I noticed a Facebook status update from my neighbor E from late last night saying: “Next door neighbor (Name redacted) cooking in the nude. With the windows open.” My first thought when I read this was that I hope to goodness he wasn’t using the food processor he borrowed from us, the one he said he needed to “make bearnaise sauce.”
Sheesh.
In my latest blog post over at Babble. I’m talking about how I’ve gotten way more comfortable over time in laying down the law when it comes to what my tween and teen children can and cannot wear in public.
Teenagers are trying to find and express their identities through their clothing. I get that, and they need some freedom to do play around with who they are through their sartorial excesses. That shape-shifting through fashion experimentation can be an important part of the growing up process, and completely harmless. On the other hand, when the identity teenegers are expressing through what they are wearing is one that truly contradicts your values as a parent, or celebrates things that are dangerous or illegal, or that compromises their reputation among other kids and adults because it says something about them that people find negative, well, then, I think parental discretion and judgment trumps their need or right to have complete freedom of choice in what they wear. That’s where I am with this these days, but that’s been an evolution over time.For some teenagers, dressing a certain way is nothing more than play acting, but for other kids, adopting, for example, a Goth fashion sensibility actually supports and encourages their descent into depression or drug use or other kinds of self-harm. Dressing like the guys in gangsta rap videos might be a big nothing for some kids, who just like to play around with costuming themselves, while for others, it’s part of a very meaningful and dangerous interest in a criminal lifestyle. And even if the kids themselves aren’t actually doing any of the things commonly associated with whatever specific clothing styles they are sporting, they can be creating an impression in their schools, neighborhoods and communities that is unhealthy and self-defeating. As parents, we have to protect our kids’ from their own lack of experience and underdeveloped judgment unti l they “get” this stuff themselves.
Go read the whole thing and tell me what you think in the comments there.
It appears that we MAY have flu in the house. J’s been sniffly and had mild sore throat for several days. She woke up at 3am last night with headache, chills and generally feeling rotten. Hoping it’s not what it looks like it may be…
Photo by EBJ.
In the past two or three days, folks around Knoxville have been rather horrified to see a large banner with a graphic photo of an aborted fetus being flown overhead, pulled by a plane. In the case of my sister, the plane flew over her 7 year old and 10 year old outside their school, leaving the children upset and frightened.
What I don’t get is how anyone thinks that this kind of tactic actually does what they claim they are trying to do, which is reduce the number of abortions in this country. I suspect that they are actually just attention hounds, like the PETA people, who care more about creating spectacle than they do about creating real change on this issue they claim to be so passionate about. And I have heard several of my staunchly pro-life friends say that they are equally annoyed by how extreme and pointless grandstanding like this gives people the wrong impression of their cause and the people who support it.
My sister took the time to track down the contact info for the organization behind this week’s city-wide campaign of visual harassment, and here it is for those of you fellow locals who also want to contact these people and tell them to knock it off:
Fletcher Armstrong, PhD CBR Southeast Region Director
P.O. Box 20115, Knoxville, TN 37940
phone: 865-776-3261
e-mail:Fletcher@CBRinfo.org
For more information on CBR-Southeast: www.ProLifeOnCampus.com
This is the email my sister sent them:
Mr. Armstrong,
As I picked up my elementary aged children from school today, they and several other children were excited to hear an airplane overhead, as children are known to do. We all looked up and were horrified to see a picture of a dead fetus. I told the children to look away but it was too late. I wonder if you would find it appropriate for war protestors to show pictures of mangled bodies to children? What about if, as a protest to rape, children were shown pictures of women being brutally sexually assaulted?
Your methods don’t serve a purpose. As an adult in a society filled with graphic news stories and movies, that picture didn’t have any shock value for me. But for my children, who are not yet able to understand pro choice or right to life, it was a picture that confused and frightened them.
You should be ashamed of yourself for not protecting the children who are living with the same fervor that you claim to want to protect the unborn.
Sincerely,
How Ted Kennedy and Palin are the same: Kennedy was the original partisan litmus test of the modern political era; no one was neutral or indifferent about him. People either idolized him, or hated him with foamy-mouthed rage. Sarah Palin is the current, iconic partisan litmus test, inspiring the same extreme reactions in one direction or the other.
The comparison I am making is strictly about the extreme, emotional partisan responses each of these people has the ability to inspire in Americans. Lots of politicians are liked or disliked by “the other side,” but very few become iconic representations of partisan anger and passion like Kennedy and Palin are. Very, very few. Both Kennedy and Palin transcend who they actually are, what they’ve actually done or what their views actually are in the way that people feel about them.
However, when it comes to the two individuals themselves, and their own partisanship, there is a big difference. Ted Kennedy – love him or hate him – is recognized across both aisles as a guy who knew how to work effectively with those in Congress who totally disagreed with him in order to get things done. His views were partisan, but his collegial relationships and on-the-job working style were not. He belonged to an old-school style of partisan politics that allowed titans of both parties to bash heads on the Senate floor all day, and then go out for beers together after work. And that’s why I suspect that Teddy Kennedy, Tip O’Neill and Ronnie Reagan are at this very moment, sitting around a table together at the celestial pub, tossing back and few, and regaling other patrons with hilarious Irish talltales.
The Baby Cousins, C and NC, at exactly 24 months of age, captured in their natural states.
This is C’s personality in a nutshell.
And this is NC’s personality in a nutshell.
We had a very odd evening around Casa Hickju on Friday night. You can read all about it in my latest Babble blog post.