Things about parenting

I have a lot of tabs saved for eventual blogging, but all my comings and goings from work and baby and what-all leave me squeezed for non-photographic blogging. Anyway, I noticed a theme (!) among several tabs, resulting in this deep post.

• How (and why) to teach a kid to argue. I suspect that Speck will have to master these skills (and early appreciation for sarcasm) to survive in our household as well.
  (via kottke, I think)
  
  
• I suspect that I've blogged this article before, but it's worth another visit: what's wrong with Cinderella? That is, with the re-shaping of all things girl into the form of a princess.

  “Playing princess is not the issue,” argues Lyn Mikel Brown, an author, with Sharon Lamb, of “Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers’ Schemes.” “The issue is 25,000 Princess products,” says Brown, a professor of education and human development at Colby College. “When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”

  (via kottke, in the context of Pixar's plans...)
  
  
• Every parent's fear: facing down bullies -- turns out you need to involve everybody, most especially the spectators, if you want the best outcomes for all involved.

  “Olweus’s genius,” he said, “is that he manages to turn the school situation around so the other kids realize that the bully is someone who has a problem managing his or her behavior, and the victim is someone they can protect.”

  (via rebecca's pocket)

Update: here is one more, making the interesting argument that a cure for teen driving fatalities is to change patterns of development to create communities where teens won't need to spend so much time in cars. (Let me add that this benefits the elderly, as well, as driving safety declines long before other forms of mobility and independence dissipate.)
(via Atrios)