CurrentMom

Having "The Talk"

Therapy Tuesday
Photo By: ddtmacwil

I don't think there is denying that sex in our culture has left the island of taboo and is more virulent in the mainstream. Case in point: a recent CNN article.  Kids (and adults) are bombarded with sexualized images, scenarios, and even just the news. (Yup, had to reference the Governator in here somehow).

This leads parents to wonder how do they fill in? Do they let school provide the education? (Which might be limited to types of funding--for example, New Jersey just petitioned the Federal Government to receive money from their "Abstinence Grant."  This is ONE type of prevention strategy, but not the full picture.)  Friends can be another source of information. Or the casual approach of just leaving a book behind.

LIke most things that kids might explore, the best information is from parents. Two types of messages are conveyed in these discussions: facts and family approaches. An example would be if your family is against premarital sex, this attitude can only be taught by parents. A religious institution or a school cannot adequately express this message in the same way that a parent can.

Some things to remember when you enter this territory of the birds and bees:

*Consider your child's age and give information appropriate. (Graphic detail is too much for a 10 year old)

*Keep the lines of communication open. (This is just a first conversation--one conversation cannot cover everything)

*Think about what you are comfortable sharing about yourself (I'd err on the side of caution--you can't take back words)

*Monitor how comfortable you are with this topic (Unease begets more unease)

I've shared here that I'm going to have a baby soon. This was not a fact I could ignore with my 3 and a half year old. In order to open the dialogue about sex, I started to read him a book called: "When You Were Inside Mommy." by Joanna Cole. This started to give him a template to understand what was going on. I also tried to be specific when I talked about the baby growing--that she is in my uterus, and not my belly, and that boys don't have a uterus. He even tested this theory by asking my husband (who has a bit of a belly himself) when his baby was coming. My husband told him the facts: "I'm just fat."

These conversations don't have to be traumatic for either you or your child, but can be light, funny, and informative.

Embarrassing Chicken Tikka Masala

Meal Monday

I've tried every fancy jar of "simmer sauce" and $7 spice packet in the store with no luck: my efforts at making a chicken tikka masala like you get in a restaurant have all failed... until now! The other night, using some tikka paste and a few things from the fridge, a.k.a. "cheating,"I made something surprisingly close!

You will need:
 
About 1/2 jar of tikka paste (In the Asian section of most grocery stores)
1 cup plain yogurt
4 boneless chicken breasts
2 T Butter
1/2 cup of your favorite jarred bolognese sauce
1/4 cup whole milk or light cream
Some minced cilantro, for garnish

1. Wake up, rested and refreshed from a night of blissful sleep.  After your angelic children quickly dress themselves and bring you a steaming mug of coffee, stir together the yogurt and tikka paste while the kids pack their own lunches. Toss the chicken breasts in the marinade to coat, then toss them in the fridge (preferably in a container of some sort).

2. When you get home, pull the chicken out of the fridge and heat a broiler.  Broil the chicken breasts about 5 minutes on each side. Don't wipe off the tikka paste - make sure that plenty of it is still clinging to the chicken.

3. Heat about 2 Tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a heavy skillet until foamy. Chop the broiled chicken into 1-inch chunks. Saute the chunks in butter for about 3 minutes, stirring and tapping with a wooden spoon to mix the tikka paste into the butter.

4. Add about 1/2 cup of bolognese sauce to the skillet and stir to mix. Bring back to a boil and simmer for about 3 minutes.

5. Add 1/4 cup milk or cream and stir, simmering for about a minute.

6. Remove from heat, pour into serving bowl, and sprinkle with minced cilantro. Serve over steamed basmati rice.

Photo by Stu Spivack from Wikimedia Commons. Not the actual thing I prepared. But surprisingly similar in appearance!

Your Kids (When You're Not Around): A to Z

Family Friday

Guest post by Donna A. Lewis, a doting aunt and number one favorite babysitter

A is for annoying. 

When you're not around, your kids are not annoying at all. I don't say this because they're related to me by blood. I happen to be related by blood to some highly annoying people. But there is a significant difference between annoying kids and not-annoying kids. And your kids just aren't even mildly annoying.

B is for bold. 

When you're not around, your kids aren't scared. They don't cry. They don't say they're afraid. They don't act afraid. It's very cool. When you're not around, your kids chase down the cat and dog and pretty much exhaust both animals in that special way only kids can exhaust animals. And then, when you guys show up, your kids pretend to have anxiety about animals they were bossing around when you weren't around. It's very funny to watch. I'm sure the psychology behind it is fascinating.

C is for cute. 

When you're not around, your kids really are cute. And they're cute in an appealing way. They make me smile when they talk cute and act cute. They especially make me smile when they're cute just doing nothing.

D is for dinner. 

Your kids eat dinner when you're not around. They get a choice of two things or a combination of both. The food gets plopped in front of them. They eat. If, after about twenty minutes, I notice that they're not eating, I remind them that we can't do any of the fun stuff unless they eat. ... or else their parents won't let them come over anymore. That line works every single time.

True Lies

Truth Thursday

How did he do it? How did Arnold Schwarzenegger keep his infidelity and the child that resulted from it a secret from his wife, family and close associates, not to mention the chatterazzi, who smell blood from miles away, for so long?

We can moan about how he deceived poor Maria Shriver, for whom I wish a fresh start and a reclaiming of her own quite substantial career and prominence as something other than a Kennedy child or a Hollywood gossip item or a political spouse.

We can worry about the children, whose lives have already, in all likelihood, been determined by the prism of fame cast over this family from the start. Whatever emotional fallout they will suffer from their father's indiscretion, in all likelihood they will continue to lead privileged and productive lives.

We can wonder about the employee and her son, who have scurried away from the glare of the strobe light on the estate of shame.

But the thing that fascinates me the most about this sordid, but not unexpected story, is the web of lies and deceit in which Arnold has been entangling his life for the past 14 years.

How do you do that?

Property and Copyright and Speculative Futures

Image via Wikipedia

Technology Tuesday

Several links on modern copyright law and intellectual property - this is well-traveled material in most of the tech circles I run in, but may be novel to some CurrentMom readers.

• A TED talk by Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity. Related, Lessig again: Against Perpetual Copyright.

  The framers understood that the state-created property monopoly of copyright was justifiable only to the extent that it would "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts." It created therefore a fixed, and originally very short, period of time in which one might sell copies of one's works with state protection. Without this protection, in the nature of intellectual things, piracy was naturally rampant. After authors have been given a decent interval to exploit their property, the monopoly to the work is ended, and the work may be reabsorbed into the culture at large, be remixed into new works, for the public benefit for the rest of time: hence the name "Public Domain" which refers to the domain of this public good. But why are intellectual and physical property different? How are the differences between laws related to the differences between domains? Would it really be so bad for society if they were treated the same way? This article explores the answers.

• Richard Stallman's 1997 piece, "The Right to Read" is speculative fiction that explores the implications of potential stringent technical protections against reading material you haven't licensed properly.

  Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory. There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal.

• And just this week, Paul Ford posted a worthy successor to Stallman's piece, titled "Nanolaw with Daughter"

My daughter was first sued in the womb. [....]

Thought-provoking - what would happen if the patent troll mentality trickled down?