My son and the sheriff's office

My five-year-old son has a penchant for law enforcement. We don't see him trying out for the local police force anytime soon, but we do see a pattern emerging that's either intriguing or troubling depending upon your point of view.

When he was 18 months old, he got a hold of the phone and managed to dial 9-1-1. I found the phone lying on the kitchen floor and hung it up, unaware that an emergency operator was still on the other end.

It was only after the operator rang back and I answered that I realized what he'd done. No emergency here, ma'am, just a rambunctious toddler.

When my boy was 2, he randomly dialed 9-1-1 again. This time I found out about it because a uniformed sheriff's deputy rang our doorbell. Was everything okay here? They'd received an emergency call but the caller had hung up.

I knew we could be fined a couple hundred dollars for sounding a false alarm but I dutifully explained my son had gotten the telephone and that it was he who made the call.

Fast forward three years to today. My son was on the patio when I came home from the grocery store. Wearing only his underwear, he was goofing around with the water hose as I walked inside. I came and went a couple more times and did not pay particular attention to his whereabouts.

It wasn't until I got ready to lock the gate that opens out to our front yard and the nearby street that I realized my son was nowhere to be found. I began calling for him, one of his sisters ran through the yard calling for him, I raced upstairs calling for him, and still no answer.

I remembered reading about cases involving child abductions on sunny days in nicer neighborhoods while the child was right in his or her front yard. Had my son gone out the front gate? I ran to the front door and yanked it open, hollering his name as I charged outside. No answer.

No answer.

Where was he?

After about 15 minutes had passed, I did the only thing a reasonably crazed mother would do. I called the sheriff's department and reported my child as missing.

I was still on the line with the emergency dispatcher when my mother came from around the far side of our house to report that she'd found my son playing in an area near some electrical equipment that runs our septic system pump, oblivious to his frantic mother's voice.

The call was cancelled, my son was sent to his room after enduring the terrible fury of a mom gone mad (I told him he better never ignore my calling him again or I'd figure out a way to keep him in his room until he was 20), and I thought all was well that ended well.

Then the doorbell rang.

Sure enough, when I answered it there stood a uniformed sheriff's deputy. I told him I thought the call for help had been cancelled and he explained to me that he was still required to follow up. I assured him we'd found the right child and that said child was up in his room contemplating his predicament. The officer was satisfied and left.

I thought later I should've had my son come down and see for himself that when you fail to heed your mother's voice, guys with guns really do show up at your front door.

There's a sobering lesson in there somewhere.

Do I hate public education? Am I elitist?

The answer to the first question is no, not in its purest form. There's something quite awesome about people from all walks of life coming together to learn, discuss, think, and create. There's something very desirable about everyone around me being able to read, write and perform in other intelligent and useful ways.

There's something very noble about declaring and providing for every citizen, regardless of race, religion, creed or color access to the same learning opportunities as every other citizen.

The problem is that this is not what public education looks like today and it doesn't show signs of getting any better.

My great-grandmother taught public school for a breathtaking 50 years, during a time when parents allied with teachers and the students knew any trouble would be dealt with swiftly and by more than one person. Teachers had authority over their classrooms and administrators trusted them to do their jobs and by and large they did. My mother was a school teacher, too, and if you've read my 'blog for any length of time you know by now that I think she's a candidate for beatification. My best friend since 7th grade has taught public school for 16+ years. I'd give up a body part for her and I happen to think she's an amazing and talented teacher. Another very dear friend taught at the college level for several years and continues to use her talents to teach children theatre arts at a nearby private school. She also teaches my children choral singing and her enthusiasm and talent are very impressive.

It should be clear to anyone reading this far that my gripe is not with the vast majority of teachers. My gripe is with the system in which they're forced to teach.

I know several homeschooling parents who used to be public school teachers. One of them was a college professor who gave it all up to educate her own kids. My friends who still teach in public education regularly affirm my choice to homeschool and that, to me, is the most telling of all.

When those working in the public education system decry the system but are largely helpless to fix it, who am I to think I could do any better if I enrolled my children and then tried to advocate for them from the sidelines as I surely would?

Would I have the magic touch needed to get school officials to mainstream my bright but slightly autistic child? Would they willingly exempt my children from classes on sex education that included controversial material I'd rather address in private? Would they even tell me they were requiring my children to attend such classes? Would they let my precocious readers read books several grade levels above their own or would they clamp down and make them wait? Would they penalize us for debating the merits of some of the so-called literature that crops up in the middle and high school English classes? Would they eschew political correctness and call it Christmas instead of Winter Holiday?

The answers are: No, I tried that early on and district officials wouldn't budge. Likely not. No. Clamp down and make 'em wait. Probably. Hell would freeze first.

I've kept my children from public education in a last-ditch effort to preserve as much of their innocence, curiosity and natural love of learning as I can. I never aspired to be a teacher, never even entertained the notion. I wanted to be a writer, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, the next Woodward or Bernstein (they broke the Watergate story in the '70s). I had visions of sending my someday children to the idyllic neighborhood elementary where I'd volunteer my spare time to the PTA and chat up the other parents during meet-the-teacher events. I saw myself making the occasional batch of cupcakes for a class party, helping raise funds for a band trip, or helping to pick out a prom dress.

In short, I saw myself doing all the things I'd seen mothers before me, including my own, do for their publicly schooled children. After all, wasn't that what everybody did? Wasn't that the best way, the only way?

Ten years nearly to the day that I declared to my husband we'd homeschool we're still at it. We've chosen to teach our kids ourselves because even on our worst day my husband and I are still heavily vested in their success and we cannot not go the extra mile to either help them solve their problems or else wait patiently as they wrestle on their own with things they do not easily grasp.

Am I gifted in my ability to teach? Hardly. What I lack in talent I make up for in sheer determination. The alternative is akin to failure and I don't like to fail, so that's what keeps me going.

Which brings me to the second question. Am I an elitist?

I've been called an "elitist" because my family has chosen to homeschool. I always find this charge interesting considering that I and many of the homeschooling families I know have actually picked the far more treacherous path.

How so?

If a child doesn't do well in public school, parents have what I call "the luxury of complaint."

It's luxury to be able to vent your anger to a principal, an entire school board, or the media. You get to be center stage and everyone is obligated to at least hear you out, even if they don't agree with a darn thing you say. It's a luxury to be able to get revenge for your child by filing a lawsuit, maybe even winning some money but at least making public officials squirmy and nervous. It's a luxury to be able to hold someone else accountable for whatever goes wrong in your life.

Homeschooling parents have no one to whom they can vent other than their fellow homeschoolers (who are likely muddling through their own challenges). There's no one we can turn to who's in a position to fix whatever is ailing us, no one to reassure us it'll all be okay. There's sure no one to foot the bill for whatever extra special resources or materials our children might need. There's no one we can smugly blame if our child doesn't learn to read, write, and do math, no night through which we can rest easy knowing we did everything WE were supposed to do and it's THEY who have failed us. We have to live with whatever academic failures befall our children and the only one accountable for them is us. I won't even go into the three weeks of lost sleep as I lay awake in the dark searching my brain for the best way to communicate a particular mathematical concept to one of my children. (All that late-night mindwork paid off, by the way, as I did finally come up with a solution to the problem, no pun intended.)

In fact, if homeschoolers are overheard complaining about their child's struggle in math or inability to fit in, they're usually told contemptuously, "If you'd put your child in public school you wouldn't have that problem." No sympathy, no righteous indignation on our behalf, no nothing.

I know many homeschoolers who brave financial difficulties to teach their children. They work at night or part-time from home. Some are single parents who make all manner of elaborate arrangements with grandparents, friends, or other relatives to keep their children home to learn. I've even known of homeschoolers who braved personal illness or had caregiver responsibilities for a loved one and still got their teaching time in.

Not picking up an elitist vibe from this. . .

I think the criticism of homeschoolers by many public school educators and the NEA stems from two things:

First, professionally trained and accredited teachers seem to need to believe they are the ones best fit for the job. I get that. The question about qualifications to teach is a legitimate one, but it does not justify badmouthing parents who choose to teach their own.

Put another way, it's like me saying, "Hey, I went to college and got a degree in journalism, therefore newspapers should hire only those who got a formal newspapering education because we're the only ones qualified to write the news." The truth is that plenty of folks are good news reporters who never set foot in a college J-school course. This is a fact that doesn't threaten me or my sense of worth.

Second, a lot of folks sincerely believe that someone else -- in every instance -- can do a better job of raising and teaching your child than you can.

The problem with this is that one size does not fit all even though the NEA would like you to believe it does.

Look, just as some teachers really should have chosen a different career path some parents should never EVER attempt to teach their own children. The criteria for what makes a good homeschooling parent varies depending upon who you ask. But it's generally accepted that you must have some degree of education yourself, be so committed to teaching that you'll give up aspects of your private adult life, be willing and able to comply with all the homeschooling laws of your state, and enjoy spending a boatload of time with your child(ren) often at great financial loss.

The hard truth is that many parents do not enjoy spending a lot of time with their children. I know this, because I've been told so more times than I can count. I've actually had people look at me like I was insane when I told them I like being around my kids 24/7. "Huh, not me," they'll say. "If I was with my kids all day I'd have to fitted with a strait-jacket."

Others have told me, "I just don't have the patience to teach my children."

Others have said, "If I stayed home, we couldn't afford all the things our kids like to have."

My feeling in these cases is this: You should not homeschool your kids.

Some parents just do not want to give up their "Me" time, their afternoon trips to the gym, spa, nail salon, lunch with the girls, or shopping at the mall. Many parents do not want to give up their second income, even the ones who could live without it if they had to. Many parents really believe they do not possess the ability to teach their own children.

It's a personal choice that's easy for me to make because I know that in just a few short years all my kids will be grown and gone and then I'll have more time on my hands than I know what to do with. We've lived with only one income for so long it seems very natural to do without certain things. I've never cottoned to the notion that I can't learn what I need to know to become smart enough to do what I need to do.

But what about parents who have no choice but to enroll their children in public school? Poor? Single? Working to support the whole family? Do homeschoolers look down their noses at these folks?

None that I know. In fact, that's one of the reasons I 'blog so often about public education's foibles. Sure, I admit it's fun to poke holes in the position that only traditional schooling can cultivate an educated person. But as a product of the public schools who could have and should have had better, as a taxpaying parent who resents the fact that I cannot send my children to schools I pay for but cannot use because they are fairly rotten in critical ways, I like to shed the light where I can on what needs fixing. I have a right to demand a better return for my money!

A lot of well-intentioned parents are asleep at the wheel and do not bother to find out what's going on with their child in school until that same child goes to start college and has to spend an entire first semester or year in remedial courses because their public school failed them. By then it's too late.

Parental apathy, a willingness to trust too much, is endemic. Why shouldn't it be? Schools tell us to fret not, that they'll take care of everything, that they're well-equipped and well-staffed and well-trained to give our kids exactly what they need. Hearing this, what parent wouldn't relax a bit and fix their gaze upon something else?

I used to cover school board meetings as a reporter for a local newspaper. I covered meetings in five different school districts over the course of my career, some of them large and well-financed and some of them poor, rural and struggling to get by with what the state deigned to dole out.

At nearly every meeting I ever attended, the only ones in the audience were me, reporters from other area newspapers, and occasionally a crusty old taxpayer with no kids in school but gripes about the assessed value of his property.

Where were the parents? Why wasn't anyone asking the hard questions? My guess is that they didn't think they needed to.

Public education affects us all. When it's good, we all benefit. When it's bad, we all suffer.

Homeschoolers realize this and that's why so many of them tried public education first only to rearrange their lives to bring their children home to learn.

I don't call that elitism. I call that courage.

Politics vs. love -- which matters most?

The dearest person I have ever known and can only hope to be somewhat like as I grow older and wiser came under fire today for nothing more than forwarding a link to a video that features a U.S. congressman spouting his opinion of the now-adopted healthcare overhaul.

What you may think of that legislation, the Congress or our president is irrelevant for purposes of what I'm about to say, so set aside whatever feelings you have with regard to those matters.

I want to address the sacrifice of relationships on the altar of pride. It's a biggie.

My mother carried me for nine months, gave birth, gave me a childhood worth remembering, a young adulthood worth re-living for the lessons I learned, and an adult adulthood in which I continue to learn something new virtually every day. She gave me a sense of worth, the rarest kind of love (unconditional), and taught me to value the things of God over the things of this world. She read to me, sang to me, washed my clothes, my body, my dog, and, later, my babies. She cleaned up my vomit, pee, poop, and spilled food, bandaged my wounds, and didn't kill me for cutting my own hair with pinking shears at the tender age of three. She never spanked me, even when I surely deserved it. She indulged my love of animals, donated money to the animal shelters at which I worked or volunteered, served as cookie mom when I was a Brownie, and worked her butt off as a member of our local elementary school's PTA. Oh, and she volunteered to give art lectures to class after class of little kids, most of whom had likely never set foot in an art museum. And who can forget the time I wrecked my fairly new car in college and the first question Mom asked me was, "Are you okay?" See, the car didn't matter. The child did.

I could go on and on and, yes, on some more but I won't. My point is that my mother has spent her entire life -- at least the last 44 years of it -- giving and doing for others to the point that I started referring to her as my "sainted mum," much to her embarrassment.

That's why it pained me so today to read unkind remarks directed at her simply because she forwarded a video link to some who didn't agree with the position of the speaker in the video.

It's a classic case of shooting the messenger.

The saddest part is that the snarky correspondents -- one a relative and the other a long-time friend -- have both benefited tremendously from their relationship with my mother. She's taken nothing from them, eroded their lives not one jot or tittle, and yet they would rather defend their political ideologies than preserve their friendships.

Stunning, to say the least.

Screw the Congress. Screw the president. Screw political ideology of every stripe and size. None of those people or things, not one of them, will rush to your side in a crisis. They don't know you, they sure don't care about you, and they have no vested interest in your life or your death.

Trust me when I say you want my mom (or someone damn near like her) standing in the gap on your behalf. It's people like her who inspire the stuff of poetry, song, religious texts and Hallmark cards. It's people like her who keep people like me from really freaking out when someone attacks my mother.

Dear readers, the next time you receive an email with which you do not agree I hope you'll take my mother's sage advice: HIT THE DELETE KEY AND MOVE ON.

I do it all the time and, as far as I know, all my key relationships are still intact.

At the end of the day or at the end of our lives, isn't that really what matters most?

Nothing like learnin' Texas style

Dear readers,

There's no way I could ever EVER gin up enough lucid commentary to accompany the article I'm about to present to you in full. It's from the Dallas Morning News of March 21, 2010 by reporter Holly K. Hacker.

I can't give you anything lucid because, well, that old familiar smoke is fixin' to come bursting out of my head again -- reminiscent of my reaction to the story from Detroit about the guy in charge of that city's public school system who can't read or write worth a damn. (See 'blog entry from a couple of weeks ago if you're really feeling masochistic.)

This gem of an article is all about public education Texas style. Do note one thing, will you? The students in this piece all passed the state-mandated standardized test known as TAKS before graduating high school.

Remember that as you read, and please do take the time to read the whole thing. Oh, in some places I've taken the liberty of bolding the typeface -- that's so you'll be sure not to miss the really good parts . . .

Students playing catch-up as they hit college

12:14 AM CDT on Sunday, March 21, 2010

By HOLLY K. HACKER / The Dallas Morning News
hhacker@dallasnews.com

Nelda Contreras stood at the whiteboard and wrote: I like bananas and apples.

"Does this sentence need a comma?" she asked her students.

No, they said.

Next, she wrote: I like bananas apples and grapes.

"What about this sentence?"

Students learn that punctuation rule in grade school. But this is college. A few months earlier, most of these freshmen graduated from high schools in Dallas, Lewisville, Carrolton, and elsewhere. They passed their TAKS exam.

Yet here they were at Brookhaven Community College in Farmers Branch taking remedial writing. Over the semester, they'd review "your" vs. "you're," how to craft a two-page essay, and other fundamentals they should have already mastered.

Each year, tens of thousands of Texas students land in this academic purgatory – no longer in high school but not ready for college. About 40 percent of recent high school graduates in the state's public universities and colleges need at least one remedial class.

Statistics show those students take longer to earn a college degree, if they do at all.

The job of remediation falls mainly to community colleges, which open their doors to all students. Texas taxpayers will spend more than $80 million this year to subsidize remedial classes that don't carry college credit.

State figures show some improvement in recent years, with more students graduating ready for college. But the problem persists.

Comparable national statistics are not available, partly because states define the need for remediation differently. But churning out high school graduates unprepared for college is a national issue.

In Washington, the Obama administration is pushing for kids to be college-ready so they don't need remediation. Nonprofit organizations that support education, such as the Gates Foundation, are pouring money into the problem. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is funding projects to find the best ways of teaching developmental education and helping students succeed.

The problem reveals a glaring disconnect between what high schools and colleges expect of students. People also point fingers at high schools for graduating under-prepared students, at colleges for not moving more remedial students into college-level classes, and at state policies that put students in semester-long remedial courses instead of shorter, tailored instruction.

"It's really a combination of all of this together," said Diane Troyer, a former Houston-area community college president who's a senior program officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "It adds up to a situation that now is getting really strong national attention. I think for the first time we really have the light shone upon this in a way that's going to make a difference."

A rude surprise

In the Dallas County Community College District, which includes Brookhaven, about 70 percent of recent high school graduates need remedial help in at least one subject – reading, writing or math. In more affluent Collin County, about 40 percent of graduates enrolled in the local community college need remediation.

The school districts that send the area's highest proportions of graduates who need extra help include Dallas, Irving, Carrollton-Farmers Branch, Cedar Hill and Lancaster.

Yet those high school graduates have passed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. And most must take a college-prep curriculum.

"I couldn't believe it. I just thought I'd be more prepared for [college work] and obviously I wasn't," said Brookhaven student Justin Rudder, who graduated last year from Creekview High School in Carrollton and needed one semester of developmental writing.

Rudder said he wrote lots of papers his freshman and sophomore years of high school, but not many after that. Senior year was pretty much a blow off, he said.

Like most community colleges in Texas, Brookhaven offers three levels of developmental classes, 090, 091 and 093. Students must pass a test at the end of the series to move on toward earning a degree.

Instructors can find themselves with a roomful of knocked-down egos. They're not just teaching skills, they're restoring confidence levels.

"One of the reasons I teach developmental writing is to give everybody in the classroom hope that they can go on and do this, that they can succeed in college and fulfill their career goals," Contreras said.

Not all remedial college students make it to college-level work. In Texas, only 38 percent of community college students who need remediation either graduate or are still in school after three years, vs. 57 percent of college-ready students.

At Brookhaven, Nelda Contreras' developmental writing 091 class started with about 20 students. She lost two after one week and a few more mid-semester.

One of those students turned in his first essay without a single punctuation mark. Maybe he didn't take the assignment seriously, Contreras thought. "We really need to work on your sentence structure and punctuation," she told him.

His earnest response: "I'll try. I'm not really sure where that punctuation goes."

At Collin College, Math 0300 begins with grade-school math – the addition of whole numbers in columns – and concludes with the most basic algebra. "Something along the lines of 4 + x = 5," said instructor Barbara Wilson.

On a recent Wednesday, Wilson reviewed division of fractions – "Don't be shy! Flip the second fraction, then multiply!" – and moved on to percentages and decimals.

Wilson's classes include older students who haven't been in school in years. But many are recent high school graduates who struggle so much with multiplication that she encourages them to use flash cards.

Jeff Strickland, 19, didn't take math his senior year at Wylie High and "bombed" the Collin College placement test. He's OK with being in Wilson's Math 0300 class.

"It's helped me," he said. "I needed to be refreshed."

'I just want a page'

The first day of class frustrated Contreras. She felt like she was teaching high schoolers. When she called roll, they bellowed "Heeere!" and laughed. They interrupted.

She made it clear she wasn't going to waste her time if they weren't serious. After a few classes, they settled down. But sometimes she struggled to get them to take on even easy writing assignments.

"Every time I ask you to write, it's like I ask you for blood," she told one student, with a laugh. "I just want a page."

Those who make it to English 1301, the first college-level English course, will have to write four- and five-page essays. In English 1302, they'll be expected to produce even longer papers.

"Some students say they just didn't have the educational foundation with writing," Contreras said. "They'll tell me, 'I've never seen any of this. I don't understand any of this.' "

The college works to hang on to students. Brookhaven's developmental writing instructors keep strict attendance. They know who's in class, they call when students don't show up, and they have case managers help track them down.

Still, colleges in Dallas County and elsewhere lose students along the way.

In 2008, 1,000 recent high school graduates enrolled in Dallas County community colleges were found to need remedial writing at the 091 level. Only 540 took it (a marked improvement from past years). And of those, only 308 successfully completed the course (a slight improvement).

But there has been improvement overall. Consider DCCCD, where 69 percent of recent high school graduates needed remediation in 2008, down from 82 percent in 2004.

Among the theories: With the recession and rising tuition, more students are starting at community college instead of four-year universities, and those students tend to be better prepared. The state requires students to take more rigorous classes in high school.

Solutions

Colleges, school systems, nonprofit groups and others across the country are seeking solutions. Many efforts target black, Hispanic and poor students because they're more likely to need extra help.

High school and college leaders say they need to keep talking to each other about what they expect of their students.

In El Paso, the colleges and schools have worked more closely. For instance, students take college placement exams while they're still in high school, so teachers can try to bring them up to speed. Officials report that while most students still need remediation, they need less of it.

Another popular idea is doing away with semester-long, comprehensive remedial classes and replacing them with a few hours of tailored instruction. If one student needs help with punctuation and another needs help organizing essays, why make both sit through the same class?

It could just keep students in college longer, DCCCD Chancellor Wright Lassiter said. "When they don't see any light at the end of the tunnel, they leave," he said.

But that approach costs a lot. Last year, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board asked lawmakers for $30 million to offer that kind of tailored instruction but received only $5 million.

Educators are also optimistic about college-readiness standards that Texas adopted in 2008. The standards spell out what students should know in math, English, social studies and science to succeed in entry-level college classes or the workforce.

'I can do it'

The 15 students who stuck with Contreras' 091 class passed. Next up: developmental writing 093. Instead of writing basic essays to describe and explain something, they'll have to write persuasive essays, which take a position and argue it convincingly.

Contreras met with each student to review the final essay and grade. She told Aida Kolenovic, a Coppell High graduate, that she passed. Kolenovic let out a whoop.

Contreras said: You've got your organization down. You've got good supporting information in your paragraphs. Just proofread more carefully and catch those stray commas and run-on sentences.

Kolenovic said she plans to take the next and final level of developmental writing next semester.

"It's going to be a tough class," Contreras said. "But what's the positive of that?"

"I can do it," Kolenovic said.

Not quite ready to have that talk . . .

A lot of parents agonize over how and when to have the "birds and bees" talk with their children. Not me. My older two girls remember my last two pregnancies and during those times we had opportunity to discuss -- in very basic terms, of course -- how babies get inside their mommas. My boys are too young yet to care, but their day will come soon enough and I'm comfortable having that conversation.

Our family is vegetarian, so initially I was concerned more about what to say when my children asked me where meat comes from. They are all pretty sensitive when it comes to animals and I did agonize over how to explain that meat is, well, a dead animal. Reading the series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder made all the difference, and my girls figured out on their own that Pa didn't go out hunting for wild carrots or broccoli. So the Meat Question has been settled, too.

There is one last question, one teensy weensy bit of data that I have not yet shared with my children and, frankly, I'm just not sure how or when I will. Because of this indecision, I am unusually alert to any outside sources that might let the proverbial cat out of the bag before I'm ready.

At issue: Homosexuality.

No doubt plenty of homosexuals would say I'm a hater just because I think their lifestyle actually warrants careful and thoughtful consideration before it gets discussed in my home. After all, I just said the whole human reproduction gig doesn't leave me squeamish. So, in theory, same sex relationships shouldn't either. Theory isn't fact and the fact of the matter is that I do not consider same-sex relationships to be of a nature equal to heterosexual relationships.

You can hate me for that, but just don't force me to discuss it with my children. Not yet.

A favorite children's magazine publisher, Carus Publishing, nearly did me in this past month. They produce a beautiful magazine for upper elementary age children called "Faces" that features a topic in social studies each month. One month it was the country of Turkey, another time it was famous inventors from around the world. This past month the topic was "Families" and when the magazine came in the mail its cover featured the question in big, bold typeface, "What is a family?"

Immediately, I went on high alert. Something told me that the magazine was my equivalent of a ticking time bomb and that I had to read through it before I could give it to my kids. Making the excuse that it had a subscription form I needed to fill out to renew for another year, I intercepted the magazine and set it aside before the girls could take it to their room.

After they were in bed I began to thumb through it. There was an article on families in different parts of the world, how the marriage ceremonies differed, how they lived, how they raised their children. Fine, fine, and fine.

Then I saw it -- an article on how families have "changed" over the centuries. Sure enough down towards the bottom of the two-page spread there was a mention of same-sex unions and how these are now legal in some countries and some U.S. states.

I could just hear my highly observant and curious seven-year-old, "Mama, what's a 'same-sex union' and why is it illegal?"

Crap. I'd rather sit through a root canal with no anesthesia.

Carefully, I tore out the short paragraph that contained the mention and I kept reading. Further inside the magazine there was yet another mention of homosexuality, this time in reference to how some children have two parents of the same gender.

Seriously. Homosexuals make up a fraction of the total population of our country and the world and yet they garnered mention in two different places in the same magazine?

Same-sex parents are not nearly as common as heterosexual single parents, never-married parents, widowed parents, grandparents acting as parents, adoptive parents and so on, and yet those various family types received scant mention or no mention at all.

Where was the article about babies born to teenage mothers? Or those born via surrogacy or donor eggs/sperm? Aren't those also families of a different stripe?

Carus Publishing goofed on this one, in my opinion, and I've written to let them know.

I'll discuss homosexuality with my children as soon as I think they're old enough to handle it based on what I know they can already handle and what is relevant to their lives at any given time. I sure don't need a kids' magazine to do it for me with its kowtowing to a fringe element of society.

What adults do in their own lives and homes is not my business. When they try to "share" it with my children, it is.

Like the poet William Wordsworth wrote so many years ago, "The world is too much with us, late and soon . . ."