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.

Kids' books most likely to be banned

Wouldn't it be nice to live in the world where, at the slightest suggestion of real-world sex or violence, parents didn't scream bloody murder about inappropriate content in school libraries?

Sadly, despite it being 2011, we don't yet live in a society free of intolerant folks who turn up their nose at a book that features homosexuality or talks frankly about drugs.

I don't know if I've got this right, but I'd like to think that school book banning happens less in Canada than it does in the United States. If anyone has statistics that prove or disprove this, I'd love to see them.

Thanks to tweep @redheadwriting, I spotted this awesome infographic on The Good. While it shows the books most likely to prompt parent complaints in the United States, I think it's still worth a look for Canadian readers.

Please check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

To get a better look, view it in interative mode on The Good Website.

And don't forget to check out our home page to make sure you haven't missed any important parenting news today.

Grossology: Parent edition

A number of character-building experiences await me in the laundry room.

I wish I were kidding.

Usually I adhere to a strict policy about not discussing things scatalogical on this blog. I get enough of that at the dinner table. So do many of you. My overall feeling is that the less said about this stuff, the better.

At the same time, there is comfort in knowing that one's shitty experiences are shared, right?

I should start by saying that this tale isn't nearly as shitty as some. Not by far. This is no story of a long-weekend sponsored by Norwalk. It's not even a story of the morning after the night before at Mandarin.

It's just a tale of the slightly ridiculous and gag-worthy.

Some of you have already heard me complain about being under the weather lately. The sinuses that wouldn't clear got scary, face-swelling, jaw-stiffening and ear-clogging on Friday night. It's been both a godsend and a bummer that this has coincided with my mom's highly anticipated visit from Victoria, since it has meant extra hands to help with the kids and the presence of my OWN real life mother to tell me to take a nap.

Part of the highly-anticipated bit has been a special-introduction dinner. The meet-the-parents kind. Only in this case it's meet-the-parent. Singular. All this to say it's not the kind of dinner you cancel just because you're a little woozy from your antibiotics and you can't hear out of your right ear.

But when he arrived with his own child in tow, special guest had to introduce himself to special grandma because I was in the upstairs bathroom, discovering that my three-year-old had soaked the back of his two layers of T-shirt by semi-falling into the toilet.

"Oh, hi," I said barrelling down the stairs with yucky T-shirts balled up, excusing myself for not being able to touch anyone while I just nipped into the laundry room for a wee second.

Barely two minutes later I was back upstairs, gaining a better appreciation for the extent of the imperfect mounts and dismounts executed by my youngest son, normally fairly competent in this arena. The rest of his clothes were done for. The toilet needed to be scrubbed. The child needed to be bathed.

However else would one begin a dinner party?

With boy's bottom speed-bathed, I returned to the main floor with a second bundle of laundry and a child dressed in only underwear.

Dinner progressed as could be expected, with three children seven and under eating absolutely everything my gourmet-cook mom had prepared and absolutely nobody related to me standing on his chair to better make a point.

Mere seconds after the cookie bribes were dispensed at meal's end and an under-the-weather Cameron had retired to the couch, his little brother exuberantly belly-flopped on him (in an attempt either to either hug him or begin a wrestling match - who can tell with boys?) causing Cam's sniffly, dry nose to bleed. Rather a lot.

Of course in hugging and comforting him, we both got covered in blood. After the bleeding stopped, Cam changed all of his clothes and I changed my sweater, trudging back downstairs with a miffed but mostly recovered big brother and a third bundle of laundry.

"Okay, well.... that's done!" I chirped, turning to some task at the kitchen counter.

"I hate to tell you," said my mom, "but your neck has, um, a big smear of blood."

A quick check in the bathroom mirror revealed that I was indeed sporting a bit of a zombie look. The other dinner party hosts would be SO jealous when they heard about this!

It was a successful dinner, though, despite the unexpected presence of some body fluids. A little blood and stuff doesn't really faze any veteran parent - am I right?

So I shouldn't have been fazed when, two days later, my young potty procrastinator missed the toilet, fouling the white bath mat in the grossest of ways, seemingly at the very instant that I removed the bunny from his cage so I could clean it (not my favourite job), an act that caused our rabbit friend to pee on the bottom-bunk quilt in protest.

Could it be that in the interim between whisking away the yucky bath mat and wiping human bottom, my pet had gone who-knew-he-could-pee-that-much crazy on the formerly adorable quilt? Yessiree.

That's what I'm talking about people. It's no afternoon in the trauma room, but there times when I can't even believe so many kinds of gross can occur in the space of five minutes.

And I don't even own a dog.

Got a similar story of your own? Please share it in the comments. Just not while I'm eating lunch, okay?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian parents are easy on their teens

If your teen is laying it on thick about how everybody under the sun has a later curfew and more daytime minutes, put this in your back pocket.

Canadian parents are lenient compared to those in Italy and France, according to a new study published in the Journal of Adolescence. Italian parents were rated by their adolescent children as most demanding and authoritative. Parents in France came somewhere in the middle.

The relationships between teens and their parents were compared by researchers from the Universite de Montreal, who chose the three countries because they share Latin language, Catholic history and are all advanced industrial societies.

"Our study found Canadian parents to be the most tolerant," says Michel Claes, the psychology professor who was lead author of the report. "They had less rules and less disciplinary actions. Canadian mothers and fathers were seen as less punitive, less coercive and more tolerant than French and Italian mothers."

Research was conducted by asking adolescents in all three countries to answer questionnaires about both their emotional bonds with their parents and the amount of behavioural control imposed upon them.

The Italian parents were deemed more likely to take punitive actions when rules were broken, and had less tolerance of teens socializing with peers. "They uphold family regulation and require their adolescents to ask for authorization until a much later age," says Claes.

Claes reasoned that Canadians have a democratic view of education that promotes independence and negotiation, while those in European counties may emphasize respect for authority and obligation to the family.

So back to your negotiation with Junior about whether his friend's older brother is a suitable chaperone for a co-ed sleepover. Maybe tell him he's welcome to move to Italy, where he'll surely be too busy helping mom can the tomatoes?

More parenting news worth checking out today:

Ontario students show slight gain in provincial test scores

Big bang for full-day learning buck

How to talk to kids about back-to-school fears

Back-to-school guide

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.

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.

What's good about "bad parenting"

Is it good to be a "bad parent?"

If any of us were actually talking about true and utter neglect of our children, physical or emotional abuse, or any conduct that consistently fails to meet the needs of a child, then the answer would certainly be no.

But when "bad parenting" is broached in a context such as Andrea Gordon's annual overview of parenting trends, that's simply not what we're dealing with at all.

As Andrea qualifies when she places "bad parenting" under the banner of "what's in," she's addressing parenting "sins" that include "buying non-organic baby food, yelling on occasion or being messy housekeepers." Or rather, the authors, bloggers and other influencers who wave the "bad parenting" flag are talking about these moments of parenting imperfection. And with some irony, given that these very authors and bloggers are thoughtful enough about parenting to write about it.

To me this is about a social and psychic pendulum swing back from the hyperparenting that characterized the past two decades. No longer do I feel the need to discuss at length with other moms the various extra-curricular offerings in the Parks and Rec guide and feel like I failed my child if I lost the speed-dialing lottery on teleregistration day. I won't engage in conversations with that slightly competitive undercurrent about who is enforcing more academic learning outside of school hours. I've matured beyond that and frankly, I never felt comfortable with that sort of thing one-upmomship.

New information about the importance of attachment parenting about 20 years ago collided with an explosion in (often conflicting) parenting advice available on bookstore shelves and at our fingertips on the internet. And if it made many of us a little batty and stressed at the outset of our parenting journeys, maybe it's not so bad that today we're a little more able to share our tough moments.

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Also part of that pendulum swing - plus the reality of a recession - frugality is playing a bigger role in the values we're raising our children with today.

You may also be interested in:

The end of supermom

Ann Douglas's parenting predictions for 2010

Having children makes you think like your parents

Signs of a truce in classroom gender wars

Parenting tip of the day: Measuring fever

Oh, what a flu season it has been so far, the usual fall colds and other school-season viruses accompanied by pandemic flu H1N1.

Today's tip comes from thermometer makers Thermor Ltd., but seems like a reasonable idea.

Since body temperature varies from person to person, get a base body temperature of everyone in your family when they're feeling well. This way you'll have a more accurate read on what defines a fever for each person, and you'll be more likely to catch on when a virus is in its most contagious stage.

(As a side note, apparently thermometer sales have been up along with sales of hand sanitizer.)

Parenting tip of the day - Make like a daycare

I arrived a few minutes early for the holiday concert at Cameron's after-school program the other day. Sitting in the Grade 1 and 2 room while we waited, again I found myself marvelling at the wisdom of early childhood educators and how much we can steal from them for our parenting.

First, there's the incredible organization of a daycare room - toys tidily sorted in labelled boxes that the children somehow obediently return to their correct places. (This, I think, is largely because the teachers insist that one activity is put away completely before another is started.)

But the thing that really makes my jaw drop about daycare? The crowd control.

Cameron's charismatic teacher, Daniella, has an incredible "call and response" thing going on with her students. If they're not quite following instructions, she shouts out in friendly sing-song, "Nobody's LIS-TEN-ING." The kids then reply, "Ooh, aah, sssshhhhhh!" complete with actions.

Getting ready to leave the room for the gym, she called out, "WHAT DO I NEED?" to which the kids responded, "A straight, quiet line." "DO I SEE ONE?" she continued. "No!"

Given my sometimes dismal ability to get the kids out the door on time, I'm thinking I need to try this. (No word yet on whether it works on spouses. If you find out, let me know.)

Parenting tip of the day: Helmets

It was the first day of "Learn to Play Hockey" at the Swansea Hockey Association in Toronto's Rennie Park this Saturday.

After bundling their 5- and 6-year-olds into a nearly impossible - and impossibly cute - amount of hockey equipment, some parents found themselves in a bind when they weren't allowed on the ice with their nervous offspring.

That's because the association doesn't allow any parents on the playing surface without helmets. Many had showed up with a pair of skates, hoping to be out there helping to pick new skaters up off the ice and otherwise assist with the cat herding. But the helmet-less were unable to go out there with their children - some who were having big first-day meltdowns.

It got me thinking about the whole "do as I say, not as I do thing," and the way we don't seem to value our own skulls the way we our those of our children.

We grew up without bike helmets and ski helmets, so it's our natural inclination to think of these things as excessive. But safety nuts that we are when it comes to our kids, we barely let them watch a hockey game without protective headgear.

The ski hill is another place of noggin-protecting inequity. I went on plenty of ski trips as a kid and never wore a helmet, but the Natasha Richardson tragedy last year really gave me pause. As a parent, I'm a little more keenly aware of the importance of staying alive, and I was saddened by her passing all the more because she'd be so missed by her kids.

Safe Kids Canada is trying to use the 2010 Winter Games to draw attention to it's safe-skiing charter, and so it's asking people to commit to wearing helmets while skiing or snowboarding.

When Cameron took some basic ski lessons two winters ago, of course helmets were essential. I don't own one, but I think that's going to change before I next head to the slopes. After all, my brain should be sharp enough to protect the skull it's in, right? (Besides, I hear that wearing a ski helmet keeps you so much warmer, particularly on wind-whipped chairlifts.)

So where's the parenting tip in all of this? I guess it's simply this: Protect yourself and improve your helmet-enforcing credibility by putting one on yourself!