Tag Archives: parenting

This College-Admissions Scandal Could Have Been Avoided If Everyone Had Just Watched the Live-Action Direct-to-DVD Scooby-Doo Prequel Daphne & Velma

Daphne Blake, played by Sarah Jeffery in the 75-minute film produced by Ashley Tisdale’s Blondie Girl Productions, starts her first day at Ridge Valley High by asking her smart home to turn up her pump-up playlist. She walks over to her ClotheMe Closet™ and tells it that she’s looking for “the perfect first-day of school outfit”, dresses in the robotic wardrobe’s selection, and descends the stairs while musing aloud that she hopes that it’s French toast she smells.

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Sitting down to her accurately guessed breakfast, she makes small talk with her family before noticing a book on the table. After she asks what it is, her father tells her that “those are the moons of Saturn.” After flipping through it she addresses her parents’ concerns about the big day ahead by telling them that “School’s going to be awesome. Things always have a way of working out.”

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2 Broke Girls, S6E5 “And the College Experience”: A TV Review

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I am invested in Max and Caroline’s relationship.

While it’s no secret that reviewing 2 Broke Girls is far from my favourite task for the week, I do care about how the show deals with the pair at its core. Strongly in its favour is the fact that the conflict that tends to arise between people of vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds is literally the premise of my favourite Arthur episode. For as much as this CBS sitcom is built on the friendship Max and Caroline share, what actually keeps both it and the narrative moving forward is the two butting heads. That said, what difference arises between the two titular leads this week?

Caroline doesn’t like having fun.

Which, to be fair, is sort of true. A much more accurate statement might be: Caroline doesn’t like having fun compared to Max. Though even then the definition of fun would need to be reduced to general debauchery [drinking, drugs, premarital sex, the sorts of activities your parents didn’t want you doing in your teens]. Having just typed out that stipulation it still doesn’t feel entirely accurate, since just last season we had the former heiress knocking back multiple tiny bottles of hotel liquor. Just trying to lay out the conflict in this episode is proving really difficult and I’m not even 300 words into this review.  Continue reading

Eight Things I Learned in Indonesia

A little over a year ago I spent four months in Indonesia. I didn’t really travel across the country, at least not in the way you would expect during that much time abroad. Instead I had the great privilege to live in Indonesia, and see it from the inside. It’s hard to put to words all that I learned, and impossible to do justice to the people I met and the experiences I had. Here is my attempt to share are a few things I learned while I was travelling.

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1) Hospitality

The first notable quality of almost every Indonesian I encountered, and especially of my host family, was their hospitality. Within 12 hours of arriving my concept of generosity and hospitality had been put to shame. My hosts not only shared their home, they shared their family, lives, and friends with me. I was adopted into their social circle, taken for day- or week-long trips by their friends while I was there. I was honoured to be one of the first people to greet the family’s first grandson alongside the immediate family.

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2) Hijabs aren’t scary

This is a fairly potent topic these days so I won’t comment too much. Over half the women on Java wear hijabs, a head covering worn by Muslim women. When I asked why they wore them, all the women I asked answered with “I wear it because I choose to.” I began to recognize beauty and comfort in these headdresses, as well as freedom of expression. These women were neither ashamed nor pious in their religion, it was simply a part of their life.

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3 Things Christians Parents Can Learn From the Death of Leelah Alcorn

On December 28th Leelah (Josh) Alcorn committed suicide. In the Tumblr note she scheduled to upload after her death, Leelah implies that her parents’ strict rejection of her identity was one of the factor that led her to this decision.

I’m not a parent, so I don’t want to ignorantly hand out parenting suggestions. However, I do want to start a dialogue about this story in the Christian community.

Instead of offering my own naive words of advice, I’ve pulled out three quotes from Leelah’s note to focus on. Each of these three points highlight things Leelah seemed to deeply wish that her Christian parents would understand.

1. You can’t force your child to accept your beliefs

They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy…

– Leelah

I love what Jamie (the very worst missionary) once said on this topic. In her post titled “Not All Pastor’s Kids Are Christian. Sorry.” she talks about her own experience as a pastors wife, parenting a child who now identifies as an atheist. While Jamie expects their children to act respectful towards her and her husband (and their chosen profession), when it comes to their faith she only asks her children to be honest with her in their journey towards truth. She doesn’t ask them to pretend to be something they are not:

“Believing in Jesus? Receiving His redemption? These are not commands to be given by a father and obeyed by a child. They are a loving invitation from God to his people, every last one of His people, and He is patiently awaiting their reply…”

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Teaching Your Children About Santa, Noah, and Other Bearded Mythical Men

I’m not a dad. I probably won’t be a dad for a good number of years, seeing as the last “serious” relationship I was in was the latter end of high school. Even still, I find myself thinking about how I’m going to raise people who are 50% me, and one particular area is in imparting my personal beliefs.

Yes, I’m a Christian, and yes, I do believe that Christ is the son of God sent to die for our sins and that scripture is inerrant and so on and so forth, but regardless of how true all of that is for me I still struggle with how I ought to impart, at bare minimum, the knowledge of those beliefs to the kids I don’t have yet. Continue reading

Evan and Gordon Talk: Adoption

GORDON: Readers, have a seat. I’ve got something to tell you and I’m not sure how to say it…

You’re adopted.

You were brought in by links on Reddit and Facebook.

EVAN: I mean, maybe. I actually know for a fact that we have a fair number of regular readers who actually tune in almost daily.

GORDON: And yes, we do love them more than you.

EVAN: Also, I’m not sure that being redirected really works within the context of the word’s definition. Continue reading