and working parents are all too well aware of the “mommy wars” manufactured by mainstream media to gain ratings and readership.

These types of parenting wars only fuel the distrust of families toward each other and increase parents’ insecurity about their own instinctive parenting skills. Concerned parents find themselves relying on outside “experts” and “coaches” to give the answers that conscious parenting reveals simply through one on one communication.

In recent months, within these same parent writing circles, there appears to be a stronger backlash against attachment parenting families who co-sleep, with some writers scapegoating this choice as the bad seed that starts a spiral of failure for all parents. To validate their own arguments, these writers feel the need to downplay and denigrate other families’ choices, going so far as to throw statistics around loosely in desperation.

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While the saying goes: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, we all know that is just wishful thinking. Of course words can and do hurt people all the time. After a recent parent-teacher conference for my 5-year-old son, I am reminded how mean kids can be to each other (he needs to work on better communicating the “we don’t want to play with you now” message). And while kids are often mean to each other on purpose, they also hurt people’s feelings unintentionally when they don’t understand how their words affect others.

And, mamas, were it only our kids! We adults are also guilty of hurting people with our words when we don’t quite know how best to say something - or, in some cases, don’t know there is a best way. Over the past few years riding public transit with my kids, I have answered some pretty direct questions about people sitting right next to us - the kind of questions that make all the ears on the bus perk up to see what happens next, to see just what I’m gonna say. And truth be told, often I’m as curious as they are! Read the rest of this entry »