mcmama's comments

Why I Choose Public School for My Children

20 Sep 2006 09:28 AM

It really is a great article, and you are right, the statistics do not always tell the story. As a realtor, I have given people comparative statistics in school reports about class size and percentage of graduates attending 4 year colleges, becuase this tells them something about school and community when they are looking for a home.

I am in a town where I really cannot send my kids to public schoo. I tried. It was a disaster. Since then, the schools have improved a great deal, with a change in superintendent and some wake up calls among the really good staff. They also finally started an education association, a wing of the parents association with community involvement which raises money for specific projects without waiting for budget approval. Other towns in this area have had this for years. We've had this for individual schools, now the whole district has one finally.

Back in the 1960s the abandonment of public school support began locally in this district when a new school needed to be built on the poor side of town. There was so much nastiness about our tax dollars being spent on those people who rent and don't pay property taxes getting a free ride that the politicians and the board caved and the school was built much smaller than it should have been. Today it is seriously overcrowded.Now the rant is that we are educating children whose parents are in the country illegally. True, but that alone is not the cause for overcrowding. Despite the crowding, some of the students and teachers consistently receive out of district awards for excellence. But selling a house in that school area is a tough sell for families who want public school.

Now seniors want a property tax exemption from paying school tax. And the politicians are really pandering again, while not solving the problem of billions of dollars wasted statewide in NJ with corruption over building new schools that never got built or had to be torn down because they were on toxic waste dumps. We are really getting away from the Jeffersonian ideal that the entire community is responsible for making a baseline or better education available to all.

Why I Don't Believe in Early Childhood Education

11 Sep 2006 09:26 AM

You make some really good points - not to disparage preschools, but I found that when kids from my family child care went to "real school" they had learned so much from our play based method to the madness structured kid friendly informality - and what preschool or center based care prepared them for was adapting to formal school environments.

Good preschools support parents in raising children, keeping their curriculum age and developmentally appropriate, and enable parents and children to be part of a community. Sometimes, preschools are part of a larger private school, and admission to the preschool give your child a better advantage for admission later on. That's why the competition for this is insane in NYC!

How do you search the Coupon Database?

07 Sep 2006 07:00 AM

Jody, again, thank you for this. It is becoming easier to search the database as we enter new items, and the techies have done a great job of clearing out some of the glitches. Searching for what you are looking for has never been easier, and the new information we will be entering is just going to make everyones life so much easier - and more frugal!

How do you add coupons to the Coupon Database?

07 Sep 2006 05:40 AM

Jody, this is excellent, and clearly written. With September being national Coupon month, I am sure we can get pretty excited about all the promotions that members can put in our database to share!

Our Birth Story

10 Aug 2006 07:40 PM

Congratulations! You are going to enjoy this boy! All of you are.

What Is A Retrosexual?

25 Jul 2006 10:40 AM

Your retro man is my kinda guy!

Oprah Says She Is Not Gay

18 Jul 2006 05:23 PM

This never occurred to me. A lot of women have lifetime best friends.

NEA May Launch Weblog

04 Jul 2006 07:02 PM

Thanks Mac, I agree. What they have onsite is very spammed and hacked. They need to get control over it for everone.

TV Star Gives Birth To A WHOPPING Baby Boy

30 Jun 2006 04:38 PM

Yes I had a 10 pounder too - very difficult experience. C section after 40 hour labor - for some reason the doc had underestimated the baby's size. He was 10 lb 2 oz and 23 inches long.

Today I don't know what he weighs, but he has a 30 inch waist, is 6'4" and his feet are size 14. Birth is only the beginning of the adventure, feeding and clothing comes next!

Don't Be a Breast Milk Bully

21 Jun 2006 10:40 AM

I agree with Valerie. It is far too easy to opt out of breastfeeding. There are some good reasons to not breastfeed, health of either mother or child among them, or a necessity for mom to be away for several days at a time. I personally know of one person who was recovering from a serious illness when she gave birth - the medications, the fatigue, and the depression really meant for her that the effort required to learn breastfeeding would have been counterproductive. She needed intensive medical care, and her mom took care of the baby - total attachment, but with the bottle. The baby got what she needed, and the mom got what she needed. Even if the medications were on the "ok list" this would not have been good for either. But this is pretty extreme.

All too often, moms "try" to breastfeed and are set up to fail by hospitals, ignorant medical staff, and family members. Daycare staff also plays a part in this. It is very possible to work and breastfeed, but since the cultural "norm" is to bottlefeed, the expectation of failure or practices leading to failure are also the "norm".

Breastfeeding is not instinctive. It is learned. Research has shown this. It is very difficult to have success breastfeeding when the people who are supposed to be educating and supporting new moms are ignorant themselves. It also takes work, particularly in the first month or two. You have to commit to it, and it is not the state of bliss initally that the marketing geniuses want you to buy into.

With work situations, and with daycare staff, communication is the key. The primary thing is to be responsive to the baby, and to your body. Sometimes that flexibility is hard to learn, especially in a country that treats childbirth as nothing more than minor surgery and grudgingly doles out six week maternity leaves.

Bullying is not desireable, but sometimes for medical professionals it is necessary. After my first child was born by a c section, if I had not been "bullied" into getting out of bed, I think I would have felt worse in the long run. The important thing to do with breastfeeding is to provide proper support - and recognize that as a culture we are still pathetically hostile towards it - leading women like me who STRUGGLED TO BE ALLOWED to breastfeed 15 years ago to be a bit overboard in our encouragement. I think women still face that struggle, and it is dismissed as not necessary, since we advocates are just bullies. Part of the backlash against the female. Just my radical 2 cents.