Mom the Vote at the polls today!

At the risk of stating the obvious, the final and most important thing you can do to #MomTheVote is make it to your polling station today to cast your ballot.

Seriously. Don’t let anything short of hospitalization or other family emergency get in your way.

Many of you could be looking upon your schedules today and feeling a little stressed. Casting your ballot between work and dinner, or while keeping the baby asleep in her stroller, may seem like just another task piled upon you.

I ask you to consider that only a comparably privileged existence can allow for that viewpoint. Think of the places in the world today where people are going to war for the right to do what we lucky folks can look upon as just another thing to cross off the list.

Graham Hughes/THE CANADIAN PRESS

So how are you going to make this happen? Have you put a voting plan in place? Mine is to leave the office a smidge on the early side (you’re entitled to three hours off if you need it), get my boys from their two schools and take them with me.

Their dad and I have been talking up the election and explaining the process, as we aim to do whenever there’s a chance to vote. It’s a great way to make the democratic process real for the kids. As perturbed as he is that he can’t cast a ballot himself (we did our best to explain using a theoretical Kids’ Party that would cancel school and make ice cream an official food group), Cameron, 7, is keen to understand how it all works.

He's been tagging along on voting day at every opportunity, even one rough time when he was a toddler complaining intermittently of “something [imperceptible] in my eye.” Even when awkward parking and snowsuits were involved. Even when a trip to a church basement fit about as easily into my evening as a root canal.

But you know what? When he’s allowed to vote, I’m absolutely sure Cam will make the effort. (Besides, we’d disown him if he didn’t.)

To cut corners tonight, I’ve planned a simple dinner of grilled cheese or BLT sandwiches with fruit for dinner. I know this meal will come together quickly after I get home with tired kids in tow and it's a relief to have something so easy on deck.

What’s going to work at your house? If your extra-curricular schedule is super demanding this evening, ask yourself what it would say to your kids if hockey or band was given more importance than exercising your democratic right?

Maybe you can even create a fun new ritual around election night – one that your kids can look forward to each time. Could you ride your bikes there together, or watch a movie when you get home? Could you arrange to meet a neighbour and let the kids run around on the grass while you take turns casting ballots? It doesn't matter what you do just as long as you get there.

So tonight, skip something. Order pizza. Go for a post-vote milkshake. Do what you have to do to make your voice heard.

20 blog posts, 20 comments, one day

Today I saw a post by Ali Martell about her longing for the days when blogging was just about writing, reading and sharing and maybe a little less about optimizing and taking pitches and all the rest. In it she pledges to read and comment on 20 blog posts each day and comment on them. Every day.

I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up but I gave Project 20 a go today and found it very enriching. What I learned: There's so much great writing out there and I'm only just beginning to scratch the surface.

Thanks to everyone who shared a link to their blog post. My aim here was to comment in all kinds of places and particularly on blogs where it would be appreciated. I adore getting comments on my little blog, and I hope it brought just a smidge of good feeling to some writers today to see my words below their posts.

It's definitely work to try to fit in that much reading and commenting, though not impossible. I edited fewer stories today because of this undertaking, but I enjoyed it immensely.

It's 10:15 and I'm just finishing up. Here are the links to the 20 blog posts I read and commented on today:

Cheaper than therapy - Project 20

Z recommends - An open letter to the Girl Scouts of the USA

Have Baby Will Travel - Character dining with toddler

A Mother World - J. Crew Ad: Painting sons toes pink a big deal?

Active Kids Club - All-day kindergarten: A child's perspective

Bit of Mom Sense - Healthy snacks and overcoming unhealthy marketing messages

Little Miss Mocha - Thinly veiled discrimination

After the Artist's Way - Clearly, I'm not French

The Tree Hugger - Weekday vegetarian: Artichoke, kale and ricotta pie

Yummy Mummy Club - Nick of Time: Should kids sell cookies for fundraisers?

The Kids Are Alright - Once upon a time I wrote about food

Neighbourhood Sprawl - That's a good joe

Through the Looking Glass - 52 in '11: I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Yummy Mummy Club - Julie Cole, The Baby Machine: Online is public domain

Life with Bellymonster: Lost and found, dreams of a daughter

A peek inside the fish bowl: This is what marketing to moms looks like today

Print to Pixels: 18 again

The Boot Camp Blog: Anouncing my diet book

Lovely Bicycle: Female anatomy and saddle discomfort

Enviro Dad: An Earth Day call to action

Hmmmm. Looking over the list I can see that I commented almost entirely (Hi Eric!) on blogs written by women. If I do another post like this anytime soon, I'll make sure to be mindful of that in my reading and try to even it out.

79% said yes!

Asked what you really thought of snow day, it turns out that for all the grumbling, most of you thought Toronto District School Board superintendant Chris Spence did the right thing by closing schools Wednesday, Feb. 2.

Tara Walton photo

In response to a highly-scientific parentcentral.ca poll, 79 per cent said they thought Spence made the right call. Just 15 per cent said he made the wrong decision, with 5 per cent undecided.

The board thanked parents and staff for their patience and we shared news and photos of how families spent the day.

 

Baby File by Open File

If you haven't yet had a chance to check out this amazing map of baby names, don't miss it.

The folks at Open File, a Toronto-based news site that lets the community contribute story ideas, launched Baby File today.

The work of map guru Patrick Cain, the site lets users search most popular baby names based on postal code. It's cool to enter your digits and see the top 5 baby names for both boys and girls in your hood. You'll probably recognize names you hear fairly often on the playground, or even the name of your own child. (Don't despair: We all try to be original but we're fully up against the zeitgeist. We like what our peers like. It can't be helped.)

Or, you can just choose your city (if your city is Toronto, Hamilton or Ottawa) and click your way around looking at how people on one end of town name their babies compared to those on the other.

In my neighbourhood the most popular girls' names are:

Emma

Isabella

Grace

Sophia

Ella

And the most common boys' names are:

William

Noah

Liam

Oliver

Nicholas

I'm pretty sure I've had kids with almost all of these names over to my house for a playdate or birthday party at some point.

Read about how Patrick made the map here.

Find more on baby names:

Ethan, Olivia top list of most popular baby names in Ontario for 2010

 

What if 21,000 were attending YOUR kid's party?

We reported today on the British girl whose 15th birthday party nearly became epicly epic.

Rebecca Javeleau created a Facebook event for her party and invited about 15 friends. But she failed to make the event private, and 21,000 RSVP'd.

It's a classic case of "But, Mom, I only invited a few friends and they each invited a few friends." Only the ability of those few friends to reach others is infinite when powered by the click-to-share convenience of social networks.

About as many people said they would come to the teenager's party as live in her hometown, Harpender. That raises questions, not only about how little there is to do in Harpender, but about what role parents should take in monitoring and educating their children in appropriate use of social media, and how to respond when things go wrong.

Rebecca's mother, Tracey Livesy, told the Telegraph that her daughter "would be lucky to get a birthday card from me" and that "I've taken away her computer so she won't make that mistake again."

This prompted a discussion on Twitter with two friends @littlemissmocha and @Mommyality.

Littlemissmocha, a blogger and mom otherwise known as Jen, questioned whether the right approach was to take away the girl's computer. Afterall, teens can always access another computer - at school, at a friend's house. And shouldn't the parent's role be to educate their children about internet privacy?

I agree with Jen. The girl's mom should take the opportunity to show her daughter the privacy settings on Facebook and other websites she uses. If the mom doesn't know herself, she should tap the knowledge of a friend who does.

The girl's party is obviously cancelled. That's a logical consequence. But missing the (forgive me) "teachable moment" by simply removing computer privileges is a mistake.

I'm a firm believer that we're not raising children. We're raising adults. That means it's our job to equip kids with the knowledge they need to survive without us. Part of survival in a modern world is being being tech-savvy enough to protect our privacy online.

Rebecca's mistake was the result of ignorance. My hope would be that, after her mother helps lock down the Facebook profile, she takes her daughter out for cake. Every kid deserves birthday cake.

 

Why full-day kindergarten is a good idea

Today Ontario's ministry of education announced that more than 800 schools will have full-day kindergarten by the fall of 2011.

In phase two of the province's new early-learning initiative, more than 200 additional schools will offer the program, on top of the 600 to provide full-day kindergarten this coming school year.

You can find a complete list of the new schools to offer the program in 2011 here.

I've been answering questions on twitter today about why I think this program is great. I'll outline a few of them briefly here:

1) Quality education before the primary grades is a great equalizer. It helps put kids whose parents can't afford top-quality daycare, preschool programs or attentive nannies on the same playing field with those whose can. And it helps level things out between kids raised by single parents juggling two jobs with those from families that can afford to keep one parent at home.

Charles Pascal, co-author of the report upon which the program is modeled, points out that one third of children enter Grade 1 without the necessary skills. Assuring that all children have the same access to a stimulating and nurturing environment for two years before their primary years is the best way to address this.

2) It helps lower the burden of childcare costs on families. Yes, we choose to have children, but our economic system doesn't do much to assist with the cost of raising a flock of future tax payers. Progressive governments do more to support growing families than ours does (Sweden? The Netherlands? Quebec?!), and without their economies crumbling. Some will argue that many single-income households simply go without fancy clothes and vacations to afford to keep one parent at home. But when you're a single parent with only the choice to work or go on welfare, that's simply unfathomable. And even for those who live well, well above the threshold of working poverty, it's not easy to raise a family on one income in a city with an average house price of $446,593. Particularly one where infant child care can run up to $1800 a month, and childcare for the hours outside a "half-day" kindergarten can easily reach $1,000 a month.)

3) "Half-day" kindergarten is not a half-day. It's 2.5 hours. That's not even a terribly long playdate. The logistics of providing childcare for the hours outside of the morning or afternoon program are a nightmare. Who with a job outside of the home can easily dash to the school at 11:30 a.m.? Or to daycare at lunchtime and then to school in the afternoon? There is limited selection among daycares that provide transportation to and from school, and sometimes that leads to "choosing" sub-par, unlicensed care. Busing these tiny kids to and from their daycares is also not an easy thing to carry out, or a fantastically good idea (what if you lose a few?). And where alternating full days are offered instead of half days, it's not only difficult to find childcare that will take your child Tuesday and Thursday of one week and Monday, Wednesday, Friday of the next, but it can be discombobulating for the small child who wakes up each morning and asks where they're going that day.

There's lots more to discuss about the merits of full-day learning. You can read more on our Early Learning page.

Top videos of the week

It's the Friday of a long weekend, a day for which productivity can be best characterized by the fact that the world stopped to play Pac Man on the Google home page this morning.

So just for fun, I'm going to share a few videos that made me smile this week. Some are to watch with the kids. The others are just for you.

BEST CUTE ANIMAL VIDEO

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Because who knew baby sloths were so ugly-cute?

BEST SUMMARY OF A TV SERIES BY A BUNCH OF SCRAGGLY CATS

Because you're never going to find time to watch those other seasons on DVD.

BEST ATTEMPT TO GLAMORIZE PEDESTRIAN ASPECT OF LIFE AS A PARENT

Because you may be trying to convince yourself that the mini-van is the new Jetta.

BEST SHREK FOREVER PRIMER

Because with YouTube, there's no reason not to know the funniest lines before you even leave for the theatre.

Embarrassing ourselves for the babies

This morning three of us from The Star participated in Media Rock Band, the kick-off to a great new family festival in Toronto called Funday Sunday on November 29, 2010.

The event supports causes dear to my heart: Sunnybrook Hospital's Women & Babies program, which specializes in providing care to women experiencing high-risk pregnancies and their babies, some of them premature, and Canadian Hadassah-WIZO, an agency that protects at-risk youth and women in Israel.

The highlight of Funday Sunday will be Toronto's Top Rock Stars, a Canadian Idol-style competition where teams of gaming experts and would-be musicians compete playing XBOX Rock Band. Bands will register in three categories:

• Under 12

• Over 13

• Family

They'll have the summer to practise and to raise funds for Sunnybrook and Hadassah.

This morning's event for a kick off to raise awareness about Funday Sunday.

Yourhome.ca editor Jennifer Wilson-Speedy, rocker Brett Lodge from our graphics department and I formed a team - with one ringer supplied by the organizers (thank you, Phil!), and performed the Blondie hit One Way or Another. Jen is a Rock Star ace but Brett and I were playing the game for our first and second times, respectively. We didn't come ANYWHERE near winning, but it wasn't completely humiliating and we had fun!

Here you can see Jennifer above on guitar and just barely make me out with the microphone.

   

Here's our group shot, left to right, Jennifer, Brett, me and Phil.

And here we are with the rest of the participants, including teams from Today's Parent, CTV, Flow and Sunnybrook. All teams were judged by a panel of celebrities including Erica Ehm of the Yummy Mummy Club. Congratulations to the winners from Flow!

Participating in Toronto's Top Rock Star is not the only way to enjoy Funday Sunday and support these charities. You can also buy tickets to the day-long event, which includes games and activities for kids, a marketplace and an area offering information and tips about family health. Or you can sponsor a team here.

An experiment in pack parenting

Last night was an exciting one at our house. That's because our dear friends, the Smyths, moved in with us.

The main floor of Kelly and Colin's house is being renovated for a reality TV show (I don't believe I'm allowed to say which one just yet!), and that meant their family of five - including Ella, 6, Nolan, 4, and Carson, 2, plus golden retriever puppy, Marlowe - needed to be out of the space.

I have a small one-bedroom suite in my basement, bunk beds in Cameron's room and an extra cot, so we're all squeezing in for one epic playdate/sleepover.

Kelly and I met at a Fitmom prenatal yoga class when we were both expecting our first babies. And, along with our other dearest mommy friend, Lori, and her family, we've been sharing childcare, dinners, martinis, tea, sympathy and life's ups and downs. In short, our kids are growing up together, and so are we.

Here's a photo of the gang (the boys on the ends are Lori's Jake, (left) and Davis, who are not staying with us, but this gives you the idea anyway):

We're comfortable telling either others' two-year-old's to "get down from there." We know who likes their spaghetti with sauce and who likes it with just Parmesan cheese. It's not uncommon for us to have a pack of kids in pajamas watching a movie while we try to sip a little wine and eat some dinner while it's still hot warm.

This period is interesting to me in a couple of ways:

First, it's an experiment in what I like to call "pack parenting." (Maybe the phrase that will come to mind for you is that old cliché we use but don't really live: "It takes a village.") In pack parenting, whatever moms or dads are around work together to give everyone attention and move all the kids through routines of meals, outings, bedtime, whatever, invoking an "Everyone behind the yellow line!/Everyone clear their plate!/Everyone brush their teeth!" kind of group think. Any parent who has struggled through the "arsenic hour" feeling depleted and outnumbered knows how much easier that it is when there's another adult around. So these three-weeks-and-a-bit will be, I think, both chaotic and supportive.

Secondly, much of the world lives this way. The nuclear family is really a very modern idea. It's quite a western luxury to have four walls and a roof for just us. And as a person who lives many time zones away from extended family, I've often thought that perhaps multi-generational households have it right, with more people on hand to stir the soup, read a story or supervise bath.

Already there have been some memorable moments! While Kelly and Colin were schlepping things over from their place last night, I was supervising dinner. Everyone got along famously but there was a wee tussle over a stool between the two-year-olds. I caught one child by the footie pajama'd ankles just inches from doing a head plant, but entirely unfazed and still chewing a meatball. The puppy arrived later in the evening and skidded around the hardwood sniffing things and ecstatically wagging her tail before finding some blackboard chalk to chew. And this morning Carson "helped" me mix the orange juice, adding a little soapy dishwater for good measure when I turned my head to make the smoothie.

I'm sure I'll be chronicling a lot of this here and on Twitter, but meanwhile, there are some other things you'll probably want to check out today:

Humour columnist Vinay Menon's take on the CBC documentary Hyper Parent and Coddled Kids, which airs tonight at 9 p.m.

Kris Rushowy's fascinating story on innovative programs that use exercise to help at-risk children pay attention and stay on their best behaviour.

Ann Douglas's thought-provoking take on iPhone Apps for parents and kids.

Susan Delacourt's exclusive interview about daycare with former Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Trish Crawford's interesting article on the link between preschool aggression and bullying, plus the bullying victims who have launched a website to help bullied youth.

Daycare should not be a partisan issue

Why must child care be so divisive?

Michael Ignatieff announced yesterday that - no matter what the cost - a national childcare program would become reality under a government led by him. 

Not surprisingly, partisan gloves immediately came off. On one side, Liberal supporters happy to hear the news. On the other, the expected conservative accusations that the initiative is too expensive, too ambitious and not supportive of the traditional family where one parent stays home to look after the children. "You had 'em, YOU look after 'em," is the basic message.

What I think gets lost here is the notion that children themselves are citizens. There are always the predictable daycare naysayers who speak of kids as though they are a luxury consumer product. "If you cannot afford children, don't have them. Don't expect me to pay for your bad family planning," espoused one such commenter on Susan Delacourt's story. 

While there's a cogent argument to be made that there's a worldwide population crisis (though my own take is that we have a more urgent over-consumption crisis in the developed world), Canada does not have that sort of population problem. In fact, we are not replacing ourselves fast enough, not even when immigration is factored in. The boomers and seniors complaining that a universal child-care program is "20 years too late," and that the money would be better spent on the medical and old-age security costs associated with an aging population, are incredibly myopic.

The children in daycare now are the very ones whose income taxes will support the "Me Generation" when they are elderly.

Here's what I'd like the ask the commenters who use the phrases "my money," "my paycheque" and "my taxes" as if there had been a going-out-of-business sale at the Fraser Institute: Just because you're done with raising kids (or didn't have them), do you think people aren't going to continue to have babies? Are we simply going to wind civilization down here to coincide with your slow, pharmacologically-enhanced demise?

No, not everyone who has children can afford them. Teen pregnancy may be down thanks to public health campaigns and better access to birth control, but there are plenty of other ways to wind up with both kids and a small bank account. Fleeing a place of less fortunate birth, for instance (should kids from Haiti not be entitled to a licensed daycare spot?). Becoming the victim of spousal abuse, or simply being left by the other parent to fend on one income. Not having a higher education and a chance at a professional salary. Getting pregnant in the middle of a higher education and not being willing - because of religious conviction or other deeply-held personal beliefs - to consider termination as an option. Becoming ill or disabled.

None of these circumstances (or, I'd argue, any decision made by any parent) removes the right of a child to quality care in the critical preschool years. If you're not clear on the connection between good early years and successful adult outcomes, read the Pascal Report for starters. And while you're at it, ask an average middle class family in Quebec about the difference $7-a-day daycare has made in terms of the stress - even on double-income, professional couples - of providing for a family.

To put it in terms that tunnel-finished, free-marketeers can understand, there is a demand for childcare spaces that far outstrips supply. Witness: two-year wait lists for licensed daycare spots and longer wait-lists yet for coveted after-school programs.

So keep in mind that while you're busy spewing your disapproval of federally-funded childcare into commenting fields on articles, there are low-income parents dropping their children off at unlicensed basement daycares where they will sit in front of the television with no one to sing to them, read to them, or engage them in a little finger painting.

And furthermore, access to good quality childcare does nothing to threaten the right of families to choose to have one parent look after the children at home. A daycare space does not remove a stay-at-home mom space.

A national daycare program is a good idea. And it's a good idea no matter who thought of it, and no matter what political party manages to make it happen.