Oops, Friday links!
Best parenting culture article I’ve read in a long time: Alfie Kohn “Spoiled Rotten: A Timeless Complaint”
“Scholars have no idea how many parents these days are permissive, or punitive, or responsive to their children’s needs without being permissive or punitive. (The tendency to overlook that third possibility is a troubling and enduring trend in its own right.) … [N]either logic nor evidence seems to support the widely accepted charge that we’re too easy on our children. Yet that assumption continues to find favor across the political spectrum. It seems, then, that we’ve finally found something to bring the left and the right together: an unsubstantiated critique of parents, an unflattering view of kids, and a dubious belief that the two are connected.”
“Unjob Yourself! A New Paradigm for Work and Life” by Wendy Priesnitz
women and girls in mainstream media (video)
My Son is Not a Poodle Hey, are you a white lady? (probably, if you’re reading here) Are you a white lady walking around THIS close to totally misbehaving? Read this.
I’m more like my kids than I’m like adults at the Enjoy Unschooling Project (I relate – having met exactly zero non-schoolers around these parts)
“How to Tour in a Band or Whatever” by Thor Harris; a polemic of nuance and relevancy for our times
“Unlimited Sweets Project” at tranquilparent
“An Immodest Proposal” at Scarleteen
“By all means, not a one of us can somehow erase or alter all of the barriers we have right now when it comes to real sexual agency for all women. But there are no barriers beyond the limitations of our own imagination when it comes to rewriting the scripts of our sexual ideals, our individual sexual lives, and what we present to ourselves, our sisters and our daughters.” Yeah. I hope my daughter (and son) have far better “first times” than I did – and lots more awesome times beyond.
Golden Age of the Moustache, another excellent Flickr group (and YEAH, I’m a member)
In this moment: we had a few dinner guests tonight and two of them are staying late with their new video game system (a Wii, if you must know). The game played now is loud and intense and highly active and imaginative. I’ve never been very good at video games and the noise-intensity of the game and the fervent self-competition my children are evidencing is a bit off-putting. Quick blog-post them I’m going back to the living room to see if I can learn something new.
Thanks for including me in your link round up!
I loved the Scarleteen link. It really brings me back to Earth to read something like this. I forget how completely out of touch I am with the majority of modern female experience where this is concerned. I read the initial script and thought, “THAT’S what people think of as an ideal first time?!” But my relationships were short in my teen years so they never got very far in terms of physical intimacy. That gave me lots of time to experiment and become more secure in my identity, desires, and orientation. And ultimately I planned and initiated my first time. (And it was frickin’ amazing!) I knew it was quite different from the norm, but I didn’t realize it was so far from the goal.
@NavelgazingBajan
Thank you for a great post!
@Rachele
Everything I’ve read at Scarletten is awesome. My favorite so far is about Vagzilla. Good times!