Category Archives: childhood

Humanity, I Love You

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After the horror of the Boston bombing I didn’t think I could ever believe that humanity was worth it. Really, I just don’t understand how blowing up innocents makes sense to anyone, but then all the stories of people opening their homes to those stranded came out. London had their marathon and they ran with American Flags and with signs that said, “Finish for Boston.” Syria, which has been ravaged by booms and genocides, took a moment to send condolences to Boston.
I saw window washers dress up as Spiderman, Captain America, Batman and the like to clean the windows of a children’s hospital. I was taken aback by how in the face of such tragedy I saw the best of humanity. Instead of breaking me—I was lifted up by the generosity and kindness of the human spirit.
Naturally, it didn’t last long. Bombs went off in Pakistan, earthquakes ruined cities, and a five-year old girl was raped in Indian. She’s not the first child raped, she’s not even the youngest child raped. But this five-year-old gets an article written about her because finally, finally something is going to be done about it.
Last week she was abducted and raped by a neighbor who kept her for three days and then left her for dead. India, like America, has a rape culture. They blame the women, they blame the victim…but how can you blame a five-year-old? What suggestive clothing was she wearing? How did she drink too much? How was her sexual history to blame for this?

The Guardian took aim at the Indian police force, “[O]fficers allegedly initially refused to investigate after the girl, from a working class family, disappeared while playing early in the evening outside her home. She was eventually found by neighbours. When the case was picked up by the local media, the parents were offered 2,000 rupees (£25) to drop the case, relatives of the victim have said.”
By the weekend hundreds of protesters were outside the police headquarters demand that the police chief, that wanted this dropped, be fired. India’s Home Minister has vowed that the officers on duty will be punished.
Once again, in darkness there is light. People will surprise you if you just let them. I don’t know why it takes horrible circumstances for people to take a stand—but maybe one day we’ll all realize that you don’t have to wait for something bad to do some good.



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NRA: “Guns Are More Important Than Children”

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photo of nra guns pictures, photos
I don’t understand the problem with the new gun legislation. I don’t understand the argument of “you can’t take my guns. If you ban certain kinds of guns you should ban cars too because cars kill people, too.” It’s idiotic thinking, it’s a flawed argument and frankly I’m sick of hearing it.

After the Newtown shooting I was down for the count. I couldn’t take another shooting, I couldn’t take living in a country where this happened and people’s first response was “get more guns!” I couldn’t. I fought on the side of stricter gun laws. I went through the crazed maze of people throwing nonsense at me and getting angry and name calling when I asked for facts and statistics to prove their argument. I guess this is one argument that will only be fought on the battlefield of emotion. I don’t know why this country is so against statistics and facts. I don’t know why we are so threatened by them. The minute you give a number or a fact someone comes at you with “well they got rid of 60 oz. sodas too!” That happened. That was an argument put to me, when I asked what that had to do with AR’s and AK’s the response was “I should have the right to choose a 60 oz. soda and I should have a right to choose an AK”. When did we get so entitled?

Everyone throws the Constitution around. I have a Constitutional right to bear arms! I have a Constitutional right to freedom of speech! What people forget is that Constitution was written when there was a real threat of the Government coming into your home and hurting you with their bare hands. It was written at a time when men needed guns in the house to protect their families from real tyranny and dangers. They didn’t have ADT security back then, their guns where their alarms. Oh, and that Constitution guaranteeing your freedom of speech was written when men didn’t say “fuck” in front of women and children out of respect. It was written in a different time to people that could handle those responsibilities. We have proven that we haven’t earned these rights and certainly cannot handle them. If you think I’m wrong let me present exhibit A:
Neil Heslin, the father of a 6-year-old boy who was slain in the …

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Gender Role Guess Who

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photo of guess who gender inequality picutures
 

Dear Hasbro,

My name is R______. I am six years old. I think it’s not fair to only have 5 girls in Guess Who and 19 boys. It is not only boys who are important, girls are important too. If grown ups get into thinking that girls are not important they won’t give little girls much care.

Also if girls want to be a girl in Guess Who they’ll always lose against a boy, and it will be harder for them to win. I am cross about that and if you don’t fix it soon, my mum could throw Guess Who out.

My mum typed this message but I told her what to say. 

Dear R___,

Thank you for your email. Please find below an explanation which I hope your mummy will be able to explain to you.

 Guess Who? is a guessing game based on a numerical equation.  If you take a look at the characters in the game, you will notice that there are five of any given characteristics.  The idea of the game is, that by process of elimination, you narrow down who it isn’t, thus determining who it is.  The game is not weighted in favour of any particular character, male or female.  Another aspect of the game is to draw attention away from using gender or ethnicity as the focal point, and to concentrate on those things that we all have in common, rather than focus on our differences.

 We hope this information is of help to you.

 May we thank you for contacting Hasbro and if we can be of any further assistance, either now or in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

 Kind Regards,

 ASK HASBRO

Hasbro UK Ltd

00800 22427276

www.hasbro.co.uk

www.facebook.com/hasbrouk

http://twitter.com/hasbrouk

www.mymonopoly.com

These are two letters from an exchange between a six-year-old girl and a multi-million dollar corporation. The next set of letters consists of the six-year-old’s mother explaining to a corporation that this is not how you talk to a child. The corporation responds with a more suitable letter, but still doesn’t really answer the question at hand.

The question at hand is why, in the game of Guess Who, are there only five female characters and nineteen male characters? The mother, in her response to Hasbro, points out that being female is not a “characteristic” to be used as part of a “numerical equation”. Hasbro responded by simplifying their language and saying she could go online and print new characters to play with. If you can print more female characters … doesn’t that mean adding more female characters wouldn’t throw off the numeral equation?  Since you are condoning this behavior?

The bottom line is Guess Who is kind of sexist and a six-year-old pointed it out. Hasbro, a company that makes its living on educated and entertaining children, did a really terrible job explaining themselves to their target audience. I mean, “numerical equation”? I call bullshit. It’s a guessing game. There’s no numerical equation; it’s Guess Who! GUESS!

This has always been a problem and kids have always noticed it, and now, in the world of social media, it’s just heard more. Remember the little girl that freaked out in the toy aisle about all the blue toys vs. pink toys? Gender equality in kids’ toys has never existed and kids find ways around it. I played with G.I. Joes and my father’s collectible army models and an Elvis doll. My nephew? He likes to play with barbies.

The short answer to all of this is “You can’t put kid in a box or mold them to what you want them to be; they are smart and they will figure it out, and because they don’t have a filter they will call you on your shit.” Next time you play a game of Guess Who, stick it to the man and play around with gender roles. Take a shot choosing a male if you’re a girl and vice versa. Take that Hasbro! You can’t tell us who we can be!



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Mom Chronicles 7-Year-Old Daughter’s “Obesity” Battle in Vogue

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Photo of Dara Lynn Weiss and Daughter Bea
Let’s talk about fat, shall we?  In fact, let’s just throw caution to the wind and talk about the potential damage parents can do to their children in the name of curtailing the national trend toward childhood obesity.

Or we could just talk about what a crazy bitch Dara-Lynn Weiss, who recently wrote a piece for Vogue focused on the alleged need for her 7-year-old daughter’s need to lose weight, is.

Incidentally, her daughter Bea was 4’4” and weighed 93 pounds.  She is now sixteen pounds lighter.

And, in case I haven’t already mentioned it, seven.

According to Weiss, Bea’s diet was recommended by her pediatrician, who felt that “she was clinically obese and could be at risk for high blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes.”

Just for shits and giggles, I put Bea’s stats into the BMI calculator at the National Heart Lung Institute.  It came out as normal. While, to be completely fair, the CDC has a pediatric BMI calculator that does classify Bea as “overweight” considering her age, I think there’s more than meets the eye here.

To wit, here’s what Weiss had to say about Bea’s dietary habits … and her own actions undertaken as…

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