If I learned that my son were using drugs, I expect my response would be something greater than an introspective frown. Then again, he won’t have learned it from watching me.
When a Knoxville, Tennessee father discovered that his son was smoking pot, et al., he made sure everyone else knew as well:
‘The boy was forced to wear a large sandwich board sign that said “I abused & sold drugs,” while standing in front of Cedar Bluff Middle School.
“I would like to say that I’m not out here doing this to humiliate my son,’ the dad said. “I’m doing this because I love him. We do have an extreme drug problem in America, and maybe it’s time for extreme measures that parents need to take to monitor this problem that we have.”‘
To his credit, the boy knows when to take responsibility for his actions: ”Well, I did do the crime and I’m willing to serve the punishment for it.’
Of course, the internet being what it is, there’s some discussion, here. Hackles have been raised, and some folks are more worried about potential low self-esteem than a potential funeral.
Remember Tasha Henderson? In 2005 she dealt a similar punishment to her 14-year-old daughter, who was misbehaving in school.
If they think a little more ‘shame’ is going to faze a middle school student, then they’ve never been to middle school. Drug abuse thrives in secrecy. Some problems can’t be solved with decorum and tact.
(Thanks, Glenn Sacks!)
Dear Friends:
Yesterday morning, a friend’s neighbor accidentally backed over her 15-month-old son with her SUV. The child died later that day.
I don’t know how to pray in situations like this. It feels too overwhelming, too intimidating. What should I ask? Where to begin? I’m thankful that God knows the answers to both.
Please take a moment to pray for this family.
Montrose County, Colorado has received a $1M federal grant to start a pilot fatherhood program:
‘Peg Mewes, director of Montrose County Health and Human Services, said Montrose was only one of only two counties in the state that recently cashed in on a $1 million federal grant program to help fathers with parenting.
The countywide program is open to any dad, but those who don’t have their kids living with them seem to need it the most, Mewes said.
The free program will help dads with parenting skills, legal rights and drug problems, and they’ll be encouraged to keep up their child support payments.’
The county’s goal is to hire five ‘life coaches’ and enroll thirty fathers by the end of the year.
I don’t mean to belittle the struggles of divorced fathers, or Montrose County. I’m always excited to see new programs like this. However, I’m curious to know how they determined that non-custodial fathers most needed a fatherhood program. It seems to me—and I could be completely wrong—that there are more resources for legal advice and fathers’ rights than fatherhood in general.
The program is available to all fathers, but will all fathers be attracted to the program if its services are targeted toward a specific group of dads?
Mewes’ further comments imply that theirs will be a ‘fathers’ rights group’, because ‘many fathers have no idea what their rights are’. If, instead, they were to promote the significance of fatherhood, and provide men with the tools and support to become better husbands and fathers, wouldn’t that encourage divorced fathers to learn and demand their rights?
And, perhaps, to avoid divorce in the first place?
[See also Paying Daddy to Be Dad, about a New York State program which provides tax credits to non-custodial parents to encourage payment of child support.]
Apparently what Ian’s teacher says is true: the work of children is play.
Yesterday’s top story in parenting news was a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics: ‘The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds‘. Both CNN and NPR covered the report, CNN focusing on younger children, NPR on teenagers.
Our children are so invovled in make-me-smarter schools and look-what-he-can-do classes that they’re left with no time to play. No time to be themselves. As a result, kids are experiencing more stress, depression, and the side-effects of both. Their imagination and creativity is being stunted.
Ian goes to school two mornings each week. On Wednesday nights, we have dinner at church, after which we go to choir and he goes to catechism. We’ve been thinking of taking him to dance class.
Part of Ian’s lack of involvement is because we’re lazy and have little money for djembe lessons. Besides, we like the quiet. But more than that, we’re fiercely protective of our family’s time. As a teacher, Kelly is all too familiar with students who have jobs, choir practice, baseball, debate, youth group, play rehearsal, and lectures on synchronized semaphore. And occasional homework. They run themselves ragged. Listen to the interviews of the NPR report, and you’ll know what I mean.
I also spend 50% of my waking, weekday hours away from my wife and son. Why should I make that any worse so that Ian can do inverse functions before he can tie his shoes? Ian doesn’t need a social calendar or academic advisor. He needs to run around in circles and fix our dishwasher with a hammer.
Last Saturday, Ian and I spent the morning before lunch playing in the backyard. I tried making baskets into the tower of his Playskool castle. He was a dragon, and breathed fire on me because I was cold. Then he made me hot chocolate.
[Update: Dad in Progress discusses an essay in Time on media distortion and the myth of the over-achieving family.]
I generally try to avoid getting involved in the heady realm of Norwegian politics, but an issue has arisen which has serious, far-reaching implications for fathers, our sons, and the very soul of manhood.
A principal in Kristiansand, Norway has decreed that all male students shall pee…while sitting down. Still your outraged cry, for Vidar Kleppe, head of the Norwegian Democrats Party, has rallied to our cause:
‘”When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God’s work,” Kleppe told the newspaper.
“It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl,” Kleppe said.’
When Eve fell from grace with that fateful bite, God commanded that ‘in pain [she would] bring forth children’, and that she would pee sitting down. Not Adam. The principal, Anne Lise Gjul, claims that the change was made because ‘young boys are simply not good enough at aiming.’ How very dare she.
Let slip the dogs of war. We, but not this, shall stand!
(Thanks, Mike!)
I like to talk to tomatoes, and a squash can always make me smile. So, I was pleased to learn that NBC is now showing episodes of VeggieTales on Saturday mornings. I was less pleased to learn that God has been left on the cutting-room floor.
NBC has removed references to God to make the show more palatable to a wider audience. This admission is an improvement on their first excuse (BugMeNot), which was that the show had been edited for time.
‘”NBC is committed to the positive messages and universal values of ‘VeggieTales,’ ” [a network] statement said. “Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages, while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view.”‘
The further editing was done despite the fact that VeggieTales producers had already selected episodes that were ‘less overt in their Christian themes’, and had removed the Bible verses from the end of the show.
The excuse of omission to avoid ‘advocating’ is wearing a little thin. Anyone who’s seen Desperate Housewives or Friends knows that NBC is by no means an advocate for Christianity. If anything, NBC is a champion of all things secular. Was there really any danger in viewers mistaking NBC for TBN?
Simply because a teacher professes to be Christian does not mean that the local, state, or federal governments are advocates of Christianity. The same is true for NBC and animated cucumbers. Regardless of what’s removed, VeggieTales is Christian. God is its focus, no matter what is or isn’t said. NBC knew this in advance; didn’t they wonder, for a moment, that this may have been an important part of its success?
Bob the Tomato used to say, ‘God made you special and He loves you very much.’ Now he bids farewell by saying, ‘Thanks for coming over to my house, kids. See you next week.’
Feel the love.
If NBC removed VeggieTales’ references to God to avoid advocating Christianity, how should we view their decision to broadcast Madonna crucified, and wearing a crown of thorns?
(Thanks, Ed!)
[Update: Michelle Malkin covers this story in a recent edition of Hot Air TV. I knew about Madonna, but I didn't know that NBC's Saturday Night Live had aired an banal spoof of VeggieTales in 2002. Everyone loves sexual molestation jokes.]
Last week, a group of students in New Bedford, Massachusetts held a funeral for the problems facing them and their friends:
‘Eight youths from the Responsible Attitudes toward Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention Youth Council [RAPPP] held “The Rebirth of New Bedford: New Bedford Resurrected” last week to bury issues that plague today’s youths.
They held the “unfuneral,” complete with a makeshift casket, eulogy and burial ceremony recently at the city garden where social ills—such as drug abuse, abandonment, racism, gang violence, AIDS and teen drinking—were laid to rest and marked by headstones that will remain in the garden permanently.’
Each student chose an ailment and created its headstone. The students collaborated on a eulogy, and took turns reading from it during the funeral.
The headstones were placed in New Bedford’s Peace Works! City Garden. Michelle Guilbeault, youth coordinator for RAPPP, said that students thought the headstones would be ‘better than just growing flowers’.
Playskool has recalled its Team Talkin’ Tool Bench after two toddlers suffocated from swallowing the toy’s oversized, plastic nails. There is no choking hazard warning on the toy, because none of its parts are small enough to be classified as a ‘small part’ by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Parents are advised to remove the nails immediately and return them to Playskool for a $50 certificate. Contact Playskool at 800-509-9554 for more information, or use this contact form.
If someone told you to jump from a bridge, would you do it? Of course not! But what if that person were your father…
‘A man and his 10-year-old daughter were on an evening bike ride when he suggested they jump off the [bridge] and into the Intracoastal Waterway.
The nervous little girl agreed and…[he] grabbed his daughter’s hand, counted to three and jumped nearly 20 feet into the water. Megan Stewart was not hurt, but her father broke his left leg when he hit the bottom.’
I freely admit that I’ve taken liberty with common sense when playing with my son. That’s a father’s privilege, and the only way to impress upon children a healthy respect for gravity. But a broken-leg is a high price to pay for the thrill of jumping into four feet of water.
I will say that Mr. Stewart’s motives were a bit loftier than a simple good time: ‘”He thought he could break her fear of heights by doing that. Instead he broke his leg,” said Lantana Police Capt. Andy Rundle.’
Mr. Stewart’s special brand of homeschooling also went awry in 2004 when, during a lesson in sociology, he was arrested for buying crack cocaine from an undercover police officer—with Megan in the car.
(Thanks, Dad Daily!)
The Vancouver Public Library has a free reading program called Man in the Moon that helps fathers of babies learn nursery rhymes:
‘The program helps fathers, boyfriends, grandfathers and uncles learn nursery rhymes and stories with babies up to 18 months of age. Led by a male facilitator, the six to eight sessions help the men and babies grow more comfortable with each other and other children. It also gives mom a bit of a break.
‘…Man in the Moon began in 1999. Janice Douglas…developed the program after meeting with early child care development workers who suggested men needed to become more involved with the children in their lives.’
Before Ian was born, I had visions of singing him to sleep or comforting him with playful rhymes. The problem was I could only remember first lines or choruses, or only the tune. As a consequence, Ian was forced—at one month old—to endure my mangling of American Pie. The long version. Before I’d joined the choir.
Yes, I could’ve done my research or gone to the library, but what new parent has the time or energy to memorize Mother Goose? This sounds like a wonderful program for everyone invovled, but somehow I think the men benefit more than their children.
