I do very little out of the house, beyond visiting friends in the neighborhood or walking to the local branch library, during the week. My DH takes the car to work, so that cuts down on how much we can do, and I'm not really inclined to do much more during the week, anyway. I can't function with too much clutter, either. But, a lot of times I have to suck it up and do it, because I really can't keep things as neat as I'd like all day. The kids are going to make messes with their toys in the living area, and it drives me crazy, but I just have to deal with it. I try to have 2 or 3 set times during the day, usually before meals, where we pick everything up. It usually only takes 5-10 minutes. Then, things get as messy as the kids make it until the next clean up time.

I thought I was the only homeschooler who doesn't like Usborne. It's just not nearly linear enough for me to enjoy.

If you look at this list of quality-of-life state rankings, the results don't seem to be related to how "free" a state is by this group's criteria. In fact, several of the least free states, according to this, are rated as being the most livable and having the highest quality of life for residents. http://www.morganquitno.com/sr07mlrnk.htm

I said other. Aesthetics does matter to me, but I wouldn't say "pretty" is what I'm after; I'm more inclined to prefer things that are simple, uncluttered, and linear.

The ONE study that showed any link between autism and vaccines was proven to be not just wrong and unreplicable, but actually fraudulent. So, no, I do not believe there is any link between vaccines and autism or a shred of empirical evidence to support such a link. I think there's ample evidence indicating that no such link exists.

What YA are your kids passing up, out of curiosity? Because I've read plenty of YA that is at least as complex, reading-wise, as much adult fiction. Lots of stuff is put in the YA section, from books that are clearly aimed at an older/crossover audience to series that are aimed at younger teens and tweens. I just wonder how many people saying YA is trash/terrible/babyish/poorly written are actually familiar with the better stuff being published in YA today? Because I honestly think that the work being put out by people like Sherman Alexie, John Green, MT Anderson, Laurie Halse Anderson, Scott Westerfeld, Susan Vaught, Suzanne Collins, Ron Koertge, as well as a lot of newer authors who have only put out one or two books so far, but which are really good, is just as interesting, complex, and well-written as stuff being put out by adult novelists. I actually tend to prefer YA for fiction because, to me, it's a nice balance between what I see as either relentlessly dark and depressing "serious" adult fiction and completely light, fluffy, and poorly written "chick" or lighter lit. I find that many good YA novels deal with more serious topics but do so in a way that is more ultimately hopeful and redemptive than adult fiction dealing with the same themes. There's certainly plenty of poorly-written and inane YA out there, but the same holds true for adult literature.

Not really, given that the poll questions are a bit skewed, I think, to produce libertarian-leaning results. Although maybe not. I don't know. I do think a number of them are weirdly worded, though.

Wow, that was biased. For one thing, it seemed to take a "freedom from" stance, rather than a "freedom to" stance. I'd certainly feel freer, for example, in a state where the public schools were well-funded and sending my kids there was at least an option; if they public schools are underfunded and poorly performing, then some of my freedom is lost, because I'm not longer free to have that as a viable option. I'd like to have my children enjoy the freedom to have healthcare and food and shelter no matter what my husband's or my job situation. I don't feel particularly free when social services are cut. I don't feel freer with people able to walk around carrying concealed weapons. I don't feel freer when my state cuts taxes and suddenly the roads around me are not maintained. So I guess to me, freedom is more about having the opportunities to fulfill one's potential and to live a healthy and happy life. Fewer regulations, in many cases, makes that less likely and makes us less free; instead, they allow those with more money and power to exert even more influence over the rest of us and dictate what happens to us.

I've always been very, very well endowed, and one thing I would suggest is making sure that you start with a really, really good, supportive bra. That will make it much easier to find clothing that hangs right and doesn't emphasize her breasts quite so much.

I live in Detroit. I never fail to club my car, much less not lock it or leave my keys in it. The upside is that it's the only place I've lived where I've been thrilled when my car is the crappiest one on the block, since it just means it's that much less likely it will get stolen/broken into.

I guess I just find the responses to this somewhat ironic given that there was a thread recently about whether people liked other people's children, and many, many posters indicated that they in fact don't. They indicated that they like well-behaved, well-mannered, polite children. Unless their children are well-behaved, well-mannered, and polite all the time, and I know of no children like that, I imagine there must be times when they just don't like their kids much. Would they say it? I hope not. I wouldn't tell a child, mine or not mine, that I didn't like them, no matter how I felt. But, that doesn't mean it might not be a feeling they have, that is not something that needs to be denied or needs to induce guilt. We're talking about liking, not loving. And, kids aren't always likable. Now, this mom's response, IMO, is over the top. To consistently not like your child, which is sounds like happened in her case, is an issue. But, I think it's another thing to admit that sometimes kids--including our own children--are NOT likable. They aren't acting in likable ways. They're being nasty and defiant and demanding and irritating. And I think it's okay to admit that, when that happens, we might not like them, or that when we're woken up in the middle of the night for the fourth time by a child who has no real reason to wake us up, we aren't particularly happy with that little person. I just know that I felt like a terrible mom when I had my first. I certainly felt love for him when he was born, but I didn't kind of waft into motherhood thinking that everything he did was perfect and precious and adorable. In fact, he was a pain in the butt as a newborn much of the time. He was really fussy and high-need and a horrible sleeper. I just didn't have all warm, fuzzy feelings about him. I had a lot of those, but I also had some annoyed, resentful feelings, too. And, unfortunately, because temperaments differ so much and different temperaments mesh or don't mesh in various ways, some kids are harder for some parents to like and get along with.

No, I think that's a very important point. I've subbed. Often, as a sub, you end up doing emergency lesson plans, and so you aren't really covering what would have been covered anyway. I can't remember taking a class in K-12--or even many in college--where we actually covered an entire textbook. That's just accepted. You aren't going to cover everything that you could cover, because things are going to come up. I think homeschooling parents feel a lot of pressure to finish everything, because we can. I can choose to extend the school year by three weeks to make sure we finish every program we're using completely, or to do school for twice as long if we've gotten behind, until we catch up again. I think 1-2 month interruptions can be dealt with. We're having a baby in early August, and decided to do school through June and July, and take take our break in August and September. We're not cutting the school year short or starting it late, just shifting around the timing. If a mom has an unexpected illness that means they can't do school for a month, then they can choose to work for a month in the summer, or to do school on Saturdays, or to double up on work for a couple of months, or whatever work for them. I also think there's a lot of options if you can't be as hands on for a bit. I had really bad sciatica when I was pregnant with DD, and then I broke my tailbone during delivery, so there were maybe 4 months total where I was barely mobile. We did a lot of "bed school" at the end of the pregnancy. I'd bring DS's school books into bed in the morning (or DH would bring them in for us), and we'd hang out in there for a couple of hours in the morning and do work, mostly reading together. After DD was born, and I was exhausted and not really up to teaching (at that point I was a pretty new homeschooler and didn't think to plan our year so we'd have a break around the birth), so DS utilized a lot of online stuff, like Time4Learning and Explode the Code online, for a couple of months, and he mainly did that and then reading together while the baby was nursing or napping. He doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear. I also think, although this isn't the question, that homeschooling makes it much easier for a kid to stay on track when they are sick. Once in a while my DS is sick enough that we skip school entirely for the day, and he just sleeps. But, most of the time when he's sick, he's not quite that sick. He's sick enough that I'd keep him home from a school so that others wouldn't catch what he has, but he's not so sick that he just wants or needs to sleep or rest all day. In those cases we can either do school exactly as planned or at least get some of what was planned done, so that he isn't a week or two behind when he's fully recovered.

I think that's silly. There's a couple of restaurants where there's a kids' meal that I prefer to any of the adult options. I've asked if I can order it, and I've never had anybody tell me I can't or charge me more.

Is anybody being asked to drop their convictions? The only person I see being asked to drop their convictions here are the mother who believes it is okay for her child to bring a boyfriend into her room with the door open. Why is it that it's fine to ask people with more liberal convictions to drop their convictions and change them to fit the preferences of more conservative families, but not okay to do the opposite?

Yes. Even in just the last 2-3 years, the YA genre has changed in that very dark, often (but not always) poorly-written paranormal romances have become very marketable, thanks to Twilight. And, when something becomes big like that, you tend to see a lot of low-quality knock-offs, which is what I think we're seeing. I know that I'm a big fan of YA literature, but I find browsing the shelves a lot less interesting in the last year or two than I have in the past, just because of how much of it is now paranormal romance, which isn't a subgenre that interests me. And, I don't think it's a subgenre that is particularly appropriate for tweens and younger teens, although that's not to say that there isn't a lot of stuff published for YAs that is. But, it's still just one subgenre of YA, and I really don't think it's fair to make assertions about the entire genre based on it, which is what seems to largely be happening.

See, I just totally disagree. I don't think there is less and less well-written literature with redeeming qualities; I think there are loads more of it. However, I also think that there are loads more poorly-written books with no redeeming qualities being published, too. The number of books published in general, and in the YA genre in particular, have just exploded in the last decade.

I don't know. I generally read sci-fi and standalone novels when I read YA. I don't read series books (like The Clique or Gossip Girl or things like that) or paranormal romance (which seems to be a huge chunk of the YA market right now), so maybe things are different in those genres. I think we need to acknowledge, along those lines, that the YA market is huge right now. It's certainly a lot bigger than it was when we were kids. I think a lot more really good YA stuff is being published today than was in the past, but I have no doubt that a lot more not-so-good stuff is being published, too, just because so much is being published overall.

This. I'm also with those who are saying that it's not so much this woman's admitting that she disliked her child that's the problem, but WHY she disliked her child. I cannot imagine not liking a child because they didn't meet developmental milestones. That said, I can sympathize. My DS, who's my first, is and was a really difficult kid. He was difficult from the start. And he is a wonderful, charming, smart, loving and lovable kid, but he is also stubborn, defiant, moody, demanding, and negative. He can be, at times, really hard to like. A lot of it, I think, is a clash between his temperament and my DH's and my temperament. But I know I've looked at him, even when he was a baby, and thought, "I love this kid, but I don't know if I like him." My DD, on the other hand, is just a sweetheart. She's a slower on her milestones than my DS was, but she is just this good-natured, smiley, easygoing little joy who honestly has very few demands and is rarely upset. At her age, my DS would come over to us and bite us if he was unhappy; my DD comes over to us and treats us to hugs and kisses. She's also a MUCH better sleeper than my DS was, which makes a huge difference, probably mainly because DH and I are just well-rested and so better equipped to interact with her. I'll admit that my DD is, for us, a lot easier to like than our DS was. It makes me glad they are so far apart in age (and that they are different genders, because I think that also cuts down on comparison), because at this point, it's not like we really compare the two much. If they were closer in age, I think it would be harder. I mean, we love our DS just as much as we love our DD, but just in terms of how personalities mesh, it's easier for us to get along with DD than DS.

LOL I tell my husband the same thing all the time. I'm a walker, and I just do not get running.

I love this. I also wonder what YA fic people are reading. The YA literature I've read as an adult is much better written, more serious, and less dark/exploitative than the stuff I read as a teen. I've never encountered a YA novel that treated cutting, drug abuse, or EDs as non-problems. Yes, they are themes in some novels, but in all the ones I've read, they are seen as problems to be solved.

My son learned "criss-cross applesauce" in preschool. I thought it was odd at first, but, thinking about it, "Indian style" is probably not just politically incorrect, but just incorrect, because I doubt that Native Americans were more inclined to sit that way than anybody else.

I said we're schooling through summer both "as planned" and "as an emergency measure." It is planned, but it's planned because I'm having a baby in early August, rather than because I just generally prefer to school through the summer. We're shifting the break back a couple of months, so that we can take some time off after the baby comes. The plan is to do school through June and July, and then take it very easy in August and most of September (DS will probably do a little math and a little writing each day with his dad, and have a reading time, but that's it), and plan to be fully back in the swing of things by the time October starts.

I don't see why not. Looking at the plan, it looks like the "goal" is a 10-minute mile. That would be tough to manage walking (you'd be walking so briskly you'd be pretty much jogging), but you can do a 12-minute mile with a very brisk walk. You could just tweak the times a bit.

That is great.

I guess I'm just not sure, in all honesty, why a bedroom with an open door is somehow more tempting of a place than, say, a family room the kids are in alone or a basement or any other room in the house where the kids are alone together. Or being in the yard alone. Or the car. Basically, I don't get why a bedroom is seen as somehow fundamentally different from other places, especially given that we're talking about the door being open and other people being home. If the idea is that the kids shouldn't be left alone unsupervised in any room, okay, but I don't see why being alone unsupervised in the bedroom with the door open would hold more of a temptation than being alone unsupervised anywhere else in the house. If anything, I'd think that the kids might be extra-cautious in the bedroom, since they'd figure somebody would be checking up on them. I'm also not sure at all why anybody would think that a parent who allows their child to have a boyfriend/girlfriend in their room with the door open and somebody in the house doesn't care if the child gets pregnant. That's a leap I'm not seeing. If this girl's mom was allowing them to have sleepovers in the bedroom and not caring what they did all night, I might agree, but allowing the bedroom to be a place where they can hang out doesn't mean that at all.