Bunchland

What we’re reading today:

1. Anderson Cooper talks about kids and race. In a recent study, 6-year-olds think kids should have interracial friendships; by 13, not so much.

2. Do you have a tween? Are you about to have a tween? Get ready for the Drama Years.

3. The true cost of breastfeeding: moms who nurse longer lose out on income that their peers don’t.

4. Obviously motherhood is tough and exhausting, but one childless woman says quit your whining since it’s just pouring salt in the wound. (We don’t see any problem with venting your frustrations, but maybe just to a selective audience.)

5. Are you pregnant and you know it? Do you want to sing about it?

Yesterday: Play date waivers, Europe’s Easter egg shortage and you didn’t imagine it, your kids get less cute at about 4 1/2. (Well fine, maybe not your kids, but everyone else’s)  Read more...

What we’re reading today:

1. With the changes to autism diagnoses, some parents are worried about reductions in services with their kids’ treatment.

2. Do you love Valentine’s Day? Do you hate it? Do you have to mask your hated of this Hallmark holiday since you have kids and they’re expected to give out valentines to everyone in their class?

3. How to raise racist kids: Don’t point out any ethnic differences ever. Turns out we do need to talk about our differences with our kids, and probably sometime before age 9.

4. We’re having a hard time wrapping our heads around this one: one child development prof says that moms and dads need assigned roles and dads need to spend more time playing with the kids while moms tidy up.

5. And while this has nothing to do with parenting or kids, can we just take a few moments to appreciate Adele at the Grammy’s?  Read more...

To commemorate this holiday, here’s a round-up of our finest stuff on the iconic civil rights activist

Without fail, social movements inspire art. Ella Jenkins started making music when the civil rights movement was still new. Her 50 year career came to earn her the title of “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song” . Featuring many soulful African American spirituals, her work honors the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. We recommend “Wade in the Water” from her 1960 album African American Folk Rhythms. Give her a listen!

Picture book biographies, folk painting portraits, and a guest appearance from King’ s older sister: our MLK inspired Bunchbrary includes 14 stellar reads for all ages. Books are a great way to open up discussion about racism, segregation and standing up for your rights.  Read more...

What we’re reading today:

1. Parents say they’d like more time to help teach their kids.

2. Cheerios is introducing a new peanut butter flavour, but since Cheerios are such a toddler standard and their food gets all over the place, moms of nut-allergic kids are rather concerned.

3. Some really, really dumb school in Atlanta is teaching racism. Like, how many beatings will a slave get in a week if they’re beaten twice a day. We’re not kidding. How does this happen?

4. One psychologist says that to deny kids what they want shows your prejudice against children, or childist. We think the Veruca Salt photo is pretty apt.

5. Ah Maurice Sendak! Why was there no Where the Wild Things Are 2? Go to hell!

Photo by BenSpark via Flickr

Meri Perra blogs about the challenges she and her partner face in trying to raise their girls with feminist values

I’ll admit we’ve let some things slide since becoming parents of two. Almost immediately following the birth of our beloved Lileith, we began using disposable diapers (and usually not the chlorine-free kind), paper towels, and worse, Lysol wipes. We frequent multinationals with parking lots much more often than our local merchants. Protests happen we don’t even know about.
And it’s all in the name of convenience, followed by the always popular, “we don’t have enough time; we’ve got little kids” excuse.

When we’ve let so much slide already, I’ve wondered where it will stop. Will we start to believe in tax cuts before national childcare? Gravy train cuts over public services? Never. Some values are so fundamental even convenience and disorganization can’t defeat them. I hope.  Read more...

The New York Public Library and the District of Columbia Public Library’s Bunchbrary

We’ve bumped this week’s Bunchbrary up a day to include some great reads for Martin Luther King Day. Martin Luther King Day is a great opportunity to talk to your kids about racism, segregation and standing up for your rights.

Books for ages 4-8:

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. by David A. Adler, illustrated by Robert Casilla
A brief, illustrated, biography of the Baptist minister and civil rights leader whose philosophy and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience helped American blacks win many battles for equal rights.

Martin Luther King by Rosemary L. Bray, paintings by Malcah Zeldis
Folk-art paintings enhance the text of this portrait of the courageous civil rights leader.  Read more...

We talked to New York Public Library children’s librarian Betsy Bird

What should parents do to teach their kids more about MLK and Civil Rights?

Reading books is the number one best way. Ask your local libraries for the best books as there are always new ones coming out. Use the day off as an opportunity to talk to your kids and make sure they know their own history. But the bottom line is, just do it. Some parents are uncomfortable talking about what people had to put up with before Civil Rights. And there are a lot of violent images associated with the Civil Rights Movement— police setting dogs and fire hoses on peaceful protesters, Dr. King’s assassination, but these are important points of our history.

How do you introduce the topic of Civil Rights to kids?  Read more...