This Guy Is a Prophet.

In 1971, Urie Bronfenbrenner’s work, Two Worlds of Childhood, was published.  I know nothing about it beyond this one quote in The Well-Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer.  In light of the incidents of kids shooting kids in schools, I think this man’s work perhaps deserves a closer look.  Here’s what he says, with SWB’s words in regular print, his in bold.

Thirty years ago, Cornell Professor of Child Development Urie Bronfenbrenner warned that the “socially-isolated, age-graded peer group” created a damaging dependency in which middle-school students relied on their classmates for approval, direction, and affection. He warned that if parents, other delights, and older children continued to be absent from the daily life of younger children, we could expect “alienation, indifference, antagonism, and violence on the part of the younger generation.”

Interesting.

The Well-Trained Mind has a nice chapter on the question, “But what about socialization?”  If you even mention, in a crowd of people who are not familiar with it, the idea of teaching kids at home, this will come up.  If you’re like me, at first you’ll launch into a list of ways you personally make sure your child has plenty of chances to interact with peers: church, sports, home school group events.  In other words, I bought into the idea that by not putting my child in school, I was depriving him of something necessary to his complete development.  After reading this chapter a few times (at least it took me a few times for it to soak in), you’ll understand that this is simply not true.  Your family is arguably the best, at the very least an appropriate, social setting for your children, and better prepares them for life in “the real world” than a classroom can.

By the way, in case you’re curious, William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies came out in 1954.

Hello World!

I’m just going to start posting again, just as if I have not beed away from this blog for months.  Hope that’s cool with you.  To set your mind at ease, no major crisis has occurred to take me away from blogging.  It’s just Facebook.

I sent two envelopes for Red Envelope Day, an organized peaceful protest against the practice of abortion in the United States.  I wonder if it will get any press?

If I Would Just Get a Job…

There are so many things wrong with this article.  I don’t even know where to start.  The article, by Madeline Chambers from Reuters, is titled, “Working women hold key to world prosperity.”  She quotes Alison Maitland as saying, “There is a huge gap between women’s talents and skills and the use of that potential.”

I am taking this to mean that at least some of her “talents and skills” (a “huge” amount?) is being wasted when the woman stays out of the workforce to raise her kids.

Next sentence: “It requires a concerted effort by governments and the private sector in collaboration.”

If governments, private companies, and individuals all try hard, skillful and talented women can be convinced and enabled to leave the child-raising (which takes much less important talent and much fewer skills) to other people.  The article does not go on to say who these people are.

Chambers cites France and Nordic countries as examples of countries that have successfully drawn women away from child-rearing and into the workforce.  These women are still having babies, but they are leaving them in “good and affordable” childcare.  The families have tax incentives to have two income earners.

These countries also have some of the lowest marriage rates and higher than average divorce rates, according to the OECD.

The world economy will just have to do without my skills and talents.  I don’t intend to waste my life.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

This made me cry. It’s a video highlighting a network of volunteers who offer to help families who have learned that their newborns will likely not survive birth. They’re photographers (including one of my favorite children’s photographers, Sugar Photography) who give their time and skills to give enduring tangibility to the memories these families are making with their beautiful children. The pictures provide evidence that these children existed and had lives that meant something. God, in His sovereign grace, makes no mistakes and is always good.

This also made me cry. The Born Alive Infants Protection Act. When President Bush signed it in August 2002, he said,

Today I sign the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive — including an infant who survives an abortion procedure — is considered a person under federal law. This reform was passed with the overwhelming support of both political parties, and it is about to become the law of the land.

With this in effect, doctors are required to give medical care to a child who is “accidentally” born alive after a late-term abortion attempt. Why on earth does this even have to be discussed? In fact, although it was passed “with overwhelming support of both political parties,” Barack Obama did not support it. Logical, actually, if you set your philosophy on the flawed premise that we are all there is. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

For another look at this issue, go here. This has Mr. Obama’s own words about why he did not support this legislation.

The value of life, no matter how short or how long, is a subject that is close to my heart. It’s one of the few things that can set me off (the others being depression and education). Can you tell?

My Kingdom For A Sledge!

You know, I am finding it difficult to retain my usual sunny and non-critical (ahem) personality when I can’t help but notice that our town’s outdoor ice skating area is better maintained than the residential street in front of my house. In fact, the ice is most likely thicker here on The Terrace than it is under the skates of those merry gliders across from the library. Granted, the sand truck just went by, thus making skating on the street fairly difficult, but I would be willing to wager my piggy bank that our street has seen the plow less often than the rink has.

But I am not bitter. Just glad we live relatively close to the main road.

p.s. The kids are watching PBS’ Curious George, and I just overheard this post-appropriate line: “This is bad, but I can think of 56 ways it could be worse.”

All I Want for Christmas

I’ve been asked to put up a list of stuff I want for Christmas. There’s a lot of stuff I want, so that seems easy, right? The problem is that I have developed this aversion to the Wish List. (As my parents can tell you, this is certainly not an issue I’ve had all my life.) But, putting that aversion aside, here’s the Christmas Wish List 2007 for our family.

Brian: See his post on the subject here.

Eva: colored cardstock, an oven thermometer, a heavy cornbread/scone pan, a small digital food scale, HP 98/95 ink cartridges for the printer, stationery

Gannon: Legos, a kid’s calculator, Calvin and Hobbes book, Garfield book, art/craft supplies

Acadia: Legos, kid-sized mommy’s helper kind of things, little girl’s nail polish/makeup, baby doll supplies, art/craft supplies

Merry Christmas!

What Parenting Does To You

For a brief and perfectly accurate description of what happens to a woman after she becomes a mother (at least after she becomes a mother through giving birth…I can’t speak for the moms whose first baby comes into their family through adoption but I imagine it is much the same, perhaps without the disappearance of her abdominal muscles), go see Kristen’s blog, Walking Circumspectly.

I’ve been posting a lot of linkage these days. Am I lazy? No, just sharing and caring for my pals. If I enjoyed it, you might too. Right? I’m certainly not lazy. But I do have a lot on my mental plate these days (not that I have a plate in my head, setting off the alarm at airports and stuff, I just mean I have a lot to think about). And maybe it’s taking up most of my creativity.

That, and I just started reading The Deathly Hallows. Which kept me up a little bit last night. (I’m just up to the part where….never mind. You might not have read it, and in that case I’m not allowed to talk to you about it.)

I’m gearing up for school to start in a couple of weeks. Gannon will be in 1st(ish) grade and I am going to do some preschooly things with Acadia. When I figure it all out I will post what we’re using for materials/curriculum.

Then there are Bible studies to prepare for, children’s church, preschool worship, house issues, kid issues, and car issues. You know, just the usual stuff. Plus the added energy of figuring out how I can get to see The Simpsons Movie. Which is very important, people.

I Stole This Post.

I read a few blogs on a regular basis. One of my favorites has been Toddler Planet, written by a very smart and very funny woman who happens to be a mommy of two, like me. Unlike me, she has cancer. In the past few weeks her life has gone from being a nursing mom to hanging out with chemo nurses. She honestly blogs about it. I’ve copied one of her informational posts here. Because information is good. Especially about something like this. If you’re a woman and you’ve got boobies, please read this!

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

Veggie Values

As you may have heard, Veggie Tales can now be seen on Saturday mornings on NBC. But you won’t be hearing the familiar, “God made you special and he loves you very much.” The network doesn’t want a religious show, they want a values-based show, says the creator of VegT, Phil Vischer. (He’s got a blog.)

That brought me to ponder what that means: values. I suppose Values are things that are deemed important and, well, valued. I have values, you have values, George Bush has values, Jesus has values, Hitler had values. We all have stuff that’s important to us. Each of us decides what’s important to us, often without much formal contemplation. Sometimes it’s what our parents valued, or our church, or our peers. Other times we set high priorities on things that a religion instructs us to. For me, it’s a mixture. Hopefully I’m passing it all through a filter of biblical truth, so that my values line up with God’s. (I know I’m not always the best at this, especially when I find myself being so excited about buying decorative curtain rods and iron-styled wall sconces.)

So who decides what the values should be for the entire viewing public? Or for the nation?
If they’re based on the majority of people, or the most vocal, how actually valuable is that? People and societies are fickle and very changeable. And subsets of society value different things over others. Not to mention that we often act as if our values are much different from the ones we claim to own (maybe those are values of aspiration?).

I think that saying you have values is empty without being governed by them, and having ever-changing values is equally meaningless. God provides the constancy and righteousness we need to base our lives on. By taking God out of the equation we’ve neutered our attempts at having a polite, upright society. That’s not to say we need God in Veggie Tales for the next generation to grow up understanding God (that is why they have parents). I’m just stating my opinion on the absurdity of godless values.

Okay, time to homeschool my kids now.