You like square whats?

I am a big fan of Spongebob Squarepants. Any mother of a five-year old is most likely aware of his existence in the everyday life of their child. What I am not a fan of, however, is the use of Spongebob to promote a song that really has nothing to do with children. My daughter, who is five, is not even allowed to listen to this Sir Mix-a-lot song, so imagine my dismay when I looked around at the television to find the big butts song pushing kid's meals. My daughter loves the Burger King kid's meal. How long will it be before she is going around the house singing, "I like square butts and I cannot lie..."?

Is this something that should disturb me? Well, sure it is. For one thing, I don't want her listening to any music that objectifies women. I don't feel that this music does much to further our (women's)cause and I don't feel like children have enough life experience and context to understand the music before the words become engrained on their little psyches. So, long before they understand what it means to "like big butts," they are convinced that they already do.

For another thing, can't Burger King find a better way to lure children into their restaurants than to substitute their own lyrics to a raunchy adult song like this one? I mean, isn't this kind of a cheap tactic to employ? Sure, some parents out there might think the song is funny. I even think the song is a little catchy if you don't listen too closely while you have your brain engaged. But when I really listen to it, I'm somewhat offended and it takes alot to offend me.

I'm not sure how much lower we can sink as a nation if we are going to start marketing to our children through means such as these. What's next, are they going to try to sell dinosaur toys using a cleaned up version of 2 Live Crew's big hit, Me So Horny? Tacky, isn't it? For now, I think we'll give BK a rest and start taking our kid's meal business to McDonald's.

Until next time...

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FOX News needs a spanking...

for reporting this morning that spankings actually make children more aggressive. I can't see how that's possible unless parents are just hitting their children without doing any other parenting whatsoever. Sure, if all you do is swat your kid and you never talk to them or explain rules or expectations to them, they might grow up hating you and not understanding why you are so mean. But if you are a parent who takes time to talk with your child about things and you find it necessary to spank them for bad behavior every once in a while, I don't see that having any negative ramifications. As a matter of fact, I think that's part of what kids are missing these days. They don't seem to be as weary of punishment as they used to be and I think it is because so many parents started listening to the findings of studies like these.

Ladies and gentlemen, just because a group gets together and researches something, that doesn't make them experts on the matter. It just means they know more about the issue than they did before the study. Parents who are actually trying to parent their children are the real experts on this issue. You know the right way to handle your child. You know when you are being unfair and when you might have taken your punishment of their behavior a bit too far. At least if you're like me, you feel guilty for yelling or losing your temper even when your child has been steadily stomping on your last frayed nerve for the past twelve hours and you've been as patient as patient can be.

My thought is this, we need to stop spending so much time and energy worrying that we shouldn't be asserting ourselves as parents for fear that they will hate us. Your children are going to hate you for one thing or another anyway if you're doing your job right. We need to spend less time justifying our lack of commitment to being the stern disciplinarians our children need and start finding ways to clean up our society. I have a few suggestions: Take those damned horror movie trailors off of the television that show terrible images to our children before we have a chance to turn the channel, take those horrible "booty" songs off the radio so that our five year-olds aren't singing about Apple Bottom jeans, and for God's sake can we drop all of the ads for male enhancement drugs and medication for depression? This shit doesn't need to be in our heads all of the time. If it bothers me, I know it confuses the hell out of my daughter. While I know that it is my responsibility to monitor what she's watching and hearing, they sneak some of these things by so quickly that you don't have a chance to shield your child from it.

I'm not saying that the fault lies entirely with the media or with television or radio, but they don't make things any better by not being responsible about what they put on the air. Just because they get a press release or they hear about some new fad, they automatically think it needs to go out into everyone's homes. I don't even think they screen this stuff anymore. News media makes their living by perpetuating our fears with reports like today's big spanking news. This is bullshit. Parents are already confused enough without FOX News laying a guilt trip on them.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable in wanting a news broadcast to report things that are actually useful to me. Telling me something that I know isn't true just isn't useful. It is downright enfuriating. My husband watches FOX News every morning and I've been trying to understand why. Perhaps he is oblivious to the crap they are throwing out and just needs background noise to accompany his morning coffee. I guess they're good for that.

Until next time...


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Poverty and learning: What's my problem with this USA Today article?

As some of you may have seen, I work with children and I get a little disgusted when I read things that just don't make sense. My blog today addresses an issue that really tweaked my bad attitude:

How damaging and irresponsible is this article from USA Today about how poverty dramatically affects children’s brains? As a person who came from a family that has experienced its fair share of poverty (even to the point of homelessness), I have to take offense at some of the assertions made in this article by Mr. Greg Toppo. This is a classic example of the old chicken and egg debate. Which came first, the poverty or the impaired brain function? To say that poor kids are more likely to have lowered brain function is just ridiculous. How did they come to this conclusion? Did they ever think that the impaired brain function might be the reason for the poverty and not the other way around?

To say that poor children aren’t necessarily as sharp as kids from middle class families is just prejudicial. It has been proven time and again that kids can rise above their family circumstances if they are given the right opportunities to learn and grow. I don’t believe that poverty has anything to do with their capacity for learning or their ability to function in society other than its impact on their ability to fit in with middle and upper class kids on a superficial level. If a poor child were to read Toppo’s article, they would definitely get the wrong impression and feel as though they were doomed to failure. Of course, from the sound of it, maybe poor kids aren’t capable of reading articles? It’s simply absurd to write something like this and put it out there as a substantial finding.

Poverty causes a lot of things, but the inability to learn and think is not included in that list. Those things come from a lack of exposure to what they need to know to succeed. Instead of doing studies on how a lack of money translates into cognitive dysfunction, they should be putting their funding into finding ways to get the necessary resources out to schools that have no money. Poverty is the lack of money and resources. It is a direct result of kids who get lost in a system that fails to recognize that no matter what their economic status is, all children do not learn things the same way. It is a direct result of a failure to provide adequate funding to schools so that they have what they need to encourage all children to learn. A child who is not getting their needs met due to the conditions of poverty is more likely to be preoccupied by a rumbling stomach or the lack of clean, suitable clothing to wear to school, but they are by no means, unable to figure things out.

Poverty also causes things like determination, spunk and ambition. How do you explain that? Tell me why a poor kid wouldn’t be able to achieve the same things as a rich kid if they were shown the way. Guess what, poor children develop differently because their parents don’t have the time or ability to sit down and read to them or play games that reinforce their learning. Why? Because they are working or worrying about how to pay the bills or they were never shown what they needed to learn themselves, that’s why. Put anyone in a house for eighteen years where no one has time to talk, let alone read and you will get the same result: some level of deficiency in that person’s ability to learn or take an interest in learning. Hell, half of us can’t think straight until we’ve had our morning coffee. What if you couldn’t afford to have coffee? Would that mean you were disabled? This study implies that poor kids were somehow born with a deficient brain. The reality is that parts of the brain may be under stimulated due to circumstances created by poverty. I’m no scientist, but I believe that there’s a big difference between the two.

I’m sorry, but I think the USA Today article is a bunch of bull. The people who did this study must be in league with the same people who created the performance indicator system that so many companies now use to measure their effectiveness. They enjoy making people pay attention to things that really never mattered and having them measure insignificant details. This takes your attention away from some of the bigger problems like where the money for the schools is actually going and why we can’t do more to work with students who need a little more attention. As always, inducing panic in the masses equals job security for the privileged few.

Until next time.


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Stop being so angry…

My new job has given me lots to think about these past few weeks. In short, some people I've met have given me reason to spout off a little. I won't say exactly why, but after reading this, you'll probably understand:

If you have a child, if you watch a child, if you are around children at all on a regular basis, you need to hear this. I firmly believe that kids take every word we say and store it in their little memory banks until they can find a context where those phrases make sense. The ones they hear most often are the ones that start to mold their very existence and dictate the direction of their lives. So, that being said, I think that especially in cases where your main audience is a child or several children, if you don’t have anything good to say, then don’t say anything at all.

I’m not saying that discipline should not be applied when necessary. I’m saying that every interaction you have with a child should not be your opportunity to vent about the things in your life that make you unhappy. If you don’t like your job, that’s not a child’s fault. It’s yours. If you don’t like your spouse, that’s not your child’s fault. It’s yours. If your life isn’t working out according to plan or due to lack of plan, that is not a child’s fault. It’s, well, you guessed it…it’s your own fault.

When a child hears the same angry or negative messages over and over, they begin to attach those messages to their own character. There can’t possibly be any other reason why someone would be so negative towards me, so I must be bad. This is how the child processes your anger. This is not fair. If you find yourself continuously unhappy, you need to make some changes in the way you process things. And especially in the way you treat those around you.

Okay, I'm done. Until next time...

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What a week!

I've been extremely busy this week and although I'm certainly starting to feel it now, I'm also very motivated by what I've been doing. On Monday, I started a new job as a librarian for a local elementary school. In addition to my part-time schedule at my previous job and my writing and my promotional efforts, I'm just a wee bit tired. I haven't had time until today to put together a thought much less enter it here on the blog.

I didn't realize just what schools were up against until I was told by my principal that I have absolutely no budget for books. My first thought was, "No budget for books? How are you supposed to run any kind of library without a book budget?" After a few moments of panic, I started to think about ways that I could get what I need for the library. People are always willing to donate things for kids, so I think the logical place to start is by asking people what they can do to help me build up the library's collection. This would be easier, of course, if people weren't scraping to put together what they need for their own families to get through each day. It's a shame that our government is so focused on fighting this war and manipulating us with their political shenanigans that they can't take care of what is needed here at home.

I always enjoyed visiting the school library when I was a kid. I spent lots of time there, so I'm hoping that I can make this library a place where kids really want to be. I think that without the library, my life would have been missing a very important component. I'm motivated by the notion that what I put into this job can make a big difference to a kid who might not realize what they would miss by not reading. Books open up doors for kids and make them realize that there is more to life than what is right in front of them. Readers become productive members of society. They get it. Some of them might even take up writing. It makes me happy to think that some years down the road, one of my kids might even be the next R.L. Stine or Beverly Cleary or even James Patterson all because they had a librarian who taught them to appreciate a good book.

The challenges I am facing in this new position are welcome challenges. As a writer, I know that I will truly enjoy having yet another ongoing opportunity to encourage children to read. I'll keep you posted as to my progress with the new job.

Until next time...



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Give up the funk!

This is what I keep telling myself. I am in a funk about turning 35 on Friday. I can't seem to shake this terrible feeling that I'm at a major turning point in my life. Right now, I'm as happy as I could probably be. I have everything I need, though it wouldn't hurt to have more money. Of course, even when I had more money, it would have been nice to have more than that. I'm not even sure what good it would do. After all, the more you have, the more you spend.

In any case, turning 35 has me worried. I've been a worrier all my life, but now, I am a little overwhelmed with it. I've been reflecting alot lately on what else I have to offer. I'm past the age where I feel I can safely or sanely have more children. I've finished school a couple of times and they simply will not let me borrow more money to do something different. I've written two books and am now working on a third. I've been on a plane, I've traveled a little, I've even met Jerry Springer. What else is there?

Well, there used to be a very long list of things I wanted to do, but it has since been replaced by only one goal: living to see my daughter grow up safely and helping her get through life. Outside of that, everything seems trivial. Perhaps this is a temporary funk. I hope so, at least. There are still some things I would like to do, I just need to give myself permission to want them again. Once life gets rolling, it's hard to stop the train of guilt and obligation from running you down.

I think what I'll do is this: Stop worrying! Shit, it's bound to pass. After Friday, I'll still be the same crazy chic that wrote this post. I'll just have a new number attached to myself. Who cares, really? I still have my sense of humor. Actually, on Friday, I think I will make up a new list of things I want to do with the next thirty years. Seems like a worthwhile project for someone who's having a bit of a crisis. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Until next time...