Single Parents Town Blog

Paris and I LOVE the Disney Channel. It makes having to listen to nothing but kids shows tolerable. One of the shows we were watching the other day is Camp Rock. This had the Jonas brothers in it. Oh those Jonas brothers are so freggin cute. Ok, I know I’m going to sound very cougarish but personally I think Nick Jonas is the cutest.

But, apparently, according to Paris, “All three Jonas brothers combined aren’t as cute as Justin Bieber.” It puts a smile on my face when I see Paris light up over this 16 year old teen hearthrob. She just loves singing his hit song where he croons, “Baby, baby, baby ooh.” I must admit, I sing right along with it when it comes on. He gets a lot of criticism because he has a high pitched voice and people think he sounds like a girl. But I tell you what, I see a lot of talent in this one that I think we will only see more of as time goes by. I’m thinking we will see him around for a long time. He was discovered singing on YouTube and was set up with an impromptu audition with Usher. Now if that doesn’t scream the American dream I don’t know what does.

My childhood crush when I was her age was Donny Osmond. Slightly later it became Ricky Schroder from Silver Spoons. I actually wound up on the same flight with him and was totally embarassed because I had my favorite stuffed animal, Peaches, (one of the only memorabilia items I’ve kept around) on me. I remember thinking he would think I was so immature. But I was all of, what, 9 at the time? Funny how kids think. In my teenage years it became Duran Duran. Oh how I yearned to meet Duran Duran. I bleached my hair in front and did that side swipe thing like John Taylor. I clipped out anything and everything that had Duran Duran on it. I even used my polaroid camera to take a picture of them on T.V. one time. I mean really? My mom wouldn’t let me go to their concert when I was 13. Grant it that I told her I would get to the concert in San Diego (I was living 3 hours North of here at the time) in the back of my friend’s 16 year old brother’s (who I had never met) pickup truck. For the life of me I couldn’t understand what was wrong with that plan. I stayed mad at her for a long for that. I got my revenge about 3 years ago when I knew someone that knew the security at the Sports Arena where Duran Duran was playing . So I got to be on the VIP stage right next to them, literally 15 feet away. I swear Simon Le Bon was flirting with me. And I was running around like a Beatles fan. I thought I was going to die from excitement. Ahhhhh sweet revenge. Continue reading »

Making the Best Decision, by Bruce Sallan

One of the many things that we try to teach our children is how to make a good decision. Sometimes the problem can be that we may not always make good decisions ourselves or we may allow emotions to influence our choices. I found this to be true in a recent argument I had with my older son and a latter discussion about an important choice he wanted to make.

The argument was about his last-minute decision to back out of his promise to come skiing with me over Winter Break, preferring instead to stay home with his friends (and girlfriend). I got angry as he made this decision days before we were supposed to leave, thus leaving me high and dry with little time to find a friend to come in his place. My wife and other son were already scheduled to go on a very special trip to Japan and Hong Kong.

So, like the mature parent I always am, I pouted like a child, I yelled, and otherwise berated him. The truth was he never really wanted to go, as he’s just not that into skiing (or snowboarding, in his case), but he was afraid to tell me that truth. Once I got over my initial hurt over being spurned in favor of his friends and girlfriend (he’s 16, Dad – who do you think he prefers to hang out with?), we talked about a better way to have handled the situation. Continue reading »

Yesterday Paris’s father called me very upset. Paris had told him about the book that her 10 year old friend had shared with her called “The care and keeping of you.” I’m not exactly sure what she shared with him but based on his reaction, he acted as though what she saw would definitely not be qualified as child friendly material.

Have you seen this book? I think it’s one of the greatest gifts to a young girl’s self esteem that I’ve ever seen. Basically, it helps pre-teen girls understand what is going on with their bodies when their hormones kick in. It’s written in a very simple and easy to understand way. It also comes with illustrations of things like what breasts look like at certain stages and ok, brace yourselves for this, inserting tampons. Eeek, I said the T word. I have to admit when I first saw that my first reaction was OMG I can’t believe they are showing this in a kid’s book and I felt myself get very uncomfortable and embarassed. Then I felt regret because I wish I had been exposed to this information when I was a little girl. Hell, when “mother nature” kicked in for me at the age of 12 I was totally clueless. I thought it came once a year for crying out loud so it would have been very helpful to know about this type of stuff.

The sad thing is that these types of things were not easily and openly discussed between mothers and daughters of previous generations and I’m sure played a huge role in the self esteem issues of many many women. I must admit, that the idea of talking about this stuff with Paris wasn’t something I ever felt like doing cartwheels over. But I do because I want her to get it from me before she gets it from someone else. Continue reading »

Our Kids Are Getting a Worse and Harder World

The parents of every generation expect and hope that their children can and will do better than they did. Ours may be the first generation, in a very long while, where it is both unlikely and unrealistic to have this expectation. The world has just gotten much more complicated, much harder, and more competitive. I reflected on this in a conversation with a friend, about how much easier we believed it was for us, as we were starting out in life.

It is inescapable that America’s pre-eminence in the world is changing. Whether it’s the devaluation of our dollar as the standard currency or other factors, it is clear that we are weakening as the world’s super-power. The fall-out from this translates to our industries, our economy, and the opportunities our children will have.

Frankly, I worry about the future. I worry about how and where my kids will find career fulfillment and happiness. I even worry about their quality of life, with such dramatic changes as what is being proposed for our healthcare system, what has already happened to our car industry, and what may continue to happen to our way-of-life due to terrorist activities. Let’s face it, air travel is no longer any fun. It sure was when I was younger. Continue reading »