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New Part of Adolescence: Cruel Adults
Posted On 2007-11-20 , 11:17 AM
This is a very disturbing article I have come across. It was written by Dannye Romine Powell.
Adolescent girls. I've known one or two. Their skin is made of tissue paper. Their hearts of rose petals.
Before I heard about the Missouri "cyber-hoax, "I also thought I knew mothers of adolescent girls.
How they practice keeping their ears open and their mouths sealed.
How they've learned a sullen adolescent face can turn to sunshine by supper-time.
Or that a radiant bedtime smile can fade like the moon by morning.
Loathsome mothers I'm not familiar with. Not until news Sunday of the one in Dardenne Prairie, Mo., who created a fictitious, 16-year-old boyfriend on MySpace.com for her daughter's former best friend.
The former best friend being a 13-year-old girl down the street, a girl who happened to be overweight and depressed.
To me, Former best friend reeks of Big Spat.
Former best friend smells like Revenge.
Did I say the fictitious boyfriend abruptly dumped the girl?
Did I say that the day of the "breakup," the 13-year-old child, whose name was Megan Meier, hanged herself in her bedroom closet?
Juvenile Tricks
It turns out the woman who created this "cyber-hoax" has allegedly said she did it to gain Megan's confidence so she could find out what Megan was saying online about her own daughter. Supposedly , she, her daughter and another person typed and monitored the exchanges between "Josh" and Megan.
How's that for a role model? A mother who teaches her daughter to trick, connive, lie and humiliate.
Typing as terrorism. Parenting as emotional pollution.
Imagine how Megan felt when she first heard from "Josh," who said he was born in Florida and had moved neearby. He was being home schooled, he said, and didn't yet have a phone.
During their six-week "courtship," Megan's mother said Megan's depression lifted. Then, boom. A string of disturbing messages from "Josh," and postings saying Megan Meier was "fat" and "a slut."
Josh's last words to Megan: "The world would be a better place without you."
Non-Crime Divides
Megan's parents didn't learn of the hoax until six weeks after Megan's death. Another parent, whose daughter also had access to the "Josh" profile, told them about it in a counselor's office.
That was in the fall of '06.
A year later, the local newspaper still refuses to name the perpetrator.
That decision has inflamed many and divided the city of 7,000 outside St. Louis.
Citizens are also furious that there's no law on the books that makes the woman's sick prank a violation. Consequently, no charge.
The Dardenne Prairie city council told the Chicago Tribune that it is preparing to enact a law this week to make cyberspace harassment a crime in the city.
Wait a second. Didn't a mother in that same city try to impersonate a grown-up?
Isn't it about time every city in the county made that a crime?
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How Much Time To Spend With Kids? Here's the formula
Posted On 2007-11-09 , 11:28 AM
I found this article in the Charlotte Observer and think this woman who wrote it (Tracy Curtis) is a genius.
"So I'm talking to a dad, and he's telling me his kid is upset because he has to travel during the week. And I tell him I'm constantly with my kids, but at the end of the day, they still want to play Battleship. It's never enough.
How many hours are we supposed to spend with these kids anyway? We need a formula. What would the equation be for say........a week? Let's run the numbers:
OK, so 24 hours a day, times 7 days a week equals 168 hours. Multiply that by 100 percent, because that's how much of your time you want to give your children. Now divide by 100 percent. Because that's impossible...............And Crazy.
So 168 hours in a week. But minus sleep. And recommended sleep for kids is 10 hours, so 10 times 7 is 70 hours. Now divide that number by 2 because we all know kids are up half the time.
All right, you figure 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, that's 21, plus snacks takes it up to 28 - minus the 5 lunches they ate at school and the 3 dinners they won't eat because you cut it wrong, it's too mushy or it includes a vegetable. So that's 13 meals at a half hour, so with snacks, rounded up, about 7 hours.
You with me?
You figure 10 hours a week in the car, 3 hoiurs of bath time, and 2 hours of diaper changing, potty training, wiping or hollering for them to flush - whatever the case, in whatever painful stage you're in. And they're all painful. Make it 11 hours. You need that extra hour to process that ye, this is your life.
If you work full-time, subtract 40 hours a week. If you work part-time, subtract 20, and if you are a stay-at-home mom subtract 10 because that's how many hours a week you think about going back to work.
Dads, you get to keep your 40 hours because you're paying off the house, the treehouse and the doghouse, which is fair because you spend equal amounts of time in all three.
OK, now everybody add those work hours back in. Because your kids are on your mind and in your heart no matter where you are or what you're doing.
Subtract timeouts - 1 hour if they're in preschool, 2 hours for elementary school and if they've hit puberty, 6 hours, because once you send them to their room, they're happy to stay there.
Take out that one day a week you run away from home....what? Y'all don't do that? You should, because you break even with a bonus 24 hours, as we all operate on the notion that any minute we're gonna lose a day to a stomach bug or trip to the emergency room.
Bedtime depends solely on you. If you want to speed things up, time them getting into bed and try to break your record. If you want more hours, start with the first "Harry Potter" and work your way down.
Dads, if you can't get home from work for that bedtime hour, don't sweat it. You'll get those 5 hours back when you're packing the car for the family vacation. Just make sure your kids are running around the car fighting so you get full credit.
OK, so that's 5, carry the 9, 4-wait, no, it's - 5 carry the 8, 3 carry the uh, hmmmmm........Start over. 24 hours a day times 7 days a week equals......................"
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