Snapshot Sunday: A Place of His Own

Summer Saturday and Strep Throat

It's been been one of those weekends around here...

It was going to be a crazy weekend, no matter what. Boy #2 is playing in a baseball tournament Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Our church also has a lot going on: Sunday service, all-church breakfast, member pictures, and youth group. Which I was supposed to be coordinating.

When I realized it's impossible -- or at least highly stressful -- to be two places at once, I called the pastor and told her we'd have to cancel youth group. She completely understood, and bonus! Turns out that most of our youth group is playing in the tourney, so no one was planning on coming anyway.

Perfect. The puzzle had been solved. Or so I thought.

Then I went to pick my boys up from school yesterday afternoon. (Because, you know, we had to be out at the tourney within the hour.) As soon as I saw Boy #3, though, I knew. He was sick.

It was nearly 80 degrees outside, yet he was wearing his hooded sweatshirt. With the hood up and pulled tight. And he kind of slouched to the van while looking like he could cry at any time. So I did what any mom would do, given the circumstances: I dropped Boy #2 off at home, told him to get ready for the tournament and took Boy #3 straight to the walk-in clinic. Diagnosis: Strep Throat. (Apparently, he wasn't kidding when he complained of a headache and sore throat off and on over the last few days.)

Does this happen to anyone else? You tweak, you nudge, you plan, and still an added complication gets thrown into the mix.

Somehow, we survive, right? We move on to Plan B and Plan C and Plan D, if necessary. We call in  help from family and friends. We skip events, if we have to. Somehow, we survive.

But don't you ever wish that life would stop handing you extra degrees of difficulty? I do!

Best of the Blogs

WAT Book Club Four Great Books for Boys. Full disclosure: I used to write for an editor who is now part of the We Are Teachers (WAT) team. But that's now why I'm recommending this blog post. I'm recommending this post because I'm always interested in seeing great book suggestions for boys -- and I'm particularly enthusiastic about this post because it introduces four books I'd never heard of. (For the record, The Achilles Effect is not so keen on "Books for Boys" lists. You can be sure that we'll talk cover that topic in my upcoming author Q & A!)

Dictators with Mommy Issues. You know I'm a fan of Kate Stone Lombardi, and that I loved her book, The Mama's Boy Myth. The last lines of this post, though, are just precious:

Let's see....Stalin and his mother were savagely beaten by his alcoholic father. She fought the father to try to keep her son in school. Yup, must have been that close relationship with him mom that made Stalin the monster he was. 

My Son Looks Like a Girl. So What? I've been thinking a lot of gender lately, and the messages we send our boys about what's OK and what's not. So Catherine Newman's post about her 12-year-old son's long, pink-dipped hair caught my attention. Really, what does hair matter anyway? Isn't it what are kids are inside that matters?

My Vote of Dweebiest Superintendent of the Week. According to Lenore Skenazy, five high school seniors in Indiana decorated the interior of their school with post-it notes. (With inside adult assistance.) The kids were suspended. The custodian lost his job. Actually, a total of 67 kids were suspended. Did the superintendent might the right call? Or do you agree with Skenazy? Why?

 Integrating Tech Tools Into Learning. Shameless self-promotion: This is a blog post I wrote for onlineschools.com. But I have a feeling that some of you may be interested in fun and educational tech tools as well.

How to Work From Home and Homeschool. Yeah, this one is mine too. ;)

Did you see any blog posts that caught your eye this week? Share a link below!

Joshua Ledet is My Hero

Don't know who Joshua Ledet is? You're probably not watching American Idol.

I have been, passionately. I'm not much of a TV watcher; in fact, the only thing I watch these days is American Idol. What can I say? I love music, my oldest son loves to sing, and last season, the boys and I started watching together. It kind of became "our thing."

Tonight, the top 3 singers -- Joshua, Jessica Sanchez and Phillip Phillips -- were winnowed down to two. Joshua "lost." Note the quotation marks.This boy can SING, and I'm confident that he'll have a successful career.

But it's what he did after he got the news that earned him my undying affection. While singing his farewell song, "It's a Man's, Man's World," he went down in the audience, grabbed his momma's hand, and brought her up on stage with him.

Understand, I've been reading a lot about boys and their mothers lately. Last month, I read The Mama Boy's Myth, which hopes to debunk the idea that boys have to emotionally separate from their mothers to become strong men. Today, I finished Chapter 3 of The Achilles Heel, Separating Boys From Their Mothers' Influence. For eons, popular culture has told our boys that they need to pull away from the moms to thrive.

Yet tonight, Joshua Ledet walked down into the audience, grabbed his mama's hand, and pulled her up on the stage with him. While singing:

This is a man's, a man's, a man's world

But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Amen, brother!

Virtual Book Club: Thoughts on The Achilles Effect

First, mea culpa!

I promised to announce the winner of a free copy the The Achilles Effect: What Pop Culture is Teaching Young Boys About Masculinity last Friday, and I didn't. I was so excited to share my Best of the Blogs list that I completely forgot to check my blog calendar, which would have, of course, reminded me to draw and announce the winner.

But it's not too late. The winner of The Achilles Effect is...

Cathlene Bell!

Congrats, Cathlene. Given the fact that you're passionate about media literacy and that you're expecting your first child, I think you'll enjoy it very much. Hopefully you're copy will arrive soon, and you're chime in with some questions and comments.

I'm about two chapters into the book, and I have to tell you, I have conflicting thoughts. On the one hand, I can absolutely see how media images influence and reinforce our sons' ideas of masculinity. Smith carefully analyzes a lot of familiar characters, and looks at the unspoken messages our sons may be getting from Power Rogers and Anakin Skywalker. Male characters, she writes, typically embrace the warrior stereotype of masculinity: they're powerful, they have a temper, and they don't hesitate to use force if necessary.

Male characters who don't fit the warrior archetype generally fall into either the "nerd" or "bully" category. Consider Geronimo Stilton, a popular children's book character who embodies many positive characteristics:

Stilton, Smith writes, is the bookish and sensitive male editor of a big-city newspaper. Geronimo has many good qualities, like loyalty, intelligence, and compassion, but he is clearly positioned as a weakling. The adventures he chooses are rarely of his own choosing. He is often pushed or cajoled into his various expeditions, is scared of his own shadow, and very clumsy. He is frequently reduced to tears and his constant crying is depicted as ridiculous, not as a legitimate emotional response.

I get it: Geronimo may be subtly teaching our boys that it's not OK to cry. But couldn't his awkwardness just be a way for awkward-feeling boys to relate? Might it not be a bit like Scooby Doo? As a kid, I hated the cartoon; it was too scary for me. But as as adult, I see that part of its appeal to kids is that Scooby and Shaggy are afraid of everything, and that they ultimately learn there was nothing to fear.

(For the record, The Achilles Effect talks about Scooby Doo too. Fred, she says, is portrayed as the man's man. Shaggy is clearly the weakling.)

I have mixed feelings about the book's discussion of TV shows as well. I agree that much of what passes as male conversation in kids' TV shows is probably harmful for our sons:

By implying that insults and the language of aggression and typical and even expected in male-to-male interactions, the creators of these mildly bullying characters [such as Harry from Horrible Harry and Buford from Phineas and Ferb] are, however, subtly, indicating that competition and jockeying for position are essential elements of male relationships.

But isn't jockeying for position exactly what happens almost any time you get a group of males (of any age) together? And that's my main issue with the book: How much of what we see in the media is essentially just a reflection of what we see in the real world?  In chapter two, for instance, Smith writes about the fact that mothers show up far more often in children's books than fathers do, and that it's almost always mothers who are shown doing the child-rearing, particularly in books about young children. Sexist as that may sound, isn't that still the reality in most families? The archetype of the distant,work-focused emotionally withdrawn father is still a reality in many homes.

Which brings up some questions: 

• Should media actively work to create different male archetypes, in hopes of changing behavior?
• Should parents restrict children's media consumption to media that presents a more balanced and egalitarian viewpoint?
• If they do, does it help or hinder their child as the child negotiates the real world, which still includes a fair amount of sexism and gender imbalance?
• What matters more? What a child sees or reads in a book or on TV (or in a video game or movie), or what a child sees at home?
• Can boys who are steeped in mainstream media become well-rounded, emotionally intact men?

I think -- or at least hope! -- that the answer to the last question is Yes. The rest, I'm not so sure about. I'm definitely looking forward to talking with the author later this month!

Real Life With Boys: Just Add Water

This is what my boys did on Mother's Day:

If you look closely, you might notice the corner of our sandbox about midway up along the left side of the photo, near my son's hand. Yes, you guessed it: This major excavation project did not take place in our sandbox, but rather right next to it.

We've had a good-sized sandbox for years. In fact, it was the very first home improvement project my then-husband undertook when we moved into the house. (And we only had ONE boy back then!) But while the sandbox has seen its fair share of action over the years, the true magic happens outside of the sandbox.

Forget wishes of a lush lawn. My boys have completely excavated and reconstructed the perimeter of the sandbox. There's an ever-changing channel leading from the edge of the driveway to Fink Pond, the boys' name for the "pond" you see them sitting in above. (That pond has even held fish!)

On nice days, the boys place the garden hose at the edge of the channel, crank on the water, and watch the water fill in the pond as they construct various dams and levees along the way. Sure, they get dirty, and sure, my lawn and yard look less like Better Homes and Gardens and more like Home Education Magazine. But isn't that the point?

My priority was never to have a perfect yard or home. My priority is to raise well-loved, comfortable children. I want my children to have the freedom and opportunity to explore their interests, and when it comes to "perfect yard" or "let the kids dig up part of the lawn," I let them dig up part of the lawn.

Lest you think I"m entirely self-sacrificing here, I'll confess that peace and quiet is a huge part of my motivation. Because when the boys are busy with the water and hose and pond, they're leaving me alone! And, most of the time, not fighting. That's worth a few extra dollars on my water bill, as far as I'm concerned.

What about you? Do you let your boys make messes? Do things they're not "supposed" to do? I'd love to hear about it?

Guest Post: Criminal or Clueless? When Sex Means Jail

Photo via NorthUmbria Police

“Can you identify the person who allegedly raped you?”

“Yes your Honor,” says the girl. “He’s right there.”

She points and all eyes land on the pimply teenager, flanked by power suits—clearly his attorneys. The boy drops his head and a tear slides down his nose.

Could this be your son?

As a mom of a grown daughter, I cringe at the crime called date rape. (By law, it is stripped of its condition and simply called rape.) It’s dirty and traumatizing and ugly, no matter its circumstance.

As the mom to two teenaged boys, I cringe at the crime for different reasons. Perpetrators in 20% of the 182,000 rapes reported by girls between 12 and 17 in 2008 were intimately known (spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend) by the victims. That’s a staggering number. Someone’s doing the raping.

Could it be my son? Could it be yours?

It’s shocking to consider, isn’t it? But can we close our eyes to the possibility? 

Do my boys really know the difference between grinding on the dance floor when nothing but a little skimpy cloth separates it and the real thing? 

Do they understand that action isn’t always invitation? 

Can they decipher between a No that means Yes and a No that means No?

And have I ever had a conversation with either of them that goes beyond the birds and the bees and don’t do it ’til you’re ready and make sure you are protected?

It would be easy to sit in that courtroom and vilify the pimply boy from the example above—he should have known better. Where were his parents?

But hello. I’m raising boys. Teen boys. And sometimes, despite all the lectures and lessons and sharing, there are days when they lose their feet on the way to tie their shoes.

To think they will make the connection between crime and passion in the heat of a hormonal moment when  sex, even aggressive sex, is touted on every show, every video and every song might be asking a bit much from their construction site called a brain. When they receive images of nude classmates on their cell phones (because 1 in 6 teens between 12 and 17 have received them), why on earth would  they all of a sudden realize, when every sign says Go!, that what they are doing is a crime?

I’m just sayin’.

Should boys be given a carte blanche pass then? No way. I’m a firm believer in responsibility and accountability.

What I am saying is that while it seems they should know better, we really ought to make sure they do.

I’d much prefer to stick to informational sex talks. I’d much rather tell my boys to just not go there and have them comply.

But statistics force me to address my Pollyanna wishes. I need to address these issues in my home, with  my boys, before an officer knocks on our front door.

Uncomfortable? Absolutely. 

But who ever said raising boys would be comfortable?

Carrie Schmeck is a features and business copywriter in northern California. She has 2 boys, ages 15 and 18, and a 22-year-old daughter. See more of her work on her website, Bizziwriter.