Via the NY Times, former Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback writes, briefly and brilliantly about the plight of the American family and our youth two generations removed from the free love revolution. Over the past five decades in the United States, the marriage rate has gone down and the divorce rate has gone up. In…
Category: Parenting
A Feminist’s Regrets
Lori Gottlieb has written what can only be described as a soul-baring essay about her regrets over never having married. Highly recommended reading, though many "liberated" women may have a difficult time acknowledging what Gottlieb has to say about her own misspent 20s and 30s. Of course, we’d be loath to admit it in this…
Dishonorable Parenting
First there came the sickening Chicago case of the Hindu man from India who set his daughter – who was pregnant, son-in-law, and the couple’s 3-year-old toddler. Why did Subhash Chander burn his three close relatives to death while they slept? The India native told police he disliked his son-in-law because he belonged to a…
Spare the Rod
More silliness from one of the bluest states of them all: The Boston Herald reported that State Rep. Jay Kaufman filed the spanking ban petition at the request of an Arlington, Mass., nurse who wants Massachusetts to become the first state in the country to stop corporal punishment. Personally I don’t really care what the…
Parents, Kids, Guns
Judging from this article in the Boston Globe, the parenting situation in Beantown is worse than I could have imagined: Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children’s bedrooms. The program, which is…
Sports, Kids, and Parents
I recently had a chance to observe the goings-on at a YMCA roller hockey game for 8 and 9 year-olds held in The Woodlands, Texas. Be forewarned, I’m the parent of one of the visiting team’s players. However, as our team won at least 10-0, I lost count of the goals scored, so it’s hardly…
Police Officer Fired
In Austin, Texas, the AP reports a police officer has been fired for taping the mouth of a belligerent teenage suspect shut. The suspect was asked repeatedly to “please be quiet”; after he continued his behavior, the officer taped his mouth shut. Sounds like something the boy’s parents should have done long ago. In true…
Child Abductions
Alarmed by the recent rash of child abductions? Read Jonathan Alter’s take on the subject. The bottom line is this: don’t leave your children alone if they are too young to defend themselves.