Teacher Has Class "Vote Out" Their Classmate

This article is so sad.

A Kindergarten teacher allowed the children in her classroom to vote out their classmate, who is in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

I feel so bad for this little boy. Perhaps he was acting up... but that really isn't any reason to vote out a five year old. How are we going to expect this little boy to learn to behave and feel loved if we're rejecting him before he even hits first grade!

School is tough enough without your teacher rejecting you, especially if you have a disability like Asperger's. Kids are more than likely to tease him as they get older, on account of how cruel they often tend to be. There's absolutely no excuse for a teacher encouraging that sort of behavior.

The Bible says that in the last days, the love of many will wax cold. I think this lady is just one example.

MLK and Kids

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

It's a pretty normal day around here. The baby is pinching his big sister and pulling her hair (as normal), we had school earlier today (although I made reading a little easier for her), and dh is off at work. He doesn't have school but he's going to his friends after work to build a computer, so he might as well be going to school after work.

I tried to explain Martin Luther King day to my 5 year old, but she really wasn't interested. I don't even really think she knows the difference between black people and white people... she knows that people come in lots of different colors, something that she can see in her own family, but she doesn't really know too much about race.

So how do you explain that at one time some people had to drink out of different water fountains and sit at the back of the bus?

She's just starting to get slavery. She knows that a slave is "a person that works for another person" and that they don't get paid. We've discussed that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and have touched on slavery in the colonies, because we're studying colonial America this year. But a 5 year old doesn't really understand much more.

I guess that it's good that we live in a world where kids don't know a thing about racism. I'm sure that time will come eventually, but it hasn't yet and in some ways that is good.

Infant Shot Execution Style In Armed Robbery

Here's one for the sick-and-twisted-morality file: a man and his infant son were shot dead during an armed robbery.

Police believe that the baby's father drove to his friend's house, left the baby in the car, and ended up running into the robbers instead. The robbers shot him, and on their way out, they decided to put a gun to the infant's head and shoot him, still sitting in his car seat.

Who does something like this? I could understand to some degree if this was a 6 year old who might be a witness to the crime. It would still be pretty awful, but people are pretty selfish and the robbers might feel that killing the witness would be in their best interests. But what is a 7 month old going to say? "Da da da da da" is about all my 10 month old manages to say. I guess that the court might find out that Dada was there, but the baby wouldn't be able to point out who actually committed the crime from that testimony.

Reminds me of Matthew 24:12 "And because iniquity should abound, the love of many shall wax cold." There's not one logical reason that I can think of that someone would purposely kill an infant during the commission of a crime. Perhaps they thought it would be fun and that they could get away with it.

Also reminds me of the verse "As in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." The world that Noah lived in was filled with violence.

One more related verse: Matthew 18:6 "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

What Should We Do With Anchor Babies?

The subject of anchor babies has been in the news lately, as Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant known for taking sanctuary inside a Chicago church, has been recently deported. She has already been deported once, and has an 8 year old son, Saul. Saul is an American citizen, and his mother chose to leave him in the United States rather than take him back to Mexico with her.

Some people think that Ms. Arellano should have been allowed to stay in the United States, since she has a son that is a United States citizen. However, doing so would only encourage more people to come to the United States to have children, because doing so would give them a free path to living in the United States.

The Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868, and was originally intended to give citizenship to all former slaves and children of slaves after the civil war. It was never intended that people desiring their children to have US Citizenship could just show up here and have children. A further unintended consequence of this law is that parents of these so-called "anchor babies" are more likely to be allowed to stay here.

I realize that Mexico isn't the greatest place to live, but then again, it certainly isn't the worst place in the world to live in. Iraq, anyone? How about Darfur? Maybe Ms. Arellano truly believes that having her son living away from her in Chicago while she lives in Mexico is the best life for him. It is also possible, that she is just having a snit in front of the cameras and trying to tell the world "poor me, I can't be with my son!" The truth is, she can be with her son, she just has to have him come to Mexico to be with her. As a US citizen, Saul would be free to return to the United States when he got older.

The whole concept of automatic citizenship for anybody born within a country's borders is not a universal principal. My daughter was born in Italy but she is a United States citizen, and does not have dual citizenship. She has both an Italian and an American birth certificate. That is probably a good thing, because there are some countries where children holding dual citizenship have problems if they ever decide to return to their country of birth. I can't remember what country it was, but one country required military service or something from all its citizens, and if a dual citizen ever came to visit, they would have to fulfill their obligations.

So what should we do with anchor babies? I think that we should amend the constitution to override the provision in the fourteenth amendment providing citizenship to anchor babies, for one. That would be a start. If we pass that law, we still have to deal with the anchor babies that we do have.

However mean it may sound, if the parents are supposed to be deported, they should be deported. Having a child should not usually be a consideration. I suppose there may be some extraordinary circumstances. Let's say a child was very ill or disabled and needed life-saving care that could not be provided in the country of origin. I'm not talking "oh there are no doctors that can treat my son's ADD in the country I come from" because a child is not going to die or anything near that because they don't get their ADD treated. But some children have heart conditions or other organ problems that can not be treated in certain countries. I might make an exception in that particular case. But in most cases, a child can live if they go with their parent to the parent's home of origin.

Military families are sometimes forced to leave their children with grandparents, friends, or other family members while they go off to serve in other parts of the world. These people are not being punished because they broke a law, rather they are making a sacrifice so that we can be safer. Ms. Arellano, like the military, left her child in another country after she was deported. Unlike the military, she had a choice to take her child with her. Also unlike the military, she is not leaving her child in another country because she is a law abiding citizen making a noble sacrifice... rather, she broke a law (more than one actually, she was working at the airport using fraudulent documents) and is suffering the consequences of it.

Talking To Kids About Tragedy

Today Way Of The Master Radio was talking a little bit about responses to the bridge collapse. I guess some psychologists were talking on the radio, saying that you need to shield your kids from this sort of thing so that they don't get scared.

I've never really had that mentality with my daughter. She is now 5. During Hurricane Katrina, I didn't try to hide what was going on from her. I turned the television to Fox News, told her that some people might be hurt, and that we needed to pray for them.

I've always considered bad things happening to be a springboard for further discussion. Not to scare her, but to let her know how to behave. We were watching television once and they had a report about a guy looking at little girls in an inappropriate manner while they were at Toys R Us. It was an opportunity to remind her that nobody should ever touch her where her bathing suit goes, unless they are a doctor and they're supposed to be looking there (or someone is changing a baby's diaper).

So when the bridge collapsed, I didn't turn the channel when she was in the room. For the most part she is disinterested, and that's fine. As much as she's aware, I'm not going to hide it from her. Yesterday I asked her about who made the bridge collapse... "God" was her answer. It didn't seem scary to her, and if she asked me "why would God kill those people" I would have an answer for her... that everybody has a choice of whether they want Jesus to be their savior or not, and those that believe will go to Heaven.

If we don't let our children know that bad things happen sometimes, how are they supposed to know how to deal with them when they do happen? How are they supposed to learn not to put their hand on the stove if we don't let them know that it is hot and scary, or that walking out in the middle of the road is dangerous? When scary things happen, why not use it as a springboard to teach them? Children are not stupid. If we as adults are acting like something is amiss they will pick up on it.

My daughter looks forward to Heaven. She knows that one day Jesus is coming back, and that he might come back any day. She knows that the worst that can happen is if she died she would go to Heaven, which is better than Disneyland.

Hansel and Gretel, on the other hand, scares her. So I don't read it to her. Evidently imaginary witches living in candy houses in the middle of the forest = scary, collapsing bridges... not so scary.

More Chinese Recalls

This time it's toys. There are many that have been manufactured with lead paint.

If you want to check to see if your child's toys are affected, you can check with this link.

I've written on China and all the recalls that have been coming out of there lately, so I don't think I need to rehash everything I already wrote. Follow the recalls tags to read my other commentary.

In a way, we are reaping what we are sowing in terms of who manufactures our products. Not that us regular people really have a choice where products are made, but we as a society kept buying toys even though they stopped making them in the US. We keep buying these toys and products even though we hear that the people making them are hardly paid anything, and some of the products are even made by prisoners.

Do we really expect top quality from people that are being paid $.50 a day? I guess it's something to think about.

Baptist Seminary Offers Homemaking Degree... Controversial?

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is going to start offering a degree in homemaking this fall, aimed at pastor's wives. I think that it's a great idea, personally. However, I guess not everyone thinks that it is such a hot idea. One Baptist blogger nearly "shot Diet Coke out of his nose" after hearing about it, and found the degree "quite silly."

I suppose that it all boils down to what we find important. Personally, I find my children to be very important. They are important enough to me that I gave up a job paying more than $60k to stay at home with them. They are important enough to me that rather than sending my daughter off to public school this fall to be a Kindergartener, she will be home at me learning reading, math, history, science, music, and Bible.

How much do we value our kids anyway? If the average day care worker makes $7.50 an hour (when I worked at day care I got paid less, but I know some get paid more), then the price per hour per child is pitiful. In Arizona the child/teacher ratio is 5:1 for infants, 6:1 for toddlers, 8:1 for 2 year olds, 13:1 for 3 year olds, 15:1 for 4 year olds, and 20:1 for 5 year olds. So what does your $7.50 an hour child care worker actually get paid? If you have an infant, your child care worker is getting paid around $1.50 an hour to take care of your child (they get paid $1.50 an hour for the other 4 children in her care as well). But wait... if you have a 5 year old in a class of 20 children... your child care worker is getting paid a pitiful $.38 an hour to watch your child specifically. That's not what you're paying, but that's what ends up getting filtered to your child care worker. No wonder we think that mothers should go out and get a real job! We shell out a whopping $.38 an hour for a child care worker to watch our 5 year olds!

I think a homemaking degree is a good thing. I wouldn't know how to sew if my grandma hadn't taught me. Even though I don't often make my own clothes, it's a good skill to learn. I have to use sewing skills to fix my daughter's doll carrier, for just a recent example. Cooking, nutrition, and just in general, bringing up your kids to learn to love God... they are all important skills.

So I'll keep that $.38 an hour and I'll stay home and watch my own. They are more valuable to me than that.

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Sex Education for Kindergarteners?

The other day, Senator Barak Obama told a group of Planned Parenthood members that he supported sex education for Kindergarteners.

Now, I don't believe in lying to children. Before ds was born, I bought my daughter a Happy Family Midge doll (you know, the Barbie doll with the baby in the belly). She is not stupid, she saw my stomach get bigger. She went to all my ultrasounds. She got to use the little doppler machine to hear her brother's heartbeat.

Furthermore, I think that children should be taught that there are places that nobody should be touching them. My daughter knows that nobody should be touching her where a bathing suit covers. It's the responsible thing to do whenever you hear a news story about some pervert touching little girls in the aisles of Toys R Us, or dd is in the bathtub asking daddy to "tickle my butt"... the response to that one is "no honey, only you are allowed to touch yourself there".

But the problem with teaching all this stuff to Kindergarteners is what to teach them exactly. Parents are not going to agree on that. Some parents want correct terminology used. Some parents are going to want their child to be taught that sometimes two mommies love each other, or two daddies. Other parents will want their children to know that you are supposed to be married when you have a baby, and of course the single parents don't want their children being taught that.

So while there are things that Kindergarteners should be taught, the proper place for them to learn it is at home. I think the schools should just teach "good touch bad touch" and leave the rest alone. I knew a 4 year old who was touching the other 4 year olds in her class in inappropriate ways... they need to know that. The other stuff is just too controversial.

Really Sad

I was snooping around the Gerber web site, trying to find out where their products are made, and I came across some really depressing statistics:

• Soda is being served to infants as young as 7 months.
  
• Nearly 25% of children ages 19-24 months don't eat a single fruit or vegetable in a day
  
• French fries are the most commonly consumed vegetable for toddlers aged 15-24 months
  
• By 19-24 months, most children consume sweets, salty foods, or deserts at least once a day
  

Who feeds their kids like this? It was a study of nearly 3000 children, so I guess a lot of people do. I remember my cousin feeding her daughter soda in a bottle, but I always thought that was the exception rather than something normal. When my daughter was a baby, probably around 9 months old, she played with another little girl who was a few weeks younger than her that ate Cheetos, but again, I thought that was not normal.

I kept most sweets away from my baby daughter until she was a year old. She got cake for her birthday. My soon-to-be 8 month old son's desserts consist of Gerber's "Hawaiian Delight" or bananas, pears and apples. I thought most babies ate that way.

I know that toddlers can be picky, but no fruit or vegetables on an average day? Wow. My 8 month old gets fruit AND vegetables nearly every day. My 5 year old gets both almost every day as well... nearly every weekday I serve vegetables, she's always eating fruit and we can't keep it in the house long, and she's always asking for fruit juice.

Us grown-ups might have a hard time consuming good food, but at least we can say that our brains are done growing. When children are babies, their brains are growing at the fastest rate that they will in their entire lives. I just find it sad that so many people are not giving them a good start by feeding them fruits and vegetables, and keeping the sweets (especially soda) away.

I mean, how hard can it be to keep soda out of a 7 month old's diet? It's not like they're actually clamoring for the stuff at that age.