Perambulating

Criticism of Homeschooling

2009-08-06T16:18:00.002-05:00

So I was looking for anti-homeschooling stuff, and came across an old article

The author asked "To be specific, do you have seven hours each day to sit by and instruct your child to the fullest?" and I was all "WTF? 7 hours? For one kid?"

Truly, do kids get 7 hours of actual instruction per day in a public school classroom? Really? Seems to me that when one is dealing with a single child, as opposed to 20-30, and therefore can move on at the child's pace rather than the group's, a lot can done in a significantly shorter amount of time.

Homeschooling

2009-08-06T15:41:00.003-05:00

So, I have become obsessed with the topic of homeschooling and have bored my interested friends to tears with it...the interested ones. Those that aren't interested just won't discuss it at all. I can find lots of pro-homeschool websites, but nothing seems to mesh, and I can't find much by way of debate.

So, I thought I'd dust off this blog and bore myself. Or post my research and thoughts as they come to me.

For the record I am most attracted to unschooling. The thing that appeals to me most is that my state is wide open...no testing, no curriculum requirements, truly I could use any teaching method, no teaching method, combine whatever shit I find, let the Kiddo take the lead. NO RULES!! No draconian attendance laws! No limiting travel to school holidays! No bullies and apathetic teachers and useless busy work!

I am having a hard time coming up with cons, personally.

In other hardass parent news

2007-07-18T11:45:00.000-05:00

I was informed this week that there are new rules against name calling in my sister-in-law's house. "Stupid", "butthead", etc. are no longer allowed because they're hurtful. Great, that's cool and positive. What's the consequence for infractions? Is there a jar that offenders have to pay into? How about a positive chart with rewards after so many bad word free days? Time-out? Loss of privileges like their Wii or giant screen TV or time in their several-hundred-square foot, toy filled playroom?

Nope, for the 8 and 6 year olds it is hot sauce in the mouth. Tabasco to be exact. Fucking brutal in my opinion. How does that teach children not to be hurtful? Seems to me it will only teach them not to get caught.

Hardass parents

2007-06-29T16:44:00.000-05:00

I am a bona fide hardass. I have little patience for mewling, no time for sugar coating, and no inclination to be bubbly or cheerful....but my god the way some people discipline children makes even me squirm uncomfortably. I have been to various parenting forums and read suggestions to spank, hand-smack, and time-out toddlers and even infants as young as 8 months.

I have never, for one minute, looked at my now 18-month old and seen a rational, moral agent purposefully trying to piss me off, and deserving of violence or forced isolation. I have never even fought an impulse or urge to hit him or punish him...it simply has never entered my mind even involuntarily. I don't understand how anyone can look at a baby and truly believe there is some kind of malice or manipulation in their actions. He is curious about the world and everything in it, as a person who has been in existence for less than two years should be.

My job is to allow him to explore and experience life to the fullest, safely, and teach him as his faculties allow. What do these parents, who choose to be scary hardasses towards tiny people, think their job is?

Where The Stupid Things Are

2007-05-14T11:53:00.000-05:00

So, to try to re-jumpstart my interest in online communications, I have been frequenting Yahoo Answers and the Ask Me Help Desk.

I am stunned at how idiotic people can be.

I can't even explain it, just go to one of them and choose a topic you have even just a smidgen of knowledge about and read the questions. Whoever said there is no such thing a stupid question never went to an online Q&A forum.

Cyber-existential angst

2007-05-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

I have been part of cyber communities on and off for over a decade now. With every community, it seems like I just "come to the end" one day. That day may be after a few months or even a few years, but it always happens. Maybe I feel I have learned all I am going to from and taught everything I had to teach to that particular group, and simply have nothing more to discuss with them, or I have lost interest in the subject matter, or I have gotten the support I needed for a specific issue and am ready to move on....always something, but usually there was something or someplace new to go to.

I have "come to the end" with most of my current communities, and have no place new to go, and nothing new to explore. For the first time in my life I am pretty damned content, feeling pretty damned competent and confident in all aspects of my life, am not needing to do research for any pressing cause or concern. I don't need a community right now, but I still want one...after all I do have hours per day to kill on the computer.

Yes, I have adoption reform, but really I have a pretty good handle on the issues, the needs, and how to move forward. I have a kid to raise, but think I am doing really well at it; I have read dozens of books and websites and am confident in my methods and Kiddo is thriving. I am not planning any major surgeries, don't have any illnesses, am not having marital or family problems, so support boards aren't necessary.

Where do I go now?

Giftedness

2007-04-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

I was labeled "gifted" as a kid. My niece has been labeled gifted. I have reason to believe the Kiddo might be gifted.

So yesterday I mention to hubby "Hey, according to the Internets, Kiddo is showing all the signs of being gifted." his answer? "So what?"

So that got me thinking, what difference did being "gifted" make to my education or childhood? Does it matter if Kiddo is gifted? If it matters, how so? Just what exactly does a parent do with that label that they wouldn't do without it?

I don't have an answer yet or anything, just throwing shit out there.

Tangential Hmmm: Only children seem to be called "gifted" alone like that. Adults are intelligent, educated, insightful, or perhaps gifted at something (ie: a gifted artist or a gifted orator), but I have never heard someone say "Oh Bob in accounting? He's gifted.". I wonder why?

Searching for a baby girl on MySpace

2007-04-25T16:21:00.000-05:00

It was just a matter of time, adoption has become such a mainstream activity, someone has posted their "profile" and "Dear Birthmother" letter on MySpace. Somehow this got picked up by the national media and is getting hits and comments and emails from all over the place.

For those of you not up on adopt-speak, a profile is a sort of advertisement or brochure of a family hoping to adopt. It usually includes pictures, a biography, and a description of their home and daily life. Agencies and adoption professionals present these profiles to expectant mothers considering relinquishment and post them on their agency websites to try to attract expectant mothers. There are also online profile registry sites like Parent Profiles dedicated to those seeking independent adoptions.

A "Dear Birthmother" letter is a personal sounding note, but is addressed to any expectant mother looking at the profile. Usually these letters include the couple's motivations for adopting as well as some attempt at empathy, or sympathy, or maybe encouragement, but most commonly empty phony compliments on her "strength" and "bravery" and "selflessness".

I hate Dear Birthmother letters. They are nothing but self serving emotiporn (thanks Ft. Knox) at best, and subtly manipulative at worst. A pregnant woman who is considering possibly placing her child for adoption is not a Birthmother. She is an expectant mom, a pregnant woman, a mother-to-be...but until she signs those relinquishment papers, she is not a birthmother. I don't like Birthmother at all, but that's another post. She is also vulnerable, stressed, confused, and probably feeling a little, or a lot, low in the self esteem department. Putting someone in this state up on a pedestal just seems dangerous to me. What happens later when the pedastal disappears?

What was I talking about? Oh the MySpace couple. So, they made a few faux pas in my opinion; the original letter was addressed "Dear Birthmother", but was changed to "Dear Mother to be" -which is a good sign that they are open to learning-, and to shorthand BirthMother they use the acronym "BM" in the blog-which in many regions, professions, and generations is used to reference defecation, Bowel Movement, so is discouraged. However, as I previously stated they seem open to learn more and may be a bit clueless, but I don't believe malicious.

I fear though, that will all the media attention, they are going to hear from every kook, weirdo, scammer, and extremist nut on the Internet and the whole purpose of the page, to find an adoption situation, will be lost in the hub-bub.

All in all, I don't think MySpace is the best way to try to find a child to adopt.

I missed the blitz

2007-04-25T16:03:00.000-05:00

I wanted very much to post in support of the Bennetts last Monday, but lost everything in a major computer crash. By the time I was back online the momentum was gone and I'm truly sorry.

Many wonderful bloggers made excellent posts on the issue, and I urge you to read at least some of them. They are linked to at OriginsUsa.

The need for adoption reform

2007-03-26T11:18:00.000-05:00

Adoption ethics and adoption reform are some of my areas of interest and activism currently. In the adoption "community" the areas in need of reform are fairly well known, even if there is much disagreement on the best way to address them. The general public, on the other hand, seems to have no idea that adoption has a dark, even seedy side, or of the myriad human and civil rights issues involved.

I will be posting some things over the next couple of weeks that few people outside of adoption circles seem to know, but I believe very well might care about. I hope that if some of these issues come up on your ballots, or in conversation with your friends, neighbors, or coworkers, you will advocate for those negatively affected.

The first item is open records. I was somewhat surprised to learn that my son would be issued a new birth certificate, with our names listed on it, after the adoption was finalized. I wasn't even in the same state when he was born, yet I am listed as if I gave birth to him? I sorta had a vague idea that we would have a certificate of adoption or something, with his new name on it, that we would use in place of his birth certificate in those instances where such documentation is required. By state law, his adoption records and original birth records are sealed and not accessible by anyone.

Maybe this doesn't seem like much to you upon first glance, but every non-adopted person can write to their state of birth and ask for a copy of their own birth certificate, or that of their spouse, parent, and even ancestors for genealogical purposes. Can you imagine being denied such an important part of your own history?

Millions of adoptees are denied access to these records or are given records edited of all identifying information (which are quite frequently incorrect or even blatantly falsified). These are most often adults we are talking about, and they are told they can't be trusted knowing their own name at birth, or the name of the person that carried and gave birth to them, or told that they don't have a right to their biological family's medical history which they may be in dire need of for themselves or their children and grandchildren.

If keeping this basic information from living, breathing, thinking, carpooling, pizza eating, normal tax-paying people isn't a civil rights violation I don't know what is. Who is protected here? What is the motivation for those records to remain sealed forever?

A Texas group working towards open records laws has recently been pressured by Gladney (an enormous adoption agency) to compromise by opening records only for those born before 1972 and after 2008...they were told that Gladney could "kill the bill" as easily as help it pass with these restrictions. How on Earth does an adoption agency wield that kind of political power? Again, how do they benefit by keeping records closed?

Luckily, in our adoption, we didn't use any adoption professionals so the hospital treated it like any other birth and his first mom got a copy of his original Birth Certificate. The judge at finalization also gave us identifying information on some paperwork for which we were supplied copies. I am not sure if this was a mistake, a change for the better, or because there was no intermediary there telling them to black out identifying info, but whatever, I am glad to have it for him.

Real moms second guess every choice

2007-03-23T09:59:00.000-05:00

No, I wasn't tagged for the Real Moms meme, because only one other person on the planet knows I have this blog, and she is the Fort Knox of confidential information. I have, however, read the posts of those tagged and have been thinking about it in relation to my own life.

So, as I said in the post title, Real Moms second guess every choice. If they are a full time parent they worry about the family's financial security. If they work outside the home they worry they are damaging their children by having them in daycare. If they choose to co-sleep they worry about their child's independence, and conversely if they choose to have their kids sleep in their own room they worry about attachment issues...and on, and on, and on. The parenting decisions that can be worried about are endless. And even if a mom feels great about a decision, somebody comes along and criticizes it and makes her second guess herself.

We adopted our son, so he has two "Real Moms", and because I love and respect his first mom as a "Real Mom" as well as an exceptional human being, I have extra second guessing going on, with regards to my role in affecting her choices. Did I encourage her to explore parenting enough? Did I coerce or pressure her unconsciously by any of my actions? Did I accept her reasons for relinquishing as valid too quickly and with too little skepticism? In short, in my excitement at the prospect of being a mom, did I bend or break any of my own moral rules? Did I do her and our shared son a serious disservice?

When I hear stories of the depths some people desperate for a baby will sink to, I can say to myself "I am better than that. I am ethical. "...yes, in comparison to heinousness I am pretty darned good. But, when it's just me, with no example of pure evil to compare to, I wonder how good I really am.

Even moreso than second guessing the choices I made during the adoption process, I now wonder if I am raising him well, am I a good Mom? Am I doing all I can to allow him to grow into his own nature and honor his uniqueness or am I, again unconsiously, trying to mold him into something else via nurture?

Mistakes were made

2007-03-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

It has always bugged me when someone makes a statement regarding an action using the passive voice, but for a long time I didn't really know why it bothered me. I can understand the statements, so it isn't due to lack of clarity. They aren't necessarily grammatically incorrect, so it's not that "that don't sound right" thing. This week, after reading Atty. Gen. Gonzales' myriad statements it hit me...they bug me because people only use the passive voice when they are weaseling out of responsibility.

Some recent Gonzales quotes:
"....incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress"

Oh really? And who communicated that information Mr. Gonzales? Why is the active subject not named in this statement?

"I acknowledge that mistakes were made here"

You acknowledege that mistakes were made? Great! Can you maybe tell us who made these mistakes?

How difficult is it to say "We made mistakes?" or "I made a mistake"? Why state it as if these things just happen of their own accord without any actual person involved? Is it really so painful to accept responsibilty?

Here I am

2007-03-12T15:22:00.000-05:00

This is a place for my unedited, unfiltered opinions and thoughts. Some may recognize my writing style, or my experiences, or situations, but I ask that you please email me rather than blow my cover in comments as I want to be anonymous on this blog.