The Weekly Links

by Sierra on March 13, 2010 · Comments

in Uncategorized

Here is my apparently almost actually weekly round-up of my writing Elsewhere on the Internets.This week, even though I remain as an exhausted working parent, I managed to knock out articles on topics ranging from sleep deprivation to mean girls. Like this:

The High Cost of Clutter – Get Rich Slowly  – Do you have piles of papers lurking on your desk? Mountains of laundry looming beside your bed? Shelves double-stacked with knick-knacks? I have a bit of a clutter problem myself. The other day, I spent an hour looking for the vacuum cleaner, which eventually turned up buried under a pile of laundry almost as tall as I am. All that clutter isn’t just annoying. It’s expensive.

Disney Pulls Back on Princess Brand – Strollerderby – Two days ago, my 5-year-old stood in the living room with one hand on her cocked hip and said, “Those princesses, that’s not really what I’m going for right now. Princess are, like, old-fashioned. They’re really not my style.” Apparently, Disney really does have marketing reps spying on every house in America…

Being a Stepmother (Wicked or Otherwise) – Strollerderby – Literature and pop culture are rife with examples of Wicked Stepmothers, those unloving brutes who force their stepchildren to do impossible chores while coddling their own spoiled brats.

TSA Agent Charged With Child Rape – Strollerderby – A Boston-based TSA agent was charged with child rape, sparking concerns and criticism from privacy and passenger advocates who continue to be unhappy with the new full-body scanners in use at many airports.

Should You Have Kids? – Strollerderby – Wondering whether or not you should have kids? Momlogic has you covered with this decision tree that walks you through all the important questions prospective parents face. Like, “Do you like being puked on?”

Mean Girls On The Playground – Strollerderby – Mean girls. Those pretty, popular, cool girls who use their social power to hurt those less blessed by social fortune. The specter of a popular, predatory prom queen taking down the class nerd with a cutting remark or vicious prank is the stuff of legend, many popular movies, and sometimes a sad fact of real life.

How to Talk To Your Child About Sexting – Strollerderby – Chances are, that by the time your kids hit their teens, they’ll have cell phones burning holes in their hot little pockets. Cell phones with cameras. Some of them will almost certainly use those cameras to take nude or sexually explicit photos of themselves, their girlfriends, or that guy on the back of the bus that dared them to do it.

What Did Kids Do Before Therapy? – Strollerderby – What did kid’s do about their problems back in the day? Only a few generations ago, there was no booming childhood psychiatry industry. Child therapists didn’t have offices in every neighborhood, and medications to treat mental health issues were unheard of.

Sex vs. Sleep – Strollerderby – Last week I wrote about how we’re all working too much and sleeping too little. This week I covered how that trend is ruining our sex lives. I wrote both articles at 1 a.m., when I was conspicuously not sleeping or having sex. Maybe I need to get a life. (I just noticed it is 1 a.m. right now. I am also not sleeping or having sex as I type this. Sigh.)

Hand Sanitizers Don’t Stop Spread of Sickness – Strollerderby – There’s good news for those of us who’ve been rolling our eyes at all the literal hand-wringing we’re expected to do over germs these days. According to a new article in Slate, all those products don’t work to stop the spread of colds and flus.

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Martin and I went to see Amy Goodman and her brother David speak at Tufts a few days ago. During her talk, Amy brought up the Rosa Parks story. Like I did in my essay on the power of small change a few weeks ago, Amy talked about the contrast between the popular imagination of Rosa Parks as an accidental hero and the reality of Rosa Parks as a lifetime activist who spent many years preparing for the moment when her small actions could make a big difference.

When we came home, Rio asked what we’d been doing, and Martin said we’d been to a talk by two writers about how to make the world a better place.

“Like Rosa Parks?” Rio said excitedly. I had no idea she had ever heard of Rosa Parks, and asked her who Rosa Parks was.

After a few sideways attempts like, “She was like Dr. King, and she did the stuff Dr. King did,” Rio launched into this explanation:

Rio has been learning about civil rights in kindergarten for awhile now, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows who Rosa Parks was. Sort of.

I especially love the part of Rio’s version of Rosa Parks’ story where Rosa breaks out jail by cleverly tricking the cops, calls her family for a quick getaway, and then hugs her kids and makes dinner. And then writes a series of articles which are later collected into a book, because, y’know, writing articles is what Mamas do around here, along with hugging their kids and cooking dinner.

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The $1 Family Meal

March 10, 2010

My husband is a great cook, and prepares most of our family meals.
He’s not one of these food show followers who makes a different gourmet recipe every night of the week with the rare vegetables he picked up at the farmer’s market on his way home.
He’s more of an intuitive cook. A guy who can [...]

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“Unautomate Your Finances”

March 9, 2010

Adam Baker, one of my fellow writers at Get Rich Slowly has a new personal finance guide out as of today, for sale on his website, Man Vs. Debt.
With a title like “Unautomate Your Finances,” Adam’s approach would seem to be the opposite of my new banking scheme, where I used my automated banking to [...]

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Better late than never, here are last week’s Links

March 8, 2010

I had a sudden attack of Playing Outside and Taking Long Naps over the weekend, so no posts. Here’s what I was up to last week:
Working Parents Are Exhausted – Strollerderby – Almost 60 percent of middle-class households have both parents working outside the home. And we’re exhausted by it.
Protecting Baby’s Hearing – Strollerderby – [...]

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Can’t Sleep Without A Princess

March 5, 2010

Serena’s been a bit of a bedtime rebel lately. She’s mostly sleeping through the night, waking up only briefly to pee and get a glass of water around 2 a.m.
But she just not falling asleep at bedtime. She goes through the whole bath-book-bed routine with her dad and sister. Rio drops off to sleep like [...]

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Endless Snacks

March 4, 2010

Ever since I wrote that article for Strollerderby about how it’s Snack Time All The Time for America’s kids, I’ve been seeing snacks everywhere.
I thought, before that, that my own kids were not big snackers. We have two set “snacktimes” a day, at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. The kids usually get slices of fruit and some [...]

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Sleep Training: Cruel or Kind?

March 3, 2010

Sleep has been the albatross around the neck of my parenting life for the past six years.
I have a piece up at Strollerderby this week about sleep training.
Seems that parents who feel OK about letting their babies cry it out are more successful at getting their little ones to sleep. I am not that parent.
Before [...]

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Why I Quit Everything

March 2, 2010

Last September, when my five-year-old started kindergarten, she also went to swimming lessons twice a week, gymnastics class once  a week, music class on Saturday mornings, and a weekly play group at the community growing center.
My toddler had a lighter schedule, comprised of only swim lessons and a weekly playdate at the library. I had [...]

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Where Do Feet Go At Night?

March 1, 2010

Rio has moved into this fascinating conversational period. She’s making up stories like anything, and thinking a lot about how the world works. I guess that’s how she always is. Here’s an example:
“Mama, do you want to know where my feet go at night? While I’m sleeping?”
“Um…sure.”
“They go OUT.”
“Oh, really?”
“They go out and take ballet [...]

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