Friday links: 8 April, 2022

 It’s Friday, and I’m ready for a nap. A long, hibernation-style nap. Just wake me up when the temperatures are consistently above 75, okay?

Yesterday was another rough day with my daughter. Her first tantrum occurred before school even started, and it wore me out; I ended up falling asleep after school. I think I need to find a professional with experience working with kids to help us out here, and I may have a lead on one in the area. She obviously doesn’t like her behavior when it’s like this, and Lord knows I don’t either, but I’m also not an endless fount of patience and could use some guidance as to how to best help her handle her big feelings. Crossing my fingers that we can find someone to point us in the right direction. : )

I haven’t spent much time online this week, so I don’t have much, but here’s what I did find that’s interesting!

 

Coronavirus Hong Kong: ‘Omicron strain causes 7 times more deaths among hospitalized children than influenza’

I worry a lot that we’re going to end up with an entire generation of kids with completely preventable challenges that we have no societal structures to deal with. It’s not like life has ever been easy being disabled, especially in countries that don’t have great social systems (or here in the ‘just-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-and-think-positive’ US system of care). But a generation of kids with a massive amount of, say, learning disabilities? A huge percentage of kids with various forms of physical challenges? We’re not prepared, and as a society, we’ve never truly cared about the disabled. This is going to be a disaster.

And now this. Seven times more death than the flu. Even if the vast majority of kids get a mild case of COVID and recover normally…what happens when their best friend doesn’t? How do they deal with their sibling goes to the hospital and never comes home, or when the kid who sits in front of them at school suddenly isn’t there and doesn’t ever come back? All the people who roll their eyes while insisting that COVID doesn’t affect kids never seem to have an answer when you bring up COVID deaths, adult or pediatric, and how kids are expected to cope (the number of cases I’ve seen where kids- young kids- have lost both parents to COVID is beyond horrifying). Keep the kids in your life safe, folks.

 

There were 1,145 unique books challenged in US schools between July and March.

Book banning is something that gets my goat in a big, big way.

Look. Kids will usually put down books they’re not ready for, or that make them uncomfortable in any way. If the book is too hard, the subject matter too complex, or if it’s too scary (or boring), the vast majority of them aren’t going to keep plugging away at it, because kids just aren’t built like that. And for the kids that do read tougher books with more complex subjects- great! Awesome! Have a conversation with them about it. Talk to them. Figure out what they learned, what they think, how the book matches up with the values you’ve tried to instill in them (or doesn’t match up, and what all of this means). This whole parenting technique of ‘My child mustn’t know about the existence of these things I don’t like! I’m completely incapable of having difficult or uncomfortable conversations with my child, so I’ll just throw a tantrum about needing to instead!’ baffles me. My daughter, who turns 8 in three weeks, knows about periods. My son, who is almost 20, is completely comfortable discussing periods (why shouldn’t he be? Half the population gets them, or has gotten one at some point. He may be a husband and/or father one day and *should* be comfortable discussing them). We’ve always discussed the hard subjects, like war and suffering and death, health issues, gender, religion, etc., openly and honestly. I was fortunate enough to have parents who allowed me free reign over my reading life and I’ve extended this to my children as well. Anything they can read about and have questions about, we can discuss.

The number of parents out there who don’t want their children to grow into mature, thoughtful adults worries me. Case in point: in one of my Facebook book groups, we had a mom ask a while back if Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was an appropriate read for her 17-year-old son.

Excuse me, WHAT?!?!?!??

Lady, your son is like four seconds away from being a legal adult. How are you STILL monitoring what he reads? WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD?!?!??

I still think about this all the time. How on earth is that young man going to be prepared to make adult decisions for himself if his mom is still controlling what he reads at age 17???

Let your kids read. If you’re worried about what’s in the book, read it with them. Banning books for everyone else just because it makes you uncomfortable is gross and wrong.

 

Mattel Releases First Carbon Neutral Toys and Tesla Matchbox Car Made from 99% Recyclable Materials

Hurray! Used is still better than new, and repurposed better than recycled, but making toys out of recycled material is definitely a step in the right direction. I’m hopeful for a day where the vast majority of things we can purchase are made of recycled and/or reclaimed materials. The earth deserves to be taken care of, and we can do so much better than what we’re doing now. This is definitely a step in the right direction!

 

That’s all I’ve got for this week. This is going to be a busy weekend. I have a TON of reading to catch up on; I’m hoping my son can come over for dinner on Saturday; Sunday, my N95 and I are going to pack boredom-buster bags for kids at my synagogue, for the local rotating homeless shelter program. I’d like to find some time to sit and knit, but we’ll see if that happens, especially with all the reading I need to get done (and the usual other stuff, like exercise).

Wishing you all a lovely, relaxing weekend. Shalom, friends. : )