I’m a fan. The most challenging thing for me about this series is spelling the name correctly– it seems like it has too many syllables– nor am I sure how to pronounce it. We call them the “Bernstein” Bears (which is kind of funny because I suspect they are Christian bears. More on that later.)

I like these books because they take on big issues that kids think about including death, lying, dangerous strangers, stealing, and racism. One of the my favorite books is New Neighbors, when a panda family moves in next door to the Berenstain’s tree house. Father Bear incorrectly interprets all of the Panda family’s actions (such as building a fence) as aggressive. I think the story gives kids good  insight into the psychology of racism (making all kinds of generalizations based on ignorance) without demonizing Father as a bad person/ bear.  That’s a subtle lesson, not easy to pull of in a kid’s story whch often tend to go more for black and white (ha ha). All the characters in these books show flaws– mamma will yell, Brother will tease, Sister will lie, but there aren’t “bad” characters.

Some of my  favorites in the series include include: Too Much Vacation, Too Much Car Trip, The Truth, the Blame Game, Get the Gimmes, Chores, and Messy Room. The stories can be repetitive (as you can probably tell) but I don’t mind, because I am blue in the face repeating these same messages to my kids every day (clean your room! tell the truth! don’t fight!) I’m open to another mouthpiece and any creativity in my delivery. The books can also be preachy– I think there is an underlying family values/ Jesus thing going on in some of the them, the Christmas story and Easter story and hints in the dead goldfish story etc, but they don’t beat you over the head with Jesus messages or anything. Part of being parent is being preachy, so if I can entertain the kids while doing so, that works for me.

Mamma Bear is a strong character though I feel sorry for her because she never gets to change her outfit. Maybe that’s sexist of me, because no one in the family seems to have a change of clothes. My sympathy remains with Mamma though, because her outfit is particularly awful: she wears an ankle length blue dress with big, white polka dots and a matching puffy hat (reminsicent of the one Laura Ingalls used to sleep in on TV)  When I complained to Lucy about the clothing, she told me Mamma does occasionally change her hat when she goes out. I can’t verify that right now, but I’ll let you know if I do.

Sister Bear is always in her gender defining pink bow and pink overalls, but at least they are overalls.  She and Brother are true co-stars in the books (though sometimes one book will focus on one, and one book on the other) Sister is just as mischevious and wise; there doesn’t seem to be a characteristic split along gender lines, except minor– sometimes Sister will jump rope while Brother plays baseball.

There is one book called No Girls Allowed which teaches about sexism. It’s good,  but Lucy was read this book before she knew even what sexism was. At the time she thought boys and girls just hung out. So I would be a somewhat cautious, just waiting till the issues come up in the kid’s life if you can, not to confuse them prematurely. (I love the brief period– very brief, debatable if it exists at all– in a kid’s life before everyone starts saying to her: “I bet I know what your favorite color is!” and “Here’s a sticker just for you, Princess!”)

The Berenstain Bears gets a **GG** rating for good messages delivered in effective ways, for the most part, without stereotyping.

When Lucy woke up today, first words out of her mouth: “She wears short skirts, I wear blue jeans. She’s cheer captian, I’m in the bleechers.”

Whatever is going on with Taylor as far as feminism is concerned, she has accomplished an impossible feat: getting my ornery six year old leaping out of bed this morning, singing. My current plan of action is now to download Taylor’s music, turn it on first thing, and get Lucy finally making her  7:40 am school start time with no tears or fighting (actually singing and dancing)

Comments on this blog, Twitter, and my Facebook page are also basically pro-Taylor. Melissa Silverstein just happened to start a thread about how she just realized a song she likes is a Taylor Swift hit. Taylor does have a pretty voice and she plays guitar, and, as noted earlier, writes her own songs. She doesn’t have the depth of Fiona Apple, who was also very young and talented, but it isn’t necessary to be miserable and tortured like Fiona to be empowering (and she’s not scary skinny  writhing around in her underwear as Fiona famously did in her Criminal video.) Taylor tells us it’s okay to be happy, smart and blonde.

I admit, it’s somewhat challenging for me to get past Taylor’s barbie doll look. While Taylor isn’t half naked in her videos, she’s often in a prom dress with the flowing blonde locks and sparkly blue eye-shadow of any barbie doll, appearing to be the quintessential “good girl.” But I think Taylor uses her look with some irony and carefully to her advantage. Elsa comments on this blog that Taylor re-creates the Cinderella fantasy, but her version seems to be a commentary on the prevalence of the fairy tale in girls lives and her own take on it, as Madeline comments– that you don’t have to be the glamorous girl to get the guy. (Her video being debated here is a story of two girls, both Taylor, one in glasses, who want the same guy. To get across her pretty trite message– you can be homely and loved by a hottie– Taylor uses another over-repeated lame prop plot device: the “ugly” Taylor wears glasses. I just saw this done AGAIN in the movie Jennifer’s Body on blonde, beautiful– sorry, dweeby and unattractive– Amanda Seyfried. Ugh, so sick of it. But Lucy, my daughter, is only six, saw it for the first time last night, and witnessed the “smart” girl get the guy.)

In the extensive On Demand section on Comcast featuring Swift’s songs, there is a text description about why she wrote each one, including  “Picture to Burn” where she  explains: “Before I sing this song, I always tell the audience that I really do try to be a nice person, but if you break my heart, hurt my feelings, or are mean to me, I’m going to write a song about you. Haha.”

I love this. There’s something intrinsically empowering about any angry/ joyful break-up girl anthem (Courtney Love, Gloria Gaynor, Alanis Morisette, Joni Mitchell etc) Taylor is telling us she looks like such a nice girl, even tries to be a nice girl– don’t we all– but underneath that sweet  princess persona, she has other thoughts and passions, and even more importantly, she enjoys having the power, the microphone, to speak the truth about what happened to her. Every girl should aspire to acheieving that kind of amplified voice.

Some how Taylor seems just so much better to me than Miley Cyrus. Am I just prejudced because of her dad and his Achey Breaky heart days? MC seems like a manufactured Disney product whereas Taylor seems like her own person with the talent, ability, and audience to write about her own life. That’s girl power. I’m giving her ***GGG*** unless you all can give me good reasons to rate her otherwise.

My six year old is obsessed! Good or bad? We watched three videos tonight– why does Taylor get her own section in On Demand? Lucy is dancing all around the house, singing at the top of her lungs. I know nothing about Taylor, but she does have a good voice and I think she writes her own songs. Comments?

Did anyone read the great article in the NY Times Sunday magazine by Virginia Haffernan? Her whole thesis is that instead of women leaving the home to go out and tackle the world, technology has super-powered our homes and thus given women the tools they require to dominate without walking out the front door.

I never thought of technology that way, as the best thing to happen to women since the pill. I thought of it as useful  but also annoying, and I wished people would get off their blackberries and drive. But I see Haffernan’s point, and I do think its pretty ingenious for women that homebase has been superpowered, that you can write your business plan, skyping with partners in Japan while the baby is napping upstairs.

Now I am finally motivated to learn how to figure out how to use all this stuff (like successfully posting a link on a blog).

Here’s an excerpt frm the article.

“For a century and a half, Mary Wollstonecraft types have tried to empower women to leave the home to work, shop, teach, learn, lead. Instead, without even marking the moment, we superempowered the home. Now if a woman stays home she’s not unambitious or antifeminist; she is — in the acronym of mothering message boards — a WAHM, a work-at-home mom, the most treasured of all the mom options (stay at home = bored; work outside the home = exhausted). This is good news. With technology that allows the WAHM to be simultaneously inside and outside, at home and at work, public and private, she no longer has to forfeit the manly rewards of grasping careerism.

For real. The dishwasher, the washing machine and the pill were supposed to liberate us from something, but the superduper Internet, alone among the great 20th-century technologies, has really nailed it.

And then there’s what you’re missing by skipping the office: the trafficky commute, the petroleum-based slacks by Theory or Banana Republic, the noli-me-tangere demeanor that women were supposed to cultivate to ensure boardroom authority. All of these duties vanish when workplace and homeplace become one.

And who doesn’t like being at home? Taking uncontested showers at noon. Creating sardine-driven lunches forbidden in cubicle zones. Making nice with clients where no one can overhear your fakeness. And all the while — thanks to the untraceable nature of cellphones and e-mail — you get to pretend that you’re anywhere but on your mangy floor wearing “yoga” pants with “Judge Judy” on mute.

Thanks to the Internet, women who prefer never, ever to leave the house to enter the unpredictable world of vice presidents and printer hubs get to pursue fame and fortune as greedily as anyone. (The phrase, for your records, is “work independently.”) Our vaunted verbal skills come through just fine in instant messaging, and we get to skip the stuff that requires broad shoulders, a baritone and understanding of wolf packs: the dread face-to-face interactions. Sure, all those deals that were supposed to go down on the golf course or at the urinal — they probably still happen there. But now, if we so choose, we have the means to text-pester the golfers all the livelong day. Show them which colleague will not be ignored!”

I submit, in all seriousness, that women have benefitted more (even) than men by telecommuting technology. Downloading school forms, pumping breast milk, tending to a sick kid, loading up the crockpot, straightening the kitchen — all this can be done with a BlackBerry in hand. None of this can be done — done well, anyway — at the office.”

Often I get asked, “Why three?” or “Was she planned?”

This may seem like a rude question, but mostly I get it from people who know me pretty well– I never really imagined having kids.

So part of what happened was I fell in love. Not only is my husband tall, dark and handsome (and brilliant, of course) he’s from a huge family, catholic– the youngest of seven. (I’m done reproducing at 3, my last baby was almost ten pounds, and I was done anyway.) My husband was so amazing with our first baby and every baby after; he’s the greatest father.

Our first baby was so difficult. She had colic and cried for a year. After dealing with that along the transition from being single to being married with a kid, every other transition (more babies) has been easy. When people ask me if three is hard, I always say, “One was hard.”

I feel so lucky to have three girls. I have two sisters, so I kind of feel like its my destiny. Also, I don’t see or feel any split about working on my career and raising kids. Part of being a good mom can include being financially literate, providing for them financially whenever you can, making sure the mortgage is covered and their education is funded. Most moms I know who make money love the feeling of providing for their families, though everyone wishes they had more time. I think that’s universal.

(There may seem like a disconnect between this post and my last, but if it were up to my husband, we’d have about ten more kids)

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke on the 15th anniversary of the International Conference of Population and Development, reminding us all, choice is not just one issue. (More quotes from her at http://feministing.com/)

Here is what I think– totally obvious– but maybe not: reproductive rights do not exist in isoaltion. They have everything to do with women’s economic and political power, women’s access to education and health care, women’s status in societies, and women’s abilities to take care of themselves and their children.

Years ago, Professor Jean Schroedel of Claremont College came out with a survey examining the relationship between state abortion laws and spending on children. Her research revealed that the states that most severely limit abortion are the same ones that spend the least on foster care, parents who adopt special needs children, and poor women with dependent children. States with strict abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women. For example, Louisianna had some of the tougest abortion laws and spent $602 per child. Hawaii had some of the most liberal laws and spent $4,648 per child.

Schroedel’s finding suport the work of Nafis Sadik as Executive Director of the United Nations World poplaution Fund. Sadik was instrumental in turning the debate over how tolimit population growth into a campaign for womens’ rights. She is widely credited with bringing attention to the correclation between over population and the status of women (finally a more widely publicized correlation in the book: Half the Sky)  When women are educated, when they achieve ecomomic independence, when they have access to good health care, when they are valued in society for their intellect and their accomplishments, they have fewer babies.

Unfortunately, pro-life politicians still don’t get it. They don’t seem at all concerned with improving the status of women and benefiting the entire world. George Bush’s record as governor of Texas remains the classic model for Republican leadership on these issues. When Bush was Governor, Texas women had a higher than average chance of living in poverty, the state minimum wage, earned by he female dominated service workers and domestic workers industries was $3.35 per hour, totalling $6,700 annually for full time employment. The perecentage of women and children without health insurance was the second highest in the country. Bush made it more difficult for women to obtain abortions in times of crisis, but offered no preventative policy initiatives to reduce unintended pregnancy, no expansion of family planning or fundng services, no comprehensive sexuality education program and no insurance coverage for contraceptives.

Under his leaership, Texas had the second highest rate of teen pregnancy in the nation.

Comapre that to France where mandatory sexuality education begins when students are 13. France’s teenage birthrate is approximately 6 times lower that the rate in the US; its teen abortion rate more than 2x lower, and overall AIDS rate, more than 3x lower.

Conservatives like to say,”The government that governs best, governs least.” What happened to this party? Now, they sound so much more like big government believers. Many Amercans wonder how they came to intrude so much into our private lives, legislating personal choices like whom who should sleep with or pray to.

The reason is because if politicians aren’t going to help to provide access to health care, contraception, STD prevention, access to child care and sex education, and economic autonomy there is nowhere to go but blame pregnancies on loose morals and loose women.  If Republicans acknowledge that women have reproductive rights, they’ll have to acknowledge that women have other rights as well: reasonable funding for family planning, a higher minum wage, insurance to cover contraceptives, real sex education and access to heath care.

Pro choice isn’t one issue and it isn’t one choice. Pro-choice means women have the choice to graduate from college, the choice to borrow money to start a business, the choice to get a good job with a fair wage, the choice not live in poverty and keep ther kids out of poverty. Choice means that women  get to be autonomous citizens, just like men do– with the power to determnine their own destinies.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was trying to tell the world– Don’t you get it? When women don’t have choice and healthcare and economic autonomy, the whole world suffers.

Rosalind Wiseman wrote the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, bringing a great deal of attention tothe previously more invisible problem of  female aggression in kids and cliques. Tina Fey helped to make the book into the movie, Mean Girls, starring Linsay Lohan. Now Rosalind has written a young adult novel which I am very excited to check out. I imagine– unlike Gossip Girl– it will have strong female role models and also be a great read. I will read it and rate it. Here’s the link

http://rosalindwiseman.com/publications/bgohm/

No! When willpeople stop assuming thin peeple are healthy and fat people are not healthy. Yes, there are many diseases associated with obesity but Regina Benjamin is not obese. Also, many thin people have unhealthy lifestyles: they can drink, smoke, not excercise, or be ill with less visible diseases. Please see my 2 posts on girls and food and this article on Salon.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/07/15/regina_benjamin/

I chickened out of applying for immersion programs when I was looking for a kindergarten for Lucy. The reason is because I am horrible at languages– I went to high school in France and still can’t speak French. In an immersion program, the parents have to be committed to learning the language, and I had to be honest with myself and admit, sadly, I was not. I wanted to be included in Lucy’s process of learning how to read.

In spite of my language phobia, Lucy has managed to learn Korean. She is in the General Education program of a school that also has a Korean Immersion Program. In the after school program which she attends twice a week, all the kids are put together. She absolutely loves hanging out with the immersion program kids and learning Korean. She sings in Korean, counts in Korean, and now is having a playdate with two girls who are visiting the school for a month from Korea. Though Lucy tells me she speaks Korean– and what do I know–  the teacher who runs the afterschool program told me Lucy and these two girls have “a wonderful non-verbal relationship.”

One amazing thing about books– obviously– is that they allow kids to travel to and learn about other countries. One of our favorites is called The Seven Chinese Sisters, about siblings who fight off a terrible dragon. It gets ***GGG*** rating.

For Christmas, I was given some money to do some home improvements. For a long time, my husband and I have wanted to make a window seat in one of the bay windows in our house. We were told the windows come down so low, so a traditional window seat would be too high and not be safe, but we  could build sort of a couch without furniture, like a Turkish style pillow arrangement that goes all along the windows in a semi-circle. To see what it would look like, we put  a lot of pillows and blankets there and called it a reading nook. The kids love it. Lucy has been reading to Alice all day. Maybe its just a new thing right now, and they’ll get over it, but it reminded me how kids love little spaces with special purposes. I think (I hope) having a designated reading nook in the house will help the kids with their reading.