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Are you questioning? If you're not, you should.

Are you aware that Obama is set to give a speech directed specifically at our school age children, meant to be delivered while they are at school, away from the influence of their parents? If this doesn’t worry you, it should. The mere fact that I am hearing this announcement not from my school district, not through the televised media, but instead through a small and obscured article buried on the 5th page of the Arizona Republic, honestly has me very concerned as a parent.

The U.S. Department of Education claims the speech is benign and strictly educational in nature. But the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Arizona is voicing sincere concern about the message, describing it’s content as “too worshipful toward Obama” and “educationally unsound.”

The idea that the president wants to speak to the american people is frankly encouraging and I would normally be quite excited about sitting down with my whole family and absorbing together the message that he wants to share, discussing the content in our family and sharing ideas about what we thought, what it means and what impact it might have on us as a family and as individuals. If his motives were truly altruistic, than the family setting is where this type of educational motivational message should be shared.

However, that is not Obama’s intention. He has issued lesson plans along with his message  that encourage students to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president” which are to be collected and redistributed at a later date by the teacher as a means of holding students accountable. Other lesson plan directives encourage “building a background knowledge about the president of the United States by reading books about president and Barack Obama.”  Teachers are encouraged to have students write down key messages from the address that can be put up on a classroom poster. One of the questions teachers are encouraged to ask during the speech is “What is the President asking me to do?”. Wouldn’t you like to know the answer to that question BEFORE your kids do? If Obama truly wanted to make a difference, this speech should take place in the home, NOT at school. Political posturing is not something we should encourage at school. Those are opinions that should be nurtured and cultivated in the home.

Kids in middle school and high school are also given lesson plans to use in conjunction with the speech that include writing excerpts from the speech and encourage questions such as “Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us?”. No where that I can see in these lesson plans is there a call for students to think critically. They are merely encouraged to regurgitate spoken dogma.

If these revelations don’t disturb you on some level, than let’s take a quick moment to recap our path to the current state of our nation. Our government first initiated a requirement that our banks make massive loans to people that have no ability to pay back, creating an artificial housing bubble that has since crashed the economy. We initiate a “no child left behind” rule that systematically dumbs down our education so that rather than give kids true educational challenges so that “no child is left behind”, we make standardized tests so remedial that  ”no child to be left behind”. We allow, and in fact encourage, unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life. We are at war with an enemy that we are not allowed to name for fear we might offend someone.

And now we come to the present.

We have a president that no one knows anything about with many questionable affiliations with radical groups like Acorn, and yet no one in the media even questions his history or motives. He quietly talks about creating and funding a mandatory civilian defense force (which begins with optional military classes offered in the government funded school systems, don’t believe me? check it out for yourselves…it’s called the H.R. 1388 Serve America Act) that is meant to be stronger than our military for use inside our own borders.  Obama, himself, stated on a July 2, 2008 campaign speech in Colorado Springs that “we cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we set. We must have a civilian National Security Force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, and just as well funded.” In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t even read the founding documents of our nations in our school anymore. The pledge of allegiance is optional.

Not worried yet? Think back to the 1930′s where another charismatic, motivated, excellent public speaker, albeit a relative political unknown at the time, surfaced. Still not ringing a bell? He was elected to office during another economic crisis. He quietly and subversively seized power starting with government, moving into bureaucracy, then through political and emotional rallying of the children (who were even encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they received constant indoctrination), and finally by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, healthcare for everyone and rewards for the military-industrial complex. With a compliant media, a newly pride-filled nation convinced of their own superiority, he accomplished true change…just not the changet the people thought they would get. I’ll bet if you thought real hard, you could put a name to this man. He even had his own logo, just as Obama does.

Parents, WAKE UP! It is no coincidence that this speech airs during the most inaccessible time for working parents. It is no accident that Obama seeks to rally the youth while they are away from our influence. That is how it works. A little at a time. A piece at a time. As Neal McCluskey, associate director of Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom said, “You don’t want to see this coming from the president. You don’t want to see this coming from the federal government.”

For more info: Fox News Politics, Ed.gov. Stand Up for America

Tags: co-parenting, dad's, education, Family and Home, parenting
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A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.

Does your husband play an active role in your kids lives? If he doesn’t, your kids are sorely missing out. Dad’s add something special to parenting because dad’s don’t think like mom’s! (I know, big surprise there!). But it’s true and while this sentiment might sometimes be cause for frustration, it is something we should be thankful for. Kids receive entirely different interaction from their dad than their mom and also get entirely unique perspectives on problems or questions they might have. Dad’s these days are looking for a more active role in parenting than the one their fathers were saddled with. So mothers of the world, stand up and cheer for these forward thinking dad’s!

But there’s a catch, ladies…we mom’s have to learn to let go of a few things. It is commonly accepted dogma that “mother’s know best” in all situations pertaining to the kids and therefore, we should have the final say on whatever might be needed in the home, whether that be discipline, decorating, food, love, advice, or the like. A study of 1,023 couples from 20 large cities in the US recently found that mothers were protective of their caregiving and educational roles when it came to the caregiving of the children but were less so for playtime activities that “were not considered threats to the mother’s caregiving identity.”

Dad’s everywhere are breaking out of the old stereotype of “father works, mother takes care of the home” and wanting a more active role in the home. And while this is something every mother seems to covet, we are much more reluctant to yield some of our “home court advantage” to our husbands. We’re not talking about the everyday “let your kids go to school in mismatched clothes because you’re husband dressed them” idea, but more along the lines of letting our husbands be the one our kids run to when they skin their knee (and not feeling guilty about it!).

Dad’s need more than just a “green light” to participate, they need active encouragement from us mothers that they are capable of carrying out their responsibilities in their own way and that we trust them to do it (sorry ladies…that means no nagging or micromanaging!).

Probably the most important first step is to define exactly what kind of parenting co-op you want. Not everyone is ready or desires the complete “co-parenting” package. But our children benefit when we relinquish some of our control to make way for their dad’s own parenting style. I remember when my husband and I came home with our first daughter. I was happy to take on all the responsibilities of home life as a stay-at-home mom and was in fact eager to do so while my husband supported us at work. But a few months into things, I realized that while I might sometimes feel like the martyr for all the late-night, crying, feeding, daily caregiving role, I was in fact cheating my husband out of the evening giggles, smiles, bathtime play and general bonding that I got every day with my baby. When we talked about it, he was very eager to enter into this evening role when he got home from work and take over the evening routine as often as he could. As excited as I was for this added help and his excitement and willingness to participate, I found myself hovering over him, micromanaging every interaction with the baby and generally making myself a total nuisance! I kept trying to tell him “that’s not the way I do it” and “you really shouldn’t do that” or “let me show you how you’re supposed to do that”. What I realized is that I didn’t know anything more about parenting than he did. The difference was I had been given 3 months of total trust and complete autonomy to figure it all out for myself while I was asking him to figure it all out in one day while under my supervised stare! This all became apparent to me when, in an outburst of frustration, my husband turned to me and said “well, that’s NOT the way I do it!!”.

We need to let these willing husbands learn their own way of doing things and realize that even if it’s not done the exact way we want it to be, at least it is getting done. The more important results from these efforts on both parts is that the kids are going to benefit from a real relationship with their dad and there is no earnings sheet that can compare to that!

Thoughts on co-parenting? Join the discussion in our forum!

Tags: co-parenting, dad's, Family and Home, fathers, parenting
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