When Our Children’s Future Doesn’t Come First

This is a big-picture post, so please bear with me.

As a parent, I always felt that part of my job was to make this world a better place for my children. My family takes this very seriously.

My father fled Romania for France when I was just six. We didn’t see each other for two years, until the communist government allowed me to leave the country so we could be reunited. He was a French teacher and a Ph.D. candidate in Romania. In Paris, he packed watches in a basement for a few years before he could get work as an advertising rep.

My husband’s father also fled Romania, first for a refugee camp in Italy, then for the United States. He was an opera singer in a Romanian seaside town. Here in California, he became a custodian at a public school, a job he held until he retired.

There are some days, when I watch the news and read the paper, when I’m starting to wonder if I need to move my kids back to the other side of the Atlantic. These past few weeks, it really felt that this country was falling apart. It seemed like politicians in general and elected officials in particular have decided to put partisan bickering ahead of making this country a better place for our children.

Instead of agreeing on a comprehensive plan that would include both cuts and tax increases to restore health to the nation’s finances, they argued until the very last minute, then came up with a solution that only fixes the situation in the short term.

Each person in the United States, man, woman or child, carried $34,200 of the nation’s debt this year, according to this Reuters story. That amount is projected to go up to $40,400 by 2016. I shudder to think how high it will go by 2030, when my oldest daughter is scheduled to enter the job market, or by 2040, when I’ll hopefully get to retire.

I also wonder what the job market will get like when my kids will be looking for work. The nation’s unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent today. Will politicians get their act together in the next 20 years, so our economy is not stuck in a rut then? Will this ever get better? Will anyone start thinking about what this means for our kids and the world we’re leaving for them? I’m starting to doubt it.

Healthy or Not, Industrial Food at McDonald’s Makes for Unhappy Meals

I’ve never taken my children to McDonald’s. And the company’s new allegedly healthier happy meals won’t change that.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t judge parents who take their kids there. I know many who do. I have fond memories of my own father taking me out for a burger and fries at Quick, the French equivalent of McDonald’s, on Wednesdays, when school let out early. But honestly, part of me also wonders what the heck he was thinking. I was a pretty chubby kid. Burgers and fries were the last things I needed.

My reluctance to take my kids to Mickey D.’s, and frankly any fast food joint or chain restaurant, has more to do with the industrialization of food in this country. It’s a trend well documented in Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore Dilemma” and movies, including “Fast Food Nation” and “Supersize Me.”

In researching this story, I stumbled upon this video of one of McDonald’s food processing factories. Sorry, but I don’t want my meat going through conveyor belts and tubes before landing on my plate. I found it particularly funny, in a depressing sort of way, that the final step in the process is a run through the metal detector, just to make sure that pieces of the machinery haven’t been left behind in the patties.

Now, McDonald’s does deserve credit for some things. As early as 2003, the company asked its suppliers to eliminate antibiotics in animal feed. It also uses some leaner meat in its burgers, that often comes from grass-fed beef.

But still, there’s that huge meat grinding machine. There’s also the company’s strategy to appeal to children by putting toys in its kids’ meals, the infamously named “Happy Meals.” I feel it’s a pretty irresponsible marketing ploy, considering how many children are overweight in America these days.

I was glad to see that the City of San Francisco banned toys in kids’ meals unless they met certain nutritional requirements. By the way, according to media coverage, McDonald’s new meals still aren’t healthy enough to meet San Francisco’ guidelines, mostly because they don’t provide a serving of fruit and a serving of vegetables. New York may soon follow in San Francisco’s footsteps.

Obviously, the biggest missing piece in all these stories is parental education. If parents had all the facts, or at least more facts, about how McDonald’s food is processed and what its suppliers do to animals and the environment, would they still take their kids there?

For some, I suspect the answer will still be yes. It’s cheap and convenient, and in today’s society, where healthy food is expensive and unemployment is high, that’s a killer combination.

Jake and Ella: Older and wiser!

Dear Readers,

Due to a technical misstep, earlier this summer we lost our blog! It would have been devastating, had we not emailed ourselves copies of every post for the past year. So we’ve been working to restore the old content and, meanwhile, we’ll start putting up new posts again.

As this blog advances to Year Two, we want to thank you for coming along on this ride and hope you’ll let us know what topics you’d like to see more of! And as our business passes its first birthday, we are grateful for your support and so excited about what’s to come.

Yours,

Jake & Ella

Pigs vs Humans: Is FDA Policy Fostering Resistance to Antibiotics?

The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and several other organizations, filed a lawsuit May 25 against the Food and Drug Administration, asking that the agency issue a fairly board ban on the use of antibiotics in animal feed. These are the same antibiotics that keep ear infections—and much worse—at bay for our children.

According to the suit, about 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are given in low doses to healthy animals in their feed to promote growth and make up for filthy living conditions. Yet the FDA concluded as early as 1977 that this practice could promote the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria capable of infecting people. The agency then failed to act on these findings for years, under industry pressure. The lawsuit asks the FDA to ban the same antibiotics used in humans from animal feed when they’re not used to treat sickness.

Of course, trade groups representing livestock growers, such as the National Pork Producers Council, tell another story. There is no evidence that “the widespread use of antibiotics on healthy animals is contributing to the growth of bacteria resistant to the drugs we use to treat humans,” the group told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, before the suit was filed.

A veterinarian working for the group pointed out that on a per-pound basis, people and their pets consume 10 times more antibiotics than farm animals,according to a story in the Daily Herd Network. The industry launched an education program called ‘Take Care – Use Antibiotics Responsibly,” the story also points out.

Still, that doesn’t quite carry the same weight as this quote from the National Academy of Sciences, in a Huffington Post article: “A decrease in the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in human medicine alone is not enough. Substantial efforts must be made to decrease inappropriate overuse of antimicrobials in animals and agriculture as well.”

The lawsuit also vindicates years of campaigning by activists like Everly Macario, whose son, Simon, died at just 18 months after becoming ill with an antibiotic-resistant bacterium called MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The bug took the little boy’s life in just 24 hours.

Macario told her story in an incredibly moving piece in The Huffington Postearlier this month. She helped found the MRSA Research Center at the University of Chicago, which aims to spread awareness about the disease and its leading cause: antibiotics resistance. She urges her readers to join the Moms for Antibiotic Awareness group, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Of course, you can also exert pressure as a consumer and buy only meats raised without antibiotics. That’s fairly easy to do for beef and chicken nowadays, but pork is another story. Let’s hope that the FDA will finally take action to change that. For now, it sure looks like it’s putting pigs before people, as Laurie David, a National Resources Defense Council, said in The Huffington Post.

Carcinogens Lurking Where You Least Expect Them: BPA-free Bottles

This has not been a good few weeks for parents worrying about the safety of the baby products they buy. On May 17, The New York Times reported that a chemical suspected of causing cancer can be found in many baby products, including nursing pillows, car seats and high chairs.

And on May 8, the Times published an editorial calling for better regulation as manufacturers replace BPA with chemicals that also may be unsafe in baby bottles, sippy cups and other products.

At the core of the piece was a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Results of the study are enough to give nightmares to most parents. The researchers tested commercially available plastic products under real-life circumstances, such as microwaving. They found that almost all products, including those labeled as BPA-free, leached chemicals that show estrogenic activity, one of the very reasons most manufacturers got rid of BPA in the first place.

In subsequent news coverage, some researchers questioned the study. “Some scientists wondered about the test’s reliability. Others noted that wine and many vegetables also can act like estrogen. And a few observed that Bittner [the lead author of the study] has a financial interest in the testing lab and in a company involved in making plastic products that don’t release estrogenic chemicals,” said an NPR news story.

But both scientists and activists agree that the FDA, and Congress, must do a better job at regulating chemicals used in every-day products.  For example,according to this Times story, “thousands of chemicals approved by the F.D.A. are classified as ‘generally regarded as safe,’ meaning the manufacturer told the F.D.A. they were safe or they benefited from a presumption of safety when the agency passed its Food Additives Amendment of 1958. BPA and certain phthalates were in those categories.”

To make things worse, “thousands of chemicals approved by the F.D.A. are classified as “generally regarded as safe,” meaning the manufacturer told the F.D.A. they were safe or they benefited from a presumption of safety when the agency passed its Food Additives Amendment of 1958. BPA and certain phthalates were in those categories,” the Times story also points out.

In March, more than 40,000 researchers and clinicians signed an open letter to the FDA and the EPA asking the agencies to focus on the subtler impact chemicals might have on the human body, rather than simply determining whether they are toxic, according to The Washington Post.

It’s about time.

Ding Dong the Disney Princesses are Dead?

The Disney princesses are dead! Okay, sorry, let me rephrase that. I got carried away. The Disney princess genre is dead—well, sort of.

This is according to a Los Angeles Times piece that quotes Pixar Animation Studios chief Ed Catmull, who oversees Disney Animation with director John Lasseter. Catmull says that the studio doesn’t have any other fairy tales—or musicals—in development. He and Lasseter decided to back out of two projects already in the works: “The Snow Queen” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

The move, of course, has commercial reasons, according to the Times article. “Princess and the Frog” didn’t do as well as Disney had hoped at the box office. “Tangled” got snubbed at the Golden Globes and the Oscars, according to this NPR news story.

The NPR story goes on to describe a backlash from a segment of Disney’s audience, who are fairy tale fans and  made their displeasure known on Facebook. That caused Catmull to backpedal a little. “We have a number of projects in development with new twists that audiences will be able to enjoy for many years to come,” he said, according to NPR.

The trouble with fairy tales, apparently, is that they only appeal to little girls, according to both the Times and NPR. Disney Princesses may be a $4 billion franchise, but girls don’t want anything to do with them once they turn 5, 6 or 7. By the way, I can tell you this is true from experience. When my oldest was in preschool, princesses were all the girls would talk about. They had princess shirts, backpacks—and underwear. We’re now in kindergarten and half the girls don’t care anymore, including my daughter.

Here’s the rub though. Instead of trying to come up with strong girl role models to appeal to older girls, Disney appears to be going after a different audience: boys, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

To anyone who saw action movies take over movie screens in the past decade, it’s pretty clear that boys already rule the market. Girls, especially young ones who aren’t yet ready for romantic comedies, have precious little to watch. Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, such as “Spirited Away” and “Ponyo” are the only movies I can think of that really feature girls as central characters in a story.

So it’s disappointing to hear Disney executives say that they’re going to focus on boy-centric movies, such as “Cars.”  In his Los Angeles Times interview, Catmull highlighted a new “Winnie the Pooh” movie and “Reboot Ralph,” about a video game character who’s been left behind by the advances of technology. No strong girls in sight, though according to NPR, Disney is set to release Brave, about a Scottish princess, starring Kelly Macdonald and Emma Thompson.

So what do you think? Should Pixar and Disney turn their attention to young girls, as this online petition suggests? Or should we let the market figure this one out?

“Mommy, Who is Osama bin Laden?”

“Mommy, who is Osama bin Laden?”

My 5-year-old asked this question as soon as I turned the TV on to find out how and where the man who topped the FBI’s most wanted list for 10 years had been killed. I’m sure millions of American parents living on the West Coast were faced with the same question Sunday night.

Finding the right answer isn’t easy. I called bin Laden a “bad guy” who did bad things that led to the start of a war in a country far, far away, named Afghanistan. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about Sept. 11. Frankly, I was worried we’d be in for several nightmare-filled nights if I did.

I don’t feel I dealt with the situation particularly well and that got me thinking about how we as parents handle breaking news with our children. It also got me thinking about how one day I’ll have to explain to my children what the world was like before Sept. 11.

I like the approach this TIME Magazine columnist took with her children: “Once upon a time, there were two tall towers that stood in Manhattan,” she writes. “And a five-sided building in Washington, D.C. And a grassy field in Pennsylvania. Some people crashed planes into them, on purpose. They killed nearly 3,000 people. And the men who did it were part of a group led by bin Laden.”

It sounds a little bit like a fairy tale, but I think it gets the point across. I also liked this page, set up on a website that memorializes the victims of Sept. 11. It gives simple and straight-forward advice: listen to your child, express emotions together and answer their questions. Don’t tell them more than they really need to know.

In terms of how to deal with news coming into your home via TV, radio and Internet, I found PBS’ guide to Talking with Kids About News to be the best resource, especially because it breaks advice down by age.

Children age 6 to 8 often digest news one piece at a time and think about the impact it has one their world, according to the guide. The website recommends limited exposure to news. Listening to the news is better than watching it for that age range, because of the impact graphic images have on kids.

The guide also advises to find out what your child already knows before you launch into a lengthy discussion; reassure them they’re safe; and don’t over-correct or over-explain.

I’m curious to hear about your experiences. Did you talk about Osama bin Laden’s death with your children? Did you discuss Sept. 11? What do you think worked?

How Do You Keep Yourself and Your Kids Unplugged?

Last week was Screen-Free Week all over America, and, as usual, we miserably failed to celebrate it. My 18-month-old stayed home sick with a cold. My 5-year-old’s after-school program, which we chose because it’s one block away from the baby’s day care, was closed for Passover. Keeping the two kids away from the TV and the computer became even more difficult than usual.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children today spend a scary average of seven hours a day in front of a screen. Our kids mercifully aren’t anywhere near that. The 5-year-old gets 30 to 45 minutes in the morning before school and another 45 minutes to an hour after school. I generally don’t let her near the computer, unless she’s got homework to do on it. That’s pretty close to the pediatrics’ academy recommendation of two hours of screen time per day. Weekends are a little worse, when she gets a couple of hours in the morning and another couple of hours at night.

I wish we were doing equally well with our baby. She’s not supposed to watch TV at all. But if her sister is watching TV after school, she’s watching it too. And because she goes to bed pretty late, around 9 p.m., she’ll usually watch another hour of grown-up programming. Of course, she’s getting to the point where she’s going to understand some of the stuff we’re watching, so that’s going to have to stop soon. I usually read to her while the TV is on or we’ll play with her toys, but, still, I know it’s not ideal.

Studies have repeatedly shown that high levels of TV and computer consumption lead to problems in school, lack of sleep, attention difficulties and obesity, according to the pediatrics academy. So I’m determined to cut back on our TV time, especially on the weekend.

Google “screen free week “and you’ll get a list of activities that you can pretty much insert into your everyday routine to help turn the TV off. Instead of letting the kids watch a movie, organize a family board game night (I’m not sure how well that would work with our baby, by the way). If the weather is nice, take a walk or go on a bike ride. Do some crafts with your kids.

Saturday afternoon, my five-year-old and I got stuck at home while her sister was taking a nap. It would have been easy to turn on the TV and watch a movie. But I decided against that. We worked on a craft project and played Guess Who for almost an hour. It was much more fun than I expected. We might just turn this in our little mother-daughter weekend tradition.

I’m curious to hear from you: What are some strategies you’ve successfully used to cut back on screen time in your home? What works best for toddlers? What about school-age children?

Resources:

Media and Play Guides from Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment

Screen Free Week

American Academy of Pediatrics Guidance to Help Families Make Positive Media Choices

University of Michigan: Television and Children

Confession of a Schoolyard Bully

Confession: I was a little bit of a schoolyard bully in elementary school. In my defense, I’ll say that I didn’t single anyone out;  in Romania and in France, where I grew up, the official passtime during recess was to beat each other up. But by eighth-grade, the tables had turned and I had become a victim of bullying. I didn’t get beat up, but other kids made fun of me and made sure I was safely isolated from the popular crowd. So I was very happy to learn that the White House decided to host an anti-bullying summit last month.

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama also promoted a new website,StopBullying.gov, designed to give parents, children and educators advice and tips. In browsing through the list of warning signs, I definitely recognized some that I experienced in high school: frequently complaining of stomachaches or feeling sick; being afraid of going to school or other activities with classmates; and appearing sad. I also recognized some parts of my elementary school self, when I was the one beating kids up: being quick to blame others; not accepting consequences for my actions; and needing to win and be best at everything.

The website also offers tips for bully-proofing your child and working with your child’s school. A child’s school is a critical part of the fight against bullying, experts agree. Yet many schools don’t go about it the right way, according to “Bullying in Schools,” a 2002 guide commissioned by the Justice Department.

Peer mediation and conflict resolution, for example, only have a limited impact, the report says. “The training often offers too little for those students who really need it, and too much for those who already have the skills,” the document says. Yet from my days as a school reporter, I remember many campuses are very fond of peer mediation programs, like “Peace Builders,” which are cheap and easy to implement.

Adopting a “zero tolerance” policy also doesn’t really work, the report adds. This approach leads to more suspensions, but doesn’t get to the root causes of the behavior.

Here’s what does work: enlisting the school principal; using a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach, which includes establishing a schoolwide policy that addresses both indirect bullying (rumors, isolation, etc.) and direct bullying; and providing guidelines for teachers, other staff and students about what they can do when bullying does occur, the report says.

Parents also need to be educated. Schools also shouldn’t shy away from crafting strategies for individual bullies and their victims, including meeting with their parents. Campuses also need to develop a comprehensive system to track bullying and find hot spots where incidents are more likely to take place, the report says.

The good news is that the percentage of children reporting they were bullied dropped from 22 percent in 2003 to just under 15 percent in 2008, according to a Department of Justice survey cited in the San Diego Union-Tribune. The report credits aggressive anti-bullying campaigns put in place after Columbine.

More statehouses are addressing the problem too. Forty-five states have anti-bullying laws, though many need to be more comprehensive, according to theChristian Science Monitor. Only 30 of the laws specifically address cyberbullying, a growing area of concern.

I was also heartened to read that the Obama administration set aside $132 million to fight against violence and the bullying of children, according to CNN.

I only wish some of these measures were in place back when I was a kid. That would have made my high school years less miserable—and might have kept me from beating up other kids in elementary school, too.

Anti-bullying resources:

StopBullying.gov

Bullying in Schools

How to Get Your Little One Involved in Community Service

This past weekend, I covered the Clinton Global Initiative University conference here in San Diego and was blown away by some truly remarkable college students. The event brings together about 1,000 students from all over the world. Former President Bill Clinton and a slew of activists and academics help them turn plans for community service projects into reality.

Some students planned to install solar power in Chilean towns devastated by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in 2010.  Others wanted to teach children in remote Indian villages about hygiene and first aid. Others were planning various community service projects in the Third World, from Haiti, to the Dominican Republic, to Tanzania.

That got me thinking: How can I try to turn my children into people who care and want to help others? Sure, some of the projects I just mentioned are part of the intricate resume building that goes with applying for medical school and professional degrees. But in talking to these students, you can tell that deep down, they genuinely care.

One of my friends regularly takes her children to spend some time with homeless families at her church. Another enrolled her daughter in the Daisy Girl Scouts. She’s beautified gardens and helped run a book drive for kindergarten classrooms. In other words, we’ve got some catching up to do.

After a little bit of googling, I found some websites that gave me some pretty good ideas. Kidsactivities.net suggests cleaning up your neighborhood park, your school—or the beach. I also liked the idea of putting together care packages for children’s hospitals. I think that’s an idea kids can easily wrap their minds around. The website suggests collecting activity books, small, new plush toys, pencils, playing cards and bubbles, among other things. My oldest daughter will take part in a summer camp that usually sponsors a drive for the local children’s hospital and I can’t wait for her to get involved with it.

Families With Purpose advises hosting a Christmas gift drive at your school or in your neighborhood. Find needy families by talking to your local place of worship. That website also suggests finding a local nursing home where children can visit and play games or read a book. When I was a reporter, I covered such a visit by children from a local middle school to a nursing home and seeing the seniors’ faces was pretty amazing.

I also liked this blog post that gives several low-pressure ideas: talk to your children about giving and praise them when they’re being kind to others. I liked the suggestion of hosting a play date where kids can write thank-you notes for service members or pictures for sick children at the local hospital.

If you’re looking for more ideas, Parents Magazine has a great children’s volunteering resource guide.  But I am curious what suggestions you might have. How would you get an elementary school student involved in community service? What about a preschooler?