How Ayn Rand Ruined My Childhood
In keeping with the Ayn Rand ruins everything meme in honor of the release of Atlas Shrugged: The Movie, enjoy a blackly amusing recollection of what can happen when your Rand-obsessed parent attempts to raise you by the dictates of Objectivist philosophy. (Big mistake!) Alyssa Bereznak writes in Salon:
It was odd growing up in an objectivist house. My father reserved long weekends to attend Ayn Rand Institute conferences held in Orange County, California. He would return with a tan and a pile of new reading material for my brother and me. While other kids my age were going to Bible study, I took evening classes from the institute via phone. (I half-listened while clicking through lolcat photos.)
“We were wondering if you would petition to be emancipated,” he said in his lawyer voice. “What does that mean?” I asked, picking at the mauve paint on my hands. I later discovered that for…
Stephen Colbert Debunks ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’
Stephen Colbert with Amy Chua, the suddenly (in)famous strict Chinese mother, on the Colbert Report:
Letters To Santa Have Taken A Sad Turn
Has the “modern family” structure put pressure on children to grow up too quick, or just be more considerate? Letters to Santa usually contain kids’ materialistic desires, but lately they’re more concerned with the happiness of their family and education of their siblings. Via NPR:
This year, postal workers opening and processing letters to Santa Claus have noticed a significant change in tone from years past.
“Normally the letters would be greedy-type things — big televisions, Xbox, Wiis, things of that nature,” Pete Fontana, the head elf in New York City’s main post office, tells NPR’s Robert Siegel. “This year, the letters are single moms, three kids, no winter coats, no shoes, blankets, can’t pay the bills, not enough food in the pantry. So the need has changed tremendously.”
Fontana, who has been working in U.S. Postal Service’s Operation Santa Claus program for 15 years, shares an example:
Dear Santa, my name is Chisertopher.…
Is Civilization Psychologically Damaging, or Just American Culture?
From ScienceDaily:
Three new studies led by Notre Dame Psychology Professor Darcia Narvaez show a relationship between child rearing practices common in foraging hunter-gatherer societies (how we humans have spent about 99 percent of our history) and better mental health, greater empathy and conscience development, and higher intelligence in children.
“Our research shows that the roots of moral functioning form early in life, in infancy, and depend on the affective quality of family and community support,” says Narvaez, who specializes in the moral and character development of children.
The three studies include an observational study of the practices of parents of three-year-olds, a longitudinal study of how certain child rearing practices relate to child outcomes in a national child abuse prevention project, and a comparison study of parenting practices between mothers in the U.S. and China. The longitudinal study examined data from the research of another Notre Dame psychologist, John Borkowski, who specializes…
Childhood and Totalitarian Dictatorship
[disinfo editor's note: Alice Miller, PhD (12 January 1923, Lwow, Poland – 14 April 2010, Saint-Rémy de Provence, France) was a psychologist and author who is noted for her work on child abuse in its many forms, including physical abuse, emotional abuse and child sexual abuse.]
Alice Miller compares the rules of an abusive family with those of Nazi Germany and comes to some interesting, though not really surprising, conclusions:
The Führer once told his secretary that during one of the regular beatings given him by his father he was able to stop crying, to feel nothing, and even to count the thirty-two blows he received.
In this way, by totally denying his pain, his feelings of powerlessness, and his despair- in other words, by denying the truth – Hitler made himself into a master of violence and of contempt for human beings. The result was a very primitive person, incapable of any empathy for…
Werner Herzog Reads Curious George
A must-watch deconstruction of the classic children’s text, as done by your favorite German art-house film director.
Why I Give My 9-Year-Old Pot
The title is provocative, but this piece from the site Double X is extremely moving. Here’s why you give a child in elementary school marijuana:
My son J has autism. He’s also had two serious surgeries for a spinal cord tumor and has an inflammatory bowel condition. For a time, anti-inflammatory medication seemed to control his pain. But in the last year, it stopped working.
J’s school called my husband and me in for a meeting. Since autistic children like J can’t exactly do talk therapy, this meant sedating, antipsychotic drugs like Risperdal—Thorazine for kids.
Last year, Risperdal was prescribed for more than 389,000 children—240,000 of them under the age of 12—for bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism, and other disorders. Yet the drug has never been tested for long-term safety in children and carries a severe warning of side effects.(Click through the link for more.)
‘Wild Things’ Author Maurice Sendak To Concerned Parents: Go To Hell!
Great find from Charlie Jane Anders on io9.com:
If you’re worried about taking your kids to see Where The Wild Things Are after reports of crying children having to leave screenings of the rough cut, halfway through, then Maurice Sendak has a message for you: “Go to hell.”
A story in the Oct. 19 Newsweek contains this classic exchange:
What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.
Because kids can handle it?
Sendak: If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.
Jonze: Dave, you want to field that one?
Eggers: The part about kids wetting their pants? Should kids wear diapers when they go to the movies? I think adults should wear diapers going to it, too. I think everyone should be prepared for any eventuality.
So…
A Neo-Nazi Inventor’s Gift to Childhood: Sea Monkeys
I always thought these things were really odd. Check out this article from Tamar Brott in Los Angeles Times from October, 2000. Sea Monkeys inventor Harold von Braunhut died in 2003:
APART FROM THE FACT THAT THEY CAN HATCH WITHIN MINUTES AFTER contact with water, brine shrimp are unappealing creatures. They’re ant-sized and translucent and bear a striking resemblance to sperm. Yet brine shrimp packaged as “Sea Monkeys” are currently sold as children’s companions, and portrayed on their boxes as pink, pear-shaped simian creatures with spindly legs, paunches and coy smiles. They are one of the most impressive achievements in the annals of marketing.
Harold von Braunhut, a former manager of novelty acts, first packaged his patented hybrids in 1960, transforming the Sea Monkeys into American icons via millions of comic book ads. Von Braunhut also wrote the 32-page handbook that is included in most Sea Monkey kits to this day, which states that the creatures can be hypnotized, play baseball and rise from the dead. The tone of the handbook is florid and huckstery: “It seems that at mating time in the Animal Kingdom, the males engage in combat to win the fin, paw, flipper, hoof, wing or what-have-you, of their ‘lady love.’ …
