Tag Archives: children

Halloween: Rapidly Becoming Truly Scary

Posted on by
5

Halloween might be the scariest holiday out there, at least for women and girls. The above image came from a Tumblr blog (warning: profanity).

I can’t say that I’ve ever watched Sesame Street, but Cookie Monster doesn’t look like the kid on the left, does it? Cookie Monster looks like the kid on the right. Do we really have to start sexualizing kids when they’re toddlers?

It’s bad enough that we already have this:

At least the woman in this “costume” is a woman, not a toddler.

And The Bloggess (warning: profanity here too), who found the above picture, also has a roundup of some “astronaut” costumes for women. None of which have a helmet and two of which don’t have pants, either. Because women astronauts wear skintight miniskirts, high heels and revealing shirts, obviously… with no helmets.

It’s great that some women are confident enough to dress up like this, I guess, but it’s getting to the point where there’s not a lot of other costumes out there. Everything either has a super short skirt or a plunging neckline, unless of course you’re plus-sized, in which case the solution seems to be … well. There isn’t much out there for plus-sized women at all. No idea what it’s like for big men, so maybe they have the same problem.

Is this really what the market is demanding? Maybe it is, but do we really want to foist that on toddlers, too?

School Lunches: The Picky Eater’s Dilemma

Posted on by
2

A Eastside Elementary student holds a fresh cucumber slice dipped in ranch dressing, part of one of the nutritious lunches prepared for the students at the Clinton, Miss., school Sept. 12, 2012.  (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

In one school, whenever salad was offered, I never took it, and if one of the lunch ladies deposited it on my plate I’d just leave it there, and toss it in the trash at the end of the lunch period.

In the other school, whenever salad was offered, I’d load my plate with it and eat every single speck, often wishing I could go back for more.

What made the difference between avoiding salad like the plague and devouring it like the delicious, crunchy meal it is?

I admit I’m a ridiculously picky eater. While I am not afraid to try new things, even things as wild as sauerkraut pizza (which, horrifyingly, is actually delicious), I very often don’t like them, and the list of ingredients I generally (but never always) avoid stretches all the way from mayonnaise and sour cream to mushrooms and peanut butter.

I keep trying things I know I don’t like, just in case. Every once in a while I eat a mushroom because hey, you never know. When I was a kid I didn’t like ketchup. Tastes change.

And now that I’m an adult, there’s a certain fairly large class of foods that I don’t care for much but eat anyway, such as green beans. Green beans are good for me, so whenever given the opportunity, say at a buffet, I eat some.

Salad is the only veggie I really like, and by salad I mean actual salad, not cold noodles covered with sauce. (Cold noodles: Another thing I’m not a fan of.) You know, with lettuce leaves and lots of other stuff.

What made the difference in those two school lunch salads?

Simple. One school served only one type of salad dressing: French.

The other school offered a choice of French and ranch dressing.

I’ve always been particular about salad dressings, and for a long time the only one I liked was Italian. My tastes have expanded a great deal throughout the years, to Caesar and ranch and Greek and raspberry vinaigrette and poppyseed and all kinds of other ones, but to this day I can’t abide French dressing.

At one school I never, ever took salad. At the other, I took salad at every opportunity and if salad had been served every day instead of, say, green beans or cooked carrots, I’d have eaten vegetables every single day at school. Romaine and spinach, all filled with nutrients. Crunchy, tasty goodness.

Yes, I probably would’ve topped them with cheese, egg, turkey, croutons and sunflower seeds if given the opportunity, but I’d've taken the lettuce and ranch dressing on its own, too, with thanks, if that’s all there was.

Why all this about my odd eating habits, you might ask? Well, I was reading a story about school lunches, and how kids are often rejecting the veggies and fruits provided in the healthier school lunches. And I have to wonder: are they offering children any choices?

I remember that there were days I ate nothing but a hamburger bun and pickles at school, because they’d serve sloppy joes with green beans and canned peaches. Back then I couldn’t bring myself to eat green beans either, and I hated canned peaches. Had they offered a nice little salad and a plum I’d've eaten my vegetables that day, at least.

I really like the idea of offering kids more healthy food for their school lunches, but I really do hope there are still some options. A plum or a pear. An apple or an orange. Green beans or asparagus. Ranch or French.

It’s great to make kids try new things (often they won’t do it on their own) but over the long term, offering them choices allows them to have some agency and still gets them to the healthier-food goal.

Some people will not ever like French dressing or mushrooms no matter how many times they’re served or how many times they’re tried.

Giving children a choice between two low-fat salad dressings might mean the difference between a rejected little pile of leaves and a clean plate.

Alarming Trends, and Mr. Rogers

Posted on by
Reply

I never watched much children’s television as a child. At a young age I considered myself too old for a lot of TV shows, such as Sesame Street, because it seemed to be trying to teach me letters and numbers when I could already read and count. And books were far more interesting than television, too.

It occurs to me now I may have missed something good. Mr. Rogers, at least, seemed to be a pretty cool guy. Now someone has remixed some pieces of his show, added autotune, and made a wonderful little song about growing ideas in the “garden of your mind.”

I’m not big on video, but I do have another short clip–a very alarming video of a person wandering up to a volcano to take samples of the bubbling lava lake. This volcanologist survives the experience, but I have to wonder, isn’t this the sort of thing that is obviously stupid? It seems like a Louis Slotin waiting to happen, frankly.

Do we need to put up a sign that says “Do not taunt happy fun volcano”?

And some more links:

  • Here are some more reactions to the “MEN invented the internet” piece.
  • People will kill each other over just about anything, including, apparently, ice cream. The Glasgow Ice Cream Wars were a real thing.
  • The same things people say about those terrible video games is the same thing they used to say about those terrible television programs, those terrible movies, and those terrible books. We all know this, but sometimes it helps to have a reminder.
  • Video games have a peculiar way of telling you a task is urgent and then diverting you away from it with other tasks called “side quests.” While this is typical of a modern work day, when you’re an adventurer tasked with saving the world, it seems a bit weird. Play this tiny, five-minute game. You won’t regret it. (via BoingBoing)

Skeptical Buffalo: A Dieting Book for Six-Year-Olds?

Posted on by
Reply
Skeptical Buffalo Says: Wut.

Skeptical Buffalo Sez: Wut.

A dieting book geared toward kids ages 6-12 is provoking controversy online. The author apparently wanted to help kids address their problems. Unfortunately, what he actually did was illustrate a story in which:

1. Getting made fun of on a regular basis prompts a child to make a positive lifestyle change. There are no consequences for the bullies, though that may certainly be argued to be an accurate depiction of real life.

2. Losing weight magically makes you popular and athletic.

To be fair,  the character in the story, Maggie, loses weight through eating better and exercising more, not by starving herself or purging. And obesity is a quickly-growing epidemic among youth.

But still, despite the good intentions and the real problems this book was written to address, it’s a little bit hinky to be telling six-year-olds that weight loss is the magical solution to unpopularity and sadness, or even a solution to bad body image. Weight loss doesn’t always give you the figure you want anyway, and dieters may lose pounds and ultimately, still be highly dissatisfied with their bodies.

I could have weighed six ounces as a 12-year-old and I still would have been tremendously unpopular. And there were plenty of thin and beautiful unpopular kids in my class.

And the image on the book’s cover is an exact inversion of what anorexic people see in the mirror: The chubby Maggie looks in a mirror and sees a thin version of herself.

In real life, a pathetically thin anorexic girl looks in the mirror and sees a chubby version of herself–I’ve seen that image used to illustrate anorexia and bulimia more than once in many places, because it describes so perfectly what people with those eating disorders see. When they look in the mirror, they do not see an emaciated person; they see a fat person. It’s every bit as much of a fantasy as Maggie’s thin-alternate-self in the mirror.

Needless to say, children shouldn’t diet unless there’s some sort of really good reason, and they should be supervised by adults if they must diet.

And there are many girls who, at age 6-12, are sort of… solid. When girls go through puberty their body weight redistributes itself significantly, and I know plenty of girls who were chubby before that happened and normal or even thin afterward.

Will kids reading this book get the impression that they need to slim down, long before their bodies change everything anyway? The author says these books are meant to be read by parents and children together, I believe, but is that really going to happen every time?

Is the book damaging, or a needed antidote to the obesity epidemic among young people?

Kids and Safety

Posted on by
Reply

I am not a parent.

To some people, this would automatically exclude me from having any sort of a valid opinion about children, so just keep it in mind when you click on the following links. Which I do not necessarily endorse, except as food for thought.

Can a playground be too safe? wonders the New York Times.

Quite a few of the playgrounds I remember from when I was a kid would probably be considered deathtraps today, but they were fun, and I obviously managed to escape relatively unscathed. I remember a friend who had old playground equipment on her farm that was probably made of rust, tetanus and powdered asbestos. It was awesome, though.

I only remember getting injured on a playground once, and it taught me a very valuable lesson: springy metal animals are not to be trusted and should be watched at all times, no matter what they claim.

I got a bloody nose that day. I can’t even remember how, specifically, but I do remember it hurt and it was scary. It can’t have been that traumatic, though, or I’d remember everything else as vividly as I do Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And I don’t remember the accident that well.

There is quite a bit of discussion about whether children are overprotected these days. Here’s quite a long post about science kits for kids, which have become rather watered down (sometimes even literally) and aren’t as cool as they used to be.

Then again having your kid irradiate himself with uranium is also not cool.

The Regatta in Pictures

Posted on by
2

These are some images from the opening ceremony (and after that) I didn’t manage to post before. Above, the drum corps I mentioned in a previous post.

Bill Keitel during the opening ceremonies. As you can see, he was smart enough to wear a hat to keep the sun from being in his eyes; while the Galactic Cowboy Orchestra fiddler wore sunglasses, the guitarists didn’t, and I have no idea how they can see.

This little girl was completely rocking out, when I saw another photographer taking pictures of her boogying down and figured I’d snap a shot myself. (Other photographer: I’d be happy to credit you for the idea if you could let me know who you are and show me how your photo turned out; I’m guessing it’s a lot better than mine, which kind of ended up unfocused.)

Edit: Noah Keitel was the other photographer, and the cute little girl is his daughter. Thanks for the idea, and I hope your results were a little less blurry than mine!

This little boy was absolutely thrilled to get a blue balloon at the Globe tent. We’re giving them away here, and it seems to  be a trend for tiny tiny children to come in, beg for a balloon and then try to take one of the ones we tied to chairs to decorate the tent. Of course they’re tied on with that curly birthday ribbon that has the tensile strength of carbon-folded steel, so that’s not gonna happen.

Fortunately the workers at the booth here are pretty quick to hand them their own balloons and even in many cases gently tie them to their wrists to avoid balloon loss.

I think this might be a windsurfing lessons, given that there are two people on the board, but maybe the kid just has a passenger.

Don’t worry, there’s more to come, tonight and almost all day tomorrow!

When Everyone Is Equal

Posted on by
Reply

"When I was your age, television was called ‘books.’"

- The Princess Bride

Reporter Justine Wettschreck wrote about her experience of the Junior Great Books program yesterday, and I thought I would chip in with my own impressions.

Essentially, Junior Great Books was a program in which the "gifted" readers in a grade school class would read a story and then get together to discuss it under the supervision of a teacher. The stories were, I think, somewhat above grade level, but they were all pretty easy reads (at the time I was plowing through Shakespeare and having a crack at Milton, which I couldn’t get into at all then but learned to appreciate in college).

Many of them were quite memorable. "The Gun Without a Bang," by Robert Scheckley, for example, illustrated the limits of even the most wondrous technology created for destruction. "The Veldt," by Ray Bradbury, had a twist ending that managed to take me, a very cynical and serious child, completely by surprise. Completely. "Mateo Falcone," by Prosper Merimee, a story about honor, impressed me with the utter strangeness of some people’s notion of integrity.

In retrospect, I’m surprised by how violent most of the stories were. There was one about a kid who shoots his brother to death, for example, one where a dad murders his child and one in which people got eaten by lions. But they were good stories, and the violence certainly wasn’t any worse than what one would see on the news or in movies. And the stories were literary, not trashy. Each had a point and each was meant to be thought-provoking.

The one that captured me, swept me up and made me perpetually wary ever afterward, however, was "Harrison Bergeron," by Kurt Vonnegut.

In "Harrison Bergeron," everyone is not created equal. Everyone is made equal, by law, which is enforced by disrupting smart people’s brain waves, forcing athletic people to wear weights that slow them down and having pretty people shave their eyebrows or wear uglifying prosthetics.

Everyone is equal, and it is a nightmarish dystopia. And when someone challenges that equality, the story ends in shocking violence and worse.

So many things in "Harrison" are worthy of discussion: the concept of equality, the question of what fairness means, the government’s role in an individual’s life, and the importance of memory. 20 years after I read it, I can’t remember what we discussed, but I still remember the end of that story. More appalling than the violence that came immediately before it was the stillness and peace at the end.

If you haven’t read "Harrison Bergeron," I recommend that you do.

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal.