Cross-posted at MotherTalkers.
Hello fellow moms, dads and caregivers!
As I mentioned last week, I am the mother of two and moderator of an online parenting community and DKos sister site called MotherTalkers. This weekly thread is in its third week of existence and I hope to make it a permanent fixture here on DKos every Saturday morning. Please let me know what you think, as it is a work in progress.
Here are some topics we recently discussed at MotherTalkers:
Bilingualism. Like, how do you get your children to learn a second language? All three of us who founded MotherTalkers are Latinas who grew up speaking Spanish at home. Our children speak Spanish with varying degrees of fluency. MTer Erika, who is married to a non-Spanish speaker, speaks to her daughter in Spanish and is also eyeing an immersion school in a nearby city.
My son is completely fluent, easily switching from Spanish to English depending on who is speaking to him. But it has not been cheap nor easy. My husband and I reverted to the language of our youth when he was born, which was awkward at first since we'd been speaking to each other in English for seven years. I translated most of his English books into Spanish and almost all the kids' books that line his book shelf are in Spanish. (Check out the foreign language children's section at Borders and Barnes & Noble.) He also attends a Spanish preschool, which has been painful to the wallet. But he is completely bilingual and bicultural, which has brought us and our parents much pride. Are your children bilingual? How have you helped them learn a second language?
Fellow MTer Gloria discussed all the ways she bonds with her 14-year-old daughter. Parenting teens is a different beast than parenting preschoolers. Please discuss the ways you maintain contact -- okay tabs -- on your burgeoning adult.
In case you missed it, the New York Times ran a trend story on how women are expected to surpass men in the workforce. A whopping 82 percent of layoffs due to the recession have afflicted men. Meanwhile, women are maintaining their families on predominantly female, but poorly paid jobs, in education and healthcare.
Finally, in celebrity gossip break, Bristol Palin admits that abstinence-only education is "not realistic at all." Ouch.
Also, there was much hoopla -- both good and bad -- around Salma Hayek nursing a starving African baby on a relief tour. I thought it was a gesture of compassion and helped bring attention to the region. Newsweek and some of its readers, on the other hand, thought it was "weird." What say you?
What else is on your minds?