Free Republic

“WE’RE going for a trip”, Sakina remembers her older sister saying. Orphaned and poor, the girls were happy to leave their home in Kolkata. Taken 1,300km to Kotla, a village on the wheat plains south of Delhi, the 12-year-old Sakina was dumped in the arms of an older man while her sister fled. The man, a wage labourer, had paid over 5,000 rupees ($100, today) to a dalal, or broker, who arranged to ship unwanted girls to places short of them. ........... A skewed sex ratio may instead be making the lot of women worse. Sociologists say it encourages abuse,...

Parenting boys can be tough. From sexually provocative media, to the influence of bad boy athletes and self-indulgent celebrities, to violent video games… the cultural undertow exerts a powerful pull in the wrong direction. When looking for alternatives, parents like Angela and Ty, who both work full-time while raising three boys, feel overwhelmed at times. Angela observes. “It’s hard to know what’s going to benefit our guys in the long run…and be something they like.” Their vision is to raise boys who will become strong, Godly men of character, with inquisitive spirits and service-oriented hearts and the self-discipline and drive...

Cheryl Kilodavis was stunned when her young son first insisted on wearing a dress. Now she has published a book about him, in a bid to teach critics to accept his differences. For most young boys, dressing up as Spiderman and Buzz Lightyear would be the stuff of fancy dress fantasy. But not so for five-year-old Dyson Kilodavis, from Seattle, who insists on wearing dresses worthy of a Disney princess. Naturally, his parents, Cheryl and Dean Kilodavis, were concerned that this could make him an easy target for bullies, and when the tendency first emerged, his mother tried to deter...

In times past, if a person exhibited persistent delusions, doctors and scientists would try to cure the person of their delusions. A person who saw themselves as an animal or a different gender or a different person needed to be cured of their delusions and made to accept reality: that a human is not really a rabbit, that a boy is not really a girl, and that Joe Smith down the street is not really the president of the United States. In our more tolerant, enlightened world though, we choose to indulge delusions. After all, who are we to tell...

SOUTH HADLEY – The Menard brothers don’t look at themselves as the best players on the South Hadley High School field hockey team, nor do they look at themselves as two of the best players in Western Massachusetts.

How to Raise Boys Who Read Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes. By THOMAS SPENCE When I was a young boy, America's elite schools and universities were almost entirely reserved for males. That seems incredible now, in an era when headlines suggest that boys are largely unfit for the classroom. In particular, they can't read. According to a recent report from the Center on Education Policy, for example, substantially more boys than girls score below the proficiency level on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. This disparity goes back to 1992, and in some states...

This is an absolute, total, complete, maybe-you're-wasting-your-time vanity! But if you've not read it, I would ABSOLUTELY, 100%, suggest that you find, borrow, buy or steal "A Boy's Life", by Robert McCammon. I really can't explain it. You'd just have to read it. And if you do and you enjoy it, I'd love to get a FreepMail from you about your experience. I've gotten my wife, two kids, dad and mom...all of them to read it... And really...it's an terrific trip. C

70-year-old youth coach charged with raping boysBy Michael P. Rellahan Journal Register News Service Published: Saturday, September 25, 2010 WEST CHESTER — A police investigation has led to the arrest of a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher and youth baseball coach on charges that he allegedly sexually assaulted four young boys over the course of several years, videotaping some of the encounters. William Lee Rhoads of Charlestown was taken into custody Sunday at his home after returning from an overseas vacation with his wife, and charged with multiple counts of rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, aggravated...

I am weary of Christians and Conservatives who are so politically correct that they permit their critics to get away with accusing them of being haters because of their opposition to homosexuality. Only non-thinking fanatics make such obviously untrue, unfair, and unscriptural assertions. After all, critics of perversion have history, the Bible, and most national cultures in their support. A question should be asked of our critics: Are they actually asserting that someone cannot be critical of any issue simply because of problems with the issue itself, rather than problems with the people who espouse that issue? Or, is that...

Even in normal times, it is insane for a nation to have open borders where anyone for any reason can enter without restrictions. Then when you consider a time of war, national pestilence, or terror, it is doubly insane to permit unrestricted entry into a nation. That's about where the U.S. is today. With an astronomical increase in crime, with burgeoning welfare roles, with cities and states whining about being out of money and paying employees with “promises to pay,” with hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work and more to follow, we still have almost open borders! We...

<p>My friend Mark took his two boys to a Berkeley park last weekend. His boys brought their soft Styrofoam swords along, and next to the playground the 4- and 6-year-old engaged in battle, pretending to be dueling medieval knights.</p> <p>Typical, harmless boy behavior, right?</p>

obama message booed at the boy scout national jamboree 2010

12-year-old Roseville boy died when he was hit by a rock from an oversized slingshot. Roseville police say the boy and a friend were at Bruce Russel Park Sunday afternoon and were shooting rocks out of the homemade slingshot. Chief Rick Mathwig says the boys launched a 6 pound rock into the air several times, but the last time it came down and hit the boy in the chest. Mathwig says the child was taken to the Hennepin County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports an autopsy is scheduled Monday.

FORT A.P. HILL, Va. — Her crown glinting in the morning sun, Miss America was telling 45,000 Boy Scouts and their leaders the other day how thrilled she was to be here at the National Scout Jamboree, to be among “the most amazing young women ...” Multimedia Slide Show Boy Scout’s Jamboree .Related Times Topic: Boy Scouts Girl Scouts Try to Shed Campfire Image (July 31, 2010) Enlarge This Image Doug Mills/The New York Times Tom Copeland Sr. helped scouts learn to shoot a rifle. The Boy Scouts are sticking to core values and pushing for more diversity. Whoops! The...

A Rhode Island mother says her 8-year-old son's school would not let him wear a patriotic hat she says he designed for a project to honor Army troops because the school thought it was inappropriate. --- SNIP --- Morales said the principal at David's school called her to say the hat wasn't appropriate because it had guns, which violated a school ban on weapons and toy weapons.

Christan Morales says her son just wanted to honor American troops when he made a hat decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures. But the hat ran afoul of the district's no-weapons policy because the toy soldiers were carrying tiny weapons. "His teacher called and said it wasn't appropriate because it had guns," Morales said.

David was 14. He was ball tapped by a peer. A 14 year old is old enough to know better but it seems that anything goes these days. It gets worse. A 5 year old boy was operated on in Indiana for injuries received in a ball tapping.

Ben-Peter Terpstra writes his second installment on the effect of expressive divorces on children and society: Adults-only libertarians and heartless feminists don’t like conservatives talking about children and divorce, for a number of reasons. On a personal level, the subject can open up old wounds, or expose them, if we’re being completely frank. Indeed it is dangerous to talk about professional libertarians who’ve abandoned or neglected their children. For boys, the pain of fatherlessness can’t be medicated away either, although many have tried with tragic results. In Love & Economics, Jennifer Roback Morse carries the position that the laissez- faire...

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An American school has been forced to axe a cross-dressing fashion show featuring eight-year-old boys in women's clothing. Parents in New Jersey were sent letters telling them their boys must wear female clothes - suggesting cheerleader outfits and poodle skirts The show at Maude Wilkins Elementary School was supposed to mark Women's History Month, but sparked outrage from some mums. "My son was very upset," said Janine Giandomenico. "He said, 'Mommy, please don't make me do this.'" Stacy Bowen, a mother of two young children, added: "I was just so outraged. I find it completely alarming that a school would...