Archive for the ‘Educating our kids’ Category

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Anything I want?

March 24, 2009 - 9:31 am No Comments

So, it’s inevitable. At some point your beautiful little boys will be interested in T & A.

In a household where TV, YouTube, and video games are highly monitored, and access to information is on a need-to-know basis, all you need is a trip to Buenos Aires to defenestrate all your well-established home regulations.

(Ok – I am showing off my newly acquired Latin – defenestrate – an honest to goodness real English word that means – to throw out the window. But I digress…)

Any stroll down this busy city of 12 million people will invariably give us plenty of topics to talk about. We like to think of them as “teachable moments”, a phrase of late much in vogue thanks to the media’s characterization of President Obama’s Special Olympics sound bite. Thank Goodness it was not Bush or it would have been another “impechable moment”! (Again, I digress..)

Argentina’s very popular Calle Florida, a walkable open air mall with a variety of shops, artisans and musicians, also features plenty of Vegas-styled hookers handing out printed cards with boobs and phone numbers.

As we are accustomed to answering our kids’ questions honestly, we had the whole prostitution talk and how it’s illegal in many countries, albeit also known as the oldest profession.

So Thomas spots a huge poster of a scantily clad beauty holding a key and asks, “Mom, is this a prostitution house?” No, it’s a locksmith. Prostitution houses are illegal here and in the States, except for Vegas.

“Can we have her make us some keys?” No, she’s not actually in there. “The girl in the undies is just so people notice that there’s a locksmith here,” I clarify. Explaining the whole “sex sells” concept to a curious 11-year old is easy when his eyes pop out whenever there’s pretty women around.

“So, what will the girls do in those Vegas houses?”
Anything you want.
“Anything?”
Yes.
“Well, if I go there then I’ll ask her to start making dinner.”

Later on, we went to a food court and the topic came up again. “I’ve had dreams about women,” stated Thomas. “Really?” says Dad. “Do tell!”

“Well, there was a girl cleaning my house and I told her: ‘Now do the oven,’ and I showed her the oven. ‘Then do the floors’, and I showed her the floors. And she just looked at me funny and said, ‘I want to do you’. Then I kind of freaked and I woke up.”

Lunch, $22. Souvenirs, $8. Having your child calmly recite his first erotic dream… Speechless.

Posted in Educating our kids, Life with Tom, Social/Political Musings |

Teaching our Children

February 20, 2009 - 1:52 pm 3 Comments

“I don’t have the patience to do that. You are a saint that you can homeschool,” said my good friend. WHAT? Anyone who knows me well knows I am the most impatient person alive today. It may be part of my OCD, but I am an instant gratification person. I move quickly, sometimes not so accurately, prefering to do things over rather than take the time to think it through first.

Tom says that I’m tactical not strategic. My mother says: “El que no tiene cabeza tiene que tener buenos pies”. Roughly translated, “If you do not use your head, you have to be prepared to use your feet.” But I digress.

How is it that we have been convinced that we are not capable or do not have the patience to teach our children? Starting from the tender age of 6, they are expected to get up, get on a bus, be in school for 8 hours, keep track of all the different subjects, deal with all the incredible variety of social challenges that may arise, interpret the world and make the right decisions, put it all in context, come back on the bus, tell us about their day, and do homework for what in many cases seems like an eternity.

Then when we try to help them with homework and they don’t get it, or rebel and act up, we are frustrated and lose our patience. The poor little guys have been overstimulated for ten hours, and now they are supposed to do busy work at home? What did they do for 8 hours in a classroom? The expectation that all this work has to be done in the short time they remain awake and on weekends saps any possibility of play and meaningful interaction with mom, dad, siblings and friends. It affects the relationship between parents and kids in a negative way. Parents become frustrated and feel they have no patience, and kids get mad, act up, and are sent to their room.

Many end up resenting it all and do not learn to love learning – which is what education at such a tender age should be all about.

So now that the economy is in the toilet, and our schools continue to move in the direction of quantity vs. quality – and the images and influences thrust upon our young children all day long become increasingly disturbing — I urge parents who care to take back the education of their kids and make them smile again.

I understand not all of us are meant to homeschool – but there are other options. What else would we do? Half of us have already lost our jobs or are worried about losing them. This is a time to get creative.

Over the years, homeschooling has developed a negative connotation and many of today’s politicians are making sure that it stays that way. In my humble opinion, homeschooling is not a barefoot overly religious pregnant woman trying to teach eight kids about creationism.

Simply stated, homeschooling means that the home is directing the kids schooling.

Bottom line, we have been brainwashed to abdicate our children’s education to the state. This social experiment has obviously failed on many levels. It is exhausting us all, and creating many social misfits.

Today homeschooling has millions of inexpensive options that can be easily tailored to each individual family and child within that family. There are also thousands of curriculums on every subject, public-private partnerships, online programs such as K12 and many organizations such as the YMCA and park districts throughout the country have recognized the need for extracurricular activities and created programs to serve home schooled children accordingly.

Teachers and trainers are consistently amazed at how responsive, respectful and polite many of these home schooled children are. Why? Simply because they have not been taught that it is okay to be any other way.

Homeschooling is not weird any more.

So … Pick up your stuff and move to a beautiful, less expensive area where they are not taxing you for a failed public school system and go back to the basics. Tap the resources of your community and begin to enjoy what life with your family can and should be.

Appreciate all you can learn from your children while you are helping them navigate through this crazy world.

Posted in Educating our kids, Life with Tom, Social/Political Musings |

Girls Want My Baby :(

November 17, 2008 - 12:12 am No Comments

Time flies, and I cannot say I am having fun.  At least not about this one.  What is up with girls today?  My baby is only 11 — what the heck?  

So Thomas and Gabo got invited to some friends of friends house tonight.  We had met this family the day before, and they had a nice ten year old girl and a teenage boy. Not a big deal, and Tom and I would get a few hours on our own.

So of course as soon as they left we are on the computer tracking their movements with our fancy GPS phone tracker – which they do not know about.  How fun.  OK, slightly disturbing, but hey – we all get our jollies somehow.

When they got back Thomas explained that he thought the girl liked him.  “How do you figure?” we asked. “Because she said to me: ‘Well, do you like me or not?’ “  

“What did you do?,” we asked, stunned.  “I just told her I’d let her know when I turn 16.”

There was some discussion as to whether they would know each other then, and then they just kept playing.

YIKES!

As I was tucking them in I tried to talk to them about it.  I let them know that they say girls tend to mature faster than boys, and they are interested in these things at an earlier age.  To which Gabo quickly added that Thomas was maturing faster than him because he’s liked girls since he was 8 and Gabo has no interest.

Of course, that’s because 9 year old girls do not look like Tori Praver!  He agreed.

Posted in Educating our kids |

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