My sweet isn’t as tooth as you think I am
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 1 Comment »I always suspected as much, given that my children behave like angry drunks when they can't have a Hershey bar.
On the virtues of sharing a glass of wine with the kids
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 2 Comments »Jennie Bristow on "the myth of me-time:" "But the big problem with the way that child-centredness is pitched against me-time is its divisiveness. Presenting the interests of children and adults as being in conflict undermines the reality of the family as ...
You had them, now raise them
Monday, February 15th, 2010 Posted in Policy and Politics, The Art of Parenting | 1 Comment »Frank Furedi on the muddled roles of schoolteachers and parents: "There is a difference between raising children and educating them, and this distinction must be re-established to allow for a clearer and more constructive relationship between parents and teachers." In other words, ...
Bad faith makes bad medicine, and so does bad math
Friday, January 29th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 7 Comments »The doctor who claimed a link between child vaccinations and autism has been rebuked by British medical authorities for irresponsible and unethical conduct. The folk theory will continue for generations, unfortunately, because autism tends to emerge around the time children ...
Perhaps draw a random name from the phone book?
Monday, January 25th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 2 Comments »In this video news clip about a mother who ordered her son to kill his pet as punishment for bad grades (the son's, not the gerbil's), an investigator says the woman was raised by a good family. Maybe so. When it comes ...
You need a license to fish, but not to breed
Monday, January 25th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | No Comments »Libby Purves brings the everloving smack on three gruesome cases of parenting gone horribly wrong. What I like best is her easy use of expressions like "wicked" and "natural," words all but banned from polite media discourse on families, the ...
The deceptive average
Monday, January 18th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 2 Comments »A new study suggests parenting reduces blood pressure. Keep in mind that they're only looking at averages, which means that when you spike after watching your two-year old do a back flip off the bed, and then collapse into a ...
Criminalize this
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 Posted in Judo Chops, Policy and Politics, The Art of Parenting | 9 Comments »Izzy Lyman takes apart Georgetown Law professor Robin West's attack on home-schoolers as ignorant trailer trash in delightful form. Perhaps most disturbing about West's hit piece is that it's published in a scholarly journal, even if it does come out ...
Sunday, January 10th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | No Comments »
Joanna Moorhead offers another example of surprisingly good advice flowing from disastrously poor premises. Among her flawed bits of wisdom: "Our children are entirely different from us. . ."; and ". . . the more you hold things to be ...
The myth of the myth
Saturday, January 9th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting, Theology | 5 Comments »Leslie Fields muddles about in Calvinism and Darwinism before arriving at good advice for every Christian parent, which is to pray your child toward Heaven. I think "the perfect parent myth," however, is itself a myth. None of us envisions ...
This just in: children aren’t so bad after all
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | No Comments »Some of you might recall research floating about suggesting that having children reduces happiness. My own point of view has been that immediate happiness is not the point of a fulfilling life, at least not for the Christian. Now I've ...
Marionette parenting
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | No Comments »Judith Woods reminds us that there's a difference between good parental involvement and hovering overkill (i.e., "helicopter parenting"). We ought to dispense with calling it helicopter parenting, in fact, and call it marionette parenting. Parents should be in the helicopter, ...
Four out of five drug companies, er, doctors, agree
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 Posted in Irritations, The Art of Parenting | 4 Comments »Fewer and fewer people favor spanking children, but increasing numbers of us are fine with abusing them via prescription.
When is it legal for them to mix me a drink?
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 1 Comment »I suppose it's helpful to hear some expert advice on when my children can have sleepovers and get their own mobile phones, but there's some other milestones I have in mind, like the age when they can operate a chainsaw, ...
Never trust people who don’t laugh
Monday, January 4th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 2 Comments »ParentDish-UK asks if this is good plain family fun, or child abuse. A writer at ParentDish-US, meanwhile, thinks the answer is clear. For all the laughing our children do at our expense, it seems only fair we get to turn ...
He who spares the rod . . .
Monday, January 4th, 2010 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 3 Comments ». . . hates his child. Didn't know that was in the Bible, did you? And now a new study suggests that children who are spanked as youngsters go on to be happier and more successful. I'm sure even now ...
Monster parents
Monday, December 28th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 19 Comments »A woman and her boyfriend beat her two-month old baby to death on Christmas Eve in Detroit, and the Wayne County Prosecutor suggests parenting classes might help stem the tide of such abuse. While we lose the traditions and practices ...
Parenting fads
Thursday, December 24th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | No Comments »The Washington Post's Brian Reid picks the top five parenting fads of 2009. Notice how he subtly puts evidence and tradition in opposition, in his fifth pick. That's part and parcel with our modern sensibility, the notion that immediately present reason ...
Post-modern parenting
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 4 Comments »More fodder for the growing, convenient consensus that television-as-babysitter is good, that daycare is great, that minimal parent-child interaction is acceptable, and that in general the best parents are the ones who are way too self- and career-involved to do much ...
Zombies, vampires, and childhood
Thursday, December 17th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 5 Comments »(I really did intend just to write about zombies and vampires. Somehow this became something else, which long-time readers, as well as my therapist, know happens with me. ) I don't know why I prefer vampire movies to zombie movies, but ...
Taking umbrage
Thursday, December 17th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 1 Comment »Because normally women who drink in trailers and prefer to settle disputes with knives are quite good at parenting.
Daddy dearest
Thursday, December 17th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 1 Comment »The Scots, according to their nation's chief medical officer, are bad parents. So bad, in fact, that they are reducing the life expectancy of their children. My only knowledge of Scottish parenting practices comes from So I Married an Axe ...
The forever yearning
Thursday, November 19th, 2009 Posted in Snapshots of Life, The Art of Parenting, The Sermons | 9 Comments »Yesterday morning Isaiah came to our bedroom, enacting his self-appointed role as Mr. Rise and Shine. He stepped on our knees and ankles and flopped about with sharp elbows until he staked a position between us. Isaac followed. Wife rose ...
The lies parents tell
Thursday, November 12th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 15 Comments »So, what do you do when the Tooth Fairy forgets to visit? This happened recently to Eli, and I had to explain that it was because he forgot to leave the tooth on his bedside table, opting to tie the ...
Kill your television before it gets you
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting, The Literate Life | 15 Comments »The average child between the ages of two and five in the U.S. watches over 32 hours of television per week, according to the latest Nielsen numbers. Nearly five hours a day, in other words. Given the greater sleep needs ...
Etched in flesh
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting, The Sermons | 5 Comments »I must confess that my first reaction, upon hearing about the thug who had his seven year-old tattooed with his gang's symbol, was that the solution seemed pretty straightforward: a bullet under the chin of the sperm-donor, along with a ...
Parent, heal thyself
Friday, September 25th, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 4 Comments »The problem with too many modern commentators on parenting, I think, is their inability to distinguish love from acceptance. This confusion is apparent in Alfie Kohn's New York Times essay, where he writes: "In 2004, two Israeli researchers, Avi Assor and ...
Could have been anyone
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 Posted in Faith and Life, The Art of Parenting | 13 Comments »The Columbine killers, a new book says, weren't twisted little psychopaths who intended to kill dozens. They were one twisted little psychopath and his pathetic sidekick, and they hoped to kill hundreds. But otherwise they were regular kids. USA Today reports this ...
Because the chicks dig a man on a hog
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 Posted in Snapshots of Life, The Art of Parenting | 9 Comments »Last night I convinced Caleb that instead of saving up money to buy an expensive, super-complicated Star Wars Death Star Lego kit, he should spend that money on a motorbike. I'm fairly certain that as a result I've rescued him from a lifetime of ...
“Because I said so” is good enough
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 Posted in The Art of Parenting | 7 Comments »Rosemond defends the benevolent parental dictatorship.
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