Strollerderby : NPR

Please, Pixar, No Princesses

Amy Kuras — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:01:00 GMT

So Pixar’s latest, “Up” seems to be a big hit, earning rave reviews and scoring big at the box office.

But it prompted Linda Holmes, blogger for NPR’s pop culture blog Monkey See, to write a heartfelt open letter to Pixar.

“This is not an angry letter. It is especially not an angry letter about Up, which I adored,” she begins. “I could have sat in the theater and watched it two more times in a row….
So I'm not complaining; I'm asking. I'm asking because I think so highly of you.

Please make a movie about a girl who is not a princess.”

She points out that Pixar is making some of the best movies around right now, and that while they have very strong female characters, none of them are in the fact the protagonist, the person whose story it is. I didn’t realize this until I read her lovely and sweet blog, but wow, she’s right.

Holmes calls on Pixar to remember those “little girls with Band-Aids on their knees” who don’t see themselves on screen all that much. She want girls to have a great movie like “Up” that features someone they can dress up had for Halloween.

I agree. I have one of those little girls with Band Aids on her knees (and pretty much everywhere else a kid can fall over) and while she’s newly in love with the Disney Princesses and everything pink, purple or sparkly, she’s also a fearless little adventurer.

Holmes ends her piece with: “I'm just saying, keep them in mind, those girls in Band-Aids, because they want to see themselves on screen doing death-defying stunts, too.”

I hope sometime soon, the phenomenally talented people at Pixar take her up on it. Not just for my girl, but for my son, too.

Mother's Day Music: The Least You Can Do

Amy Kuras — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:01:00 GMT

Does your mom like music? And did you just this very second remember it’s Mother’s Day and uh-oh, you forgot so much as a card?

Then National Public Radio has your back, peeps. They’ve complied a music playlist of mom-related songs , whch range from Dvorak to John Lennon’s “Mother” (probably the most depressing mother-related song I can imagine) and Smoky Robinson and the Miracles “Shop Around” (“my Mama told me…”).

Send your mom a link to this stream with an e-card, and you’re covered – sort of. Just hope your own kids show a little more thought when it’s your turn. Because even NPR has tongue-in-cheek titled the list “Mother’s Mix”— It’s the Least We Could Do.”

If you have a little more time for some forethought (and a better relationship with your mom) try making a mix CD for her. I’ve done that for my mom and she loves it, and we don’t even have similar tastes in music.

Can We Talk About the Word "Panties"?

Madeline Holler — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:28:00 GMT

Maybe I'm just lexically sensitive, but I have always hated the word "panties." It's an awful word, the way it sounds, both when enunciated ("pan-tees") and also when not ("pannies").

My sister and I would writhe on the floor when our mother used the word, which was often: "Girls, put on your panties!" "fold your panties" "let's go buy new panties" ... "panties, panties, panties!" As I got older and the context broadened to include fancy women's underthings, I still never found the word cute, sexy or the least bit dignified. Wanna get laid? Don't tell me to take off my panties.

I've met more challenges with the word since becoming the mother of two girls myself. Everyone around us uses ''panties": doctors, preschool teachers, Hanes, grandmothers (give it a rest, Mom!). Me? I stick with "undies" and "underwear," boring but comfortable.

So imagine how my muscles seized into a cramp last night when I heard Nina Totenberg, NPR's legal affairs correspondent, say panties about 6,000 times while reporting on a case involving a teen who was strip searched at her middle school. School officials suspected she had handed out prescription-strength ibuprofen, verboten at the school, and before looking in the 13-year-old's backpack or locker, officials brought in the school secretary to have a look around -- her body. She was forced to strip down to her bra and "panties" and also forced to shake out her bra and "the crotch of her panties." Lord help me, I could barely stir the pasta.

Needless to say, the girl was traumatized by the search. (By the way, no Advil was found, not even in the "crotch of her panties.") So she and the mother sued. But the school argued it did not violate any constitutional rights in ordering a student to get naked in front of the school secretary to conduct a search for, you know, pretty good headache medicine.

When making the argument that "Hey! Back in my day, we never felt traumatized during the countless times daily we took off our clothes at school," the male lawyers and male justices used terms like "undergarments," "underclothes," "underwear" and "underpants. A welcome respite for me because, really, the only thing worse than the word "panties" is an old man using the word "panties."

But Totenberg unexpectedly dropped yet another "panties" when paraphrasing Justice Ginsburg who said, among other things, (and I'm also paraphrasing), "Right, you doofuses, guys don't care but teen girls certainly do."

Now, the last thing I would want to do is go messing around with other people's constitutional rights, which the school most certainly did in strip-searching the girl. So I feel reluctant to make the case for outlawing the word panties -- public or private use. It should be up the the individual to decide whether to use it, we have the First Amendment, so on and so forth.

But it's such a heinous word. And of course, outlawing it would just make it a test case for the Supreme Court, and then I'd have to suffer another episode of All Things Considered with Totenberg -- dignified, articulate, big-brained Totenberg -- chanting "panties, panties, panties."

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How to Keep Your Kid From Pissing off The McCain Supporters

JeanneSager — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:27:00 GMT

The best part of my daughter learning to say "Barack Obama" wasn't the cute little inflection on the surname or the fact that she pronounced it just right. It was that she came out with it all by herself. She saw him on Nick's Kids Pick the President and decided "Barack Obama is the President." Ah yes, my prescient little girl. But when she hopped out of the car on Wednesday morning and screamed, "Barack Obama is the president," I got a little nervous.

She's three. She doesn't yet understand the meaning of gloating. All she knew was when she voted for president with Mommy and Daddy, we told her "tomorrow morning we'll know if Barack Obama is really the president." When she woke up, she asked me, "Did you find out who the president is yet?"

I grinned. "Yes honey, you were right, it's Barack Obama." We listened to NPR the entire way to nursery school - the way we do most mornings - and she heard "Barack Obama," over and over and over. She was primed for showing off what she can do.

But while we've been out loud and proud Obama supporters with our yard sign and our Facebook "we'll Barack the vote" messages, I've been aware that anything more than gentle pressure wasn't going to get me very far in our fairly conservative small town. I satisfied myself with the knowledge that we're just one corner of New York - we were bound to go blue despite them. More importantly, I refrained from telling them that. Wednesday morning, while I was floating on air, I was well aware I'd be facing some pretty glum faces. Faces I'll be facing for as long as I live here, and as I'm sort of fond of the place (conservative bent be darned) I expect that will be awhile.

So I did what any good mother would. I leaned down, scooped my daughter off the ground and informed her she's the smartest girl in the world. "You already know Barack Obama is the president," I told her, "but today you're going to school to learn something new."

That's what McCain supporters will be doing today and tomorrow and for the next four years. It's up to us to help them along the way.

Image: New York Times

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Girls Only: No Boys Born in Growing Number of Towns

Madeline Holler — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:01:00 GMT

Desperate to have a baby girl? Well you might think about relocating. Or eating more marine animals.

Researchers have discovered several towns where women are only giving birth to girls. The gender balance is totally out of whack and something like a 2 to 1 ratio of boys to girls.

Where are these towns of rainbows and ponies and sparkles and all Hannah Montana all the time?

They are Arctic communities up in northern Greenland. What's causing this. Most likely, PCBs.

Here's an excerpt of an interview with concerned researchers on NPR's Living on Earth about the PCB-girl baby connection:

Now, looking at your report here I'm just struck by the apparent effects that PCBs have on the sex ratio of children and the way it changes ... The chart that you have there shows that as you increase exposure to PCBs, at first you get way more boy babies than girl babies. But then as you go higher and you get above four micrograms per liter of blood you get way more girl babies.

How could this happen? Here's what Lars Otto Reiersen, executive secretary for the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, says:

Well, it could be what we call the mimic of the hormones. That early in the pregnancy that some of these pesticides may mimic testosterone or estrogen. That's documented from science. So, that might be what's occurring but that's too early to say for sure what's the mechanism.

Well that's just kind of yuck. Plus, the girl babies with moms who have a higher concentration of PCBs in their blood have a lower birth weight and much earlier births. So it's not all tea parties and frilly socks and two girls for every boy; there are serious health consequences.

Still, here's what I don't get. I thought gender had more to do with Dad's sperm than mom. He's the one shooting Y chromosomes for boys and X chromosomes for girls. Are they studying sperm in all this? Or are these children actually hermaphrodites -- in this case technically boys with female characteristics? Or do I need to go back to sophomore biology?

Think it's no big deal for those of us who are not dining on PCB-rich walrus fat? Actually, everybody around the world has some level of PCB exposure, just different concentrations of it depending on where they live and at what level of the food chain they typically eat. The next question is, what has the impact of low exposure been?

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Photo: bodis-wallner.com

Dads Dish on Blogging, Race, Childhood on NPR

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:29:00 GMT

If you're looking for a great perspective on dads and dad blogging, several of my favorite bloggers were featured on a roundtable chat with Michel Martin from NPR's "Tell Me More," offering a glimpse into how dads, too, find connections online. And also how they are helping to dispell a few myths about minority parenting.

Keith of African American Dad, for instance, says he wanted to start his blog to help contribute to the idea that black fathers are also involve. Odd that even today there'd be a need for that, but you've got to hear what some asshole left on his site and how he rose above.

Jason from Rice Daddies started blogging as a way to "reach out and meet people" as a stay-at-home dad in California, and now, years later, he makes a nice living as a blogger. While Jeff at DC Urban Moms and Dads, along with the help of his wife, offers parenting advice. With Father's Day on the mind lately, it's an interesting perspective and well worth your drive time for a listen.

How tough is it to be an only child in China?

Brett Singer — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

So you think you've got pressure? Try being an only child. Then add to that the fact that your parents can't have any more children – BY LAW.

Robert Siegel from NPR spent some time with an only child in China, before the devastating earthquake. The piece goes a long way towards confirming the stereotype of the overworked Asian child and parents who push them to study non-stop. "Like other Chinese high school students, she typically rises at 6:30 a.m., hits the books at 7:30 a.m. and doesn't knock off until 9:30 p.m." Sounds fun.

Another component of only-childness is indulging certain desires, at least in the case of this particular 17 year-old girl. When Luo Meng turned 17, she did what she refers to as a "Barbie shoot," creating a photo album of pics that would probably cause parents to flip if they had been taken from Miley Cyrus' myspace page.

So this kid works hard, she plays hard. But it's mostly work -- at least it is at school. Here's a line from the parent of a 10-year-old in China: "If you want to guarantee the quality of children, then you shouldn't have too many births…Children here don't have a very happy childhood." The parent goes on to say that "childhood is hard work," but at home, kids have it easy. "Mainly because they're the only one, their parents will do most of the chores for them…So comparing their generation to ours, their living skills are very weak." Work all day at school, come home and put your feet up. Hey, not bad! Sounds like there's not too much more pressure being the only kid, at least not as described here. And there are some benefits, like no chores.

It got me thinking: there are single-sex schools in the United States. What if there were an only-child school? Is the only-child experience that much different from the sibling experience? At one particular private music school in China, all "300 students are only children." I wonder if that shared experience makes any difference to the kids.

image: NPR.org

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China Quake Video difficult viewing

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Earthquake exemption: Does China's one-kid per family policy still apply?

Strollerderby Playdate: Getting Orphanage News From China

Breaking News: Earthquake in China kills thousands, 900 children buried at a school

Exercise During Adolescence Decreases Breast Cancer Risk

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Researchers have long advised middle-aged women that regular exercise decreases the risk of breast cancer. But now they’ve discovered that being active beginning at age 12 substantially affects breast cancer risk as well. In a survey of 65,000 women aged 24 to 42, those who had regularly exercised as teens and young adults decreases had a 23 percent lower chance of getting pre-menopausal breast cancer than those who'd been inactive.

This is sad news if, like me, your idea of exercise in high school was to walk to 7/11 and buy a loaf of Wonder Bread and a jar of marshmallow Fluff. (And that, folks, is the result of having strict health nuts for parents. Be forewarned.)

If you have daughters between the ages of 12 and 22—the years when regular activity has the greatest affect on pre-menopausal breast cancer risk—you don’t have to go hire them a personal trainer: just encourage them to do at least three hours and 15 minutes of vigorous activity a week, or 13 hours of walking (well, I did go to 7/11 quite a lot). While older women are encouraged to exercise to reduce fat tissue, a main producer of estrogen, the theory behind the benefits of youthful exercise is that physical activity itself lowers estrogen levels. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that once I got seriously into yoga, my boyfriend became much less irritating.

Photo: www.more4kids.info

Should Parents Delay Puberty for Transgender Children?

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

In the aftermath of media hype about pregnant transgender man Thomas Beattie—much of which threatened to return the “freak” label to the trans community—NPR has run a fascinating story that explains gender identity disorder from the viewpoint of a family living through it.

According to Danielle and Robert (last names were omitted), from the time their son was two-years-old, he insisted on dressing like a girl. From the time he was old enough to talk, he told his parents, “I’m a girl.” Throughout elementary school, he frequently had temper outbursts so severe that his parents sought psychiatric help. Finally, at age 10, he was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, a label that came as a relief to his parents, who could finally stop asking themselves, “What have we done to make this child so unhappy?” And, sure enough, as soon as Danielle and Robert allowed their son to live as a girl, the fights and the tantrums stopped.

The gender identity disorder diagnosis also allowed Danielle and Robert to consider options that were not available only four years ago. By taking monthly injections of medication that stops the body from releasing sex hormones, transgender children are able to postpone puberty, while continuing to grow taller. Then, at around age 16, they may decide to transition to the opposite gender by taking either estrogen or testosterone. By the time they are fully developed adults, they are physically almost indistinguishable from the gender with which they identify.

It probably won’t come as a shock that this is a very controversial program. Not only does taking estrogen or testosterone before puberty cause infertility, but some specialists believe that children cannot know with certainty whether or not they want to live as the opposite sex.

But Danielle and Robert do not see this as a choice for their child, now called Violet. In response to people who say Violet is too young to know that he wants to be a girl, Robert says, “Well, when did you know you were a girl? When did I know I was a boy? I knew my whole life, I can’t tell you exactly when, but it wasn’t like I was 10 and realized, ‘Oh gee, I must be a boy!’”

I know many liberal-minded people who do not “believe in” being transgender—that is, they do not believe there is a biological basis for the desire to live as the opposite sex. What do you folks think of Danielle and Robert’s story?

Image: prunellavulgaris.wordpress.com

Dora: She's a Character

Amy Kuras — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:33:00 GMT

I don’t know how it happened. One day, my darling daughter was happy with Seame Street, madly in love with Elmo. The next, seemingly as if by decree, she's spouting Spanish and rolling up every stray piece of paper and calling it Map. Yes, like every other two-year-old, the girl had discovered Dora.

And I absolutely hate Dora.

Nothing against her per se, I just hate cartoons (I know, I am going to have to turn in my GenX membership card, especially since I also loathe, wait for it, the Brady Bunch). But I am hating her a little less now after reading this, part of NPR's fascinating "In Character" series that looks at iconic, albeit fictional, people.

A ton of research went into creating Dora. She could have been a squirrel, a martin, and was very nearly a bunny –but interestingly, never a human boy.

She became a Latina girl because Nickelodeon's Brown Johnson had been to a conference on race and gender at the same time producers were developing the show and discovered Latinas were not well represented in the media at all, especially children's media.

So they created a seven-year-old girl who was named for the last syllable of the feminine of the Spanish word for explorer – exploradora. Writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez inspired her last name.

Interestingly, her short bob, tomboyish outfit of shorts and a t-shirt and the fact she's never identified as being from any specific part of Latin America were all carefully crafted aspects of her character.

What they don’t tell us? Who created that ridiculously annoying Boots. Because I would like a word with that guy.

Why Kids Curse

Cole Gamble — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:32:00 GMT

The other day my 1-year-old called me a douche bag. I could be mistaken; he may have been just asking for a cookie. Even though we like to pretend Dalton can say seven or so words, all the “words” are indecipherable and they all kind of sound like “douche bag.”

According to NPR, your kids curse because of—and here comes the big reveal—you. Yep, big “duh” factor. You might say, “nay, my good man, my young master and young miss acquired no such articles of offense from I. It twas from those scurvy-riddled urchins with which my successors associate.” Well, I'm sorry to tell you, as you nervously finger your cravat, they might learn bad words from the kids at school, but your kids taught just as much as they were schooled. They're getting the @#*!s and &%$*!s from you, unless your kid has a nightly date with Cinemax After Dark while you're asleep in bed.

I don't think parents should stop swearing. Personally, I am afraid of anyone who doesn't swear. Not only is swearing a much needed pressure-release button, but to have a passion for swearing is to foster an unconditional love for the language we speak, warts and all. There is a poetry and endless invention to swearing especially when the speaker creates those delectable hybrids by combining expletives together in whimsical, almost Seussian arrangements. Words among my favorites are: (I know the sponsors are watching so, forgive me, but I'll clean this up) “male genitalia/head” and “sexual congress/face” or really exotic smash-ups like “excrement/sexual congress/sexual congress with fecal matter/nose.”

If you are a little more curious about the etymology of the swear, there's a fine article over at howstuffworks.com. There I found out dirty words generally fall into two categories: deistic (related to religion) or visceral (related to the body and it's function). On second thought, maybe you don't want to research your favorite swears. A great swear is like a great joke, it kind of kills it when you have to explain it.

No, I don't think children should be invited to the entire buffet of hard R swear words. That should be another one of those consolation prizes for getting older, like getting a driver's license, drinking alcohol and earning the right to neglect to vote. One day, many years from now, I hope one of my children will come to me and say, “Listen dad, I don't give a shit.” And I will put a hand on their shoulder and tell them “congratulations, my child, you are now grown.”

NPR to Parents: You're Doing it Wrong

Adrienne Martini — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:00:00 GMT

NPR, that formerly crunchy, granola-y bastion of liberal thought, now wants you to know that the education system is doing its best to overcome the shortcomings of loser parents like you.

A few days ago, a story about the value of old-fashioned imagination games aired. In short, kids need fewer structured lessons like ballet or piano and more free time to just play in mixed-age groups.

Yesterday, this story about the value of creative play aired. In short, kids need more structure in the classroom -- for example, a game of freeze where everyone takes a proscribed shape -- and less spontaneous expression.

The two stories aren't as contradictory as they sound. Both are about developing a kid's "executive function," a set of skills that help the child focus on the tasks at hand. Both are about undoing the damage wrought by video games, television and well-meaning parents. And both raise interesting ideas.

Also, both are reported by Alix Spiegel, who seems to have become NPR's new education-and-parental-guilt correspondent. Can't wait to hear what's next.

Photo credit: istockphoto.com

Cookie Monster on NPR

editors — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:30:00 GMT

We're guessing he's the only guest in NPR history to eat his headphones.

Moms at War Face Adjustment at Home

Amy Kuras — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:07:00 GMT

Whatever you think about the war in Iraq, the fact remains that thousands of families have one parent – sometimes even both – serving there. These families face all kinds of hardships that come from having one parent on the other side of the world for a year, or longer, while trying to keep life as normal as possible for the kids at home.

A story aired this week on NPR looked at what happens when these mothers get home. After the hyper-alert, constantly frightening atmosphere of life in a war zone, regular old life in the suburbs was what felt strange, the moms told NPR. Kimber Smith, pictured here, said that her son went through puberty while she was gone. She'd left a little boy and come home to a teen.

Marisa Gonzales' youngest daughter was three when she left for a year in Tikrit. The little girl blamed herself for her mother's departure, and wouldn’t let her out of her sight when she came back. For their mother's part, she found herself, until recently, having trouble connecting to her kids.

For both women, making the shift from tough solider back to nurturing mom was difficult. Kimber Smith told NPR, "You know, it took me a while to unplug the warrior. I'm still in that high-adrenaline mode and now I have to be Mom?"

War sucks, and despite what you might think of this one, these moms who are leaving their families and subjecting themselves to great danger face things most of us never could, and deserve our respect.

More on the Five Second Rule: Maybe it is Okay After All

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 20:14:00 GMT

A while back I wrote up a study on the five second rule. You know, the rule where if you drop something as long as it is on the floor for less than five seconds it is still okay to eat. The study I was looking at then suggested that five seconds could be about five seconds too long if your food is touching bad germs.

Well thank God (or your preferred deity) for NPR and Tom Regan. Tom found a Connecticut College study that I like much better. This study says that wet foods like apple slices are good after they have been on the floor for 30 seconds and if you have hard food, or candy like Skittles of M&Ms they can stay on the floor for even longer without becoming contaminated.

Really what I'm getting out of the study is that candy is much safer to eat than fruit is. Of course, I wouldn't tell my kids that.