Saille
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Posts posted by Saille
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The mom is less likely to protect your anonymity than CPS. If she argues with her daughter and has photos from you, she may well wave them around.
During my years of teaching I specialized in kids with severe emotional disturbance, and for several years I worked primarily with kids who'd been removed from parental custody. Stories like the horror story posted upthread are not as uncommon as you'd think, and they almost always start with neglect.
When you look at the dishes and sink...all those germs are going into that baby's bottle. Had it not been such a clean place to begin with, it would be infested with roaches by now, and she'd be breathing the eggs and worse. And what about when she's eating solids? She'll learn to crawl and walk on a floor like that. Those men will be her companions. Is she likely to be clean, safe and well fed? She is not. Is she likely to come to harm? She is. Will someone notice/treat her right away if she is ill? Not too likely. How easily could she drown in the bathtub, or be electrocuted, or fall down the stairs, or wander away? If mom's in bed with one man in one room, what will other men be doing in the other room with the baby? Or, you know, for safety she could just keep the baby in there with her and her partner during, right?
Honestly, I understand that not all CPS workers are well-informed about unusual lifestyle choices. I grasp that people call for vengeful reasons. I knew someone who had CPS called on her for having a homebirth. But they're there for a reason, and I really worry when, in a situation like this, people are counseling not to call. This kid needs help, and if the daughter and mom don't get along, or if the mom's been a broken record for a while, your call could make the difference in this little girl's life. Your call could *save* her life. The kids I worked with were broken, many of them forever. And you know what? Those were the kids who fought back. They screamed and fought and protested until SOMEONE listened. Not all kids can or do.
I'm sorry, I sound really ranty. But I want to SOB when I think of some of the things that had happened to kids I knew, kids I loved...and I want to cry harder when I think about the things they went on to do to others, or the things that happened to kids who never even made it to me. I was a mandatory reporter. I wish everyone was.
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How about, "Laura Ingalls Wilder seemed pretty well adjusted."
Also, I saw a tee online the other day with a horrified 50's mom on it saying, "Oh, no! I forgot to socialize the children!"
Want.
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LOL
I wish they served high fat foods here. It's all junk carbs, low fat, and sugary.
:lol:
But I do catch your drift. ;)
When I taught PS, bits of zucchini and carrot inside deep fried bread nuggets (served with ranch dressing) counted as a vegetable. I believe it's still federally mandated to have two grains at each meal. Of course, one of them can be an enriched white roll full of HFCS, and the other can be white rice, but, you know, it's GRAIN!
Not to mention the overcooked, over buttered, over salted vegetables, hormone-filled meat and dairy...
I even hate the pulpy, storage-oriented Red Delicious apples. Gurgh.
/hijack
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We've done FLL for a couple of years now, all on teams, attending competitions and so forth. In upstate NY, our program was run by SUNY-IT, and here the local program is run by Purdue University. Some programs offer loaner kits, so look into that before you buy. The program here technically doesn't have any, but when I pressed a bit, the director said he thought some of the schools might have extras, and he's emailing around now trying to get us one.
In addition, some of the programs have funds allocated for start-up teams. He told me there wouldn't be much available for me b/c we're new in town, and are relatively late asking for it, and when he came back with a number, it was enough to cover our team registration and field setup, almost, which is HUGE.
In addition, our teams (my dd's and my ds's) both did successful fundraising. A lot of STEM based companies, or even just locally owned businesses that want their names on your team tees, are happy to contribute. The only stumbling block we've found is that some larger companies will only donate to groups with non-profit status. Ds's coaches (I coached dd's team) made up some literature with photos to submit to potential donors, and our best find was a local engineering firm that went from design to production of machined parts on site. They did an annual charity lunch, and hosted the kids, donating all the proceeds to the kids, then gave them a tour. It was amazing!
WRT time commitments, I find that we spend an average of 3-4 hours a week in team meetings. Typically we have two meetings a week September through early December, sometimes with a few last minute extra meetings right before the competition.
There's also an iPod app (this, I think, is a team in CA's entire fundraising strategy for the year...I bet they make a MINT.) that allows kids to time runs, and check off the tasks they completed, giving them a projected score.
There are a lot of youtube videos of FLL competitions, if you want to see teams in action. Searching the annual themes is probably best. Body Forward, Food Factor, etc..
I've been VERY pleased with the program. It takes a LOT of practice and small, incremental tweaks to get a robot to perform tasks consistently, so the kids develop persistence. Small changes can make big differences to the overall trajectory of a run. They learn to keep records. They learn to save older versions of a program, ALWAYS. They learn to think scientifically. The research project keeps the kids centered on real-world applications for robotics.
The only other thing I can think of is that you really need an actual battery pack. Do not rely on AAs. You will drive yourself crazy and eat batteries like Pez. *Always* keep your battery charged, or it will slow your robot's response, and the kids will end up troubleshooting problems that are based on power, not programming.
Edited because I thought of more things: I really liked the program director at SUNY-IT, who was a professor. Contact with professors is another benefit of the program. So is the 14 million dollars in scholarship money disbursed last year. Additionally, we had *one* First Tech Challenge team in our area, and they were wonderful kids. They demo'ed at all the competitions, and they mentored the kids at SUNY-run camps in the summer, so the younger kids were learning skills from the older kids. I loved it. SUNY also held coaches' trainings. If you had the chance to go to one of these, I'd highly recommend it.
Also, some regions do elimination trials before the competition date. I think Purdue does. SUNY is starting this year. Don't let it deter you. It's just that the programs keep growing. We were at SUNY on competition day from 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and that competition was very well run. There were just that. many. teams. (They did do a dance party while the judges tabulated results, which was brilliant, b/c the kids had been living in their heads all day, and it gave them something physical and non-disruptive to do. They played every single cheesy dance song ever...YMCA, Macarena, Electric Slide, etc..)
FLL and AoPS have turned my kids' attitudes toward math around some, too, and before FLL I never heard a kid of mine talk about engineering as a possible career choice.
I can't say enough about our good experiences with the program.
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BUT breakfast starts at 8:05 and the "strongly encourage" all student to come for breakfast as "many of the teachers plan their day starting at 8:10 in the cafertieria"
This is the part that would bother me. Do parents get to pack a breakfast, or am I supposed to submit my kids to highly processed, high fat foods planned by a *dietician*, for Maude's sake, twice a day instead of just once? Bargh.
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I remember you! I haven't been around much either. I have loved doing MCT with my kids, and I found it creeping into the SAT prep I do at my tutoring job, too. I hope you have a blast!
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Phew! I am so relieved, for your sakes, that the church leadership is steopping up. it's one thing to have one bad apple. It's another to feel like you can't trust the infrastructure of your faith community. I'm very glad, and your relief is almost tangible in your post.
I know you don't really *need* to hear it, but good job, Mama!
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We were faced with this choice not that long ago, and ended up turning it down. It was going to be isolating to the point of being inimical. We'd have had to cross state lines and drive two hours to even GET to our church, for example. YMMV, especially if you find that your political and religious leanings are more in line with that geographical area than was the case for us.
We ended up in a smallish city with a major university, and that is a very good fit for us.
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I've been reading and gleaning from this blog. Beth is here on the boards, hopefully she'll post to this thread, too. She's done all the "legwork" on tracking down the best resources and ideas, so I'm just tagging along. ;)
Ooh, I've been drooling over those EiE books for forever.
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It isn't that I don't disagree. My kids are studying the classics. I'm just saying, those classics contain *plenty* of objectionable language and material. Go read The Miller's Tale and come back. You should have seen the teenagers faces when they were reading aloud and realized what was happening. But, that story is part of The Great Conversation. I think it's strange that some people object so vehemently to objectionable material in *new* books versus books that have been around a thousand plus years.
Now, the whole argument with the woman who had a problem with the "plowing a damp furrow" bit of History of the Ancient World proves that *some* people have a problem with *any* objectionable material, but that doesn't seem to be the case in this thread.
Lysistrata comes to mind, as well.
Feed, by M.T. Anderson, has a fair amount of profanity, but it's part of the cultural satire of the book. A point is being made. At first, the only characters you see are some spoiled, wealthy teenagers. When they get in trouble and one of the dads, a lawyer, comes to save the day, you see the generational language shift, but he still sounds like a slang-slinging fool, and it really slaps you in the face.
I haven't read Robopocalypse, but it looks like a very recent release... One of my complaints when I was teaching PS was that the literature selections on the curriculum were stale without being classical, so how did this thing climb into the curriculum so quickly?
ETA that I've admittedly had a glass and a half of red wine and spent the evening in front of HST, but I am having the darndest time *saying* Robopocalypse. I'd hate to have to do it every day.
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Our social worker who did our home study for our adoption did this. She asked leading questions about spanking while interviewing the kids alone, behind closed doors. She even asked if they were ever hit with a belt buckle. :001_huh: she asked dh and I if our church taught us how to discipline our kids.:001_huh: we spoke to a friend who was also an attorney, not for legal advice but just because the questions were bizarre. Our friend said he thought we were targetted by her because we homeschool. It was the only thing that made sense.
I am betting it was backlash from Supernanny episodes with people who use the Pearls' method. That would explain the church question, as I seem to remember one specific mother saying that her church had taught her to do it.
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We're listing this week. I'm nervous. We were expecting to re-do the tub/surround in the master bath. The realtor said to leave it as a negotiation item rather than do it ahead of time. Now we're told that covering closing costs is expected of sellers. This means $6000 down before we even do commission. Is that really normal??
We ended up paying all the closing costs on our sale. In theory, it should be possible to keep the actual price of the house up a bit if you're paying closing costs, the idea being that it's easier for first-time buyers to get a slightly larger mortgage than to come up with that much cash in hand in addition to their downpayment. In practice, it probably depends on how much interest there is in your house.
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I have Aristotle Leads the Way and the Johns Hopkins Student Quest Guide. I do not, however, own the teacher guide. So far, it hasn't mattered, but Ch. 16, Euclid in His Elements, calls for "shapes provided by your teacher". I can make an educated guess as to what the shapes might be, or what shapes might demonstrate the common notions, but if anyone has the teacher's guide and is willing to describe them to me as labeled, I'd appreciate it.
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80% of couples who were married prior to the birth of their first child are still together on that child's 10th birthday compared to only 40% who were cohabiting at the time of the child's birth.
Yes, some married couples do divorce while some cohabiting couples stay together. But the odds are way more in favor of the married parents while they are against the cohabiting ones.
I'd be curious to know the incidence of planned vs. unplanned pregnancies among both those populations. I'd also love to see a quiz gauging how the average marrieds vs. unmarrieds feel about the possibility of having a child.
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How's everyone? I'm trying not to bail just b/c mine sold...any nibbles?
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What I always find interesting about fellow Christians who equate marriage with the only form of moral family living is that the church refused to perform marriages until into the middle ages. Initially, priests who relented to blessing a marriage would only do it at the couple's home or one the steps OUTSIDE the church because marriage (and choosing sex and family life over a religious life) was seen as too worldly to be incorporated into the church. Strange, but true!
Whereas the diocese in Cincinnati told my dh and I, when we were getting married, that dh's parents weren't married b/c they'd been wed by a priest at a golf course. :lol:
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I've found it interesting how people who ardently support the right of gays to marry won't in turn support marriage in general as an institution that benefits society. I've also noticed that people who want non-abstinence-only sex ed in schools won't then, in turn, admit that single motherhood is something that should be avoided. Isn't that what they're trying to prevent, young unwed mothers getting knocked up?
Anyway, re the original topic, I have no real comment except that I find it so terribly sad when women will refer to their boyfriends-- for years-- as their finance, when there is no wedding in sight.
Well, at least from my point of view, you're missing the mark. I do support marriage in general as an institution that benefits society. But my definition of marriage does not include sanction from a specific church or entity, and there are many couples who have those sanctions who don't understand marriage/don't have what I'd consider a true marriage.
WRT being a young single mama, I'd certainly discourage my daughter from doing something so difficult. My general talk on reproduction (with sons and daughter) is mostly about picturing every possible s*xual partner as a potential parent to their children. Marriage or no, a bad parent is a lifelong albatross around the neck of the whole family. That said, once the horse is out of the barn, I'll never, never understand why people are denigrating and obnoxious about young moms.
I held a garage sale once to sell off some baby gear. A pregnant teenager and her mother were looking, and when I made casual conversation about when the baby was due, her mother was very shaming of the daughter right in front of me. I managed to slip her the web address for girlmom, which was piled with tattooed rebels many women on this board would disapprove of, but which was wholeheartedly committed to making sure that young moms were darn good ones.
No real point slinging mud. Plenty of people wonder why pro-lifers are so anti-welfare mom. YMMV.
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Yes, BUT it's a holy sacrament. You can't make it sound like two kids off the street can say they are married and it's the same, you know?
It's a hefty vow, a lifetime one, and you can't equate these people with their multiple baby daddys shacking up as a marriage.
A sperm donor isn't a father, nor is he a husband, no matter what their living arrangement.
Justamouse, I agree with you, provided you agree that a priest can witness ten marriages a day in which that vow is externally but not internally made, and though the priest did his part, a sacrament did not take place. The bride and groom did not meet their obligation. The commitment is between the two people, period. Plenty of married people didn't really make it, or get it. Plenty of unmarrieds are the same way. But I believe there are un-legally-religiously-married people who are every bit as married as someone who took full part in the Catholic sacrament of marriage. I understand that the Catholic Church would not view them that way.
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The current divorce rate makes me sad also. I would never want to live in a country that doesn't allow divorce. It is necessary sometimes. But the idea of throw-away marriages makes me at least as sad as those who have kids without ever marrying.
See, I feel that way about transitory celebrity marriages in particular. But then, those are legal, and many of my loving, committed friends can't get married. I end up feeling jaded about marriage as an institution, though I myself have been happily married for fourteen years. I *am* religious, but I believe, strongly, that the commitment is in the heart of the participants, sanctioned by their deity, who knows whether they mean it or not. Anyone can get up in a church and commit to a bad marriage, or one they're not sure about, and their neighbors will think of them as fine, upstanding folks. That doesn't make it mean anything. And we, as outsiders, are *not privy* to the inner workings of that relationship. So it means nothing to judge marriage based on legal or church sanction.
On the subject of why one wouldn't live on that street:
I don't have any ill feelings toward the Amish, for example, for choosing to live in such a specific and separate way from the rest of us. So I'm not likely to judge someone who wants to live on a different street so her kids don't grow up seeing things she believes are sins normalized. That said, I wince when I meet someone and they tell me they're conservative Christian, b/c it just seems sort of awful and pointless to put effort into being a good neighbor, letting our kids get to know each other, etc., if they're going to snatch up their babies and run when they figure out I support gay marriage, or what-have-you. I'm about ready to start doing what my neighbors here have, and just dump it all out in one big glurt when we first meet, only instead of saying:
"I didn't vote for Obama. Is your husband political? Mine is. We listen to conservative talk radio all. the. time. My kids love it. I'm against partial birth abortion and gay marriage. The neighbors across the street homeschooled, you know. They're Catholic, but whatever."
I'll say:
"My kids and I canvassed for Obama for months. We're going to do it again. We're religious, but non-creedal. Two of my last three ministers were gay. I like Darwin. We go on fossil hunts, wanna come? Do you think I should hang my pride flag here, or there?"
Sheesh. I find the info. dump totally rude, but I admit it would save time.
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Truly, I don't care. Stand in a field and tell the moon you'll be together forever. Just don't do something that is supposed to be permanent (building a family) while still using the language of a casual relationship. "Boyfriend" refers to someone you are with FOR NOW. "Husband" is the person you plan to be with forever.
OK, but you're looking at a generation who lived with a 50% divorce rate. Some of them might make a bigger deal out of the word "husband" as a result, but for others, it may have lost its meaning. I've known people who've refused to relax into titles like "husband" and "wife" so they wouldn't take the relationship for granted-- so they'd remember that there's never any guarantee of "forever". It actually seemed to remind them to work on the relationship.
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I could care less about people and their relationship status. But I would really scratch my head if someone asked me that about my kids.
My youngest sister is 14 years younger than I am, and this question used to annoy us to no end. That and, "Oh, was she a surprise?" It all felt like a calculated way of telling my mom it wasn't normal to have a large gap between children, or to have a child at 38, or whatever. I tend to be the person who never asks...then six months later someone says, "You didn't KNOW?" I figure if someone wants me to know, they'll tell me.
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I did one on HST online, but I'm not sure I know how to share it. Let me know if anyone wants it.
Serious profanity in book "Robopocalypse" on required reading list at school
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
Oh, I'm surprised you'd say that! I've always thought it was a fascinating book...did you see the poster going around on fb that said, "Science can tell you how to clone a dinosaur. Humanities can tell you why that might be a bad idea." I, Robot did such a great job of taking the idea of a simple set of ethical rules and poking a finger through every. single. loophole. It's an important message, elegantly delivered.