We like Canadian bacon and pineapple. We also make little pizzas and let each person make their own, which allows me to do roasted garlic, mushrooms, pesto, goat cheese, my husband to do all his own crazy combos, while the kids happily arrange their pepperoni and olives or ham and pineapple into smilie faces. :001_smile:

My son is not religious. He really was a born atheist. He is a scout. He only really wanted to be a boy scout. No other group interested him. We go to church and I was raised Catholic. He read up on the issue and decided that he is a Unitarian because Unitarians can believe that it is all a metaphor if they want. We do not go to a Unitarian church, though we have considered making the switch. The pack here is not religious much and they do not abide by the gay restrictions either. Most of the dads openly distain those rules but like the organization for other reasons. I struggled with if I should let him or not. My brother is a transsexual gay man who is partnered with a bio gay man and they have two daughters. I felt really uncomfortable joining an organization not accepting of his family. But we looked into local vs. National, we talked to leaders and staff of other organizations and finally we concluded that we would let him decide. when your very shy, quiet kid asks to do a social activity the gut reaction is to let him do it. It has been great. He won a 2nd place trophy at the district level pinewood derby last year. His social skills and confidence have really increased. We love scouts. I only donate to local scholarships, not to friends of scouting and we do not sell the popcorn because part of the profit goes to the national org. It is not much, but that is our "change from the inside" strategy for now.

Happy, productive adults who able to live life in a way that they find personally meaningful and who make a positive impact on the people and/or community around them. I plan to send them to college and assume the older son will go to college young but I honestly don't care what field they enter or if they work in a professional field after college. Running a window business, working as a handyman or whatever would be just as reasonable to be as becoming an engineer or physics professor to me provided they were happy and able to feed themselves and their families. I do hope they have families! But obviously, that is their choice. :001_smile:

In some cases that is true. Yet there was widespread poverty and a very low standard of living for many. The care of poor people who could not work or could barely work was commonly auctioned off to the lowest bidder who then put people to work in some way or left them to sit/lay in tents or shanties until their death. People who were poor and disabled often lost their kids to the state or to orphanages, adoption of older kids was primarily driven by wanting free domestic or farm help etc. Kids went to work at 8, 9, 10 years old in factories with safety records that would sicken anyone today. It was NOT all sunshine and roses. Just visit the museums attached to these old institutions where disabled people were sent. People with minor limps or CP locked up to waste away in mental hospitals like they were mentally vegetables. My grandfather was an orphan in Texas in the 1910s. He was horribly abused. The community did not come together to help every single person. You know why social security was passed? Because in our "help our own family" driven country, older adults were starving to death because they could not physically work.

Conservatives do give more as a percentage of their income but that should be considered in light of a few factors: -giving includes religious giving. Giving to a church counts as giving (as it should). Stands to reason that there are many more conservative than liberal church goers. Religious people, liberal and conservative, in general give higher percentages of their incomes to church and non-church activities because of the spiritual imperative to do so. There is not a significant descrepancy along political lines in giving from religious people and non-religious conservatives and liberals give in roughly the same pattern (some a lot, some a little, some none). To put the skewing impact this has on the data, churches receive 35% of all donations given. This is more than twice as much as any other catagory. Education is second at about 16% or so. When church giving is excluded, there is not a significant difference in the rates at which liberals and conservatives give, in fact liberals come out a touch ahead. But as far as I am concerned, it is not a competition. Giving is good and I don't care about the political beliefs of the givers. -interestingly, liberal areas and states tend to support a broader array of support services in their communities, both through local taxes and through charitable donations. There are far more charities per capita (not just more because there are more people) in liberal areas. This pattern plays out in liberal and conservative areas of the same state and in states vs. Other states as a whole. -More liberals live in high cost of living urban areas with high median wages and are statistically more likely to be hit by the tax known as the AMT regardless of if their standard of living is worse than their same profession counterparts in low cost of living areas. This is why the Democrats have had a bee in their bonnet about this issue much longer than the Republicans. The Bush tax cuts did not fix the AMT, despite lowering taxes for many middle class families.

I do. Many do. In addition to volunteer work, I give. And in addition to that, I work in a helping field serving homeless individuals. I graduated with great scores, was accepted to great colleges and could have entered any number of highly paid fields instead of the path that I choose. Heck, I could make more than I do now if I shifted my skill set to the private industry with no additional schooling. When I was a child, I thought I would be a nun, I flirted with leaving the Catholic Church and becoming a priest in the Episcopal Church. Instead I work at a non-profit. I have worked for a parenting organization, run an emergency family services organization and am presently a manager and fundraisier for a program which employs homeless people and advocates/lobbies for economic justice. So frankly, I grow weary of "why don't liberals do anything to help" sort of questions. I do a lot and I still think I should do more. Many people liberal and conservative do a lot for others and we tend to underestimate the impact of individuals, as caring neighbors and community members, in philanthropy and we tend to far overstate the role of foundations, corporations and government. Individuals on their own (73%), as small family foundations (6%) and as estates (8%) give 87% of all funds that go to charities. Large foundations are about 8% and corporations, which get a lot of credit for their giving, give only 5% of the amount given to charity. However, I believe that structural changes which exceed the reach of the faith community and non-profit efforts are needed and that the lack of them is immoral and fiscally irresponsible. Some of that structure in my mind comes from government policy and some some government spending. Some of it has nothing to do with the government. It is not that I think we should tax people to death or that social spending should be unlimited, but that things like nursing for the developmentally disabled and food for hungry kids need and deserve some government investment because the alternatives are socially unacceptable and fiscally irresponsible.

These offenses are serious and I am glad she has a record and consequences. If she did it to an adult, it would be assault.

Well in honor of the Uncle Remus trickster tale thread, you could get a trickster tale book. We like Anansi the Spider. :001_smile: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874838568/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0BM93F49NCX4610GB8VB&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846

There are a lot of trickster tales out there besides these.

I have them sorted into cheap $1 Ikea blue and and purplish painted flower pots. They are on a shelf just above his desk so he can pull down the pot or pots he needs and then put it back or if he just needs a pen or pencil he can grab it.

Does anyone know if there is a Mavis Beacon out yet that works with Mac Lion? I know that Lion does not support Power PC software and I am seeing Mac versions that list Snow Leopard etc but not Lion. or if not Mavis Beacon some other inexpensive program? Thanks!

My husband works pt and is a full partner in schooling. He does music, Spanish, latin, art and handwriting and helps with other stuff. He will do more of the bio/chem/anatomy stuff because he is a healthcare person and took all that in college. I do more of the earth science and physics stuff. Right now, I do math, science, history and LA. I will do photography. I will do civics/government. I also do PE. We split the subjects according to skill and interest. I am passionate about history and math and majored in math and Econ in college, so math is a natural pick for me. My husband is ridiculously talented in music, foreign languages, art and has great handwriting. We both love science. That is the subject we sort of share.

We live in a small townhouse. Our homeschool room is the teeny bedroom that is off of the years on the ground floor. You go up one level to the living spaces and 2 levels to the rest of the bedrooms and the big bathroom/laundry. He also sometimes uses the computer which is in shared space on the main floor and the piano is on the main floor. I like that his school room is off of the yard...makes it easy to watch the two year old while he plays outside and it means our older son can read in the yard or take breaks. There is a 1/2 bath off of this schoolroom which is nice as well for water access and not having to walk up the stairs for a toilet all the time. :glare:

Our plan is the read 1 chapter per week, do the map and coloring page later that day, then he can read on the topic from his accompanying books and library texts during the week and then do the activity or an activity from one of the library books if it seems appealing. Thus far we have does this for two weeks and it has worked great but talk to me in 6 months I guess! I have him do the test too towards the end of the week for us. We talk about the period during the week. the chapters are short but we have chosen to explore the add on books in doth rather than go through it faster. The book has 42 chapters, so that will take the school year. He checked out 10 kids non-fiction books on Mesopotamia, the ancient Israelites, Egypt and a book on ancient medicine so far. We will keep those three weeks or so and then check out a stack on Sumeria, Babylon and then move to the India, China and Africa chaptersin turn. Since he is 8 and not 5 or 6, I think it would be too easy without all of the extra reading.

I don't have a problem with fundraising. I have issues with kids being made to sell products that bring a tiny percentage of the cost To whatever it is that they are raising money for. I would rather give a girl scout $4 for her troop than buy a box of cookies and have the troop get 75 cents. If I made a donation to a charity and something like 82% of that cost went to admin, overhead and profit for the fundraising company, I would be mad. That is why I don't generally sell things or have my kids sell them. I am not teaching my kids that they are better than the work, I am teaching them that our money should go to the mission we support and not the companies "helping" us raise money. FWIW I work in fundraising and my objection to selling things in lieu of connecting people to mission and values runs deep. I do not do auctions, coupon books etc. Yet my organization's fundraising is growing even as donations overall have dropped. I donate to my friend's kids stuff all the time if asked but I usually decline to make that donation in the form of a purchase.

How terribly sad. It doesn't sound evil to me, he sounds very depressed. I worry that he may have already killed himself. Frankly, I find it relieving that he did not kill or harm his son. Some desperate, depressed dads do this when they lose the ability to support their families. It does not make it right, but it does explain why he may have felt he had no other choice.

I don't plan to stop them from reading them, I think that things need to be considered in context. Huck Finn is a story we will likely have him read fairly soon. However, I never read the Uncle Remus stories as a kid- only saw them later on. My parents, who were raising an mixed family (my brother is African American and I am Caucasian) never had us read them and they were never used in school. Huck Finn was certainly at our house and also assigned in school when I was a kid. I don't know that I would use the Uncle Remus stories at all but I would not stop him from reading them if he wanted to or we came across a copy. So I guess for me, Uncle Remus has not been a culturally significant book to me in the same way as a Huck Finn. It is the illustrations of the original that I find almost as off putting at original dialect. As for African folk tales, we read other ones, like various versions of Anansi the Spider (books and puppet show).

Quicksand (the more you struggle the worse it gets?) I dunno. That's all I've got. I have never felt the need to share this story with my kids.

Here's a good recent article on this. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0803/What-were-two-Republicans-thinking-calling-Obama-tar-baby-and-boy

The roots of the term are racially charged because of offensive and racist original text. I would not choose to use it. Plenty of good alternatives that don't have the same connotations. No reason to risk it. I think Mitt Romney apologized years ago for using it in reference to the war. Recently, some congressman apologized to Obama for using it. Politically it it pretty charged and I don't think recognizing the different takes on the word makes anyone ignorant.

Yes, but I am not going to stop going to the dentist to save a few bucks a year or decline to visit a doctor when nothing I do works. And I extravagantly :) paid for adult braces this summer so I can keep my teeth longer than my parents (both my parents had dentures in their 40s!)

:iagree: If I were her, I would file a complaint with the bar association. The judge should have slapped them with HER attorney's fees.

I would listen to a child who did not want to go back to a school, especially middle school. If you can let him homeschool, then I would.

It is all our money. We have joint checking and various joint savings and investment accounts. We have individual retirement accounts and we each have a personal checking account for our own little stuff (and so we can buy each other gifts privately, lol.) This was true when I was the only income earner (when he was in school for a bit), when he was the only income earner (when I quit my job to care for my dying mother and newborn son) and when we both have worked (most of the time, including now.)

I think dads have an obligation to be there for the pregnancy and birth. If a non-married dad wants to assume custody of a child the mother wishes to place up for adoption, he needs to be ready to step in from birth not after the fact. Unmarried men also have the option not to engage in premarital sex or to practice safer sex as well if they make the choice to be sexually active. While the Utah laws may be skewed towards the adoptive parents, I honestly wonder if taking a toddler from the only home she has ever known is a just solution. In this case, it sounds like the dad was trying to be involved from the beginning and was not properly notified of the adoption plan so I guess the legal thing is for the baby to be returned to him. But it is still awfully sad for that baby to be taken away from her home.