Sign this!

A little while back the mom blogs went through a bit of a tiff over a spot on the Today Show that grossly misrepresented the issue of mothers having a drink at playdates. Basically, the mothers would get together, their kids would play and everyone would eat lunch together. At these gatherings the mothers would have a glass of wine with lunch, say. So, Today does this segment on it, in which, amongst other tricks, they do this shot of a jungle gym with kids playing on it past a couple wine bottles looming large in the forefront. They did a real hatchet job. Then, they had a "discussion" afterward with Melissa from Suburban Bliss and railroaded her. It was pretty terrible, all in all. Just another excuse to attack mothers for no reason in particular. And it got the blogworld (or, at least those of us who are moms) up in arms for awhile. Well, apparently Momsrising.org has got together a petition, to end the mommy wars in the media.

The premise is that with mothers in our nation (and, indeed, the world) facing so many struggles on so many levels, why do we really need to make up reasons to become alarmist about what horrible, selfish, lazy bitches mothers all are? Why can't we focus the media on real issues that would really help mothers? Here is the petition. Please, everyone sign!

Apparently after the Today Show thing, enough bloggers made enough noise, and enough people reacted by taking the issue to NBC that the show took a second, more balanced look at the issue. So, there's maybe some hope?

Anyway, Alice Bradley writes about it much more elegantly than I do.

Here is Melissa's blog. She was brave enough to go on the Today Show in the first place.

Here is the Today Show segment.

And, really, it's not just this segment. It's all over the place in the media, blaming mothers for not being enough, or being too much. If you work, you're selfish and neglecting your kids. If you stay home, you're lazy and being a poor role model. If you work part time, you're not good enough on either front. There's just no real way to win.

I'm not sure the irony is intentional

From NPR today: "Flanked by veterans and their families, Bush accused the Democrats of political theater."

I was just reading through this post on Punkass Blog - okay, really, I read the comment thread more than the actual post, because the comment thread was really the bit that I found remarkable. I liked the post. I agreed with the post, but the comments really blew me away. Most of them not in the good way. In a "Oh my word, do people really think this way?!" way.
Here's a gem, for everyone to check out:

Guy #1: You really don’t see any inherent benefits accorded to you by this society simply by being a dude? Are you sure about that?

Guy #2: Yes. There is no Patriarchy

This guy is apparently not kidding. I'm not even halfway through the comments. It's a combination of depressing and hillarious that I am having trouble describing.

Maybe someone has thought of this stuff, but Homeschooling is such a sudden sensation (I know it's been around a long time, but has, in recent years, become much more widespread, to, I think, unprecedented levels) that I'm imagining there are a lot of cracks to fall through. Plus, my neighbor across the street recently switched over to homeschooling her son, and her flippancy about how easy the process is (Just having him fill out, essentially, worksheets provided by the company and reporting his scores to the company.) sets off a few alarms in my head.

I mean, the first and most obvious is who is really regulating what kind of education these kids are getting? It doesn't seem to me that there's a lot of real oversight involved in this, which means that there are going to be kids coming out of this undereducated when it's too late to effectively reverse the damage done. Now, I admit that it's my opinion that on average homeschooled kids get a better education than kids in public schools. They get personalized instruction by someone who really cares about them getting a good education, and can learn at their own pace, etc, etc.. but sometimes they're *not*, and who's looking out for those kids?

The second thing, slightly more worrisome in a more long term way is... do these kids get vaccinations? Kids have to have vaccinations to get into school, and a lot of them, frankly, wouldn't get vaccinations if they didn't have thie requirement. Vaccines are unpleasant, inconvenient and often expensive. I remember with my son's vaccines getting into Kindergarten, the pediatrician wouldn't give them unless he also had a full physical, which cost me 120 bucks. Ouch. But, we did it, because we *had to*. Now, I also believe these things should be provided free of charge, but even without the cost there are those who would not get vaccinated if they weren't compelled to do so. And the reasons these diseases are next to unheard of in this day and age is because most everyone has been immunized against them, so they can't take hold here. Without that shield, might we see outbreaks of, say, polio?

Here's my real concern, though... schools catch abuse. Often abused kids have only their teachers and officials at the schools they attend as adults they can trust outside of their families. Homeschooled kids have the potential of being incredibly socially isolated, and thus powerless if they have an abusive parent or parents. There are ways, as my brother (who intends to homeschool) points out, to be sure the kids get socialization with other kids their age - group classes, outdoor activities and the like. But there's no requirement to become involved in these sorts of things, so that homeschooling could be an excellent way to disguise dysfunctional or dangerous family situations.

Like I said, I haven't really researched it. These are just my thoughts, but it seems problematic, on the surface.