By BETSY HART, Scripps Howard News Service
Missing out on independence
By the time I was 8 or so and didn't have school for whatever reason, my mom would often put me on the commuter train in my northwest Chicago suburb, and I would ride -- by myself and with no cell phone of course -- down to Chicago itself to have lunch with my dad.
Holding the line with your kids
I've decided it doesn't take a village to raise a child -- it actually may require a small army of well-trained professionals.One of my dear friends, a married mom of five, will often say to me, "Bets, I don't know how you do it." Of course the truth, which she well knows, is that I don't.
Talk with your college student about sex and religion
College kids everywhere are home for the summer. Moms and dads, you just might want to ask yours what they were up to all year while away.
High hopes for summer
I know summer is coming, not just because Memorial Day is Monday, but because of the high hopes which are setting in.
Baby fashion goes too far
When I was about 10, I received for Christmas a robe and nightgown which I later spied Jan Brady wearing in an episode of "The Brady Bunch." My brush with celebrity fashion sent me to 7th heaven.
What kind of 'mom legacies' are we leaving?
With Mother's Day coming on Sunday, I'm again missing my own mom (who died in 1995), but I'm also asking, and more fervently with each passing year, "what kind of a 'mom legacy' am I giving my own kids?"
Schools with character
Like so many American schools, mine has adopted a "character counts" curricula, this one developed by the Josephson Institute on Ethics, in Los Angeles. The six "pillars" of character, each with its own distinctive color, are respect, trustworthiness, citizenship, fairness, caring, and responsibility.
Good parenting for bad behavior
I hesitate to begin a story with, "this recently happened to a friend of mine ..."But it did. It's not me -- yet. I just hope I would handle it in just the same way.
A too-thin trend in America? Fat chance
Leave it to the French.This week, France moved to make it illegal to "glamorize the ultra-thin.""The bill, adopted Tuesday by Parliament's lower house, recommends fines up to $71,000 and three-year prison sentences for offenders who encourage 'extreme thinness,'" according to the Chicago Sun-Times.The measure now goes to the Senate.
A cleaner dance
So, what happens when adults act like grown-ups and seek to protect the kids in their care? A lot of good things, it turns out.Last November I wrote about a Wall Street Journal article chronicling a divided Texas town. The issue? "Freak dancing" at the local high-school dance.
