Towards the end of last year, Disney announced that Tangled would be their last fairytale movie. The moms at GeekMom are conflicted: One the one hand, an end to fairytales (a gender-disguised way of saying “princess movies”) means an end to “frilly dresses, glitz, and helplessness of the princess,” it’s also means an end to one life-lesson delivery system. The post points out that what we think of as princess-y qualities (vanity, helplessness, Prince Charming-obsessed, self-centeredness ) don’t actually match up Belle, Jasmine and Ariel. The GeekMom post is lengthy, but well worth the read. Where do you stand on princesses?
The Wall Street Journal published an essay Saturday on “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” Superior here means raising more children who are stereotypically successful than their Western counterparts. And raising kids who get picked first for sports teams means jack. Likewise the star of the school play. Or kids with excellent social skills. (Not to say that those Asian moms won’t raise the well-socialized kids, just saying that it’s not the metric used to measure success) Read more...
Did you know that the adorable Jorge and Alexa Magnetic Zeros video isn’t the only awesome video we came across yesterday? I know right? There’s also this Star Wars PSA — how to introduce your kids to Star Wars. Well, some of it is pretty common sense, “There’s no question that you should star with A New Hope,” but we can see how it might be nice to get other parents’ opinions on how to explain the Force and midichlorians and such.
So long as the end results stay this awesome, we’d be happy to see these video invitations become a trend. Who doesn’t want to go to Tad and Elijah’s knight-themed party? (via ohdeedoh)
Have you heard of the Canadian Family Robinson? They’re a “homeschooling, RV-living, green-minded, traveling, happy family of 7 living their lives in the best way they can for themselves and the earth!” Follow their adventures and monitor the progress on their house. We can’t wait to hear from their 5-year-old, Ocean, who is described as a “mermaid scientist.” (Mermaid Scientist sounds like a superexcellent Saturday morning cartoon and/or graphic novel. We now wonder if this family has that phrase trademarked…) Read more...
So, Will Smith’s son Jaden, star of the Karate Kid re-make, recently attended a Disney star friend’s birthday party… with a bodyguard in tow. We agree with Perez Hilton here: we kinda think Jaden would have been safe at a fellow celebrity kid’s birthday party without a bodyguard.
To combat all those my-favourite-album-of-2010-is-better-than-your-favourite-album-of-2010 arguments, Flavorwire has stereotyped you by your pick for the year’s best. We really don’t drink that much!
Looking to share a little Christmas joy with a Harry Potter fan in need? If you’re in Calgary, you’re (or really, said fan is) out of luck. The Calgary Herald reports that the Salvation Army is not accepting Harry Potter or Twilight-themed gift donations. A spokesperson for the organization told the Herald that the “Christian aid organization doesn’t support witchcraft, witchery and black magic.
Speaking of Christmas joy, ohdeedoh‘s craft round-up is terrific. We will for sure be making some of these disposable cup-based ornaments. And the crayon ones too.
Yesterday, if you’ll recall, we were less than thrilled with a Babble post that showed you various ways to sneak vegetables into your kids’ food. Bits of broccoli = healthy sprinkles? No. Just… no. Today, Babble has a post from a mom who refuses to lie to her children about vegetables. Now, we know that Babble is a responsible news source that presents all the sides to every issue, but we’d like to think it was our Twitter-baiting yesterday that brought about this honest pro-vegetable post. Pass the victory crudités platter, please. Read more...
