Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Good, the Bad, and the Curious (Links)

Here's what I've been reading lately that's made me smile (the Good), cry (the Bad), and think (the Curious).

The Good

Kiwi Crate has some fun tips on how to raise creative kids:
Model Creativity. What’s your creative outlet? Where do you enjoy putting your creative energy? Cooking, singing, gardening, drawing, dancing? Children who watch their parents engage in creative activities are more likely to embrace these activities themselves. If it’s been a while since you’ve done something creative, think about what made you happy in your own childhood and spend half an hour doing that activity with your child. How did it feel? Could you try it again tomorrow? And the next day?
Um. Adorable:



School of Smock has a wonderful post about what she learned by being a terrible teacher.

The Bad

The practice of criminalizing non-violent infractions (like dress code violations, absences, and tardiness) in school children has made a terribly effective school-to-prison pipeline . . . and it disproportionately impacts minorities and poor kids. 

The removal of children from Native American homes in South Dakota is reaching epic proportions. It's so bad, that some are calling it a genocide

This professor doesn't think fat people should be allowed into graduate school because their body size demonstrates a lack of self-control. Setting aside the fact that his correlation isn't true, I wonder why he doesn't send out hate-filled tweets denouncing the lack of self control of smokers, drinkers, impulsive shoppers, those with credit card debt, etc. Why is it only fat people who don't deserve a graduate degree? 


The Curious

A New York Times post considers whether only children are really as doomed as our culture seems to think they are: 
Don’t take my word for it. Consider the data: in hundreds of studies during the past decades exploring 16 character traits — including leadership, maturity, extroversion, social participation, popularity, generosity, cooperativeness, flexibility, emotional stability, contentment — only children scored just as well as children with siblings. And endless research shows that only children are, in fact, no more self-involved than anyone else. It turns out brutal sibling rivalry isn’t necessary to beat the ego out of us; peers and classmates do the job.
Some likened this "You Can Touch My Hair" project to a petting zoo; others saw it as socially progressive.

Gender equality in the workforce is better than ever . . . unless you're a mother:
Much of the progress that women have made in income parity has gone to childless women. Motherhood, writes the sociologist Joya Misra, is now a greater predictor of wage inequality than gender in the United States. According to her research, conducted with Michelle Budig at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, motherhood imposes about twice the earning penalty in the United States compared with what women face in countries that have expansive publicly financed child care systems.
In 1961, this woman was asked sexist questions on her Harvard application about how she would handle a career and motherhood. She just got around to answering them.

This opinion piece about St. Louis has garnered a lot of attention. Is the Midwest an isolating place to transplants?

Hobo Mama has an excellent piece on how a parenting dispute with her mother helped her unpack what parenting means:
But I'll now know it's always in the back of her mind, how she thinks I suck at this parenting gig. I'm not sure how much I care about her opinion, but it does make me sad that she doesn't see the joy and connection in our family and concentrates instead on our perceived failings as disciplinarians.

1 comment:

  1. I cannot believe about the guy who doesn't think "fat" people should be let into graduate school. wow. I am in shock. I could go on and on about what is the definition of overweight to different people and the history of obesity...yada yada yada. Instead, healthy is the new strong!

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