Listen to DNTO: Jan. 30 (Fighting Back)

I can't help myself. I need to speak up. Yes some times it is self-serving, but mostly I am motivated to do the right thing.

A tide commercial that always shows a mom washing the laundry: Hey some guys wash the laundry too and you are perpetuating washing as a female function... ggrrr.

I got bad service at a museum: I speak up and I forward my detailed letter of complaints to most department heads (I love the internet!).

And so on and so forth.

When you become a mom, you need to teach your children and protect them, so you become bolder about stating your opinion. "That's yucky". "35 feet up a tree is your limit." Etc.

Some kid gets hurt while tobogganing And he isn't yours... you tell him that if it hurts for more then 5 minutes that he should go home. "You cannot stay here if you are injured. Do you want me to call your parents?"

Fear me!

But how do I fight back when my loving hubby micro-manages me? I tell him... Still, on day, I made his effigy with the help of an antenna topper from A&W (teenage guy looks a lot like him) and a permanent marker (glasses, goatee, mustache, side burns : perfect) and impaled him on the antenna. I laughed every time I saw it, but the voodoo power that I had unleashed made him a kinder person. So the pen is not the only mighty tool at your disposal.

Valerie, February 10, 2010 7:12 PM

I loved the piece on "Corduroy skirts are a sin." This is the kind of story that hits all the right chords for character development, tolerence, inclusion and the like. When I finished sharing this bit with my students, a student replied...with a cliche screaming to be scratched.."Well there's three minutes of my life that I'll never get back." I can only hope that some part of the story resonates long enough to embed itself in their developing social conscience.

Jeff Lehman, February 12, 2010 12:32 AM