Real Men Say, "I Love You"

There are two very different types of reality shows. The first is the competition show. The second is the documentary and there are various sub-genres of that. The topic of this post is the show TV Guide referred to as "real TV".


The Deadliest Catch had its season finale Tuesday night. This is a show where people are injured, where people die and where people mourn. This season saw the death of Captain Phil Harris from a stroke.

For those of you who are not familiar with the show, it is about hardworking crab fisherman. They are tough, foul-mouthed, often times tattooed and chain smoking. They are often at sea as long as 10 months at a time, which means many of them end up divorced and/or having distant relationships with their children. They are unlikely TV stars yet the show for many is engaging to watch.

Much is said on the show about manhood and being a man, yet these men have a strong family-like bond with one another. They aren't afraid to tell each other "I love you". When Captain Harris died, these men openly shed tears and mourned.

Seeing men who are not afraid of their emotions is refreshing. Yes, we've come a long way since the John Wayne days where a man was supposed to be stoic to be considered a man, but we still live in a society where men are still expected to be the tough ones and where men are teased for being "sensitive".

Who knew a TV program about crabbing would show us that men can be both tough and have emotions? And isn't that what it really means to be a man?

Happy Meal Toys Equal Bad Food Choices?

It was reported on the local news last week that an advocacy group is threatening to sue McDonald's over its use of Happy Meal toys. The group says the inclusion of the toys is McDonald's way of marketing unhealthy diets to children. McDonald's counters they do offer healthy choices like apples and juice in their kids meals.


The group threatening to sue is the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In the past, they have successfully fought to get Coke and Pepsi from selling in schools and for getting Kellogg to impose nutrition standards on cereal marketing to kids under 12.

http://industry.bnet.com/food/10002557/food-marketing-to-kids-why-ronald-mcdonald-will-survive-but-the-happy-meal-may-not/

So what do you think of this story? I'm wondering why the group is picking on McDonald's when every fast food restaurant that has a kids meal puts toys in it. Also, why should a restaurant be responsible for the meals parents buy their children? It's it up to the parents, not restaurants or the media or consumer groups, to each children to eat healthy meals.

Is Little Tikes Setting a Bad Example?

This story appeared on last night's local newscast.

There's a controversy over one of Little Tike's products. The company sells a toy car, designed for girls, which comes with a pink, toy cell phone. The picture on the box shows a preschool girl driving while talking on her cell phone. It's this picture that is offensive to some parents. They claim the picture sends the message that it's OK to drive and use your cell phone at the same time.

A company spokesperson says the car is on clearance and is sold only on the company's website. It's not available in stores.

Is Little Tike's sending the wrong message? I suppose it depends on who you ask. The way I see, if we removed every toy with a bad message, we would remove a lot of toys. That would mean removing every toy gun and toy soldier. After all, these send the message it's OK to kill people. It would also mean every fashion doll. After all, this sends the message to girls that it's OK to dress a certain way to attract men. And while, we're at it, let's remove every toy pot, pan and refrigerator. These give the message that a woman's place is in the home. You can see how before long things like this can get out of control. But it all begins with one paranoid parent to get others to think the same way.


So what's your take on all this? Is Little Tikes setting a bad example or have things gotten out of control?

Learning From the Past

Some days it's difficult balancing taking care of my toddler and doing stuff here around the house and getting my business work done. Some days nothing other than childrearing gets done and I feel like pulling my hair out. Other times I like putting things in perspective. I wonder what it was like being a mom in previous generations.


My great-grandmothers had a grand total of 23 children. Most of those children were born in the 1910s and 1920s. They were all born at home, delivered by midwives. One of my great-grandmothers watch her young son, who was only about 4 or 5, die of a disease which today would easily be cured with antibiotics, but there were no antibiotics at the time. Another had her son go deaf from a high fever cause by another disease today is easily cured with antibiotics.

They raised their children at a time when there was corporal punishment in schools and no one thought anything about hitting a child who misbehaved or spoke out of turn.

My great-grandmothers were born while Queen Victoria was still alive. Most homes at the time were lit with gas, not electricity. Houses were heated with coal burning boilers. They probably did have running water, but they wouldn't have had a refrigerator or ice box until they were in their 30s. Three of my great-grandmothers lived long enough to live through the Gilded Age, the Roaring 20s, two world wars and the Great Depression. One of them lived long enough to see the 1960s. Image all the history they lived through and all the technological changes they saw in their lifetimes.

When they were raising their kids in the early part of the 20th century, they did so without the aid of modern safety features. They were no seatbelts in high chairs or strollers. The slates in cribs were large enough for a child to get its head stuck and the crib more than likely was painted with lead based paint. There were no car seats. They didn't know about SIDS and babies slept with pillows and blankets. They didn't know smoking was deadly or about fetal alcohol syndrome and pregnant women drank and smoked.

There weren't as many modern convinces in the kitchen or the rest of the house either. There were some boxed and canned foods, but not as many as there are now. They did their laundry using a scrub board, a hand crank and a clothes line. They balanced taking care of their homes, their husbands and their children. They were born at time when there weren't many other options for women.

All four of my great-grandmothers were bilingual.  Three of them were born in Europe. I'm not sure about the fourth. She was either born here or emigrated her with her parents.  And at least two of them made the journey to the U.S. as single women.  Can you imagine traveling to a new country alone to start a new life?
When life gets tough, sometimes I think of the women who came before me and wish I was able to meet them, to talk to them, to get to know them and to learn from them.

Why Are Women So Competitive?

Why do women feel the need to upstage each other? It happens so much nowadays you hear the term "diva" everywhere.


As I was looking for a good news story to focus on this week, I came across an article entitled Bridesmaids Gone Wild. The title caught my attention, so I've decided to make it my story of the week. After all, it is summer and more weddings take place in the summer than any other time of the year.

The article is nothing but the stories of real life brides who were upstaged by their bridesmaids. And some of them are too good to be fiction. These are my favorite two stories. You can read the others at http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/article.aspx?cp-documentid=24321762>1=32023

My top pick is the tale of two sisters competing against each other. One was the bride, the other her maid of honor. The maid of honor was 5 months pregnant at the time of the wedding and didn't want to give up being the center of attention, so she pretended to faint while pictures were being taken just so she could have rush to her side to see if she was OK.

Another good one is the bridesmaid who showed up at the dress shop drunk. After making a fool of herself at the store, she left and hit the saleswoman's car with her own. The bridesmaid didn't remember doing this and hours later accused the bride of having turned her in to the police.

Why can't women just let another woman enjoy her big day? I don't know. Maybe this competitiveness is genetic.

The Wonders of Nature

I'm sure you've heard the phrase "dumb animal" at one point or another. Some animals are, in fact, as intelligent as a three-year-old. And while that's not intelligent enough to write literature, do calculus or understand scientific principles, anyone who has watched a toddler problem solve knows that's pretty smart.


Next time you're around a toddler pay close attention. Watch as the child tries to find out how to get something out of reach or how to get out of a situation. It's almost as if you can see the wheels turning as the problem solving is happening in front of your eyes.

The same thing happens when you watch highly intelligent animals. Some, like squirrels, raccoons and crows, live in your own back yard. I once saw an orangutan on TV using a touch screen computer and doing simple arithmetic.

Stop and appreciate the wonders of nature. Getting to know the world around you is the first step in truly appreciating it and helping to save it.

Life in a Dying Rust Belt City

I live in a county with five cities. I grew up in the largest. Unlike most housing markets in the country, it is cheaper to live in the city than it is in the suburbs. In fact, all the neighborhoods in the city are working class neighborhoods. It took me until I was 25 to be able to move out of the city and it was quite an accomplishment for me.

My parents and grandmother still live in the city. Every time I go and visit their neighborhoods, I am struck by the differences between the affluent parts of the county and the have-not parts of the county. Here are some examples:

• There are several bars per square mile. From my old bedroom in my parents' house at around 2 am you can hear glass beer bottles being dumped nightly into the dumpster.
• My grandma's house is literally within sight of a steel mill. I would spend a lot of time there during the summer and would hear the booms and bangs coming from the factory. That part of town has a different smell, too. Many evenings you can smell the smoke coming from the oil refinery or one of the other factories.
• There are so many boarded up houses and empty stores as people have either left the area completely ( as a good number of my old high school classmates did) or have moved to the suburbs. The mall has JCPenny and, well, JCPenny. Yes, the mall, which was thriving when I was a kid and teenager, literally has one store left.
• It's the type of place where you make sure your front door is closed and locked if you're going to be spending any time in the backyard. And if you're going to be leaving the house, and it's summer, you make sure all the windows are closed and locked before you go. Otherwise, you might end up being robbed.
• It's the type of place where profanity was written in the dew on my car windows when my car was parked in the driveway. 
• There's little for young people to do. There are few jobs and little opportunities.

I could go on and on without much effort. When I was younger, I vowed to get out of here to escape and start over somewhere new, but I never had much money and I didn't want to live in poverty in a strange city. I vowed never to have a child while living here because of the lack of opportunity, but that didn't work out either. I hope things improve around here because it scares me the type of life my daughter will have if this area continues on the path its on.

Parents Arrested for Letting Son Smoke Bong

Juan Garcia and Brenda Duran "deserve" a Parent of the Year award. Not only did they allow their 13-month-old son to play with marijuana but they also allowed him to play with a bong his father had just used to smoke. And they photographed it and put the photo online.


Earlier this week, both parents were arrested and charged with child endangering. The boy is now with his grandparents and will have to undergo testing to see how much of the drug he's been exposed to.

http://www.fox8.com/news/nationworld/kdaf-couple-arrested-for-letting-child-take-bong-hit-story,0,504810.story

All of this reminds me of an interview I saw many years ago with actor Robert Downey Jr. The interview took place after a must publicized arrest he had for drugs. He told the interviewer it was his father who started him off on drugs when he was eight years old. His father thought it was funny to watch his young son smoke marijuana and encouraged him to do so. As Downey Jr aged, he tried harder and harder drugs.

I can't help but think this poor boy could end up down the same path. Hopefully, he was taken from his parents' home soon enough to prevent this from happening.