Strollerderby : germany

Family Seeks Political Asylum for Right to Homeschool

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:30:00 GMT

The Romeikes may well be the first family in the history of the world to seek political asylum for their right to homeschool. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike have recently moved from Germany to Tennessee with their five children—who range in age from three to eleven—after authorities tried to force their children to attend public school, in accordance with German law. Uwe and Hannelore are seeking political asylum here, claiming that they were prosecuted in Germany for their religious beliefs.

The Romeikes are evangelical Christians, and they objected to textbooks that include such information as slang words for sex and stories about witches. After they decided to keep their children home from school, the principal contacted them and urged them to return their children to the classroom. When they refused, police sent a letter informing the Romeikes that they were incurring fines for each day their children were not in school. When the Romeike kids still did not show up at the local school, police came to their home and took the crying children to school themselves.

Germany is unique for its institutionalized commitment to educating all children in the same manner. But despite the German law that all children must attend public school, about 500 children are homeschooled in Germany (albeit a fraction of the 1.5 million American children who are educated at home), and authorities say it is rare that the state intervenes in a parent’s decision to homeschool. It’s unknown why the Romeikes, who lost a court case over their right to homeschool, were deemed unfit to teach their children at home.

Uwe Romeike fears that he would imprisoned and his children would be taken from him if the family returned to Germany, where it is legal, in extreme cases, to remove children who are kept home from school from their parents’ care.

Do you think that the right to homeschool is a sufficient grounds for political asylum?

Photo: hslda.org

Bad Parent: Did German Polar Bear Eat Her Baby?

Kate Tuttle — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:30:00 GMT

Vera, a popular mama bear in the Nuremberg Zoo, is suspected of having eaten one of a pair of twins she gave birth to last month. Additionally, it seems that she may not be caring properly for the surviving twin.

This bear is also the mother of Flocke, a celebrity bear cub -- this year's Knut! -- whom she rejected after giving birth to last year. Flocke (that's her in the picture), who was hand-raised after her mother stopped feeding or caring for her, is on track to follow Knut into the post-adorable celebrity phase (overweight, "addicted to humans," suffering from zoochosis) over the next few years.

Now Nuremberg officials are watching the live video feed to see whether they need to step in and rescue yet another of Vera's children. As for the dead newborn, nobody has seen its body (which Vera had been nudging around and observing), leading experts to conclude that she probably ate it.

So, did she do it? Ummm, probably. Despite all the anthropomorphizing in the world, cute snow white panda bears are really just wild animals, as prone to eating their young as any other beast (remember your pet hamster as a child?). Still, what (if anything) does this tell us about zoos in general? About polar bears as celebrities in Germany?

More by this author:

German Mother Found Guilty of Killing, Freezing Babies

Kate Tuttle — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:02:00 GMT

In a sad, disturbing story out of Germany, a woman has been found guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of two of three dead babies found in her freezer by her teenaged son, who was only looking for a Coke.

Prosecutors had sought jail time for the woman, 44-year-old Monika Halbe, while her defense team had asked for probation only in the case, which involved the deaths in 1988 and 2003 of baby girls (a third daughter, born in 1986, was also found frozen, but the statute of limitations had expired in that case). Apparently Halbe had turned herself in to police after her son made the discovery.

According to the International Herald Tribune, "she kept the babies' bodies in the freezer because she wanted them to remain near to her." She did not say how they had died, but the court found that she had killed them. Apparently this kind of thing has happened in Germany before; the story ends with this:

In the worst case, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.

Maternal filicide is a horror that happens in all cultures, of course, but this story feels particularly gothic, perhaps because of the Hansel and Gretel overtones, or the idea of such a cold grave.

More by this author:

A Grandmother's Right? Or Totally Obnoxious?

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

Health Scam: Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Santa Shortage Strikes Germany

JeanneSager — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:31:00 GMT

It's no surprise the requirements to be hired on as Santa Claus in Germany are exacting. In Teutonic tradition, the engineering of a German Santa takes stock of the tenor of the voice, the quality of the accent, the background in carols. Are they asking too much?

Apparently, yes. As the European economy falters, there's one employer still searching high and wide for good candidates. Yes, Virginia, in Germany there is a shortage of Santa Clauses.

According to a report in London's Sunday Times, recruitment is off by German Santa placement agencies (yes, they exist) this year in ever section of the country. Compounding the problem is a record number of private parties being thrown by families trying to offset the grim economy with a little holiday cheer. They're trying to book a Santa, and the jolly old man can't make it.

If it sounds silly, check out the paycheck. These Santas - who work the malls as well as the family party circuit, make as much as sixty euros an hour. Using the latest exchange rate, that's about $76 an hour. To smile a lot and be nice to some kids? Sign me up for that gig. Of course, therein lies the paradox. They're good-paying jobs, but they're not handing them out to just anyone. One Berlin-based recruiter told the Times at least ten percent of applicants are turned away because they don't fit the bill.

What does it really take to be a good Santa? They want a low tenor of voice, an extensive repertoire of Christmas songs and poetry, a jollity and spontaneity and a love of children. To top it off, they can't be "too young." Considering some of the mall Santas I've seen here in the states (who'd put the drunk Saint Nick from the parade scene in Miracle on 34th Street to shame), it might behoove American Santa recruiters to take a page out of the German book.

Of course, we might then be struck by the Santa shortage. But wouldn't you rather have too few good Santas than an overabundance of Billy Bobs?

Image: Amazon

XBox Writes Santa Letter for Your Kids

Santa Claus Can Call Them For You

Are Elementary School Thanksgivings Racist Or Just Outdated?

33 year old mom wins silver medal, saves son from leukemia

Brett Singer — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Dara Torres is an inspiration to many, competing in the Olympics at age 41, and winning. But I think the story of Oksana Chusovitina, a German gymnast, might be even more inspiring.

Here's the deal: Oksana is from Uzbekistan. Her son was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 3. There were no beds for him in her home country. Because of her gymnastics ability, she was able to move to Germany and join their team, while also getting her little boy the treatment he needed.

He seems to be doing better now, and to make the story even better, she just won a silver medal. She's also 33 years old in a sport where 22 is considered really old. Congratulations to her, and to her son.

Source/image: Detroit Free Press

Olympic Parenting: Oksana Chusovitina and Alisher

Gold (OK, Silver) Medal Girlcrush: Dana Torres

Volleyball hasn’t come a long way, baby

Baby survives tornado

Aussie Rower keeps his kids close

Egyptian woman gives birth to septuplets because she wanted a boy

Protesters and journalists arrested in China (video)

Whole lotta fakin' goin' on at the opening ceremony

Team more mature than coach

Jon Stewart Tackles Olympic Controversies

Olympics Opening Uses One Girl's Voice, Another Girl's Face

Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Like father like son

Woman Finds Frozen Siblings While Searching for Pizza

Madeline Holler — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Ugh! Between the Austrian father/grandfather dungeon master and this little bit of nastiness out of Germany, you gotta wonder what the hell was going on in Europe in the early '80s.

While the 18-year-old daughter of a German couple was searching for frozen pizza in the family deep-freeze, she came across not one, not two, but THREE bagged up and frozen babies, who turned out to be her siblings.

She confronted her mother and they all went to the authorities, who are now investigating. Apparently, the mother -- a rather corpulent, zaftig woman -- had been pregnant and given birth several times without anyone in the family knowing.

Why the mother kept the pregnancies and births a secret, whether they were born alive, and why she froze them are still unanswered questions.

Polar Bear Raised by Humans - AGAIN

Brett Singer — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:15:00 GMT

When I first saw this story I thought it was just a cute little news item about a bear being raised by humans. Kind of "man bites dog." It turns out that this is some kind of German trend.

The Berlin Zoo made a splash in 2007 when the staff removed a polar bear named Knut from his mother and raised him themselves. Now the Nuremberg Zoo has done the same thing with Snowflake ("Flocke" in German). Zoo officials feared that Snowy was in danger of being eaten by her mom. Apparently Snowflake's mom, Vera, was under suspicion because (a) another Polar mom, Vilma, "gave birth at around same time as Vera but is believed to have killed and eaten her cubs because they were sick." Then Vera was seen hiding her newborn cub and schlepping it around in her mouth, although there was no evidence of violence. The zoo, taking no chances, got the little bear away from Vera (a midnight raid, perhaps?) and are now raising her themselves. Four zookeepers are in charge of Snowflake's care.

Somewhat like the producers of the new 'Hulk' movie, it seems that German zoos do not learn from their mistakes. Knut, the first German bear raised by humans, "is a 'psychopath' addicted to human company and will never mate," according to Zoologist Peter Arras. Frank Albrecht, a German animal rights activist who called for Knut to be killed in March of 2007, said that "animals reared in captivity become hyperactive, disturbed, overdependent freaks." (Maybe Britney Spears should have been raised in the wild?)

One big difference between the two bears is that Knut was "rejected" by his mother, whereas Snowflake was merely in danger of possibly being eaten, because another Polar mom had eaten her kids. Another possible motivation, or at least a side benefit, is the media attention and fundraising potential. Snowflake's first public viewing attracted more than 300 journalists, and the zoo sold 600 posters at €10 each (which, at current exchange rates, is roughly 12 billion dollars, right? I'm kidding, of course).

Here's an idea: get these two crazy kids together! Knut's a guy, Snowflake is a girl... Knut has already expressed his love for Snowy on his MySpace blog. I guess being raised by humans has some advantages, such as learning to type.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some videos of the two bears in action.

An upcoming movie about Knut:

Baby Flocke (aka, the future Mrs. Knut)

Knut loves his human daddy (screw you, Frank Albrecht!)

images: independent.co.uk, thisislondon.co.uk

Book of the Week: Knut

editors — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Life was rough at Zoo Berlin for the two polar bear cubs born on December 5, 2006. Little Knut (pronounced K’-noot) and his brother were rejected by their mother and tragically the other cub died on day four. Enter Thomas Dörflein, the zookeeper that stayed with Knut around the clock and just like any new parent, made sure feedings and cuddling were frequent.

Knut quickly captured the world’s attention as the cute and furry face of global warming and extinction, so naturally the precocious six-year-old author of New York Times bestseller, Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship jumped on the story. Isabella Hatkoff (now nine) and her older sister Juliana penned this tale of environmental responsibility with their father and Dr. Gerald R. Uhlich of Zoo Berlin.

Thanks to Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World and those tragic broadcasts of polar bears eternally swimming, the polar bear is rapidly becoming the fauna du jour. Considering they could actually become extinct in our lifetime, it is attention needed. Knut is also the subject of a documentary, Knut and Friends, is the subject of celebrity gossip and has his own blog.

Even if your children are too young to understand “biodiversity catastrophe” you can simply show them the beautiful photographs of Knut rolling in sand, eating Dörflein’s shoes and read the sidebars of fun quotes such as:

As German announcers put it, “Knut, das Eisbärbaby superstar!”

-April Peveteaux

Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World (Scholastic, 2007) is available on Amazon.

Book of the Week appears every other Friday. Sometimes every Friday. We’re fickle like that.

Achtung! German Hausfraus are Actually Men

Madeline Holler — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:02:00 GMT

The big news in this report is supposed to be that way more fathers are becoming temporary stay-at-home dads in Germany than officials expected. By the third quarter of a new maternity leave incentive program -- which is intended to encourage more Germans to procreate and reverse their declining population -- nearly 10 percent of the applicants were fathers.

That's great, love to see it, equal time, blah, blah.

But what I'm sitting in a depressed puddle of my own ruggedly independent, red, white and blue urine about is the program. Get this:

Whichever parent takes advantage of it, they get a subsidy of up to a little more than $36,000 for a year. The parent taking the year off gets two-thirds of his or her salary for 12 months up to $2,600 per month. Another parent can take an additional two months also getting two-thirds pay. Tax free for both.

And I know someone's going to write in and say something to the effect that people have to be responsible for their own children, etc., and go head and make your case, whoever you are. But also keep reading, because you're going to love what one German guy who took advantage of the program said:

"The politicians act as if it's a huge gift, but actually it's not -- it's an improvement, but I think even more would stay at home if they could afford it," said Dommer, from Berlin.

Damn, culture shock! Here I felt grateful to cobble together vacation time, sick days and some shitty 50 percent pay for six weeks deal at my employer to get three months of maternity leave. And this German guy thinks up to nearly $37,000 in a year is not enough! God I love Europeans!

And sure, even the full 36,000 doesn't go so far in Germany, especially in the cities. And I can't help but wonder whether single parents even bother with this, or if there's something else out there to help support them. But you just know that after babyhood, there are all kinds of playgroups and childcare centers and Kindergartens and all that, probably pretty cheap, probably pretty good.

386,000 people signed up for the 1.4 billion Euro program, so officials have had to cook the books a little to come out on budget. Next year, they're allotting 4 billion Euros. I think Americans spend that much in a weekend of light-fighting with insurgents in Iraq.

Photo: Bilderbox

Swimming Babies Get the Runs

Karen Murphy — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 12:32:00 GMT

See? I knew there was something wrong about swimming babies. Give me enough time and I'll dig up the proof to anything. No, seriously, this article just popped up. Who knew that Germany was studying the effects of early swimming on the health of babies?

It turns out there are several effects linked to baby-swimming that you may want to avoid and can avoid simply by keeping your baby out of public pools for the first year:

The dreaded ear infection, colds, and diarrhea. Avoid this trifecta at all costs!

A study was made of about 2100 six-year olds whose medical histories were examined against their swimming histories. Children who didn't swim regularly in their first year had a lower risk of having had the aforementioned maladies. (I won't go into what they said about asthma, which was the reverse of what you'd expect, but researchers figure that asthmatic babies likely wouldn't be taken to the pool in the first place, so the fact that the non-swimming babies had a higher incidence of asthma is, they feel, circumstantial. Oops, I went into it. Oh well).

The reason for the higher incidence of illness?

Yummy pathogens brought into pools by non-bathing swimmers. In other words, in public pools you're swimming in other people's crap, mucous, and skin flakes (mm, that makes you want to hop right into a pool, doesn't it?). And since babies have less-developed immune systems, they can't handle the crap and mucous and skin flakes as well as we adults can, so they get sick.

[cough] I'm feeling kind of sick right now, thank you.

Bottom line, wait a bit before getting your baby into the (public) pool.

World's Tiniest Baby, Maybe

Kelly Mills — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:27:00 GMT

Balance is restored to the universe. A giant baby is born in Russia, and a very small baby is born in Germany. Well, actually she was born a bit ago, but she's made it through six months in the incubator and the good news is she gets to go home with her parents now. She emerged 15 weeks premature, and weighed 10 and a half ounces. That's tiny. Like, less than one in a thousand survival odds tiny. It's about the size of my cell phone, and yes, I have the old-fashioned kind you hold in your hand, not the Star Trek ear-perched kind you wear at all times to look like an ass.

For more size perspective, at six months old now, she weighs 5 and a half pounds. That is considerably less than my daughter's birth weight.

But there is, um, one thing here I don't get. The headline says, "World's Tiniest Baby" but then the last line of the article is "The world's smallest known surviving baby was Rumaisa Rahman who weighed just 8.6 ounces when she was born in Chicago in 2004." I'm no expert on smallest babies, but isn't 8.6 ounces less than 10.5? Then I get the feeling maybe there's some key piece of information I'm missing, but since it might make me sad, I'm not looking too hard.

Photo: Bild Zeitung

Farm Kids Poop Better

Karen Murphy — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:34:00 GMT

Let's face it, we don't talk about our bowels nearly enough.

See? I just said "bowels" and yours began to clench a little, didn't they?

So imagine you're a kid with inflammatory bowel disease or Crohn's Disease or something, where every day is a struggle between the eating and the pooping. I knew a kid like this once and her every waking moment was pretty much consumed with it.

Now imagine you are a kid growing up on a farm in Germany. And you're dancing around the maypole lalalalala because you don't have to even think about your bowels, they are just there doing what they are supposed to. Because something about the microbe-intense environment on farms keeps kids from having bowel-specific diseases.

More microbes means healthier kids? I think I can slack off on the cleaning then.

Either that or we can just issue every kid a goat.

Americans Apparently Hate Cartoon Nudity

Karen Murphy — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:46:00 GMT

Whew! What a relief! American kids and parents have been saved from cartoon nudity! I am so glad that U.S. publishers are on the job, protecting our delicate sensibilities from lascivious cartoon drawings of .5 mm (what is that in inches? I forget 'cause we're not metric. Oh, I remember: MINISCULE! PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE!) penises.

So, whatever, the U.S. will be like the only country in the world not to embrace the charming illustrations of author/illustrator Rotraut Susanne Berner, famous everywhere in the universe but, well, here. Who else could illustrate a children's book by Sylvia Plath and make it work?

The book in question, already a hit in Germany, contained some drawings in an art gallery setting. Where there's, you know, art and stuff. And one painting depicted, in cartoon style, a cartoonish naked woman. GASP!! And there was a tiny 7 mm (ugh, the metric thing again) statue of a naked man-person. I know! Can you believe it??! I am, like, so aghast at this. (And look at the obvious interest with which the woman examines Mr. Happy there! She's clearly looking right.at.it. And smiling!)

U.S. publishers asked Ms. Berner to make some changes to more adequately reflect the obvious prudery of the intended audience, and she wisely refused. She would have been happy placing black rectangles over the offending parts, but as that would have clued people in that hello! censorship is happening here! the publisher declined. And thus the American audience is spared the startling sight of tiny nudity in a children's book.

I know I, for one, will be sleeping better at night knowing this.

More German Homeschooled Children Threatened with Removal from their Families

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:11:00 GMT

Remember the case of the 15-year old German girl taken from her parents because they homeschooled her? Human rights activist concerns that this could open the door to other homeschooled children being removed from their families, is proving true.

A court in Saxony (the same court that removed the 15-year old) has ordered 5 children into state custody. Though the children have not yet been taken from their parents, they could be removed any day. The ruling realizes the fear of many concerned groups who believe that in its efforts to insure public education remains free of ideology and extremism, the government has missed the mark and vastly overstepped its rights.

The notion that a government, or any person, can remove children from parents if the parents aren't following stated guidelines and rules is so frightening. I'm usually an avid defender of government programs and public education. But these occurrences leave me absolutely speechless.

In Germany, Homeschooling is Illegal: 15-Year Old Girl Taken from Homeschooling Parents

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:21:00 GMT

One of the difficult things about being a parent is the crazy basket of horrible dark thoughts one does battle with daily. Particularly haunting are thoughts involving someone taking away a child, but usually government isn't the evildoer. Unfortunately a family in Germany is facing a version of this terrible nightmare. The German government removed their 15 year old daughter from parental custody and placed her in foster care -- location unknown (to her parents). The girl was forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation (as were her parents) for "school phobia" and the status of her case remains in question.

While I'm not a huge fan of homeschooling, I find it hard to believe that the German government has outlawed it all together, causing some families to leave the country to pursue homeschooling for their children. International homeschooling organizations as well as human rights groups are attempting to intervene on behalf of the Busekros family and daily updates are kept on the Gottsegnet blog.

In defense of government actions, Wolfgang Drautz argues that the government has a "legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole." One of the fairer qualities of a civil society is its ability to tolerate differences and not require lockstep within all sectors. The German effort to control education and punish those not willing to abide by state defined acceptable modes of educational traditions sounds hauntingly familiar. Hitler originally made homeschooling illegal. Need I say more?

German Baby Boom From World Cup Euphoria

Karen Murphy — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:14:00 GMT

Ya gotta love the Germans. Often described as being kind of staid and uptight and maintaining a placid exterior, apparently they're also seething underneath with unmet passions that can be unleashed by a combination of the consumption of multiple litres of beer and their country hosting the coveted World Cup. A friend of mine is German and Argentinian, heritage from two countries that figure prominently in the World Cup, and from what I gather from him the passion that's evoked by this event is something that most Americans can't comprehend. Apparently it's like a month's worth of Super Bowls and Mardi Gras all at once, except that it also foments enormous pride and patriotism, so much more than simple team spirit. For my friend, it's enough to get him to drag out the television once a year that normally lives unwatched in a closet (if you knew him you'd know what an incredibly big deal that is).

So now there's a baby boom going on in Germany which is being linked to last summer's World Cup. This boom is much needed, since Europe's largest economy also has the lowest birth rate in the world relative to its overall population, a fact that has become something of a concern with fewer than 1.4 babies being born there for every woman. Go Germany!

Germany Says Kill Violent Video Games

Karen Murphy — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:44:00 GMT

Germany is using its clout with the European Union to severely restrict use of video games not only in Germany but across the entire EU, banning outright the most violent. Germany "has proposed a national law banning games that depict violence toward human characters", which would result not only in a ban of games like "Counter Strike", blamed for a recent school shootup in which 37 people were injured, but also of popular movie-themed titles such as the “Star-Trek” series, “The Lord of the Rings,” “The Battle for Middle-Earth II” and “Scarface: The World Is Yours.” This proposed move is justified by thoughts like: "A certain degree of linkage between the growing violence among the younger generation and the growing diffusion of violent games exists."

I'm all for banning video games. In Waldorf parlance, some of the kool-aid of which I have drunk, Video Games = BAD. (Except the fun ones, of course) But, a ban? Outright? What would that do, exactly, except line the pockets of the bootleggers? And hasn't anyone ever heard of the truism that making things forbidden to kids simply makes them more attractive? Don't German authorities have anything better to do than crack down on video games? How about organizing a fun new group for children? Hey, I've got a great name for it: "Deutsches Jungvolk". Or in English, it could simply be: "Hitler Youth."

German Parents Go Nuts Over Subsidy

Patti — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:00:00 GMT

American parents are often envious of the financial resources we hear are available to parents in other countries--long maternity and paternity leaves, tax breaks that Americans don't have access to. That's what makes it so interesting to hear about the reaction of German parents to their country's new subsidy for children. German parents have responded pretty much how you would expect we'd respond to such a generous government subsidy: by rescheduling births to ensure that their children will qualify for the funds, and by freaking out and threatening law suits when nature has other ideas.

Gabrielle and Jens Meyer's twins arrived via emergency caesarian on December 29, three days before the cutoff date to qualify for the monthly 2100 Euro subsidy the family would have been eligible for had the babies been able to make it to their January 22 due date. Never mind that the doctor insisted on the earlier birthday because one of the fetuses was having problems in utero, Jens Meyer is planning to appeal directly to German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen and has not ruled out taking it to court.

I shudder to think of the hijinks that would ensue in the US in the same situation.