Happy Almost-Friday, y’all!

Strapless dresses for 8th graders: yea or nay? One New Jersey school board said a big fat nay, upholding a ban on wearing strapless dresses to a school dance despite protests from parents.

Dress codes are nothing new, and this one might have flown under the radar if not for the distinct and foul stench of sexism. When a parent asked the principal why the girls couldn’t wear strapless dresses, the principal said it would be “distracting to boys.”

WTF?! 8-O

A parent who led the protests made a damn good point when she argued “it’s neither a woman’s nor a girl’s responsibility to control a man’s or boy’s behavior.”

What say you? Did the school have a right to do this? I just think it’s strange to draw such a stark line in the sand over what amounts to a couple of strips of thin fabric.

What else is on your mind today? Chat away!

It’s Tuesday!

We had a lovely yet bittersweet weekend. I mentioned last week that some good friends of ours, who had helped care for our kiddos, were moving to Texas and I was looking for some goodbye gift suggestions. It turned out I had no time to shop for a real gift, because Michael found a great job in Texas and they were leaving ASAP.

They came over to say goodbye on Saturday and Michael told us the big news: thanks to the Dream Act’s deferred action program, he had just been granted legal residency. He told us how everything changed overnight: he qualified for this union job in Texas, he got a driver’s license and his first credit card. He told us how he came over with his mom when he was 7, and how fearful he has felt all these years, driving without a license, losing a job he loved because he was undocumented, etc. He was crying and so was I. “Bendito sea Obama,” his wife Monica said. Amen.

My kids adore them and their beautiful children. We will miss them so much, but I couldn’t be happier for them. I just love it when good things happen to truly good people. I wish it would happen more often.

Do you have any feel good stories to share? What else is on your mind? Chat away!

It’s the weekend, y’all!

Thank goodness for my parents. They agreed to take our kids tonight so DH and I could get a night to ourselves. I’ve been feeling really worn down by the daily drudgery of caring for two young kids lately, so this is a welcome break. The weather will be lovely and we found a great deal on Hotels.com, so we’re headed to Santa Monica 

Let’s talk kids’ books: a couple of nights ago it suddenly dawned on me that DD8 is ready to read Judy Blume books. I adored Judy Blume books when I was a kid. Superfudge was my favorite, and I went on to read all her young adult novels as I got older. So she’s got Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Introducing Sheila the Great on the way from Amazon, and I will gladly read them with her. She has also read her first Beverly Cleary and Laura Ingalls Wilder books in recent weeks.

What were some of your favorite books from childhood? Have you reread them with your own kids, and do you think they still hold up today? I saw a bunch of complaints on recent editions of Judy Blume books because they had been “updated.” For example, instead of asking for records and a toy airplane for Christmas, Peter asks for CDs and mp3s. I thought that was funky, so I purposely looked for older editions.

What else is on your mind? Chat away!

What’s up?

Lord have mercy, it’s the weekend.

And what a week it was, amirite? Everyone agrees it sucked.

So I made a donation to The One Fund, and I bought a sweet tee shirt to run in (all proceeds go to The One Fund). I also did a lot of running this week, which felt therapeutic.

Today we are getting on a train to downtown L.A. for a little family adventure. We will savor the sunshine (projected high temp: 81 degrees  ) and enjoy the history, color and warmth of Olvera Street (the adults might also enjoy a margarita. Or two. Three cheers for not driving!).

How are you fighting the funk? What are you up to this weekend?

Ugh, what a $hitty week this has been.

Between the bombs in Boston, the Senate’s defeat of the gun control legislation, and now this horrific explosion near Waco, Texas, my nerves are pretty shot. Things seem to be going from scary to scarier, and I’ve got nothing profound or reassuring to say. When my daughter asked about the Boston bombing after seeing news footage at the skate shop(!), I found myself spouting platitudes about how she was safe and we are safe and realizing that I was pretty much lying to her. The last two major acts of terror were committed at an elementary school and at a race finish line, two places that are intrinsic to our lives.

And I happen to agree with Sen. Claire McCaskill, who asked a damn good question: if the Boston bombings were immediately considered terrorism, then why wasn’t Sandy Hook?

Can I ask what you are telling your children in light of these recent events? I could use some guidance.

Use this thread to share good news, or a funny joke, or just to vent.

Here is something cool: it’s looking like more than a few MotherTalkers will be meeting up in Chicago during the last weekend in July. Details are being discussed over at the facebook group.

Chat away…

It’s a somber Tuesday morning for me. As a very amateur runner and one-time resident, I can’t stop thinking about yesterday’s horrific attack at the Boston Marathon. I can’t get over the very calculated catastrophe: right at the finish line, when runners are exulting in what their bodies just managed to accomplish. As this piece in the New Yorker said:

When we find out who did this, we may well find some fascination with the event—perhaps a foreign terrorist, or a sick American. Perhaps it was someone who spotted a terribly easy target. Or perhaps it was someone who saw a reflection of the human spirit and decided just to try to shatter it.

Some of you know I was at a shopping mall the day after Sandy Hook, when a shooter put us in lockdown for a couple of hours. Thankfully, no one was hurt that day. Since then I have struggled with fear when in crowded public places, like Disneyland. It never occurred to me to be frightened at a race. Until now 

But I took a lot of comfort in comedian Patton Oswalt’s facebook post:

…This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”

What’s on your mind today?

What’s up?

This is a major disappointment: Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia vetoed a bill that would have granted 180,000 workers in the city earned paid sick days. To this day, no matter how many hours some workers put in on the job, they must choose between taking an unpaid sick day, or worse, being fired when they most need to be home to take care of themselves. Shameful.

On the flipside: Back in the summer of 2009, I testified on behalf of MomsRising.org to have the synthetic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in certain plastics listed as a reproductive toxin under California’s Proposition 65. Progress was slow, but I am happy to report that it was indeed listed last week!

This is sad all around: the Supreme Court will hear a case, in which a 2.5-year-old girl was returned to her biological father because of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a 1978 federal law designed to prevent the removal of American Indian children from Indian families and tribes. The South Carolina couple who raised her until she was most 3, and have not seen her in a year, are contesting the decision.

What else is in the news? What’s up with you?