Last December, I was at the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department tree-lighting ceremony in front of McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park. I was there to video my daughter and the theatre company of which she’s a member. Before they went on, however, there was another group — a family of singers. There was the mom and dad, of course, and six or seven kids, and they were performing Christmas carols. They were a regular Von Trapp family.
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According to a survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, only two out of every five Americans could name all three branches of the federal government and one in five couldn’t name even a single branch. This is better than it has been in past years, but the survey unequivocally shows that Americans really need to know more than they do about how their country works. Fortunately, there is a solution.
High school civics classes, as you’d expect, make a big difference in an adult’s knowledge on the topic. With that in mind, Florida Representative Alcee L. Hastings, along with 62 cosponsors, has introduced a bill to allocate additional funding for civics classes as a means of addressing this issue. Rep. Hastings, however, is not the only one tackling the problem. The Center for Cartoon Studies might seem an unlikely ally in the push to increase civics awareness, but they could very well be the key to getting kids — and adults — up to speed on the way government works.
(more…)At the end of 2016, I wrote about the election of Donald Trump to the office of President of the United States and how to talk to my kids about it. I made some predictions about the effects of a Trump presidency, all of which came true. (Don’t congratulate me too hard; they were all quite obvious.) Even as he tweeted about Pride Month, the Orange Menace was rolling back protections for the LGBTQ+ community.
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Nathan Lane and the late Robin Williams are two of the funniest people ever to have graced this planet. Put them together in a movie and you’re pretty much guaranteed outrageous hilarity. That’s what happened in The Birdcage, a remake of the french farce La Cage aux Folles. In it, Lane and Williams are a gay couple who own a drag club in Miami, Florida where Lane is the star performer. They are also the parents of college student Val who has fallen in love with fellow student Barbara. The problem? Barbara’s father is an ultra-conservative, republican Senator, played by Gene Hackman. Of course, Barbara’s parents want to meet their potential in-laws before consenting to and announcing the engagement.
To avoid friction, Val asks his fathers to play it straight when the Senator and his family come to visit and the laughs are pretty much non-stop for the rest of the film.
A while back, I ran into a fellow parent at the grocery store. Her youngest and my oldest are in the same grade and had been in the same schools since kindergarten. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, now that our kids are in high school. I was pleased to see her again and we stopped to chat. Our kids weren’t ever especially close, but our elementary school community was a close-knit one and we had gotten to know each other reasonably well.
She asked about Jared and I told her how well he’s adjusting and about his joining the robotics team and so on. And then, I wanted to ask about her kid.
Well that didn’t go the way I’d hoped. Welcome to a Trumpian world. Or perhaps I should say dysTrumpian. In case you hadn’t heard, Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States.
I’m sure there will be plenty of analysis about how this happened and what went wrong and who is to blame. Personally, I blame those who underestimated the amount of racism and hatred that has been hiding and festering in this country for at least the last 150 years. I also blame not only those who fought for Trump but also those who fought against Hillary Clinton. Too many people went around saying that while Trump was a nightmare, they didn’t trust Clinton or believed she was dishonest or even simply didn’t like her.
But that’s not the issue I need to deal with right now. What I need to figure out is what to tell my kids.
Shortly after the Orlando massacre, my family and I were headed for a local shopping mall and, as we often do, were discussing recent events on the way. We arrived and parked and proceeded to get out of our minivan in the parking lot near a chain department store. The area is not as upscale as some other parts of the Bay Area and the store is known more for lower prices than for its appeal to educated professionals. In short, while still relatively liberal (it was, after all, still the San Francisco Bay Area), it was an area where one might run into a homophobe.
Getting out of the car and walking through the parking lot, I continued talking loudly about the terrorist attack at the Pulse nightclub in Florida and its effect on the LGBTQ community. My oldest began trying to get me to quiet down and stop talking about it. He said that one day, I would end up getting shot if I kept talking that way. He was worried that some homophobic terrorist would take offense at what I was saying and respond with lethal force.
Ever since having kids, I’ve been a fan of Old Navy. They have good children’s clothes at affordable prices — a big help when you have three active kids who are continuously outgrowing and wearing out their clothes. But that’s not the only reason I shop at Old Navy, especially this time of year.
Recently, we were on holiday and found ourselves in need of some new pants (sans holes) for Ezra, my youngest, as well as a couple other small items. The only viable option we had available was Wal-Mart. Normally, I don’t shop at the retail giant because I have some serious issues with the way they run their business, but sometimes, evil becomes a necessary evil.
Just about the number one job of any parent is to keep our kids safe. We teach them not to take candy from strangers, we tell them to stay away from drugs and cigarettes, and we make sure they wear a helmet when riding a bicycle and a seat belt when riding in the car.
But we can’t be with them every moment of every day — sometimes we just have to let go and trust in what we’ve taught them and in the competence and responsibility of those to whom we entrust them. Whether they’re in the watchful care of a teacher, a fellow parent, or a family member, we have to believe that that person will work as hard as you do to keep them safe — or at least as hard as they do for their own kids. But what if that’s not enough?
Dear Jim Bob and Michelle:
![By Jim Bob Duggar (Email from Jim Bob Duggar) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJim_Bob_%26_Michelle_Duggar.jpg)
By Jim Bob Duggar [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Every parent must decide for themselves what they believe is the best way to raise their children. Considerations include public school versus private school versus homeschooling, attending church services versus eschewing religion, and, on an even more basic level, are kids better off as only children or do they do better with siblings.
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