Free Republic

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) — As Father’s Day approaches, children are reminded to appreciate their dads and the impact on their lives. Today dads around the city were honored a week in advance of Father’s Day. Celebrate Fatherhood 2013 was held this afternoon at the Collegiate School Aquatics Center. While these dads and their children enjoyed the moon bounce and competed in contests, an alarming amount of children in the area won’t have fathers around to celebrate the holiday. First Things First, an organization dedicated to keeping dads involved in kids’ lives, reports that 60 percent of all families in the...

(article photo) Stephanie Pappas, writing for LiveScience.com, recently penned an article titled, “Why Gay Parents May Be the Best Parents” (2012). In that article she attempted to make the case that same-sex couples provide an environment that is better for raising children than the environment provided by heterosexual couples. To bolster her case, she cited various studies, quoted numerous “experts,” and fleshed out the details with copious statistics. Her thinly veiled attempt to appear unbiased about the issue is extremely transparent, and her clear agenda to advance tolerance for homosexuality, in spite of its real impact on society, was...

A new group is emerging that may finally change the way Family Courts treat mothers and fathers. Currently, the default in most states is to award the lion's share of the time with the children to mothers, and require the father to pay child support. This is unfair to fathers, and has resulted in massive abuses within the system, leading to fathers committing suicide and being imprisoned. A new organization I am a part of, Leading Women for Shared Parenting, seeks to remedy this inequality by having women and mothers speak up in favor of shared parenting. When legislators realize...

PANAMA CITY, Fla. —Police arrested an Oxford couple accused of drinking in a Florida bar while their children waited outside in a car. Employees of Coyote Ugly Saloon said they found two small children inside an unattended vehicle early Friday morning in the bar's parking lot. Police said they found an 11-month-old boy and 3-year-old boy inside the vehicle. Officers said 35-year-old Michael Webb and 29-year-old Staci Hall were inside the bar drinking alcohol. Police said they had been inside the bar for more than an hour while the children waited outside. Bar employees told police that the couple had...

The news has sucked this week. From the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, to poison ricin discovered in the President's mail, and the explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, has any stretch of five days better epitomized life in post 9/11 America? Fear, violence, explosions, and chemicals. As I write this, my Twitter feed buzzes in the background; the city of Boston remains on lockdown as police engage the surviving suspect of the bombing. Yet as Dennis Lehane wrote in an Op-Ed in The New York Times on Tuesday, we'll recover from acts of terror like...

The other day, the father of a classmate of my son’s called to ask if he could join a group of fourth-grade boys practicing a comedy sketch for their school’s talent show. Like any parent coordinating a child’s schedule, I asked the basics: What time? Where do you live? When should I pick him up? Then I stammered out a final question, apologizing in advance for its personal nature: Do you keep guns in your home? Long pause. “No,” he replied, “but it’s a valid question.” The events of the past few days only reinforce the need to ask these...

In case you missed it, MSNBC doesn't think the children you feed, clothe, discipline, educate, and raise belong to you.This is a play off of "all your base are belong to us." It's a meme that has been around for a long time, but I suspect many may not know it.

This undated photo provided by Shawn Moore shows his son Josh, 10, holding a rifle his father gave him for his 11th birthday, at their home in Carneys Point, N.J. (Shawn Moore) TRENTON, N.J. – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is asking the attorney general to probe the state's visit to the home of a man who uploaded a photo on Facebook of his 10-year-old son holding a military-style rifle.

A new study that finds children of a gay or lesbian parent may be more likely to have social and emotional problems has sparked controversy on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate. The study, from Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at The University of Texas at Austin, surveyed more than 15,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 39, asking them questions about their upbringings. Its findings are published in the July issue of Social Science Research. One survey question asked whether a parent had been in a same-sex relationship during a child's upbringing; Regnerus wanted to...

<p>New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families officials raided the home of a firearms instructor and demanded to see his guns after he posted a Facebook photo of his 11-year-old son holding a rifle.</p> <p>“Someone called family services about the photo,” said Evan Nappen, an attorney representing Shawn Moore. “It led to an incredible, heavy-handed raid on his house. They wanted to see his gun safe, his guns and search his house. They even threatened to take his kids.” Moore was not arrested or charged.</p>

What happens when a local police department and a state child protective services agency overreact and abuse their authority? In one such case, Walmart ended-up being sued. The story began in 2008. Lisa and Anthony Demaree of Peoria, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) visited a vacation destination that’s popular among Arizonans – San Diego – and took their three young daughters with them. When they returned home, they brought photos of their then 5, 4, and 1 ½ year old girls to a nearby Walmart store to obtain prints. It all seemed pretty innocent productive. But some of the...

Readers — The story below makes me so sad and so angry, and you will see why. If anyone at Child Protective Services or the police department would pick up a single book written before predator panic swept the country, they’d see that 6-year-olds were always part of the neighborhood scene, scampering, playing, or even — in many eras and areas — working! The idea that a 6-year-old can’t be outside without constant supervision is new and warped. It also seriously underestimates kids. Is there a law requiring parents to stunt their children’s curiosity, competence, maturity and independence? I fear...

According to CBS, St. Louis, Pastor Rodney Francis, of the Washington Tabernacle Baptist Church, wants to keep kiddos away from guns, so this summer his church is planning a “toy gun buy back” program. How quaint. I kid you not: A. Toy. Gun. Buy. Back. Sounds like he’s setting up the next generation to be victimized slaves to bad people and policies. Yep, Reverend Rodney “feels” he needs to do “everything (he) can to not allow our kids to get exposed to (guns) too early.” Aww ... ain’t that sweet? Hey, maybe he could also hand out during that...

a b s t r a c t The New Family Structures Study (NFSS) is a social-science data-collection project that �elded a survey to a large, random sample of American young adults (ages 18–39) who were raised in different types of family arrangements. In this debut article of the NFSS, I compare how the young-adult children of a parent who has had a same-sex romantic relationship fare on 40 different social, emotional, and relational outcome variables when compared with six other family-of-origin types. The results reveal numerous, consistent differences, especially between the children of women who have had a lesbian...

Shortly after her move from New Hampshire to Newtown in 1998, Nancy Lanza had good news about her troubled son. "Adam is doing well here, and seems to be enjoying the new school," Lanza wrote to a friend back in Kingston, N.H., in a Feb. 9, 1999, email. But Adam, 6, then diagnosed with a condition that made it difficult for him to manage and respond to sights, touch and smell, eventually struggled in the first grade at his new school — Sandy Hook Elementary. His mother would respond, touching off a 10-year educational shuffle with moves in and out...

FULL TITLE: Company president, 60, 'slaps 19-month-old toddler in the face on a plane and tells his mother to ''shut that n****r baby up''' A man has been accused of racially abusing then physically assaulting a 19-month-old child on a flight to Atlanta last Friday. Joe Rickey Hundley, 60, allegedly demanded that the mother of the crying toddler 'shut that n****r baby up' before slapping the infant in the face on the Delta flight on February 8. According to The Smoking Gun, Hundley has been charged with simple assault after the incident with Jessica Bennett, 33, and her son Jonah....

As I walked through the Supermarket today, I passed through the isle that was full of children's toys of all kinds. Little racing cars, coloring books, transformers, Barbie dolls and baby dolls, stuffed bears, plastic airplanes, little ponies, bouncing balls, basketballs and something called slime. There were several children there, taking full advantage of the bounty as if it were provided for free. One opened a package of baubles that I could not identify while the other drooled on a basketball before throwing it in the general direction of the other child. And my old mind could not help but...

Giving more benefits to poor families will not address child poverty because too many irresponsible parents will spend it on alcohol or drugs, Iain Duncan Smith has warned. The Work and Pensions Secretary said parental addiction—not family income—had emerged as the main factor in determining a child’s life chances. He insisted that the last government’s strategy of spending more than £170 billion ($269 billion) in additional welfare payments had failed comprehensively. … Duncan Smith said Labour’s approach was a “vicious trap” and had left a “disturbing number” of people trapped in poverty. “There are around 100,000 people claiming sickness benefits...

COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, OH (FOX19) - Police have arrested a Colerain man after he posted a photo of himself on Facebook holding his 1-year-old daughter and a BB gun. Domonic Gaines, 22, was arrested after the incident which occurred at his home on Suliner Drive Sunday. According to reports, police initially believed that Gaines was holding a handgun in the photo. However, police say the gun in question turned out to be a BB gun. The photo depicted Gaines holding his daughter, Paradise Gaines, along with the BB gun. Police say that the close proximity of the gun to the child...

Am I the only one who thinks it is immoral to bring children into the world if you don't have the means to support them? I must be one of the few. I rarely see anyone else make the point. Before anyone objects, let me concede up front that a lot of things in life are unpredictable. Women become pregnant despite their best efforts to avoid it. Women can lose their husbands from accidents, war and even homicide. Few of us have a tenured job. Few of us are safe from the economic reversal that would attend the loss of...

The NBC series "Parenthood"' has drawn raves from TV critics this season for a storyline about a 40-something mother fighting cancer. Then on Jan. 1, NBC asked viewers to tune in the following Tuesday for an "unforgettable" new episode. A teenager would get an abortion at Planned Parenthood. Such is NBC's definition of "parenthood." Drew, one of show's leading teenager characters, has an ex-girlfriend named Amy who comes back to tell him "I'm pregnant." The high school seniors go to the Planned Parenthood clinic, and the scene plays like a political commercial. The counselor says, "If you decide to continue...

<p>Many parents worry about their children's gaming habits and addictions these days. One father in China took it to the next level when he hired online gamers to 'kill' his son's avatars, according to local reports.</p> <p>A Chinese father, tired of his son playing video games instead of looking for a job, decided to hire some assassins. Their job: to kill his son's characters in his favorite online role-playing games, local reports said.</p>

A music theater student has won a stalking order against her parents who admitted they installed monitoring software on her computer and phone to ensure that she succeeded. David and Julie Ireland have been ordered to have no contact with their 21-year-old daughter - their only child - before September 23, 2013 and must keep 500 feet away from her at all times. The unusual case concerns Aubrey Ireland, a musical theater major who regularly fills lead roles at Cincinnati's prestigious College-Conservatory of Music and has made the Dean's List every quarter. Despite this success, her parents often drove 600...

The formula seems simple: parents pass down what they believe to their children. Atheist parents don’t believe in God or go to church, therefore…. Yet, a surprisingly large number of atheist scientists from elite universities raise their children in a religious community such as a church. Sociologists Elaine Ecklund (Rice University) and Kristen Lee (University of Buffalo, SUNY) found that these atheist scientists do so because they want to give their children religious choice, have a religious spouse, or think that religious communities will give their children moral bearings and community. Unfortunately, very little research has been done concerning how...

Back in the 1950s, "Little Joe Cartwright" starred in a movie called "I Was a Teenage Werewolf." That's right, after seeing a full moon, Michael Landon ran around a public high school foaming at the mouth and pretty much out of control. Since there was little difference between his behavior and that of the normal students, he got away with it for two semesters. As I watched the film, I remember thinking that it was going to be tough for Landon to get into college with that on his resume. But then the 1960s happened, so that was that. This...

'I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed': retired naval officer's email to children in full This is the full email that retired Royal Navy officer Nick Crews sent to his son and two daughters in February expressing his and his wife's disappointment in them. 2:31PM GMT 18 Nov 2012 Dear All Three With last evening's crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news for which you seem to treat your mother like a cess-pit, I feel it is time to come off my perch. It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of...

It's come to this, you've been blessed with children. They're growing up. And now you've got a house full of kids. Feeling overwhelmed? Yes, of course. But have you ever considered applying economic principles to managing a large household? Here are some real lessons learned from two Ph.D. economists with five kids. The basic key is to reinforce simple old fashioned values with the right incentives. Rule 1: Limit Their Options We don't offer a weekly allowance. If our kids want anything beyond basics, they have to earn the money. Make sure to set firm limits on TV watching and...

What leads a child to grow up and vote for a Republican candidate like Mitt Romney or a Democrat such as Barack Obama? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that parenting style and childhood temperament plays a key role in determining a child’s future political mindset—as in, the bumper sticker your kid decides to slap on her car when she turns 18 might depend on how you reacted when she sneaked out of the house to meet her boyfriend. The study found that children of strict parents were more likely to turn conservative while those of lenient...

Ouch. Monday night was the first time I heard my daughter apply that label to herself, and the word didn't please me. She and six friends/coworkers were about to watch the final Obama-Romney debate on the large-screen TV in our suburban basement. These twenty-something kiddies were enjoying our hospitality because it was free. They're a company (founder, partners, contractors, trainee), part of the start-up trend whereby young persons hang out at coffee shops, staring into laptops, trying to start the next Foursquare or Fab and make a billion dollars. Until that happens, they can't afford things like airfare or hotels....

Let’s get one thing clear from the get go: moms are generally better parents than dads. And that goes double for me. I’ve had three kids across two marriages and I am undoubtedly the weak link. My 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son trust their step-mom more than they trust me, which proves that I married well but am still getting the hang of being a dad. Most of us are. That said, there are a few subtle nuances that I have picked up along the way as a dad that might come in handy for moms raising boys. Ladies, here...

Rhondall Feeles, founder of the Single Fathers Association of T&T, wants to help single fathers who would like more responsibility in their children’s lives. The group, which he started a month ago, hopes to meet with the incoming Justice Minister, Christlyn Moore, to discuss court orders which place children in the primary care of their mothers. Moore is to be sworn in as minister this week. Feeles said, “There are men who are willing to be part of their children’s lives and we are embarking on a recruitment drive for fellow supporters and single fathers.” However, he said the group...

Recently it was banned from a playground in England, the topic of a sex convict’s confession in New Zealand, the subject of a child’s funeral here in the United States and the reason for a 911 call in my own back yard. Can you guess what it is? Hide and Seek. Yes, hide and seek. In our era of parenting, there are two philosophies regarding children’s interactions with the world that have seemingly emerged. Philosophy one views the world as a mostly safe place that we need to allow our children to freely experience and explore, and philosophy two views...

They’re calling it the swat heard ‘round the world -- and its echo is still reverberating. On Monday night, the school board in Springtown, Texas, voted to allow students to be paddled by employees of the opposite gender if their parents give written permission. The board's previous policy permitted only same-gender paddling. No one really argued with the idea of corporal punishment; at issue was the question of who gets to administer it, specifically can an adult male swat young girls?

A Texas mother says a local school district is covering its own rear end by considering a policy change regarding corporal punishment after a male vice principal paddled her daughter so hard it left a nasty mark. The district in Springtown, just outside of Fort Worth, allows corporal punishment, but only when doled out by a teacher or administrator of the same sex as the student. But when Taylor Santos, 15, allegedly let a classmate copy her homework, Vice Principal Kirt Shaw disciplined the girl with a large wooden paddle, which he swung with a violent, upward motion, according to...

A Florida woman who posed her newborn in a series of disturbing photos that she then texted to the baby’s father was sentenced this week to a year in prison for child abuse. During a Circuit Court hearing Tuesday, Brittany Lester, 21, was also ordered to serve three years of probation in connection with the felony case.

The unemployment rate for July 2011 was at 9.1% nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With an increase in the cost of child care, the country may well see a rise in that statistic. Working parents strain to come up with the money to pay child care costs and, in some cases, find that they would be better off not working at all. When you take into account the costs of gas to commute, business attire and other expenses that come with having a job outside the home, most families are not netting enough to cover the rest...

Weeding out individualism at an early age... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZQvSCGaJI#ws

Hi Readers! If you send your kids to the Drummoyne publics grammar school in Sydney, kindly instruct them to stay upright their whole day, as cartwheels, head- and handstands are no longer allowed unless  ”under the supervision of a trained gymnastics teacher and with correct equipment,”‘  according to the Local West Courrier. The ruling comes from the principal who is worried abut (all together now) INJURIES and LIABILITY, the twin Dementors driving schools crazy with fear and dread. The fact that the school just re-surfaced its playground with soft stuff to make falls even safer plays no role. Or perhaps...

Hi Folks! I read this over at RixaRixa and asked if the blogger was game to let me reprint the whole thing. Yes! So here it is, in all its infuriating bureaucrat-brained fullness! We’ve been walking Zari to and from kindergarten. It seemed the most logical of our three options (walk, ride the bus, or drive) since we only live 1 km away. If Zari rode the bus, she’d have to leave the house almost an hour earlier, and she’d get home 1 to 1 1/2 hours later. That adds up to over 2 hours on the bus per day....

Hi Folks!  This is perhaps the most absurd story ever reported here — and that’s saying a lot! A reader named Rachel writes:A Deaf child named Hunter is not allowed to use his name sign because the sign for “Hunter” (a dictionary word) uses the thumb and first two fingers in a gun shape and suggests a shooting motion. Here’s the story.These school officials have lost their ability to reason if they believe stripping a child of his name is necessary for safety under a weapons policy. Educators who are unable to use logic and critical thinking have no business...

A bill prohibiting the use of controversial therapy aimed at 'curing' homosexuality on gay teenagers has been approved by California's Assembly, bringing the state a step closer to becoming the first in the U.S. to outlaw the practice. The vote in the Democratic-controlled Assembly on Tuesday represented a major victory for gay rights advocates who insist that so-called conversion therapy has no medical basis because homosexuality is not a disorder. Democrat Richardo Lara, one of several openly gay legislators to champion the bill during the debate, urged Assembly members to stand with 'sissy boys'.

Hi Folks! Just read about this warning regarding Bumbo Seats — little seats that look even safer than normal seats because there’s a big, hmmm, I guess “bumbo” in front of the crotch, wedging the child in. (See below.) About 4 million — that’s 4,000,000 — have been sold. And now they are being recalled for retooling — basically adding a safety belt — after reports of 2 baby skull fractures. (Two, that is, while the seat was on the ground. Another 19 occurred when the seat was on a raised surface and presumably the child fell out or off.)Now,...

Genetically screening our offspring to make them better people is just 'responsible parenting', claims an eminent Oxford academic. Professor Julian Savulescu said that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a "moral obligation" as it makes them grow up into "ethically better children". The expert in practical ethics said that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children as it meant they were then less likely to "harm themselves and others". The academic, who is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, made his comments in an article in the latest edition...

WASHINGTON — Parents are urged to teach their kids to speak up if they witness school bullying in new ads that target an issue that top Obama administration officials vow to make a national priority. long-term campaign featuring television, print and web ads was unveiled Monday and will start running in October. The campaign is a joint effort by the Ad Council, a nonprofit that distributes public service announcements, and the Free to Be Foundation, a group that includes entertainers Marlo Thomas, Alan Alda and Mel Brooks. one television ad, two girls are seen bullying a schoolmate, mocking her appearance...

It is probably one of the hardest things a gay man will ever have to do and one has decided to share his heartbreaking experience with the world. 'James', 33, from Pennsylvania, uploaded a letter sent to him by his father five years ago on internet messaging board Reddit, shortly after he worked up the courage to come out to him. James reveals he called his father to tell him the news in August 2007: 'I finally built up the courage to tell my father I was gay.

The 40-year-old Army veteran who killed six people and wounded three others at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin reportedly grew up as a “precious child” in a typical American family, according to his stepmother. Laura Page, who was married to Wade Michael Page’s father for roughly two decades, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that her stepson was “kind and gentle and loving” during his childhood. [...] Page, who was shot to death by police, described himself as a member of the "Hammerskins Nation," a skinhead group rooted in Texas that has branches in Australia and Canada, according to the SITE...

Quite simply, growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors. People in our community didn’t really know what was going on in the house. To most outside observers, I was a well-raised, high-achieving child, finishing high school with straight A’s. Inside, however, I was confused. When your home life is so drastically different from everyone around you, in a fundamental way striking at basic physical relations, you grow up weird. I have no mental health disorders or biological conditions. I just grew up in a house so unusual that I was destined to...

I love my son dearly, and I was looking forward to seeing him, but I couldn't face another summer living with him. For six months, it had been an ongoing topic of discussion. But by May of this year it was abundantly clear that the time had come for our 23-year-old son, Flannery, a UCSB graduate in film, to get a place of his own. I live and teach creative writing to college students in Alabama during the academic year. It's not ideal living 2,200 miles from my husband, but it's what we do to make a dent in the...

Yes, readers, it’s another case of child protective craziness. According to the Manchester, Conn. Patch, a local  mom was charged with “risk of injury to a minor and failure to appear after police say she allowed her seven-year and 11-year old children to walk down to Spruce Street to buy pizza unsupervised.” And according to reader Bob who sent this to us, Google Maps shows that we are talking about a half-mile walk! In addition to the solidarity of outrage, please post your ideas for how to protest the idea that kids are in danger every time they do something...

The public school year starts this month. Unfortunately, Florida isn't known for its stellar public schools. That means a lot of families are worried about their kids' educations and might even be dreading the thought of another disappointing year.