It's 9:00 A.M. Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

                                                                  (Photo of a poster on the streets of New York City)

A new twist on an old theme.  "It's nine o'clock in the morning...Do you know where your kids are?"  Scary if you're a parent, right?    But if you're a parent in NYC, you or your caregiver can text “SCHOOL” to 30365 to get the help you need and find out how many days your child has missed.  Unfortunately, that text will NOT tell you where your kids are!

One word out of me . . .

Daddy would always joke to his friends about his prowess as a parent:  "One word out of me . . . and they do as they please!"  In reality, not a word, but one steely look at us would stop us kids in our tracks!

Labeling . . .

At a  parent-teacher conference in a Springfield, Massachusetts, elementary school, a teacher's first words to the mother of an 8 year old girl?  "What are you doing here? I thought you were in prison!"  It turns out that the little girl had told her teacher that her mother was in prison . . .  .   which was true . . . the child's mother works at a state prison . . . that is the mother's job . . .  and the teacher's assumption put into words?

At a coffee shop in Takoma Park, Maryland

The little boy stood by her side, waiting for her to purchase his box of all natural apple juice and her cup of fair trade coffee.  Two years old,  his practiced hands  delighted in receiving his little box of apple juice.  Separating the (cellophane protected) prepackaged straw from the small box, he deftly removed the straw's cellophane covering, not so deftly dropped the straw on the rug in front of the check-out counter, and,  retrieving the straw from the ground,  started placing it into the tiny, yet unopened hole in the top of the apple juice box.  Observing this faux-pas, and before the little boy could begin to drink, Marash Girl called out to his mother:  "Your son dropped his straw on the ground."  "No problem," answered the mother, as she proudly glanced down at her son.
   
Marash Girl couldn't help wondering at this new method of childrearing . . was it the "2 second rule", or what?