Blogs > Kid You Not

Kid You Not believes in the Wizard of Oz style of parenting: All you need is a brain, some courage and a heart. Oh, and some Jager.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Bad moos


Forget gasoline, the real price shocker these days is milk.
$5.29.
Wait, let me repeat that. $5.29.
That’s what a gallon of no-fat organic milk costs where we buy groceries, Trader Joe’s. My wife and I decided long ago to let our girls only drink organic milk, which is more expensive than regular milk, which everyone knows can be fatal. Hormones and other stuff that ends up in milk can be harmful to kids. Had I known, though, I’d have to take out a home equity line of credit to buy the stuff, I might have decided that my daughter reaching hormone-induced puberty at age 8 wasn’t neccessarily a bad thing.
For that price, the Trader Joe’s staff should do a killer version of “And I Tell You I’m Not Going” from “Dreamgirls” and then give you a backrub.
Now comes the really bad news. It’s getting worse.
This from the AP: “Dairy market forecasters are warning that consumers can expect a sharp increase in dairy prices this summer. By June, the milk futures market predicts, the price paid to farmers will have increased 50 percent this year — driven by higher costs of transporting milk to market and increased demand for corn to produce ethanol.U.S. retail milk prices have increased about 3 percent, or roughly a dime a gallon, this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But University of Illinois dairy specialist Michael Hutjens forecasts further increases of up to 40 cents a gallon for milk over the next few months, and up to 60 cents for a pound of cheese. That would drive the cost of a gallon of whole milk around the country to an average of $3.78, based on the USDA’s monthly survey of milk prices in 30 metro areas.”
Analyists blame high gas prices and demand in China. I guess Chinese cows are too busy making Crocs shoes for 39 cents and selling them to American parents for $29.95.
The unfunny thing is milk is a crucial part of a child’s diet. Low income parents walk into a supermarket and see 89 cent liters of Coke and $4 gallons of milk. There is something seriously wrong with that. Milk should be an affordable staple of the family diet, not white gold.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Concert of the summer


No, not The Police. I loved them as much as the next new waver, but this seems like a $200 nostalgia trip.
No, not even The White Stripes, my favorite group. They make their Connecticut debut in July at the Chevy Theater. It’s going to be a fantastic show that could only be topped by....
Dan Zanes! If you’ve got young kids and you haven’t seen Dan Zanes and Friends live and bought his records, you’re really missing out. My two daughters have been raised on his music (they’re also sick of hearing stories about Boston circa 1982-83 and how The Del Fuegos were so great).
Zanes and Friends are playing the Shubert Theater in downtown New Haven June 17 (Father’s Day!) as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. The festival people put it nicely: “When the rocker DAN ZANES became a father, he traded his thrashed Stratocaster for a banjo (and a mandolin and a ukelele...) to entertain his daughter and her friends. Such was the hunger for Zanes’ brand of meaningful, handhewn music, that what began as a homemade cassette has become a family music phenomenon, Grammy awards and all. With his shock of graying hair atop a beanpole frame, Zanes is now recognized by toddlers and grateful parents worldwide. An inveterate song-hunter (and a plenty good songwriter himself), Zanes zeroes in on slyly instructive songs in the tradition of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie (“I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister”), re-jiggers songs intended for grownups (like “Fly Me to the Moon”), loves nonsense songs in any language, story songs and lullabies from Africa and South America, and any song from anywhere that gets you up and moving. His live shows are post-millennial hootenannies, all-ages dance parties: Zanes has tapped into the universal appetite for parlor music and sing-alongs. As he sees it, if he’s done his job right, you’ll go home and tune up the old guitar.”
Visit tickets.com to purchase tickets. Tickets are available at the door of all festival events, beginning one hour before the performance. Stand-by tickets for sold-out shows are also available at the door. $24/$18/$10/$7 Children 12 and under – 50% off.
See you there.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

1977: Best year ever


All this talk about the 30th anniversary of “Star Wars” has me thinking about what a great year 1977 was for me. Aside from being 13 and having a girl I was with dump me for some ninth grader, it was a really magical year.
“Star Wars” was a big part of it. If you were a kid in 1977, consider yourself lucky. This was no movie. “Star Wars” was a cultural earthquake. Stephen Colbert, like me a 13-year-old in 1977, said “We went to school the next day unable to explain to our friends how everything was different now.”
I feel sorry for today’s kids, who will probably never experience anything like “Star Wars.”
But that was just the beginning.
I went to my first rock concert. KISS at the Providence Civic Center.
My parents bought me my first stereo. I don’t remember all the brands, but it wasn’t one of those cheapo all-in-ones.
I owned my first pair of cool sneakers. Dark blue Puma Clydes.
My only regret: I wasn’t watching The Price Is Right when a tube top-clad woman named Yolanda Bowsley was called into Contestant’s Row and while running down her breasts popped out of her shirt. I was probably hooking up the stereo.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

3-year-old gone wild

I usually walk my 7-year-old daughter to the bus stop. This morning, my wife had bus stop duty and asked our pajama-clad 3-year-old if she wanted to come along.
“Even with no undies?”
“Sure.”
“Yay! No undies!”

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Newsweek to New Haven-area schools: You suck!


For some reason, Newsweek has decided to list the “top 1,200 public high schools in the nation.” The schools are ranked according to “the number of Advanced Placement, Intl. Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2006 divided by the number of graduating seniors.”
Not a single Greater New Haven public high school made the cut. The closest was one of the Fairfield high schools. Ten state schools were listed.The MSNBC server that allowed you to search the list by state crashed, since every kid, parent, teacher, administrator and real estate agent in the United States was trying to access the list today.
I really don’t understand these list stories, or why I’m so fascinated by them. If Blender magazine puts out a list of the top 200 80’s new wave songs, I’m reading that list and getting angry why The Nails’ “88 lines about 44 women” is only 161st.
But these school lists only seem to breed an unhealthy competitiveness. Newsweek’s message is you better load up on the AP classes. But aren’t college admission people saying they don’t want AP robots and resume freaks? Does every Greater New Haven school suck? Of course not. But right now, a lot of kids and teachers are feeling a little defensive. Also, 1,200 schools is just too many. A better, more instructive story would be “The top 10 high schools in America and how they got there.”
“Deborah was a Catholic girl, she held out to the bitter end. Carla was a different type, she’s the one who put it in...”
Loved that song.

McScourge


This is a plea to Connecticut school principals and superintendents:
Someday soon, if it hasn’t happened already, the Connecticut and Western Massachusetts McDonald’s Owner/Operator Association is going to contact you and make an offer that sounds like fun. Ronald McDonald is available to visit your school and put on a performance about physical fitness and a healthful lifestyle. It’s free and you don’t have to lift a finger. The Association will handle everything and a public relations firm will notify the local media and there might be some favorable coverage of the event. So if you’ve run out of ideas for a school assembly, here’s a great one.
Please, principals, don’t give in to this manipulation. Too much is at stake. McDonald’s serves the worst food you could possibly give your kid. More and more American kids are becoming obese because they eat crap like Big Macs and fries and don’t get enough exercise. Many parents are finally realizing this. They are steering their kids to healthier food choices and limiting fast food. That’s why places like McDonald’s have introduced things like apple slices. The company is desperate to keep customers coming through the door and buying $1 fries.
One key way McDonald’s keeps their brand thriving is to put it in front of kid’s faces. Billboards. Commercials. Merchandizing. But the most insidious and disgusting way is to have schools unwittingly play into this marketing scheme. Here’s what Yale nutrition expert Kelly Brownell told USA today two years ago: “It is a travesty to have a PE program branded by McDonald’s. It further commercializes schools and gets the company even more publicity with children.”
Ronald McDonald appeared at St. Mary’s School in Milford on Friday. Two weeks earlier, he appeared at a private school in Derby. In the past year, he has appearerd at schools and libraries throughout Greater New Haven and talked about reading, personals safety and physical fitness. There’s a topic to fit whatever need you have. Please, principals, if you want your kids to learn physical fitness, invite a local karate or gymnast school to give a presentation.
But the McDonald’s Owners Association will argue that their “Active Achievers” program is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. That’s true, but here’s what an AAP study said about McDonald’s in December: “The presence of a McDonald’s restaurant in a hospital influences parental perception of fast food as healthy and is associated with the belief that McDonald’s Corporation is a financial supporter of the hospital. Because the presence of McDonald’s on site was associated with perception of greater nutritional value of the food, parents in that setting may be more willing to purchase McDonald’s food. The results suggest that fast food restaurants in children’s hospitals should be re-evaluated.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Principals, I know you don’t mean to, but by inviting Ronald McDonald into your school, you are undermining parents’ efforts to get their kids to eat better. A parent would have every right to be very angry with you. The state legislature has removed snack food vending machines from schools. It’s time to tell Ronald McDonald to take a hike, too.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

M-I-C-K-E-Y J-I-H-A-D


News item: GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas militants have enlisted a figure bearing a strong resemblance to Mickey Mouse to broadcast their message of Islamic domination and armed resistance to their most impressionable audience — children. A giant black-and-white rodent — named "Farfour," or "butterfly," but unmistakably a rip-off of the Disney character — does his high-pitched preaching against the U.S. and Israel on a children’s show each Friday on Al-Aqsa TV, a station run by Hamas. The militant group, sworn to Israel’s destruction, shares power in the Palestinian government. "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," Farfour squeaked on a recent episode of the show.


This is a picture of Farfour in action. I like the interlocking soft-foam play mats on the wall in the background. You don’t want the little kids getting a boo-boo as they prepare for world domination.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Handy Manny, indeed


News item: MIDDLETOWN, N.J. (AP) — Children here got more than they bargained for when they tuned in to "Handy Manny" on the Disney Channel this week — hard-core pornography. Cable giant Comcast is investigating how the porn was broadcast during the popular cartoon, which is about a bilingual handyman, Manny Garcia, and his talking tools. Customer Paul Dunleavy was stunned Tuesday morning to find his 5-year-old son watching the broadcast.
"It was two people doing their thing; it was full-on and it was disgusting," the father of three told The New York Daily News.
This is kind of funny, because every time I watch Handy Manny with the kids I can’t help thinking this is basically the plot of every 70’s porn movie ever made.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

McWrong


Let’s say an elementary school wants to have an assembly on physical fitness. Great idea. Now, who would be perfect person to lead the assembly? How about a local karate instructor? Or perhaps the person who runs a local gymnast school. They could bring along a few older students and put on quite a show.
No, someone better. Someone really qualified to tell kids how to lose weight and get healthy. I know! How about Ronald McDonald, the mascot for a restaurant that serves the worst food you could possibly give your kid!
Guess what choice St. Mary-St. Michael School in Derby made last week. Yes, they brought in Ronald McDonald to speak to the third graders about exercise.
It’s hard to come up with a more ridiculous decision. This makes Paris Hilton teaching a class on abstinence sound perfectly reasonable.
Derby public schools recently brought in Ronald McDonald to teach kids about safe behavior. The Derby public library brought in Ronald to inspire kids to read. Do you detect a pattern here? Do you think the owners of the local McDonalds are really interested in kids’ reading or physical fitness? Or do you think they would love to have these kids as a new generation of customers?
That’s what’s insidious about making Ronald McDonald available to local schools. There are probably parents at St. Mary-St. Michael who are working hard to keep their kids out of the McDonalds gravitational pull. So what does their school do? It endorses a restaurant that literally puts kids’ health at risk.
And don’t bring up McDonalds new menu of sliced apples and milk. That’s just public relations. The real focus is on $1 fries.
I’ve said it before: Keep McDonalds out of our schools.

Speeding moms


Reading my daughter’s elementary school newsletter is always fun. Last year, when we had a feisty principal, parents were asked to stop sending their kids — none over age 10 — to school with fancy coffee drinks and portable DVD players. That stuff is a parenting blogger’s dream.
This year, the new principal is a little more diplomatic. But he did put out a warning about speeding. It wasn’t a warning about being careful while crossing the street in front of the school. It wasn’t a warning about walking out from between buses. It was asking parents to slow down. In the school parking lot. During school hours. When kids are darting around.
I’ve seen these moms. Yes, moms. I’m not being sexist. In my town, moms are the ones who drive the kids to school or pick them up. I swear they floor it as soon as little Madison is out of the car. Is it too hard to ease your car out of the parking lot? Starbucks and the nail salon will still be there. There’s plenty of time to catch "The View."
OK, that was a little bit sexist.