Day Care

At no great offense to anyone who puts their child in preschool, I just don't get the fascination with it.

To me, it does seem like it's glorified day care. I can understand sending a child a couple days a week for a half day so they can have interactions with kids other than their own siblings. I guess I don't understand because I was just in daycare from the time I was 6 weeks old until I went to kindergarten. And once I went to kindergarten, I did before school and after school care at the same place - that babysitter took care of anywhere between 5 and 10 kids at various age ranges (I went from an infant to a 2nd grader with this lady), so there was always social interaction whenever I was there. Plus, when we weren't outside playing (on the most awesome swing set ever!!), we were inside playing games or watching PBS (Mr Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock).

My parents were both working, so they had to send me somewhere, but they didn't seem overly concerned with getting me this huge "head start" with preschool where I'd learn to paint and write my name. They did that with me at home in the evenings, or I did it at the babysitter's house.

Now, I really do understand the SAHMs who want that bit of time to themselves, so they send the 3 and 4 year olds off to preschool 2 or 3 times a week for a half-day, but it's still just glorified daycare.

I'm not trying to say preschool is bad or unnecessary. Perhaps I'm just ignorant on the subject as I don't even have kids yet. So, can one of you (or all of you) explain why you do or don't send your kids to preschool? I'm honestly interested, I'm not trying to be an ass. I'm just curious if it really is beneficial or not.

Best Family Costume EVAR!!

So I'm catching up on all you people and I come across a triplet mom who posted a picture of her friend's husband with their triplets (the friends', not the original triplet mom...confusing, i know, but i know what i'm talking about. lol) in Halloween costumes...Dad was a bag of plain M&Ms and the triplets (about 3 years old) were blue, green, and orange M&M candies. How awesome is that?!?! I'm so stealing that idea when I have kids!

In the news

So I read on Cnn.com just now about Chicago opening up Pride Campus - a school of about 600 students with emphasis on it being a safe-haven for gay students, though it is for all students. People are calling it, essentially, a gay school.

I, for one, am happy they are doing this. There is already Harvey Milk High School in New York that is for all students who feel harassed in regular schools, regardless of actual sexual orientation or the specific harassment. I think this is a great thing they are doing - allowing kids who might otherwise drop out or flunk out of school a healthy and safe place to continue their education and get therapy to work through the harassment issues.

Frankly, I don't see a difference in opening this school and having single sex schools. I went to an all girls high school and my brother went to an all boys high school. Overall, I think it did us each a lot of good to have a single sex education. I wasn't distracted or intimidated by boys. Classes weren't disrupted by stupid teenage boys trying to impress their girlfriends. It was a comfortable place to be. Sure, I had my own issues going on, but overall, being surrounded by people like me made school a pleasant experience.

I think every metropolitan area should have some sort of safe haven school. What I see going on around the country in hour high schools (in schools of every class - inner city, parochial, private, boarding, suburban, etc.) is not always happy and makes me want to home school my children. But maybe by the time my kids are school age there will have been improvements or I will live in an area that has a good school, not just academically, but socially as well. But even then, appearances aren't everything.

*edited to add*

Going back to the whole gay thing that started this post - I just don't understand the teaching of hate. I can understand the teaching of religious beliefs and that those beliefs don't necessarily agree that homosexuality is something that is real and needs to be accepted. But I don't understand how you teach a small child to HATE someone because they're gay while also teaching that child that God loves and Jesus saves. That's called being a hypocrite and that's just not acceptable. The Bible teaches us that we are all God's Children, does it not? It teaches us to Love Thy Neighbor, does it not?

I am so glad that my high school religion teacher (I went to Catholic school) was of an open mind and taught us that the Bible is a book of stories, written 200 years after Jesus died. He taught us to believe the principles of the stories, but never to take them at their word. He taught us that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was a lession in how not to be a whore, but to have respect for yourself and not sleep around, not to be prostitutes. He taught us that not lying with mankind as with man meant not to sleep around, not that it meant that men couldn't sleep together. He taught us to have an open mind and an open heart. Thank you Mr. Garvin.