Leigh Anne Tuohy, Racism, and the White Saviour Complex

The Belle Jar

Leigh Anne “That Nice Woman Sandra Bullock Played In The Blind Side” Tuohy recently posted the following picture and caption on her Facebook and Instagram accounts:

“We see what we want! It’s the gospel truth! These two were literally huddled over in a corner table nose to nose and the person with me said “I bet they are up to no good” well you know me… I walked over, told them to scoot over. After 10 seconds of dead silence I said so whats happening at this table? I get nothing.. I then explained it was my store and they should spill it… They showed me their phones and they were texting friends trying to scrape up $3.00 each for the high school basketball game! Well they left with smiles, money for popcorn and bus fare. We have to STOP judging people and assuming and pigeon holing people!…

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I’ve Moved :)

I’ve moved this blog to a self-hosted site. If you follow me by email, you won’t need to do anything.

But if you follow me in your WordPress reader, you won’t receive updates.

I don’t want to lose you! So if you would, CLICK HERE to go to my new page: kimcourt.com and subscribe to my new site. You’ll see the sign up box on the right side of the page.

Thank you and thanks so much for reading 🙂

 

xoxo

Kim

52 Weeks of Sisterhood: Raising Readers

My husband and I have been reading to our girls since they were born. They have their favorites and so do we. We know that the Dr. Seuss books are fun but long. We know the books that rhyme and the ones that don’t. We know which books require special voices or sound effects. And we know which books are sure to get a laugh. 

In that latter category of humorous books, my little one has been favoring “The Pigeon” books lately. Are you familiar with the Pigeon? OMG he’s hilarious. The author is Mo Willems and he used to write and animate for Sesame Street – which totally explains why I love his humor. Among her faves right now:

She laughs at just the right spots. And she can’t wait to turn the pages. She’s even memorized some of the words so far, which makes me beam with pride.

(As a side note, my husband and I have a standard baby gift. We always buy a Pigeon book and the accompanying stuffed animal. We had generous friends and family contribute books to our girls’ library and we want to pay it forward.)

My nine year old is also enamored with books. She most recently finished the memoir, “Behind the Secret Window” by Nelly S. Toll. It’s the story of a young Jewish girl’s experiences during World War II.

My daughter’s always been fascinated by Anne Frank, but I’ve spared her some of the horrid details until she gets older. This book so captivated her that she hasn’t stopped talking about it for weeks. As she was describing the book to me last week, she said how much she’d love the chance to meet this woman (who now probably in her 70s or 80s).

This might sound morbid, but I did some research to see if the woman was still alive. Turns out that until recently she was teaching at a college near where we live. There was no mention of a death date online so – onward! I continued researching and found what appeared to be a viable email address. I sent her a note.

No response yet.

But whoa. My daughter will completely freak if she gets the chance to meet this woman. I’ve met a few authors whose works I’ve loved and for me it was like meeting a rock star. I’m in awe of authors and how they can inform, educate, entertain, persuade, or frustrate me by the words they so carefully string together. I adore the fact that my daughter feels the same way.

I believe reading to kids and in front of kids is something really special. Oh sure there are lots of studies noting how it helps with the developmental and cognitive abilities of children…blah, blah, blah. That’s all true, but I read to my kids for different reasons. I want them to discover how books can transport you to another place and time. I want them to know that books can make you laugh and cry and leave you thinking about characters long after you’ve turned the last page. 

OK fine. It’s really because I can’t resist the extra cuddles I get when it’s storytime. 🙂

Where Are The Dads’ Voices?

If you go to any bookstore, big or small, and visit the parenting section, notice how many books are written by and for women and moms. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but it kind of makes you wonder where all the dads are. Where are their voices? Where are their stories?

When I think about the parenting books I read when I was just starting out raising my girls, they were almost exclusively written by women (with the noted exception of Dr. Spock.) They were stories from moms who eagerly shared their experiences about breastfeeding, potty training or navigating the challenges of a child with special needs. Their stories were told with great candor infused with humor, as if they were your best girlfriend sitting in your kitchen.

But what about the dad’s perspective? Why are their voices all but absent from the conversation?

Certainly there was a point in time when it wasn’t considered masculine to be a hands-on dad or to be concerned about how well you were parenting. I’m happy to say things are changing.

A new book will be released this Father’s Day and it’s a beautiful compilation of some of the most heart-warming and heart-wrenching stories you’ll ever hear about parenthood. And they’re all written by dads.

The book is  called, “Dads Behaving Dadly: Real Stories of the New Fatherhood Culture” and is co-authored by author, speaker and life coach, Hogan Hilling, and Al Watts, President of the National At-Home Dads Network. The book is being released by Motivational Press and will feature more than 60 stories by fathers who share some of their most intimate and defining parenting moments.

I had the great pleasure of reading some of these stories in advance of the publication and they really touched my heart. The stories are real and moving and so very powerful. I think it’s incredibly brave for these fathers to be vulnerable in sharing with the world the tender moments they experience with their children.

Parenthood is a scary and uncertain time. You navigate each day as it comes. We like to think if we read all the books, manuals and how-to guidebooks that it will all make sense. But nothing could be further from the truth. What gets us through the day-to-day struggles is the connections we make with other parents. It’s in the sharing of our stories and discovering that we aren’t in this alone.

THAT is what these brave men are doing. They are showing fathers (and mothers) that parenthood is complicated and wonderful and frustrating and exhilarating (sometimes all in the same day), but it’s worth it. 

I love the idea of this book. I was told by the authors that they are still accepting stories. So if you know a father who would be willing to share his story of what fatherhood and being a dad means, please go to Dads Behaving Dadly for more information. You can also read some of the sample stories on their site.

I applaud Mr. Hilling and Mr. Watts for their vision. I can’t wait to read more of the stories.

 

 

 

 

 

Hogan Hilling

Author, Speaker & Life Coach

www.dadsbehavingdadly.com

Twitter @TheDadGuru

Memorial Fund Set Up to Honor Fallen Massachusetts Firefighters

A fund has been set up in honor of two firefighters who lost their lives in a terrible fire in Boston earlier this week.

Here’s how to donate.

3 Reasons Why I Support St. Baldrick’s Foundation

I can’t think of anything worse than childhood cancer. Can you?

Too many people (myself included) complain about stupid, mundane things like the traffic on our daily commute; the snowstorm that hits AFTER the first day of Spring; or the dirty socks that your spouse continues to leave on the floor day after day.

Childhood cancer is extremely humbling. It bitch-slaps you right in the face and makes you realize what’s really important.

There are lots of great (and not so great) organizations out there doing work to raise funds to fight cancer. But I think this one organization is different. If you’re not familiar with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, maybe you’ll want to check them out. They do wonderful work. Their only goal is to raise funds for grants for childhood cancer research. You can Google them for more info, but the statement on their website that absolutely floored me was this:

“About 60% of all funding for drug development in adult cancers comes from pharmaceutical companies.
For kids? Almost none, because childhood cancer drugs are not profitable.”

That statement turns my stomach. Childhood cancer drugs are not profitable. What’s even more striking is that all types of childhood cancers COMBINED receive only 4% of US federal funding for cancer research. FOUR PERCENT.

It’s worth noting here that St. Baldrick’s Foundation spends more than 3/4 of the money raised on funding research grants (79.5%). The remaining 20.5% is spent on fundraising and administrative costs. That is an impressive ratio.

As their website states, yes, cancer strikes more adults than children. However, when we’re talking about the allocation of money, the game becomes less equitable. Childhood cancer simply isn’t “profitable” enough. That really makes me angry.

I’m supporting St. Baldrick’s this year. Here are my reasons:

1. Because my money goes to fund childhood cancer research grants. My money is not going to purchase accoutrements like ribbons or balloons (which are all well and good to raise awareness) and it’s certainly not lining the pockets of big wig boards of directors or administrators.

2. Because my husband and I have friends who have lost their children to some form of cancer and it was the most gut-wrenching experience for us as outsiders to observe. I cannot imagine the hell the families went through.

3. Because by some sheer stroke of luck, my son and my two girls are healthy. Thank God.

There’s one more reason I’m supporting St. Baldrick’s. A dear friend of mine has supported them for years. He’s a cancer survivor and I admire his efforts to “go bald” this weekend to raise money for this worthwhile cause. If you want to join me in supporting his efforts, here’s a link to his page.

The Disappearance of Joy

What do you remember about kindergarten?

I remember:

• Those cute little carpet squares for rest time and cubbies for winter coats and hats and mittens
• The Dick and Jane books and the artist’s easels where we could all be Picasso for the afternoon
• My favorite place: the book nook! And the smell of paste and the thrill of using safety scissors
• The yellow, upright piano where Mrs. Greene would sing the hello and goodbye songs each day
• I remember making a Christmas tree out of an old paper towel tube that we glued with different sizes pieces of green-painted pasta

There is a piece dated yesterday in The Washington Post by Valerie Strauss that should make every parent in America angry.
In it, the author shares the story of a Massachusetts kindergarten teacher who became so fed up with the endless requirements, testing, standards, methods, and assessments (which she believes are robbing her students of an optimum learning environment and taking her out of the classroom for inordinate amounts of time), that she gave her notice.

“We (her colleagues) found ourselves in professional development work being challenged to teach KINDERGARTNERS to form persuasive arguments, and to find evidence in story texts to justify or back up a response they had to a story.  What about teaching children to write and read through the joy of experiencing a story together, or writing about their lives and what is most important to them?  When adults muck about too much in the process of learning to read and write, adding additional challenge and pressure too soon, many children begin to feel incompetent and frustrated.  They don’t understand. They feel stupid.  Joy disappears.”  (the bold and all caps are mine.)

Her resignation letter is included in full on the site. This is a teacher who worked for 18 years in the public school system. You can feel the passion she has for her students and her profession in this piece. And you can hear her heartbreak as she tells of her decision to leave.

“I began to feel a deep sense of loss of integrity.  I felt my spirit, my passion as a teacher, slip away.  I felt anger rise inside me.  I felt I needed to survive by looking elsewhere and leaving the community I love so dearly.  I did not feel I was leaving my job.  I felt then and feel now that my job left me.“

What I found most interesting about this whole piece was how many times (I count 12) that she refers to the amount of time she has to spend outside of her classroom, away from her students to attend meetings/conferences/workshops so she can learn about new methodologies, assessments, and standards to which she and her colleagues would be held. Take that number and contrast it with the amount of times she makes any mention of additional compensation for the extraordinary amount of personal time spent out of the classroom (I count twice – but note that she isn’t spiteful; she is a realist. She mentions that she and her colleagues simply asked if they could apply some paid leave to compensate for the time).

I don’t have any recollection at all of tests or memorizing math facts because, um, it was KINDERGARTEN. I also don’t recall there being a student teacher to occupy the class while my teacher was off at a conference or another meeting to learn more about how she will be held accountable for every little thing I would learn or worse, might fail to learn.

Let me just say that I have absolutely zero background in education apart from my own schooling (K-12, associate degree and a bachelor’s degree) and a good part of my professional career working for a stellar two-year school in upstate New York in PR, not as an educator. I am not a teacher, but I have one child in the public school system and another one ready to begin soon. As a parent, I want the best for my kids. I want them to love learning just like I did. I can rattle off all of my elementary school teachers easily and recall at least five or six fond memories from each grade. I adored school and yes, I excelled at school. But I attribute that not to some innate gift but rather to the ability of my teachers to motivate me and get me excited to learn. The last thing I want for my kid, or any kid, is for them to feel stressed or pressured into performing for some arbitrary standard that may or may not mean anything in the long term, but that will surely frustrate the hell out of them in the short term.

Let me also say that I am a big believer in testing. How else can we know we’ve mastered a particular subject or concept well enough to progress? I’m not a believer in the “every kid gets an award for participation” thing. In fact, I think that’s the most ridiculous concept. There are tests in life and you either pass or fail or fall somewhere in between. That said, I firmly believe that when learning is forced and play is either compromised or reduced to an extracurricular activity ESPECIALLY IN THE EARLY CHILDHOOD YEARS, that we’re doing a great disservice to our kids. And to the teachers who teach them.

Kids are supposed to be joyful. I mean, do we really want our kids to go through some archaic, militant-style school system that is only concerned with test scores and rigorous academic work which will probably sharpen their brains, but also harden their hearts?

I don’t. And I don’t think you do, either.

“When we treat children’s play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that’s to be found in the creative spirit. It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.” – Fred Rogers

 

Are You Superstitious?

To this day, if you buy a brand new pair of shoes and put them on a table, my mother will shriek and yell while pointing at said shoes, “Hey! New shoes do not belong on the table. It’s bad luck!”

As ridiculous as I find this superstition, I admit that I’m a little afraid of the consequences should I dare to put a new pair of shoes still in the box on my kitchen table. Of course, when my mother is here I sometimes do it anyway just to see her reaction.

I’m mean like that.

But what about purses? Are brand new purses on the table bad luck too? I hope not. Because after much deliberation in the purse aisle at my local Marshall’s (and after numerous texts and photos back and forth with my sister for her expert opinion), I decided on a lovely white and navy blue number from Ivanka Trump’s purse collection.

I think it will be great for spring and summer. I’ve never really been much of a purse gal – give me a functional black leather shoulder bag and I’m all set. But now that I’m ready to ditch the “mom-who-keeps-everything-in-her-giant-bag” look, I thought it would be irresponsible of me to not give purse fashion a try.

Although it isn’t a pair of shoes, it’s all new and leather-y just like a pair of shoes. And yet, when I got home I left it on the table for an hour or so before moving it to the chair. Which of course I’m hoping will appease the gods of bad luck.

Are you superstitious? Is this weird?

52 Weeks of Sisterhood: Smiling Eyes

I come from a long line of proud Irishmen. And Irishwomen 🙂

St. Patrick’s Day was always a big holiday when I was growing up, especially on my mom’s side of the family. We shared a duplex with my grandparents where we lived on the first floor and they lived above us. March 17 was definitely a day to be celebrated and to wear your green. I remember green carnations, corned beef and cabbage and the sound of my grandfather singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” as he puttered around the house in his signature blue jeans and white t-shirt.

I’m proud of my Irish heritage and I’m glad to share a little bit of it with our girls. Shortly before we were married, my husband and I traveled to Ireland. I remember the beautiful green countryside, quaint little thatched roof cottages, stone architecture, the narrow roadways and SHEEP! It was gorgeous. We toured all the famous landmarks and explored some of the lesser known parts of the Emerald Isle. My ancestry is pretty firmly rooted in Ireland (County Cork, to be exact) and my husband has some Irish heritage as well. We can’t wait to bring the girls someday. I know they’ll love learning more about where they come from. In the meantime, we’ll keep celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. And smiling 🙂

My little leprechauns enjoying green donuts and some smiles on St. Patrick’s Day.

I love their smiling Irish eyes.

An “Elbow-Bump” Turned Her Day Around

My girl missed the bus this morning.

But in her defense, it’s unbelievably freezing and I didn’t want her hanging out at the bus stop, which is not far from our front door. So, I told her to get ready and then wait in our front hall until we could actually see the bus arrive.

Little did I realize it would take her a bit to get ready. She had forgotten her retainer, her socks (!) and her viola.

As she ran upstairs to get all of these things, the bus pulled up. Well, by the time she got everything together and put on her winter accoutrements: coat, hat, scarf, boots and gloves (damn you, winter!) and was ready to walk out the door – you guessed it. The bus pulled away.

She was devastated. She loves hanging out on the bus with her friends. It’s like her version of study hall. But today we would have to drive. And I would have to coax my 3 year old out of her princess dress and into something more suitable for a cold ride in the car. Good times.

As we drove to school (virtually behind the bus, mind you) my girl was sulky. She was mad at the bus driver (who is notoriously late, but of course, not today). She was mad at her socks for not already being on her feet and she was made at her viola because today is her lesson. Logic has no place in a nine year old’s mind.

We talked on the drive. If you can call her one-word responses and/or grunts to my questions ‘talking.’

Soon we were slowly making our way through the drop-off circle at her school. She was still sullen-faced as she gathered her bags and viola case. And as we neared the front door, we saw something that as a “busser” she doesn’t normally get to see. Her principal – who is just about the coolest dude ever – was standing outside to greet the students as they walked in. He’s relatively young, a little taller than me (read: short), and completely bald. So much so that he dressed as Popeye last Halloween. None of the kids knew who he was. Yes, I like him a lot and I love his leadership style. The kids know he’s tough and won’t put up with any crap, but they also know he is by far their biggest cheerleader.

So there he was on this frigid morning with a giant smile fist-bumping each kid as they arrived saying, “Hey, good morning! Glad you’re here, make it a great day!”

My daughter was so loaded down with her viola, backpack, and lunch sack that she couldn’t get a free “fist.”

So he elbow-bumped her. 🙂

And she smiled and giggled.