Free Republic

It's pretty much a miracle that any of us survived childhood in the 1960s! Parents exposed kids to secondhand smoke and let them run wild in the streets. Sugar was in everything and hazards lurked everywhere. Given today's hands-on style of parenting, it's hard to believe some of the things that were "normal" for kids in the '60s.

The controversy surrounding childhood vaccines has been simmering for some time, particularly with the rapid rise in autism rates. While the so-called “scientific community” hasn’t reached a consensus on a potential link between vaccines and the neurodevelopmental disorder, public skepticism has only grown. This mistrust was made even worse when the government aggressively began promoting COVID vaccines not just for adults, but for children — who were at very low risk. The flu was likely more dangerous for these poor kids. The “experts” assured us the vaccines were safe, but public suspicion went through the roof following an uptick in...

A sweeping review into the country's electoral system is recommending the voting age be lowered to 16, a 3.5 per cent party threshold, and a public referendum on a longer Parliamentary term. An independent panel of experts has been considering public submissions on nearly every aspect of electoral law, commissioned by former Justice Minister Kris Faafoi in May last year. After 58 public meetings and more than 1700 submissions it is now reporting a swathe of draft recommendations to make electoral laws 'fairer, clearer and more accessible'. "There have been piecemeal changes to electoral law over many years, including some...

As businesses around the country struggle to hire the teams they need to grow, part of the solution lies in early childhood education. What do child care and business growth have in common? Everything, as I told lawmakers I met on the Hill last week. Even before the pandemic, an estimated half of all American families lived in “child care deserts,” communities where there simply is not enough child care to meet demands. We lost thousands more child care providers during the COVID years, and as a result, parents – particularly lower income families and rural Americans – are often...

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he continues to suffer from his childhood stutter, telling an audience he has not fully conquered it. “I didn’t really beat my stutter — still occasionally I do,” he said, recalling the struggle he experienced as a child.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week stated 90% of Americans no longer need to wear face masks indoors, including in K-12 schools. Yet through mandates or local guidance, young children — who face the lowest risk of COVID complications — are still being forced to mask for hours a day across the country, including in New York, California and DC and its suburbs, in some cases even outdoors. In America’s great unmasking, 2- to 5-year-olds are excluded even as the harms from masking them continue to come to light. ... Many places in Europe, including the United...

Perhaps worse than trite politicization of classic tunes is failing to pass on the wealth of a child's musical heritage. Here are some ways to start offering that audible feast to your child.Just as what you feed your baby (and eat while pregnant) trains her palate toward good food or junk food for life, what your baby sees and hears does the same for her artistic tastes. Kids raised on mental junk food have a harder time developing an understanding of and affinity for more complex, subtle, and nourishing brain foods later in life.Many parents nowadays pay immense attention to...

From our first day at school to our last day of work, we are told not to be entrepreneurs or think for ourselves, but instead to do what others tell us. Rather than playing a pickup game of whiffle ball on the neighborhood corner, we play organized tee ball with coaches and uniforms. Rather than studying what we are interested in while in college, we take classes that will “lead to a good job at an established company.” Instead of starting a company, we work as a nameless drone for a corporate behemoth. Rather than explore the woods, we follow...

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah'. The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?' The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him'. A Kindergarten teacher was observing...

Four years ago, I wrote about my decision to live as a woman in The New York Times, writing that I had wanted to live “authentically as the woman that I have always been,” and had “effectively traded my white male privilege to become one of America’s most hated minorities.” Three years ago, I decided that I was neither male nor female, but nonbinary—and made headlines after an Oregon judge agreed to let me identify as a third sex, not male or female. Now, I want to live again as the man that I am. I’m one of the lucky...

In the 36-years since Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story first appeared on the big screen, the movie has become as much a part of the Christmas season as Santa himself. More than just a charming holiday movie, A Christmas Story captures a time in America where kids could be kids; free to roam, daydream, tussle, and yes, even nearly lose an eye, without them (or their parents) being thrown into handcuffs or hauled in front of a family court magistrate. But no longer. Today’s child-rearing environment, dominated by a combination of helicopter parents and overzealous nanny staters, allows no such...

JukeboxfunPublished on Oct 10, 2017 "Sears Wishbook catalog from the 1960's. Toys for girls and boys! Merry Christmas. This video was made using information and photos freely found on the internet." (video is 3:31 mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqCk1xB0jS0

The words, written in big, white, Impact letters, caught my attention as I scrolled idly through Facebook a few months ago: “IF YOU REMEMBER THIS, THEN YOUR CHILDHOOD WAS AWESOME.” They were superimposed on an image that did instantly remind me of something: the SuperPlayground, a wooden play structure in a small park in my hometown, which was torn down and replaced several years ago. In the small, lefty community of Sebastopol where I grew up, in the wine country north of San Francisco, there were many playgrounds, but the SuperPlayground was everyone’s favorite. Whimsical details like a dragon slide,...

1. 1963: Easy Bake Oven 2. 1964: G.I. Joe 3. 1965: Operation 4. 1966: Twister 5. 1967: Battleship

Every day at work as a doctor and at home as a parent, I am taught something all good footy coaches know: it's what's between your ears that matters most. There currently seems to be a lot of talk about what you need between your legs to be allowed to marry, when really we need to devote our attention to the brain. The brain is the organ of greatest significance for human relationships and wellbeing. It's the organ I've studied most in my training as an expert in the mental health of parenthood. And it's the organ that will change...

Even though the modern world isn’t any more dangerous than it was thirty or forty years ago, it feels like a more perilous place. Or, more accurately, we inhabit the world today in a way that’s much more risk averse; for a variety of very interesting and nuanced reasons, our tolerance for risk, especially concerning our children’s safety, has steadily declined.So we remove jungle gyms from playgrounds, ban football at recess, prohibit knives (even the butter variety) at school, and would rather have our kids playing with an iPad than rummaging through the garage or roaming around the neighborhood.Unfortunately,...

According to People, Stewart’s attendance was highlighted by Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Gross said Stewart had approached him with an idea about a new way to push gun control and that he was “impressed” by her proposal. He said, “She came to us because she has something she wants to do with this issue. She eagerly shared her idea and without hesitation and is showing up tonight. She is committed to actually doing something, not just lending her name.” While no specifics were given about Stewart’s gun control idea, People reports that it...

This is how petty and childish the media are. They don't like Brady so they choose to publish the photo where his young daughter is picking her nose. They have plenty others of the same general shot to choose from and they chose this one.

Remembering your childhood The first snow of 2017 finally arrived; a couple of inches covered the ground early before sunrise, turning our world into a powdery-white winter wonderland. The woods were unusually quiet and the animals disappeared with the exception of the resident fox. She ran from the back bushes and left a trail of swirling dry snow disturbed by her bushy tail. My two squirrels were nowhere to be seen.

Never before in human history have babies and children grown up so cleanly, and our diets have lost many of the elements most crucial to the health of our guts. We have become very bad hosts to our microbes. [snip] Babies and toddlers often aren’t allowed to play in the dirt or sand, and when they are, they are wiped clean immediately. Phrases like, “Yuck! Don’t play in the mud!” or “Don’t touch that bug, it’s dirty!” have become second nature. We need to unlearn these habits. By preventing babies and children from following their innate impulse to get dirty,...