When are kids too old to trick-or-treat?

Seriously. I want to know. For religious reasons, I never participated in the annual extortion ritual that consisted of knocking on neighbors' doors and threatening them with mischief unless they handed over a Mars Bar or a Zagnut. So I never had to face the prospect that one day, I would be too old to do it.

But for the last few years, I've had the pleasure of tagging along with my wife while my stepdaughters have charmed the candy out of their neighbors. It's cute, but I'm starting to wonder whether they're getting a little old for this. They are 16 and 14, after all.

Have we reached the point in their lives when we should start planning Halloween parties instead of falling back on a ritual meant for children?

Are you as charmed by teenagers at your door as you are by the little ones? At what point do you feel more like you're being mugged than anything else? [And don't get me started on those who come to the door without a costume: you're not a trick-or-treater, you're a home invasion robber].

This isn't exactly related to my overall question, but I have to acknowledge the efforts of some churches to engage in a bit of counterprogramming on Halloween night. I grew up in a household that sapped the fun out of Halloween but didn't replace it with anything. It was just: "don't do it!" These churches don't ban the Halloween you know and love. But rather than say "don't do it," they say "do this instead."

Maybe such an event would be a good way to wean a teen off Halloween. I won't use this space to plug the activities of a particular church, but if you know of any counterprogramming, feel free to leave a comment.

Maybe I'll wait until next year to suggest a different Halloween activity. Why spoil the fun? Besides, in another year or two, our infant will be ready to start extorting the neighbors for a Watchamacallit.

And he can bring his sisters along, too.

[By the way, if you're wondering, those aren't our kids in the photo: it's Al and Tipper Gore in a 1998 AP photo].

> Please comment

PLEASE NOTE: This post was originally written as the drama of "balloon boy" was still unfolding on television. The boy had not yet been found and had not yet made the now notorious statement that this was done "for a show." I think it's unfortunate that what first seemed like a teachable moment about the role of vigilance in child safety -- the subject of this post -- has degenerated into a spectacle over whether we've all been had by an elaborate hoax. But that's life.

A lot of us watching the riveting coverage of the Colorado balloon flight are asking ourselves how something like this could happen.

The answer: very easily. Too easily. And here in South Florida, that should come as no suprise.

Only with us, it's not 6-year-olds in experimental balloons. It's toddlers in backyard swimming pools, coupled with parents going about their daily lives and looking away for just one second.

Tragedy strikes when responsible people aren't looking. And while it's tempting to cast blame on parents who look away, it is unrealistic to expect anyone to have both eyes on all children at all times.

So while we shake our heads in disbelief at a little boy climbing into a balloon and untying the rope, let's not pretend this is much different than the kinds of tragic stories we read about all too often.

Any close calls in your family while you looked away?

UPDATE: The kid's been found alive at his home, a fortunate ending to a fascinating story. And thankfully, we can learn the lesson of constant vigilance without having to hear a eulogy.

> Please comment

We've been reading a bunch of stories about swine flu parties over the last few days. Leading health authorities in the U.S. and Britain have denounced the idea. Medical experts are being sought out by the likes of CNN, The New York Times and other reputable news organizations to comment. Discussion boards are abuzz with conversations about it.

I'm not saying I've conducted an in-depth investigation or anything, but I've yet to see any evidence that these parties have actually been held, nor have I seen anyone quoted who's hosted or attended one.

I talked to Dr. Margaret Lewin, medical director of Cinergy Health, who outlined precisely why a swine flu party is such a bad idea. I talked to Dr. John Livengood, director of epidemiology at the Broward County Health Department. I spoke to the media relations offices at several South Florida hospitals.

Everyone thinks it's a bad idea, but no one is aware of an actual swine flu party being held somewhere.

Still, it is being discussed in prominent circles, apparently a pre-emptive attack on a spectacularly bad idea no one's carrying out. Fair enough.

For the record, the concept of a swine flu party is similar to "chicken pox parties" some of us may recall. Because chicken pox is a more serious disease in adults than in children, and because a vaccination against chicken pox wasn't available until relatively recently, parents used to think it was a good idea for a children to be exposed to chicken pox, deal with the discomfort for a couple of weeks, and enjoy the benefit of the subsequent immunity to the disease.

Applying the same principle to swine flu fails on a number of levels, Dr. Lewin explained. First, she said, testing for swine flu is no longer routine. Attendees of a swine flu party would have no way of knowing whether the guest of honor had the H1N1 virus or the seasonal flu, or the sniffles, for that matter.

Second, there's no guarantee that contracting swine flu in 2009 would make one resistant to the disease in later years.

And third, there is a vaccination for swine flu. Why expose yourself to swine flu now or later when you can avoid it altogether?

H1N1 is serious business, and some good reporting has been done to educate the public about it without resorting to hysteria. The advice boils down to two simple principles: avoid getting it, or avoid spreading it.

I'm willing to bet that swine flu parties are a myth. Here's hoping they stay that way.

> Please comment

What do you say on a day like this?

A little girl should be celebrating her birthday today. One of the big ones -- her 13th. And she should be doing it in relative anonymity, surrounded by family and friends who know her and love her.

Is anyone marking Rilya Wilson's birthday today?

A few weeks ago I was assigned to cover Missing Children's Day in Florida, and I noticed Rilya's picture among those who'd still not been found.

You remember Rilya. Her name was an acronym: "Remember I Love You Always." She was placed in the state foster care system with a woman believed to be her grandmother. Officials don't believe that anymore. Now they believe that woman was Rilya's killer.

Rilya disappeared in 2001. The foster care system, which was supposed to be keeping track of her, didn't realize she was gone for 15 months.

The case sparked outrage and, ultimately, reforms. Next spring, nine years after Rilya's disappearance, a woman will be put on trial, accused of murdering the little girl.

Rilya was 4 when she disappeared.

Today is her 13th birthday.

What does one say? To whom does one say it? I wish no harm had ever come to you, that I had never seen those pictures of you as a toddler or looked at a computer's best guess of what you might have looked like when you were 10?

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse still posts Rilya's picture, notwithstanding the Miami-Dade State Attorney's certainty that Rilya is dead.

"If you have any information concerning the whereabouts of this endangered person," the Web site says, "please contact the Miami-Dade Police Department at 305-418-7200."

If only that phone would ring. "Here she lies," the caller could say. Or, perhaps more optimistically, "Here she is!"

One can hope.

Maybe prosecutors are right, and maybe it is too late to save Rilya Wilson's life. But if you could, take a minute or two to look at some of the faces on the Web site of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Maybe there's a face you recognize there.

Maybe, on this day, if we can't recognize Rilya Wilson's birthday, we can reunite a child with his or her parents and give another family something to celebrate.

> Please comment

The writers of Moms & Dads struggle on a daily basis to find interesting subjects to share with you, and then we wait to see how you’ll respond.

Sometimes, you shrug. That’s okay, we can take it.

More often, a few people will have something interesting to say, and we appreciate that input.

And now and then, there’s a gem that makes us smile or laugh. This post is dedicated to a few of those gems.

Like the two commenters who chimed in on Cindy Kent’s recent post about making her kid do homework when he’s absent from school due to illness.

“Billybobhobag” was first. “I would probably just not have children so I can not deal with this crap!” he wrote.

Honestly, we don’t know how to respond to that. Fortunately, we didn’t have to. John R. did it for us: “You'd be doing society a favor, billybob. Please stay childless.”

My post on bringing babies to church brought a couple of good responses. My favorite came from Kevin K., who noted, simply, “That’s one of the reasons duct tape was invented.”

So that’s what it’s for.

But the one that really got under my skin was from a poster named Jamie: “Having a baby is purely a narcissistic self-indulgence. Period. Others should not be subjected to those outbursts because you wish to 'have' a baby. It's not all about you sweetie.....so either stay home or get a sitter.”

Ouch. How about finding another church? Isn’t that an option? Sweetie?

Anne Vasquez touched a nerve when she wrote recently about Miami ranking near the bottom of a list of family-friendly cities for raising children. She said Miami should be proud of, among other things, its diversity.

Well, you can imagine how that went over with some folks. But we have to thank canesman for coming to the defense of the Magic City: “I'm originally from Northern Europe. I have lived in numerous countries and cities. I love Miami. Whenever I visit the old country I cuss and complain and can't wait to get back home, yes home, to Miami. Burlington, VT????? I'd go crazy.”

Oh! Burlington, you got told! You gonna let canesman talk about you like that?

Anne's post, by the way, received 99 comments, a pretty healthy response.

Last but not least, my personal favorite. I wrote in April about my surprise when someone sent my teenage stepdaughter a text message wishing her a “Happy 4/20.” For those who don’t know, April 20 is a pseudo-counterculture holiday celebrating marijuana use. The post asked how you, as parents, handle the drug talk in your family. The first response came from a reader who called himself Dan:

“Shut up you stupid whore! DIE.”

Can’t really ask for a better comment than that. Really puts the conversation into perspective, doesn’t it?

Dan later clarified that he uses marijuana (for medicinal purposes, of course).

Why am I not surprised?

The list of favorite comments will constantly change and constantly grow, but on behalf of the Moms & Dads team, thank you for making this part of our job so much fun. We may not always agree, but you do make us think. Hope we do the same for you. Keep those comments coming!

> Please comment

I just uploaded about 200 pictures from my phone, mostly of Leo. That's not to mention the 1,000 pictures on my wife's phone, and Lord only knows how many are on the phones belonging to my two teenage stepdaughters.

Oh, and then there are the cameras.

I'd say that in the seven months since Leo was born, his picture has been taken an average of about 20 times a day.

How many baby pictures do you have from your childhood? I think I have about a dozen. Maybe. Okay, more than that, but not really all that much.

Pictures used to be special, remember? They took preparation, a little luck, and time to develop. Hours, if you were lucky. Days, more likely.

Polaroids were called "instant" cameras because you could see the picture within minutes of taking it. There was even a delete option: it was called the trash can, but you never wanted to throw the picture out because, no matter how lousy it was, the film cost so much that you didn't want to admit you screwed up.

Could you imagine waiting minutes to see the pictures you just took? Or not being able to delete a blurry image or one you just don't like?

Let's face it: We're spoiled. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't want to go back to the days of educated guesses and crossing fingers, hoping the picture came out okay, condemned to wait hours or days before knowing for sure.

But I have to admit that I'm concerned for Leo and for the girls. Flooded by photographs of themselves, will they ever appreciate them? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what are a thousand pictures worth?

Considerably less, I fear.

> Please comment

The sound escaped Leo's lips twice. "Aah," he said. And again. "Aah."

And that, apparently, was enough for the church usher, who tapped my wife on the shoulder and politely asked her to take the baby out of the main sanctuary. There were other places she could take Leo, our 7-month-old son, and still hear the sermon. If she wanted to see the sermon, she could take Leo to a room where the presentation was on closed-circuit TV.

My wife did not want to be separated from me or her two daughters, and none of us relished the idea of catching a church service on television after driving across the county to be in attendance. We came together to be part of the church community, together. But if the mere possibility that our baby might maybe cry at some point in the future was so intimidating that the threat had to be removed before the first howl, maybe this wasn’t the right church for our family.

I think many of us live in fragile little worlds whose walls can be shattered by an infant’s shriek. We are terrified at the thought that a baby will cry, and we will do whatever we can to avoid it if possible.

And sometimes we can’t. Like on an airplane or a bus. Or, to a lesser extent, at a supermarket or department store.

But what about church?

Now, let me set the scene here: the actual spoken part of the service had just started, preceded by a 30-minute musical performance by the worship team. During that half-hour, Leo could have screamed like a banshee under the care of an amateur acupuncturist, and no one would have noticed. Then the soft-spoken pastor came out and started talking.

We were seated in the back row, which is where parents with small children are asked to sit. I presumed this was so that if the child got loud, we would be close to the back door. That makes sense. Respectful parents can't just sit there as their babies scream their lungs out and expect other people to deal with it. If Leo had gotten loud, we were prepared to get up and walk out.

Maybe we have different definitions of "loud."

Leo did make those "aah" sounds. Was he about to go into a crying fit? We’ll never know.

Funny thing is, if Leo were a few years older and said "men" after saying "aah," no one would have batted an eyelash.

In any event, I don’t envy churches. I’ve been in some echo-chambers where a crying baby on one side resounds like Gilbert Gottfried with a megaphone on the other. So I can understand why some congregations go to the trouble of building rooms where parents can take their little screamers and not miss the whole church experience.

Some churches (wisely, in my opinion) have these rooms off the main sanctuary, separated by a pane of glass, with the sound of the sermon piped in via speakers. I kind of like that. We're not as enthusiastic about a separate room where we can watch the sermon on television. We can watch televangelists at home.

In any event, Leo did not cry as our family got up and left.

And neither did we.

> Please comment

A lot of things about being a first time parent made me nervous. In particular, Leo would howl in protest whenever we put him in his bassinet, and he would not let up. The notion that he would spend an entire night in there was laughable. It wasn’t going to happen. Sorry.

We’re co sleepers. Leo sleeps with us, in the same bed. Yeah, I was nervous about it, but we got used to it. In this “controversial” practice, we are joined (if my limited research is any indication) by a little more than half of all parents around the world. I have to wonder why something practiced by half the human population is controversial, but apparently it is.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is opposed to co sleeping. At first, I wanted to know why this particular agency was weighing in. After all, my baby is not a consumer product. Then I realized the bed is, and that’s where the commission has standing. Fair enough. The American Academy of Pediatrics concurs with the CPSC, concerned, apparently, with the possibility of people rolling over and accidentally suffocating their kids, among other risks.

But it seems a growing number of experts are touting co sleeping as normal and beneficial, and the identified risks, they say, are either overstated or easily addressed.

Noted expert Dr. William Sears outlines seven benefits of co sleeping. According to his research, with co sleeping:
Babies sleep better
Mothers sleep better
Breastfeeding is easier
It’s “contemporary parenting”
Babies thrive better
Parents and babies become more connected
The risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is reduced.

I’m not en expert on either side of this (especially that last item: a year ago the experts were warning us that co sleeping increases the risk of SIDS). All I know is that the best professionals on parenting have been giving conflicting advice on all sorts of issues for generations. Maybe, like me, you were told “thou shalt not share thy bed with thy baby.” And maybe that was good advice.

And maybe it wasn’t.

So here's a good resource: The March of Dimes has an information page that points out the risks and how to address them.

> Please comment

They were the longest 20 seconds of my life.

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

That’s about how long it took for me to get from the waiting room of the doctor’s office, across the parking lot to the shaded space where I’d left the SUV just a few minutes earlier. When I opened the back door, Leo, my 3-month-old son, looked at me and smiled, blissfully unaware of the foolish, unforgivable, incomprehensible mistake I’d just made. I picked him up, hugged him, kissed his chubby cheek, begged him to forgive me and held him close, vowing I'd never, ever allow myself to become so distracted again. Ever.

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

The air conditioner had been on during our trip, and I parked under a tree, so the temperature in the car had not even begun to get uncomfortable. If another few minutes had passed, that would have started to change. Quickly. It was late in the morning, a typical day in May. How long would it have taken for my moment of failure to evolve from error to emergency to tragedy? Thank God, I will never find out.

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

"How could any parent forget a baby in a car?" That’s the refrain from the public every time the tragedy occurs. Then comes the judging. "Self-centered." "Should be sterilized." "I could never forget my kid." "Bad parent." "Idiot." I fear for those who so readily pass judgment, who feel they are above doing something so avoidably tragic. I fear for those who are so self-assured that their vigilance is reduced, because I was one of you, and I almost did it. I almost did it to my baby.

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

Earlier this year, the Washington Post ran a powerful story on the subject, a story you MUST read. I learned about it from the excellent New York Times blog Motherlode. In the Post article, writer Gene Weingarten went through the list of people who weren’t as lucky as I was. People who did not realize their mistake until it was too late. People who probably were once among those who thought "I could never forget my baby in the car."

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

“In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker,” Weingarten wrote. “A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.”

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

I always used to cringe when I saw stories about parents facing homicide charges for forgetting their children in hot cars. Now the feeling is worse. Now I have an infant, and now I know I was that close to adding “news reporter” to Weingarten’s list.

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

The Motherlode story refers to gadgetry that might help avert these tragedies. You know how some cars chime when the door is opened while the key is in the ignition or the lights are on? At least one company is making a gizmo that plays a lullaby whenever the baby is in the carseat and the car’s not moving. Good idea.

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

I don’t know whether the gadget will catch on. I’ve settled on a different routine, one that involves opening the back door and physically looking to make sure the car seat is empty. It’s an easy habit to develop, and could be a tragic one to ignore.

Look before you lock. Check the car seat every time you leave the car.

For more information on car safety for children, visit www.kidsandcars.org.

> Please comment

No more homework, no more books...

Half of that familiar childhood cheer may be coming true faster than many of us thought, but not in the way most kids wanted.

As one way of dealing with the state's budget crisis, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is resorting to greater use of digital textbooks. No more lugging around a bagfull of oversized tomes: digital texts weigh nothing, cost less and can be updated instantly with the latest information (what's that? Pluto's not considered a planet anymore? No, sweat. I'll just hit "delete").

There are drawbacks. As pervasive as computers are, not every family has one. About one out of every four Americans does not have Internet access. What do they do? Yes, you can give them physical textbooks, but in doing so, aren't you telling the entire school population which students have Internet at home and which do not? Are you, in effect, calling out the poor?

I don't mean to reject the idea of digital textbooks. Broward County is starting to use them in some classes, and as far as I'm concerned, it's just a matter of time before they become the norm. Is now the right time?

> Please comment

Leo was not yet two months old when he was enrolled in his first class. The original plan was for him to go with his mom every week, but we decided it might be better if I went with him instead. For most of the course, I was the only dad who showed up (that changed in the final weeks).

The class is called Play Together, Learn Together: Your Amazing Newborn, and it's designed for children starting at age six weeks to three months. Our particular group met every Monday. There weren't that many of us, which was remarkable considering that it was a free class. As in no charge, no obligation, honest to goodness free (the one thing they did request was antibacterial wipes, which everyone was glad to bring in).

Leo loved it. I loved it. It gave us a special time together that can never be replaced. We sang songs and explored different kinds of toys (ever see an infant wrestle a small, unopened bag of potato chips? It's a hoot). It was a thrill to see Leo respond to sights, sounds, smells and textures around him. And the parents always had a chance to talk to each other and the class coordinator about the myths of parenthood and the realities of our experiences.

The 14-week class is at the Mailman Segal Institute located on Nova Southeastern University’s main campus in Davie. A new semester starts next week, and registration is still open. Classes begin Sept. 8 and run through Dec. 14.

Naturally, the institute has other classes for which they do charge, but if you've got a newborn and a limited budget, the free Amazing Newborns class is a value that can't be beat.

For more information on the class and on registration, call 954-262-6949 or click here.

> Please comment

Should toddlers cover up in public?

My wife and I discussed the issue the other day after a snorkeling trip in Key West. A little girl on the boat with us, no more than 4 years old, was with her father on the same excursion, and she wasn’t wearing a top.

I’ve never raised a toddler daughter; my stepkids are in their teens, and the younger of the two was 11 when I met them. But I did ask my wife whether she ever allowed them to be in public without a top, and until what age. Her response: no way. Not in public.

Clearly, the issue has a cultural component. I heard the toddler’s dad speaking a language I didn’t recognize, so it’s likely they were from someplace less inhibited than the United States can be. But still, this trip was in the United States. Should this dad have recognized that? You know, put the other half of the bathing suit on the kid?

Topless toddlers raise a slew of questions, of course. Like why did I think she should have a top on when I wasn’t wearing one? Why is it okay for little boys, and big boys, but not big girls? And when is a little girl big enough that a top becomes a necessity?

Paranoia about pedophiles comes into play as well, but that doesn’t address the gender imbalance here. I mean, do pedophiles really distinguish between a topless boy and a topless girl?

Would you have said something to the dad? None of us did, and we all survived the “trauma” of being on the same boat as a topless toddler. I’m really just raising the question for conversation’s sake. At what point do we need to tell our little girls to cover up in public?

> Please comment

When it comes to daily transportation, our family was already prepared for our newborn’s arrival earlier this year. We already have an SUV and a minivan, so for us it was a simple matter of choosing a good car seat. We now have one in each vehicle.

But not every family’s driveway is ready for that first baby.

The folks at South Florida-based Leasetrader.com contacted me earlier this summer about a survey they conducted showing what parents-to-be consider when they pick out a new vehicle to accommodate their growing families.

What they found was…

Okay, wait. I’m a reporter, and the folks I spoke to were publicists for a business. Gotta check it out, right? So rather than just copy and paste what they sent me, I placed a call to the Automobile Association of America and put the question to spokesman Gregg Laskoski.

Laskoski pointed me to AAA’s 2007 Best Cars For Families list, compiled in partnership with Parents magazine.

What did they like?

> Please comment

Warning: The video attached to this post could be very disturbing to younger readers/viewers. Parents should review this video before deciding whether it's appropriate to share with their children.

I first wrote about texting while driving back in April, and not surprisingly, the issue has not gone away. For our family, it's taken on a little extra significance because my older stepdaughter now has a bona fide driver's license (and her own car). She no longer needs to wait for us to take her anyplace.

And we trust her (with all the hesitation that most parents feel when their 16-year-olds get behind the wheel of their cars).

Right now, her phone is out of reach while she's driving. We know we can't monitor every second she spends in the car, but I'm glad my wife talked to her about the dangers of distractions behind the wheel. I hope she listens. I know it's had an effect on me.

Speaking of which, I was disturbed yesterday to see this video being played on CNN. I thought it was a bit much. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe we should see this kind of thing more often.

By the way, it's a British public service announcement, which explains why the driver is sitting on the "wrong" side of the car.

What do you think; is this an effective way to get the message across, or is it bound to backfire as a scare tactic?

Teen drivers: Ad campaign targets risky road behavior

Stay Safe: Tips for new teen drivers

Parkland Commissioner wants to ban texting while driving.

> Please comment

I was an infant when my Uncle Hector died. He was my father’s brother. He died young. Drugs. I have no memory of him, and our family rarely spoke of him. All I know of him is one photograph. It’s one of those vintage black and white pictures, with the subject seated and his head turned so that he’s looking to the cameraman’s left. This picture was taken for the army. Hector was a rather handsome man. But when it comes to most of his life, I barely have the luxury of hindsight. He’s an object lesson for me. “Don’t do drugs,” a lesson in the form of an infant’s lost memory. Of the real human being, I know nothing.

My brother, also named Hector, was born two years before I was. We fought constantly as children. I always lost the battle of fists. He always lost the battle of wits. And that would be the pattern all our lives. The two of us became increasingly incompatible. Our arguments grew in volume, in frequency and severity. He resented my holier-than-thou snobbery, as I resented his seemingly endless well of need. “The bird with the broken wing,” my mother called him. I used different words. “A guest of every county he’s ever lived in.” That’s when I was being charitable. I cannot repeat what I said in blinding anger.

What was left of our relationship as brothers, so promising recently when he was sober and he held my infant son in his arms, vanished when Hector held a beer, and another, and another.

> Please comment

I remember two things about Washington Rojas. The first is that we met one time, 14 years ago. The second is that he inspired one of my most memorable opening sentences as a writer.

It could easily have been my story. I remember being a child on the playground behind P.S. 111 in the north Bronx, joined by my friends and cousins setting off fireworks. I held the M-80 in my hand, chuckling as they all screamed at me to throw it. The fuse was getting closer and closer to its target. Finally one of my friends, I forget who, grabbed the firework and hurled it across the empty playground. I can't remember whether it ever hit the ground. The sound and echo of the powerful explosion has never left me.

I don't know that I've ever fully appreciated what happened that day, even after I met Washington Rojas years later, that one time.

Now, I look at my 5-month-old son and his gorgeous little hands. He slaps at my face in that perfectly innocent way babies explore the world around them. I kiss each finger, and I thank God he was born with all his fingers and thumbs and toes. I will do my best to protect him from the foolishness that could so easily have cost me my fingers.

The photo you see here was shot on July 1 by the Broward Sheriff's Office, which offered an annual demonstration on the dangers of fireworks.

I didn't see that demonstration, nor did I need to. I just need to remember the first words I wrote, 14 years ago, in an article in the New York Daily News.

"Washington Rojas used to be left-handed."

Please, have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

> Please comment

We've been following the story of nine teenage South Florida students and one teacher who have been quarantined in China because they were seated in close proximity to a man who had swine flu symptoms on their plane.

It seems some of our readers were surprised, not because the Chinese were so worried about swine flu, but because teenagers were touring a foreign country without their parents.

"Who in their right mind would allow their CHILD to travel to China?" wrote one reader who calls himself (or herself) "Alrighty Then."

Alrighty then, who would? If the tiny bit of research I've done is any indication, study abroad programs are plentiful and often welcome teenagers. Adults chaperones accompany them, but the majority of children participating are not accompanied by their parents.

I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer here. I saw one site that featured a study abroad program in Spain that welcomes children as young as 5.

I'd draw the line there. No way am I sending a 5-year-old to Spain, or any other country, without me or my wife. It's tough enough seeing your child off to his first day of school for a few hours. Shipping him off to another country for a few days or weeks? I can't imagine it.

When is a child old enough to study abroad? And how much does it depend on the destination?

> Please comment

"Power 96, please."

They jump into the car and, without saying hello, request their favorite radio station. Or at least the station they want to listen to at this particular moment.

I may not hear a word from them for most of the 20-25 minute trip home, save an occasional request to change the station. But I'm lucky this time. Often, I remind myself, they jump in with iPods attached to their ears. And their phones are always on, sending text messages as quickly as they can receive them.

I'm no better. Checking e-mail on the Blackberry, looking to see whether someone I'm following has said something interesting on Twitter, even checking my Facebook updates at times.

No, I can't point a finger at them without three fingers pointed right back at me.

As a stepfather, I don't have a lot of rules that are identifiably mine. But there's one thing I insist on: The gizmos are not allowed at the dinner table. That's my rule, one I am not shy about enforcing, with a gentle but visibly annoyed, "please put that away while we're eating."

I don't have to imagine what it would be like without these gizmos. Like many of you, I need only remember.

Remember when phones in the house had cords? When, in order to be on the phone, you needed to be in a particular chair?

I love the gizmos. I do. But they're supposed to connect us to each other, not disconnect us from each other.

Resistance is NOT futile! Has anyone managed to do an effective job of unplugging? I could use a few tips, if you've got 'em.

> Please comment

I had to look at the lead of this Miami Herald story several times yesterday to make sure I was reading it correctly:

A 15-year-old Hialeah boy who had a months-long romantic relationship with a teacher at his religious school must end the affair, a Miami child welfare judge ordered Wednesday.

Where do we begin?

It was a religious school. It took place over months. A judge had to order them to stop!

Is there a loophole in the statutory rape law that I'm not aware of, one that says it's okay until the judge orders an end to it?

As you read further into the story, you can see why the judge felt a need to step in:

The mom, Hialeah police say, consented to her son's affair with 32-year-old Maria Guzman Hernandez, and allowed the couple to travel together for a weekend getaway at Disney World.

At the hearing, the mother's attorney, Roberto Villasante, said she is disputing some of the allegations against her by DCF and the police.

''She is in disagreement with some of the items in the affidavit,'' Villasante said, ``particularly certain knowledge she had of what was going on.''

> Please comment

Last week I asked a couple of experts, stepfamily coaches, about the biggest challenge facing step-parents. They agreed discipline is at the top of the list. I'm not so sure, but it's certainly near the top, in any event.

Anyway, I've noticed a tendency in myself to focus on the challenges of being a stepfather, but I haven't really focused on the rewards, which are plentiful. Again, I asked for advice. The answer I got back from Arkansas family mediator Bob Collins was so good, I thought I'd just run it without further comment. So, without further comment...

When I became a stepdad in 1994, I was shocked to find that my 14-year-old stepdaughter was less than thrilled to have a new adult in her life to tell her what's what. Go figger!

Over the next four and a half years, she did her dead level best to chase me away. Verbal and physical attacks, silent treatments, and much worse failed to scare me away (they certainly scared me, just not away).

When my stepdaughter finally accepted that I was telling the truth about sticking around, she began calling me Daddy, saying she loved me, and she asked to adopt my last name for her high school graduation gift. I thought my heart would explode!

> Please comment

The cell phones go on their chargers in the kitchen at 10 p.m. on school nights. Period. Or else. Or else… what?

I feel strange answering that question. Turn off the phones or I’ll, or I’ll, or I’ll tell you to turn them off AGAIN, this time in italics!

They’re not impressed.

“It’s 10:15. Time to put the phone away,” I say.

“I will,” each one responds.

Will? What’s this “will” garbage? I didn’t ask them to put it away later. I told them to put it away now.

Or else…

And I’ve got nothing.

Discipline is a challenge for any parent of any teenager. And while this isn’t a scientific or comprehensive social poll, the experts on stepparenting seem to agree that the challenge of disciplining teens is magnified for stepparents.

> Please comment

Comedian Jeff Dunham posted a series of Mother's Day E-cards on his YouTube page. This isn't my favorite of the six, but it's the one I feel most comfortable posting here.

Oh, and that thing is Peanut. And, well, I don't know what he is.

> Please comment

Say this for radio personality Dr. Laura: she inspires strong feelings, among her fans and among her detractors.

We're following Hip Moms Who Work on Twitter (you should, too), and she made it clear today that Dr. Laura's book, "In Praise of Stay at Home Moms," ticked her off.

> Please comment

Are you Superman? You know, invincible? Able to withstand pain and injury, maybe whiz around the world and turn back time if you screw something up and hurt someone unintentionally?

Rocky Kaller wants to know. He’s 17, got his driver’s license last year, and has already shown considerable common sense about an issue that affects us all: people who text while they’re driving.

Are you one of those drivers?

I am. And I shouldn’t be.

Ordinarily, I’d be afraid to make such a confession. Who wants to admit they’re doing something so obviously dangerous and avoidable? My older stepdaughter takes her driving test in a couple of months. What kind of example am I setting?

> Please comment

I'm already late posting this, so here's the deal: UPromise is offering three $10,000 scholarships to someone deserving, clever and convincing. Like maybe this Miami teenager, Torrance Klimoski:

You can vote for his entry, or submit your own by following this link. But you only have until Sunday to submit your video.

The videos will be judged on creativity, quality, and a demonstrated need for college aid in three categories: Saving for College, In College Now and Paying it Back.

Keep reading for the official promo info:

> Please comment

> Please comment

Anyone remember this classic (and compelling) anti-drug ad from the 1980s?

Happy 4/20!

In case you don't know it, today is some sort of counterculture holiday. If someone wishes you a Happy 4/20, you've been identified as a marijuana smoker, past, present, future or indifferent.

My 16-year-old stepdaughter got a Happy 420 text message this morning.

What the?

> Please comment

> Please comment

It took my wife's pregnancy and my blunt doctor to get me to quit smoking.

My wife told me the day before Father's Day 2008 that she was expecting our first child. I vowed then that I would stop smoking, that I would stop sneaking around and pretending no one noticed my bad habit. I'd made such promises before. I made that promise before I got married, before I assumed parental responsibilities for my wife's two daughters, now teenagers. Still, I didn't quit. I only smoke when I drank, of course. Except for those few I snuck at work. And on the way to work. And on the way home from work. I thought I was kidding people. I thought people didn't know. And I was lying to myself and everyone around me, and fooling no one. For a cigarette.

> Please comment

Anyone raising a teenage boy, listen up. There are fashion trends, and there are stupid ideas that will get you shot - by a thug or by a cop.

The belt buckle you see here is an example of the latter: The Monroe County Sheriff's Office sent us a news release about a 17-year-old Stock Island boy who was on the business end of a deputy's pistol because he was wearing a belt buckle that looked just like a gun. There's a little more to the story, but fortunately the teenager was sharp enough to follow instructions and the deputy was careful enough to refrain from firing his weapon.

But whose brilliant idea was that gun-shaped belt buckle?

> Please comment

He needs water. My mother said so. Water will get rid of his hiccups.

Yes, I tried to explain that giving water to a newborn is not generally a good idea. We talked to our pediatrician about Leo's formula because he seemed to be spitting up a bit. We are following our pediatrician's advice, which brings us back to rejecting my mother's advice.

And then Leo has another hiccup.

He needs water. My mother said so. Water will get rid of his hiccups.

> Please comment

At last. At long last.

It seems there are some people in Tallahassee who actually look at a plastic utensil used to spread Cheese Whiz and think: That's not a knife.

Too often, zero-tolerance laws have resulted in students facing charges that are so patently absurd that it's a challenge to cover these stories with a straight face. Invariably, when school officials are asked to explain why a child should face expulsion for violating the strictest possible interpretation of "carrying a weapon to school," they fall back on, "It's a zero-tolerance policy."

Sounds more like a zero-discretion policy, and it's refreshing to see officials putting discretion back where it belongs: in the hands of those who witness these alleged violations and enforce the rules in the first place.

According to the Associated Press article:

Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, said his bill (SB 1540) would save money and prevent children from having criminal records by requiring that schools handle such disciplinary matters administratively. “Throw an eraser and they want to call it throwing a deadly missile, which is a felony,” Wise told the Senate panel. “When you get into the juvenile justice system everybody thinks your sins are forgiven when you turn 18, and I will assure you that doesn’t happen. It’s a blemish on your record.”

In 2005 an 11-year-old Hernando County girl was arrested for allegedly bringing a plastic butter knife to school. She was handcuffed, taken to jail and charged with a third-degree felony. A 15-year-old boy at the same school that year received three weeks of house arrest for throwing a pencil that hit a custodian on the shoulder.

In 2003... a 13-year-old Brandon student was suspended because his calculator had a knife-like gadget.

What's your take?

> Please comment

Did a Miramar teacher overreact this morning when he had a 17-year-old student arrested for chest bumping him?

According to our article by Macollvie Jean-François, the teacher ordered the male student to go to class, and the student ignored the instruction. The teacher repeated his instruction and approached the teen, and the student responded with the chest bump heard ‘round the county.

Now the teen is charged with one count of battery.

Good.

I say this, admittedly, not knowing the full details of what happened. I can imagine a scenario in which the teen felt threatened by the teacher’s behavior and responded in a self-defensive posture. So yes, I can imagine the teacher possibly being in the wrong here. Then again, I have quite an imagination.

Easier to picture is a teacher giving a simple instruction and being ignored by a rude teen with an obnoxious sense of entitlement who thinks it’s okay to try to intimidate an authority figure whose only job is to make sure the kid has a decent shot at a better life. It shouldn’t take courage to tell a kid in a school to go to class.

I agree with the notion that chest bumping is not the same as taking a swing at someone, but it’s not as innocuous as responding with a nasty attitude either. I call it an act of pre-violent defiance. A kid willing to bump your chest is ready to do worse, and he should be dealt with accordingly. At first glance, I commend this teacher for responding with restraint and having the presence of mind to call school officials and the police rather than react in a way that would get the teacher arrested!

The teenager has been suspended, and police and school officials are reviewing surveillance tape of the confrontation. It’s a shame they have to, but it’s a good thing they can - for everyone's sake (including the accused student's). In the meantime, my gut as a parent is to stand with the teacher on this one. We should be teaching our teens to respect their teachers, not to threaten them with words or other means of intimidation.

> Please comment

Remember this one when your kids tell you their college majors: There's a bar graph making the rounds on the Internet that claims to be an analysis of virginity rates according to major among students at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

I'm sure the parents who sent their kids there are so proud, especially of their studio art majors, for whom the virginity rate is, I kid you not, 0. Couldn't find a virgin in the bunch. Of course, that's probably the catch: "the bunch," that is, the sample size, is probably too small for this study to have any meaningful statistical value.

By the way, if that last sentence made any sense to you, you might still be a virgin: math majors tied for the highest virginity rates: 83 percent have maintained their sexual purity, according to...

According to whom? There's no study attached to this chart that's floating around. Is it a hoax? One version purports to be from something called Counterpoint Magazine, but my efforts to reach Counterpoint have not been successful (they don't seem to have an updated Web site, and I chased down an e-mail address, only to have my inquiry bounced back as undeliverable. Go figure).

By the way, people who use words like "purports" apparently are as likely to spent the night alone as with a partner: English majors had a 50% virginity rate. So did French majors. Computer science majors were at 40%.

The likeliest virgins: math, biochemistry and political science majors. The likeliest non-virgins: studio art, anthropology and neuroscience majors.

You see, that tells me right there that something's wrong. Biochemistry majors are highly likely to be virgins, but neuroscience majors are highly likely to be sexually active? Huh? All that time, they must be busy manipulating pheromones.

I'll update if I hear back from the actual creators of this chart (pesky little things like methodology and sample size still matter to some of us). [In the meantime, if you're on our main page, click "continue reading" for the chart].

> Please comment

All children, except fake ones, grow up.

Fake ones, like Charlie Brown and Richie Rich, don't have to. They can be children forever. I think that's what we like about them. Calvin will always be a 6-year-old boy testing the boundaries of imagination with his stuffed tiger, Hobbes. The Family Circus will always comprise two adults and four children (and PJ will never, ever talk).

In real life, you can't trap someone in childhood, no matter what. Time ultimately catches up: the 13-year-old and 11-year-old I met a few years ago, the ones who went with me and their mom to Busch Gardens to brave the 90-degree drop of Shiekra, they remain 13 and 11 only in memories and photographs.

And fictional characters aren't immune to aging. Arnold and Willis Jackson eventually become Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges. It's inescapable. No one cared much what the Beaver did as an adult, or who the Brady Girls married, or where Zack and Slater went to college. And don't even get me started on what happened to the Little Rascals!

Now Mattel and Nickelodeon want to prepare us for a pre-teen Dora the Explorer. Forget the hysteria of the blogosphere on this one: she's not Dora the Tramp or Dora the Streetwalker. She's a 10-year-old girl now, in a new incarnation that will be available in toy stores this fall.

Sometimes the aging of comic or fictional characters can be delightful. I loved the idea of Peter Pan growing up to become Robin Williams. And it was great watching the kids of For Better Or For Worse go from toddlers to spouses.

So is this new Dora a good idea? I don't know. Some marketing guru somewhere thought it was a good idea. And marketing gurus never make mistakes, do they?

> Please comment

Maybe the potty-mouthed kids from South Park could use a visit from the too-wholesome-to-be-true Jonas Brothers.

Or maybe putting the two groups on the same screen takes something away from both of them. Who knows?

I missed last night's season premiere of the raunchy Comedy Central staple, and in truth, South Park hasn't been on my required viewing list for years. Generally, I think it's hysterical. I just don't have time for it.

In any event, it seems they took on the Jonas Brothers in an episode that, according to one reviewer, somehow managed to stand up for religion and sexual freedom at the same time.

The basic plot is that Kenny (the one who's always dying) has a girlfriend he tries to get into bed, so he takes her to a Jonas Brothers concert, where they receive purity rings. The brothers end up standing up to Disney, which (in the show) is using the brothers in an underhanded way to promote adolescent sex.

My younger stepdaughter is a big Jonas Brothers fan, and she doesn't take too kindly to seeing them mocked.

Will she want to see this episode? I don't know. If she does want to see it, should she be allowed to?

Fortunately, the show's not on my stepkids' radar, so my wife and I are spared the responsibility of deciding how to handle it.

But knowing how over-the-top the creators of South Park can be, I just wonder how we would deal with it if they did want to see it.

At what age would you let your kids watch South Park? And if you've seen the Jonas Brothers episode, would you feel comfortable letting a 13-year-old watch it?

(Click on continue reading for a recent Jonas Brothers appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman).

> Please comment

Does this make sense?

A 4-year-old brings his brother's pot to the Tamarac Preschool in a bookbag and brags about it, and the pre-school responds by banning bookbags?

Our reporter, Sallie James, saw the sign herself today. It read: "We no longer allow backpacks or bookbags." It's the kind of response that normally cries out for an explanation. Unfortunately, no one at the school was commenting on the article today, so curious minds are left to speculate.

Are pre-schoolers supposed to carry their crayons in clear, cellophane bags? Oh, wait, they use that to carry marijuana, too. Forget that idea.

Was the backpack really the problem here? Isn't this like keeping toothpaste off airplanes out of fear that MacGuyver has joined al-Qaeda? It's good to see officials responding when something happens, but sometimes the response is so disconnected from the offense that it creates more problems than it solves. Why should parents and children who've done nothing wrong have to change their innocent and harmless use of bookbags just because of what a 4-year-old did?

I shudder to think of what the school would have done if the kid had pulled the marijuana out of his pants pocket!

If there's a reasonable explanation for banning the bookbags, I'd sure love to hear it.

> Please comment

All this talk about "sexting" has me concerned.

A recent article on SunSentinel.com tells the stories of several Central Florida teens who have been labeled sex offenders because they shared naked pictures of their teenage ex-girlfriends over their cell phones.

Where to begin?

While I have been concerned about my teenage stepdaughters and their fondness for various gizmos (the iPod, the cell phone, the digital camera, the cell phone with the digital camera), it hasn't occurred to me that they might take pictures that might come back to haunt them.

Yes, I am concerned about the difference between stupid kids sending inappropriate text messages and predatory criminals exploiting children to satisfy their lusts. They are, in my mind, separate issues. The predatory criminals are a law enforcement issue. To a greater extent, the kids being stupid kids - well, that's a parenting issue.

I honestly don't think our kids recognize the permanence of these digital photos. Back in the day (you remember back in the day, right?) we had film, and we had to take the film out to be developed, and you knew a stranger's eyes would see each and every image you shot. Casual, personal nudie shots, while not unheard of, were far from normal. At least, the potential for embarrassment was very real.

Not anymore. Now these images can be deleted with the touch of a button. The problem, of course, is that they can be copied just as easily. And forwarded. To e-mail boxes. And cell phones. And next thing you know, that photo you took just for your boyfriend is making the rounds at your school. Or worse. Ask Vanessa Hudgens. The High School Musical star was mortified in 2007 when her nude pictures surfaced on the Internet. And she's not one of the "bad girls" of Hollywood. She's the one our teens are watching, and the one whose error in judgment we need to explain.

So what can we tell our kids about the dangers of "sexting" (not from a criminal law point of view, but from a healthy childhood point of view)? Read on for some tips from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

> Please comment

Did your kid wish you a happy square root day? If not, wish it on your kid.

Get it? Today's 3/3/09, and 3x3 = 9. There are only nine square root days in a century, and people are too busy celebrating a new century on the first one: 1/1/01. Then there's groundhog day, 2/2/04. After today, the next one will be 4/4/16. You get the idea.

Sounds like the kind of thing that would thrill me back when I was at the Bronx High School of Science.

Of course, we were more tickled by Pi day. You know, 3/14.

But why stop there?

How about information day? That would be 4/11.

The day we should all clean out unwanted stuff from our desk: 8/6

If we start using Roman numerals, then Feb. 2 can be eyeglasses day: ii/ii

How about offering to help a police officer every 10/13?

Let me know you received this message by 10/4.

> Please comment

Today we bring you our first guest writer:

I wrote last week about our decision to bottlefeed Leo after our foray into breastfeeding didn't work out as we would have liked. In a bit of admitted unfairness, I chided the "breast milk mafia" for being so enthusiastic in their advocacy of breastfeeding that they sometimes, inadvertently, make parents feel guilty about choosing formula.

Well, most advocates of breastfeeding aren't like that at all, and I was really pleased to hear from Elita, an Oakland Park mom who encourages breastfeeding and didn't take too kindly to being compared to a member of the Corleone crime family. She prefers the term "lactivist," and I asked her to share some thoughts with us in response to what I wrote. She makes some powerful points.

Here's what she wrote:

It’s been said time and time again, and I’m sure you’ve heard it by now: breast is best. But guess what? Breast isn’t best. Breast is just normal and natural. It’s the way babies want to and should be fed. Saying breast is “best” sets it as a lofty goal, often one that feels unattainable by many moms.

And the research shows that often it is. Although we’re currently at an all-time high breastfeeding initiation rate (about 70% of new moms are nursing when they leave the hospital), a paltry 30% are still nursing at six months and only about 12% at one year. When you look at the rates for African-American moms, they're even lower. We, as a society, have set moms up for failure. We tell them to only give their babies breast milk for the first six months and to nurse for at LEAST one year, but we make it nearly impossible for them at every turn.

Gave birth in a hospital? You had a 30% chance of ending up with a C-section, and studies have shown that women who have C-sections have more difficulty with nursing.

Then there's the formula. Your baby was probably supplemented (even if you aren't aware of it) and the hospital probably gave you a "breastfeeding support bag" that curiously contained formula. You probably also got some formula delivered to your front door, courtesy of your OBGYN. The research on this is very clear: breastfeeding duration is shortened when women are given free samples of formula.

> Please comment

The news breaking today is that Chris Brown and Rihanna have reunited. That's according to People magazine.

Once again, the two superstars are, whether they intend to or not, sending messages to teens about what's proper behavior and what's acceptable. That's the price that comes with being a role model.

I think my stepdaughters are pretty sharp about what they would allow, but I also think some pretty sharp people have nonetheless been the victims of domestic violence. So we intend to have another talk with the girls about the boundaries they should set in their lives.

In the meantime, I don't envy Chris Brown or Rihanna. They're private pain is a public discussion, and that is one of the prices of fame.

By taking Chris Brown back, Rihanna has told the world either that he's innocent or that she's forgiven him. If he's innocent, that's great. If she's forgiven him, then she's taken a huge risk. It's a risk that's hers to take, and hers alone. I can't judge her for it.

I'm not an expert on domestic violence. I just interview them from time to time. And they tell me that episodes of violence are often followed by apologies and promises to change, and then by an attempt at reconciliation. After that, it can only go one of two ways: either the violence doesn't happen again, or it does - and worse.

If this was indeed an abuse case, then for Rihanna's sake, I can only pray that Chris Brown proves himself worthy of her trust and forgiveness.

Anyway, that's what I plan to tell my kids. What do you plan to tell yours?

> Please comment

Looks like President Obama's family wants a Portuguese water dog as their first First Pet.

This comes from the Los Angeles Times politics blog:

In an interview with People magazine that hits the stands on Friday, [First Lady Michelle] Obama said that the first family is looking for a rescue Portuguese water dog who is "old enough" and a "match" for the family dynamic.

"Temperamentally they're supposed to be pretty good," she says of the breed. "From the size perspective, they're sort of middle of the road -– it's not small, but it's not a huge dog. And the folks that we know who own them have raved about them. So that's where we're leaning."

That will be good news to the animal rights groups who have been lobbying the family to adopt a dog who might otherwise be euthanized. That campaign apparently resonated, at least with President Obama. At his first news conference after the election, Obama alluded to his daughter Malia's allergies and his own racial background -- a white mother and an African father -- and said:

"With respect to the dog, this is a major issue. I think it's generated more interest on our website than just about anything. We have -- we have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypoallergenic. On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but, obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me."
The rest of the Times post is here.

I'll pretend I didn't hear the President of the United States refer to himself as a mutt.

I guess I'm happy about the choice, but a part of me is disappointed. After all, I'm still looking for a good home for a certain pit bull...

[UPDATE]

The First Lady's press secretary, Katie Lelyveld, threw cold water on the report today, suggesting that a decision actually may not have been made.

"They have not selected a breed," Lelyveld said. "Mrs. Obama likes the Portuguese water dog, but she is only one of four votes.''

The Obamas have not narrowed the search down to a particular breed, the spokeswoman said, but "their primary focus now is that they get a dog that works with their lifestyle."
And the rest of that story is here.

Makes me want to growl. Look, this is a dog we're talking about, not a vice president. Make a decision already.

> Please comment

A coworker sent me this link to a Chicago Tribune article with a disturbing observation. Remember the accusation that entertainer Chris Brown beat his girlfriend Rihanna? Well, it turns out some teens think she had it coming. I’m not kidding. Here’s the beginning of the Tribune article:

Ed Loos, a junior at Lake Forest High School, said a common reaction among students to Chris Brown's alleged attack on Rihanna goes something like this: "Ha! She probably did something to provoke it."

In Chicago, Sullivan High School sophomore Adeola Matanmi has heard the same.

"People said, 'I would have punched her around too,' " Matanmi said. "And these were girls!"

As allegations of battery swirl around the famous couple, experts on domestic violence say the response from teenagers just a few years younger shows the desperate need to educate this age group about dating violence.

Their acceptance, or even approval, of abuse in romantic relationships is not a universal reaction. But it comes at a time when 1 in 10 teenagers has suffered such abuse and females ages 16 to 24 experience the highest rates of any age group, research shows.

***

I heard the rumors, too. It didn’t take long for them to pop up. My stepdaughter came home from school the day after the allegations were made public and let my wife and me know exactly why Chris Brown beat Rihanna (a talented entertainer in her own right). And while she didn’t say Rihanna deserved it, she might as well have. After all, so the rumor went, what Rihanna gave Chris Brown was worse than the beating he gave her, wink wink.

First, my wife and I explained that schoolyard rumors are usually best left in the schoolyard. Only two people witnessed whatever happened, and it’s not likely that one of them called up a friend at Cypress Bay High School to spread the word.

But the bigger lesson, the one we hope stuck, was that violence in romantic relationships is unacceptable. I could tell my stepdaughter with near certainty that Rihanna didn’t deserve it because no one deserves to be beaten like that. I don’t care what she did. If you’re a man, you don’t hit her. Maybe you'll yell or scream or get loud in the heat of the moment. But you do not get physical (unless self-defense is an issue, which may happen but is certainly not representative of abuse cases).

I know some men (and some women) can explode if the wrong buttons are pushed, and without a doubt, it’s unwise to intentionally push those buttons. But I want my teenage stepdaughters to know that it is never, ever right to let a man strike them.

Erica Herman, director of social change at Women in Distress, succinctly shot down the notion that victims of domestic violence provoke the attacks against them. "Domestic violence is about power and control," she said, addressing a different rumor about the Brown-Rihanna altercation. "He didn't hit her because he was angry. He hit her to gain control."

We don’t know what happened. In our family, we hope Chris Brown is innocent, and we hope those pictures of Rihanna that surfaced on the Internet were faked. But if they’re authentic, then someone hurt this woman. And if it was Chris Brown, then he should pay. The shame of this whole thing is that our family is fond of this talented singer, dancer and actor. He’s a heck of an entertainer – I’d bet he could get a standing ovation at a cemetery.

But if this charge sticks, then he’ll have gone from Chris Brown to Bobby Brown, from undeniable talent to disgraced has-been (if only in my eyes). No, I wasn’t expecting perfection out of him. But I was expecting him to refrain from beating his girlfriend. I don’t think that’s much to ask at all.

If you’re a victim of domestic violence or of violence in a romantic relationship, you didn’t have it coming. You didn’t ask for it. It's not normal and it's not your fault. And there are places you can turn to for help. If you’re in immediate danger, call 911. If you need counseling in Broward County, call Women in Distress at 954-761-1133. In Palm Beach County, call Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse at 1-800-355-8547.

Elsewhere, call the Florida Domestic Violence Toll-free Hotline at 1-800-500-1119 or the National Domestic Violence Toll-free Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

> Please comment

I think the idea of a four day school week is great -- if you're a teenager. But I'm thinking there are some serious ramifications here. Imagine your teenagers at home one day a week, unsupervised. Is this really feasible?

Looks like they're seriously considering this in Broward.

Kathy Bushouse reports:

Add four-day school weeks for high school students to the list of options the Broward County School Board is weighing to save money.

Board members during a Tuesday workshop directed schools Superintendent James Notter to study the idea to prepare for up to $160 million in possible budget cuts from the state for the 2009-2010 school year.

Such a move would take more than a School Board vote. Changing all Broward high schools to a four-day week would require negotiations with the Broward Teachers Union, though an individual school could make the switch if two-thirds of the school's teachers and staff agreed, Notter said.
...
Notter said as part of its review, the district would look at four-day weeks for elementary and middle schools as well. But he said he'd have concerns with moving younger students to a shorter school week.

Some board members approached the idea of a four-day school week with caution. "I think we ought to approach the reduction of days in school very, very judiciously," said School Board chairwoman Maureen Dinnen. "That really, really bothers me academically."

But board member Bob Parks said the idea should be considered. "If you're in a crunch time, tough decisions have to be made,…It may be a controversy, but everything is on the table," Parks said.

Weigh in: would a four-day school week be worth the savings?

> Please comment

Here's a story that's downright terrifying. The Associated Press reports:

Fifth-grader Jordan Brown boarded the bus and headed to school like he did most other mornings in this rural western Pennsylvania community.

But before he left home on Friday, authorities say, the 11-year-old boy had shot his father's pregnant fiancee in the back of the head as she lay in bed. He then put his youth model 20-gauge shotgun back in his room before going out to catch his bus, police say.

Brown was charged Saturday as an adult in the death of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, who was eight months pregnant, Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said. Houk's fetus died within minutes due to a lack of oxygen, Lawrence County Coroner Russell Noga said.

Where to begin? First, let me note that according to the article (read the rest of it here), the kid's lawyer says he thinks the kid may be innocent. The details of this story will play out in Pennsylvania.

But even as I'm taken aback by the sheer horror of this tale, I have to admit the first thing that got my attention was that they're charging this kid as an adult. South Florida has had some experience charging children as adults when they're accused of heinous crimes. We all remember Nathaniel Brazill, who shot and killed high school teacher Barry Grunow in Lake Worth in 2000. Brazill, 13 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Then there was Lionel Tate, who was 12 when he was charged as an adult with killing his playmate Tiffany Eunick and 14 when he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Tate eventually had his sentenced overturned and was released, only to head back to prison for robbing a pizza delivery guy in 2005.

Now comes Jordan Brown, who's 11 and will be facing murder charges as though he were an adult at the time of the shooting.

Is this right? If a preteen who commits murder can be tried as an adult, why bother ever trying juveniles as children? What is the point of juvenile justice if we're just going to treat them as adults in the end?

(By the way, I'm not answering these questions: I'm just asking them. I'd love to hear your answers).

Update: I should have seen this earlier, but the prosecutor in the case says he has no choice under Pennsylvania law but to charge Jordan as an adult.

> Please comment

Shh. Don’t tell anyone. We’re feeding Leo formula. I said SHHH!!!!!

Oh, great, it’s out now.

Now I’m going to hear it from the Breast Milk Mafia. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. I have no knowledge that such an organization exists. But something in the back of my head suspects that they do, in the same way that the “Liberal Media” exist. No one will ever admit to being a part of it, and those in it are least likely to recognize it.

We did try breastfeeding. It didn’t work. There’s a part of me that’s defensive about it, that wants to explain our efforts and justify our decision to switch to formula. But why? Do we owe someone an explanation? Maybe the lactation consultant who came into my wife’s hospital room those first couple of nights with all those helpful hints and assurances that it would take work but we could do it if we kept trying?

No one wants to be a quitter. No one wants to say “we gave up.” Language like that inadvertently leads to feelings of guilt when the mother, sore and exasperated, looks at you with tears in her eyes because it’s 2 a.m. and the baby’s hungry and that means another round of pain that's becoming more and more unbearable with each feeding.

We switched to formula. The decision was made with tears, followed by relief. Leo slept longer. His weight loss reversed. I can feed the baby. Mom can feed the baby. Big Big Sis and Little Big Sis can feed the baby.

The literature, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, will tell you that “Breast is best.” And they’re right. Who am I to argue? But imagine my pleasure when I read that “Breastfeeding is considered the best nutritional option for babies by the major medical organizations, but it's not right for every mother.” Imagine the pleasure of being able to console my wife, who was bottlefed and who bottlefed her first daughter, that it’s okay to bottlefeed. I was bottlefed.

In fact, shhh, most mothers try breastfeeding in the hospital, but by the time the baby reaches six months of age, only 27 percent are still breastfeeding at all, and just 8 percent are breastfeeding exclusively.

I’m not saying breastfeeding is a bad thing. Quite the opposite. All I'm saying is that women should not feel guilty for opting for formula. The birth of our child has opened a flood of emotions in our household. There's no room for guilt.

To those who manage to breastfeed for a significant amount of time, my wife and I salute you.

For those who chose formula, we’re with you.

> Please comment

My son was born a week and a half ago. My feet haven’t quite touched the ground yet, but I’m back at work and still trying to take stock of how much things have changed.

Shortly before Leo was born, I asked readers for a bit of advice. The feedback was good and profound. A reader named Cathy wrote, “There's a good line from a Steve Martin movie...there's no way to be a perfect parent but there are a million ways to be a good one.” I liked that. A personal friend told me to remember “the days are long, but the years are short.” Very, very true.

The two pieces of advice I have are not nearly as profound, but I hope they help more than one dad-to-be out there. Here it goes:

First, learn to swaddle the baby. You’ll mostly need this skill on night two, when the baby realizes his change of environment is permanent. He’ll feel a little more secure if he’s in that snug environment. It’s likely the nurses and other hospital staff will be able to help you with this, but you’ll be proud to be able to do it yourself.

Second, assuming you’re going to be spending a night or two in the hospital with your wife, do yourself one favor. Bring an air mattress. The sofa bed you’ll be sleeping on is not fit for human backs. True, you’ll be so tired those first two nights that you will manage to sleep anyway. And your discomfort is nothing compared with what your roommate will have just endured, but still.

I hope you weren’t expecting anything more profound. I don’t have it, yet. I can tell you that I feel so much closer to my wife. I feel closer to my stepdaughters, too. I don’t share a blood relationship with Kay and Pax, but my son is their brother, and that cements us as a family. From the day I married their mom, I promised Kay and Pax that I would love them as my very own. But how could I have known what that meant? I didn’t have a child of my own until a week and a half ago.

Now I have three, because I understand now what that promise meant.

Everyone is different. I can’t tell you that you will become closer to the members of your household. I can’t tell you that your relationship with your wife will become deeper and more meaningful. That’s not advice. It’s been my privilege to experience, and it is my wish for you.

My advice? Learn to swaddle. And bring an air mattress. Your back will thank you.

> Please comment

Welcome to the world, Leo. Nice to finally see you.

I don't have much time to write today. I have the week off work to take care of the newborn. That's him. Leonardo Enrique Olmeda.

My wife and I took our time settling on the first name. I insisted on his middle name, in honor of my late stepfather Jose Enrique Girona. My dad and namesake, who lives in the Bronx, is content to pass on the last name (another grandson has his name).

Two things I like about Leo (the name). Just like his dad, Leo is a pizza-loving, crime fighting turtle. And his initials spell out his name. That is so cool. My initials spell out Superman's deity. Not so cool.

How'd you pick your baby's name?

> Please comment

Michael Phelps, what have you done?

Something dumb, and he admits that. I do find it strange that someone can take marijuana and still perform as well as Phelps did at the Olympics. As Robin Williams said, it’s not exactly known as a performance enhancing drug (caution: link contains profanity): one thing you do not feel after smoking marijuana is empowered.

But the Phelps fiasco got me to thinking: who counts as a role model anymore? Granted, no one’s perfect, but still. Can’t read about the good teachers without first having to wade through too many stories about the bad ones.

Then it hit me: the best role models, the ones that really matter in the long run, are usually unsung. Sure, our girls would probably rattle off names of people they admire, such as Chris Brown and the Jonas Brothers, because these are people who put their talent to use and got rich and famous for it.

Sure, I can think of some famous role models I've looked up to. But ask me who really mattered, make me really think about it, and I'll probably come up with names you've never encountered. Like Herman Cohn, my seventh grade homeroom and history teacher at John Phillip Sousa Junior High School in the Bronx. He was the first to teach me to question the stories I was told. "Prove it," he demanded. The advice always came in handy.

I'll bet there are role models like Mr. Cohn among us, people who inspire, people who dedicate their time and energy and devotion to just causes, and give our kids an example to admire. No one's perfect. But still.

Who are the role models among us?

> Please comment

Well, here goes everything.

If all goes according to plan, the next time I report in this space, I will be a biological father for the first time.

I've been a stepfather for the last 19 months, but it's not the same thing. I wasn't there for their births, for their first words or their first steps. I didn't see them off to school for the first time ever, and I missed maybe 100 dance recitals and performances. I've done what I can, screwed up plenty, tried to understand and tried to get them to understand.

I feel as though I have evolved so much in the last two years. I'm no longer the clueless bachelor stepping into fatherhood, but neither do I feel ready for what's coming in just three days. This tiny little boy is about to show up and change everything I've ever known.

Can I confess to being nervous? (Could I possibly deny it?)

One of the things I hear all the time from parents is that they wish they knew then what they know now: about parenthood, about being a father, about life, about children, about what makes a marriage strong...

Well, you can't go back in time, but you can throw a little bit of your hard-earned wisdom in my direction.

So let me have it. Give me one piece of advice, a piece of advice you wish you'd had before you became a dad for the first time.

> Please comment

A confession: I’m a bigot. I don’t trust pit bulls, especially around children.

Now before the defenders and detractors line up with their documented evidence of why I’m right or wrong, let me just say that the pit bull living on my property now is the dopiest, friendliest, most goofiest bundle of fun imaginable. But in a week and a half, my wife and I are coming home with a baby, and we want the pit bull gone.

The dog belongs to another family member who is not in a position at the moment to care for him.

I’ve read the literature. I’m familiar with the arguments presented by sites such as Jason Mann’s Pit Bull Lovers page. And I sympathize with those who have tried to stand up for the breed’s reputation.

But I’m also a reporter, which makes me paranoid, and a father-to-be, which makes me doubly so, and that paranoia leads me to think that when campaigns have to be organized to assure me that a particular animal is safe around infants, it’s because they’re not. Pit bulls and babies go together like Freddy Krueger and teenagers.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. In truth, this is a personal decision, not really a bigoted one. If I felt our family had the time, inclination and resources to properly train and raise a pit bull, this big fella would be just the right fit. But honestly, we don’t. And that’s the kind of dog news stories get written about. You know the stories. They always contain quotes like “He never acted up before” and “She was the friendliest dog.”

It’s not the dog, it’s the owner. I get that. And I don’t have the time to be the owner this dog deserves. And neither does anyone else in our household. So maybe my decision, my insistence, would be the wrong thing for your household. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s the right thing for mine, if for no other reason than that the dog deserves a better home.

[By the way: I'm not a dog breeder, veterinarian or expert. I'm speaking as a guy about to bring his firstborn son home next weekend. An expert may look at the picture above and say, "What an idiot. That's not a pit bull." If that's the case, enlighten me. I can take it.]

In the meantime, check out this video, on YouTube under the title “Pit Bull Viciously Attacks Baby.”

> Please comment

My son’s birth is less than two weeks away, so this request for advice is, I’ll admit, a little late. But maybe not for all our readers.

We picked our hospital based on a number of factors, not the least of which was the likelihood of getting a private room for my wife’s stay. Without a private room, the girls and I can’t stay the night. One hospital we checked couldn’t guarantee it, and was going to charge us extra if we were among the lucky few to get a private room. I’ll say that again: IF we were among the lucky few.

It would be one thing to save up for the private room if we could guarantee we’d get one when the time came, but the hospital actually advised us on how to rush out of the delivery room, down the hall, through the double doors, past Simon, Paula and Randy, up the stairs, around the kitchen and behind the laundry room to let them know we wanted a private room, IF one is available. And after all that, the answer could still be no!

Pardon me, but I’ll have other things on my mind in the minutes after my son’s birth. I can't follow the directions on a box of Lucky Charms. They expect me to remember how to get around that labyrinth in the minutes after my son is born?

We ended up scheduling the birth at a hospital where all the maternity rooms are private.

So here’s my question: What’s the best hospital in South Florida for giving birth? And by what standard? Privacy? Quality of care? Nursing staff? Security? Neonatal ICU? How do you judge?

> Please comment

He’ll be here in a little more than two weeks.

It’s too soon. We’re not ready. The house is a mess. Where will we put him? Where will we put all his stuff?

Breathe. He has to get here first. And we decided early on, after consultation with the obstetrician, that he would get here by a scheduled c-section. So unless he surprises us by showing up early, he’ll be here on Feb. 5. All I have to do is make it through the surgery without fainting. (Actually, I hear that almost never happens, but still).

There’s so much to think about now, and as a first-time biological father, I find it all a bit daunting. My wife will be recovering from the surgery, our kid will be wailing at all hours with no sense of time, our girls (my stepdaughters) will need to be reminded that they are special and loved...

How did humanity ever survive more than one generation?

As far as the c-section goes, I’ve learned in the last year that there are two groups of people who get the most medical advice – the terminally ill and the pregnant. Listen to the advice given by well-meaning people to the terminally ill, and you’d be amazed that anyone ever dies. Listen to the advice given by the same people to the pregnant, and you’d be amazed that anyone ever survives into adulthood.

And the advice is conflicting. One recent report links c-section deliveries to asthma. Yikes. We have our reasons for a planned c-section. Is it the right call? We believe it is – for us, anyway.

> Please comment

The first time I heard of Amy Juergens, she was speaking directly to me about the need for parents and children to be open when it comes to talking about sex.

Amy is the protagonist of “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” an ABC Family series (Monday nights, 8 p.m.) about those crazy, promiscuous kids and all the trouble they get into – including 15-year-old Amy’s unplanned pregnancy. My younger stepdaughter, 13, has started to get into the show.

Tacked onto the end of each episode is a PSA featuring Amy, lead actress Shailene Woodley, telling parents not to assume their kids are having sex just because they ask about it (and telling teens not to assume their parents don’t care if they don’t bring up the subject). Teen pregnancy is preventable, she reminds viewers.

Splendid.

I don’t know yet what to make of this show. Its creator is Brenda Hampton, who was also responsible for the long-running, family-friendly WB series “Seventh Heaven.” I’ve seen two episodes of “Secret Life,” not enough to form an opinion, but enough to form an impression – it’s making teen pregnancy into bad sitcom fodder, and it’s sugar-coating what happens next in a way that can’t be undone with a well-meaning PSA.

In last Monday night’s season premiere, Amy married her boyfriend, who is not the baby’s father. Now, I’m not going to say that such things never happen. I’m sure they do. But it’s not reality for most teen mothers. In fact, according to stayteen.org (the Web site Amy sends kids to at the end of each episode), fewer than 8% of teen mothers end up marrying the baby’s father. I doubt a statistic even exists for the infinitesimal number of teen mothers who marry someone other than the baby’s father before the child is born.

When parents split, Dad doesn’t smugly set up an apartment in the garage. One parent actually leaves the house. Divorce is ugly. Teen pregnancy is agonizing. People get hurt. True friends reveal themselves and, unfortunately, so do false friends. And most of the time, it’s not funny.

And yet, there’s something about this production that keeps me from dismissing it or selling it short.

> Please comment

The anniversary of the murders of 7-year-old Joey Bochicchio-Hauser and her mother, Nancy Bochicchio, serves as a sobering reminder of the reality of crime and violence. The Sun Sentinel has revisited the case several times, including today, following the latest developments in the investigation and providing useful information for others concerned about their safety.

This weekend, as you head to the mall or elsewhere for Christmas and other holiday shopping, try to remember some safety tips that Sun Sentinel reporter Sofia Santana put together for an article we ran in May. Click here for the full article; keep reading below for an excerpt that addresses parents.

Hang up the cell phone, leave the purse at home and master the art of getting in and out of the car quickly.

All can help a shopper avoid falling victim to the most common violent crime reported at area malls: robberies in parking lots and garages.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reviewed hundreds of police reports and interviewed victims, investigators and experts to come up with ways to help you stay safe.

...

What about parents who shop with children?

Some criminals won't shy from confronting a mother with kids. In fact, a few have used children to manipulate a woman to hand over her purse and valuables.

We found nine reports of women who were robbed as they walked through a parking lot with children. Two cases were at the Pembroke Lakes Mall in Pembroke Pines in October 2006, and at the time police said one man was likely responsible for both attacks. In both cases, the gunman said he would hurt the child if the woman didn't hand over her purse and valuables.

In 2007, there were also two extreme cases involving children, both at the Town Center at Boca Raton. In August, a woman and her 2-year-old son were abducted from the parking lot and robbed; and in December, Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter Joey, 7, were found dead inside their running SUV parked outside of Sears.

Click here for the Sun Sentinel package on shopping mall safety.

> Please comment

Our readers appear to be torn over who should be blamed for the sex scandal at Glades Middle School in Miramar.

It's important to note that not all facts on the case have been revealed. Here's what we do know:

Three 7th graders have been suspended and face expulsion for alleged "inappropriate sexual conduct." The school district on Wednesday used the word "perpetrators" to describe the three students (two boys, one girl). A short time later, police issued a news release indicating there were others involved in the case who were described as "victims."

School district spokesman Keith Bromery said Wednesday that two teachers were reassigned as part of the investigation because the behavior is alleged to have occurred in their classrooms.

And that's one part of the story that seems to have parents upset. To put it delicately, what exactly was this "inappropriate sexual conduct," and how could it have taken place in a classroom without a teacher noticing? The more serious the misconduct, the harder it is to believe a teacher didn't notice it.

So how serious was it?

Meanwhile, other readers who are responding to the story think we should be blaming the parents of the three suspended students. Teach them right from wrong, they argue, and we won't be reading about sex in the classroom.

That may be true, but it doesn't account for teenage rebellion. I mean, if Franklin Graham could go through a period of rebellion (despite the efforts of his father -- a preacher named Billy whose name you might recognize), how can anyone automatically blame the parents when teens go astray?

"Not only do kids rebel -- kids need to rebel," said Jaclynn Faffer, chief executive officer of Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service in West Boca, which runs a hotline for teens who need counseling.

Unfortunately, she said, sometimes teen rebellion can go too far, particularly when parental influence is outweighed by other factors. "Once kids are entering adolescence, peer groups have much more influence than parents," she said. Add to that a pervasive media and the Internet, and the job of keeping kids in line becomes more difficult for even the most involved parents.

Not that Faffer lets parents off the hook: "There is still the reality that parents need to spend time with their kids, talk to them, open a dialogue. And that needs to start at a young age."

Other readers are blaming school administrators, the principal and even the alleged victims, who didn't begin reporting the incidents until last Thursday.

Blame the perpetrators? Blame the victims? Blame the teachers? Blame the parents? Blame the school?

We know the old saying: it takes a village to raise a child. Is the whole village, then, to blame?

> Please comment

I got chills when I read this article this morning: President-elect Barack Obama has vowed not to smoke in the White House.

The incoming president sounds like someone who's not serious about quitting. "I think that you will not see any violations of these rules in the White House," he said.

Coming from a politician, those words leave an awful lot of wiggle room.

I did not see the Meet the Press interview that spurred the flurry of news reports, but I got a feeling of deja vu reading about it. "I've done a terrific job, under the circumstances, of making myself much healthier," he said. And in an interview with Men's Health magazine, he said, "But I figure, seeing as I'm running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack."

I struggled to quit smoking for several years, with varying degrees of failure. Sometimes I failed to quit very quickly. Other times, it took a few weeks for me to fail. But every time I failed, I had the same vocabulary.

"I only smoke when I drink."
"I've only had a few cigarettes over the last few days."
"I didn't have one yesterday, and I won't have one tomorrow. Today I'll slip; it'll be okay."
"Today was too stressful. I had to cut myself some slack."
"This one's nothing. You should see how much I used to smoke!"

Granted, I've never run for President of the United States. But I have run from the truth that I was addicted to nicotine, and I denied that truth using the same words I now see and hear coming from Barack Obama.

Now, I'm not going to be some holier-than-thou ex-smoker demanding that the incoming president succumb to my vision of cardio-pulmorality. If Obama wants to indulge in a legal activity when and where it's allowed, so be it. Plenty of presidents have smoked. Reagan was featured in ads for cigarettes.

Just spare us the lame excuses. I didn't believe them when they came from me, I don't believe them when they come from him, and I pray I never hear them from my kids, who, like it or not, will be looking to the new president as a role model.

Mr. President-elect, you didn't pick up a cigarette because you were running for president and it's stressful. You weren't cutting yourself slack. And there's no such thing as keeping yourself healthy "under the circumstances." You're either keeping yourself healthy or you're voluntarily engaging in legal activity that compromises your health. You pick up a cigarette because you're addicted to nicotine and lack either the ability or the willingness to stop.

So drop the excuses. If you really want to quit, try these words instead: "I quit smoking. I need my friends to keep me on track and honest about it."

I spoke those words on July 11, 2008. Haven't had a cigarette since.

Let's see if we can't get Barack Obama into one of these ads someday soon.

> Please comment

Originally posted earlier this month: Bringing this back up for the holiday. Merry Christmas!

I’m two months away from becoming a first-time biological father, and I’ve come to an important decision. As early as I can, I’m going to tell my son the truth about Santa Claus.

He’s real, and I don’t see why I should shelter my son from that truth.

My parents sheltered me from the truth, and when I grew up and learned Santa Claus was real, I was upset. How could they have deceived me throughout my childhood? No such thing as Santa Claus? What's next? There's no such thing as hope, or compassion or tenderness?

Santa Claus is the one who, every year, replenishes warehouses when thieves steal toys from charities. Yes, sir, I’ve seen it happen. He helps hundreds of volunteers wake up during the last month of the year to fix plates of hot food for people who can't afford one. He’s behind countless acts of generosity, sympathy and understanding.

As I grew older, I realized that all those things are really real, and that’s when I learned that Santa Claus does exist.

No, that's not really him ringing a bell beside a kettle outside malls and superstores. Those are his helpers. Santa's the one filling the kettles.

The sober reality of life is that Santa Claus can't make every dream come true, not even the Christmas dreams. No one can do that. But Santa Claus taught me that it’s okay to dream, and I want him to teach the same thing to my son when the time is right.

So my son will grow up knowing the truth about Santa Claus. I’m not ashamed to say it. Santa’s real, and I, for one, still believe.

> Please comment

Okay, confession: I don’t know how to help my kids with their homework.

There are plenty of reasons. A big one is that I’m a stepfather; I wasn’t around to watch or influence the development of their study habits. And helping a kid with homework is a major bonding experience. I suspect it develops over time: they learn how to work with me, and I learn how to work with them. We didn’t have that, and in some ways, I think it shows.

My wife, who is a teacher, exhibits a superhuman amount of patience. I, on the other hand, lose my cool at the slightest hint of a lack of effort. I hear what’s being spoken, but I don’t hear what’s being said. I remember one time, I asked one of the girls what a steamboat was. She answered that it was a boat. I just about lost my mind. “If you don’t want my help,” I snapped, “don’t ask for it!”

That showed her. Yeah, it showed her that I lack the patience and understanding to really help her. I learned, way too late, that I should have been listening for the unspoken words. You know, words like, “I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at with that question. Please clarify. Are you trying to ask how it is powered or how it changed commerce in the 1800s?”

My wife hears those unspoken questions and answers in ways that I envy. Our girls don’t like admitting they don’t know something. They’d much rather take an educated guess or, more frequently, a wild guess. I find that frustrating, but I wouldn’t if I spent more time helping them and less time taking their responses as a lack of effort.

So the bottom line is that I need help being a better parent when it comes to homework. And there is help available locally.

The Learning Tools page on the Palm Beach County School District Web site is a treasure trove (one problem: their link to “Helping your student get the most out of homework” seems to be broken. You can find it here). [UPDATE: The school district fixed the link on its page. Many thanks!]

The Broward County School District has a nifty parental involvement page that includes a link to another good article, Homework strategies for busy families. It also links to a list of the Top 10 things teachers wish parents would do. Here’s a shocker: number one on the list is “Be involved.”

I’m finding that one of the benefits of helping them with their homework is how much I’m learning.

> Please comment

I recently filed an article for SunSentinel.com about MySpace safety. Here's how it started:

Do you know who all your kids' friends are? Do your kids know?

Attorney General Bill McCollum is betting they don't, and that's just one of the challenges parents and children face when it comes to Internet safety.

"I go into a school and ask a class full of children whether they have MySpace pages," McCollum said. "They all have them, from sixth grade up. And I've never been to a school where there wasn't at least one student with more than 400 'friends.'"

Parents and children need to view friend lists on social networking sites with suspicion, McCollum said. "They call these people friends, but they don't know them."

Read the rest of the article here.

I'm a little bit worried about the amount of time our girls spend on MySpace, but mostly grateful that they both had the wisdom to set their pages to private so that they can only be viewed by their friends. The real issue, as far as I see it, is the fact that they have hundreds of MySpace friends.

McCollum's warning struck a chord with me as a parent, and I remember asking the girls if they personally knew everyone on their friend list. They insisted they did, but I have a confession: I didn't follow through. I didn't sit with them and go through their list, profile by profile, to make sure they knew everyone they were befriending. Should I? Would you?

I did want to pass on something helpful I stumbled on: The Kim Komando radio show put up a decent MySpace dummy page showing potential safety issues raised by the posting of private information. If you click on that banner above, it'll open that site in a new window. You may be surprised at how easy it is for your kids to post information that makes them vulnerable.

There's something else on that site, too: a "Ten Commandments" for kids online. It has you and your kids promising communication and cooperation when it comes to Web surfing.

Novel concept.

> Please comment

Say this for the wholesome teens of Disney’s “High School Musical” franchise: there are worse things they could do.

At first glance, there’s not much difference between the halls of East Side High and those of Rydell High, the school attended by the students of “Grease.” Each school has impossibly bubbly teens who break out into song with little warning. And somehow, everyone knows the words to every song, along with the accompanying dance moves.

But the similarities pretty much end there, especially if you’re a parent. I think if my mom and dad had really listened to the lyrics of the “Grease” soundtrack, they would have banned it from my house. Oh, sure, “Summer Nights” was harmless enough on the surface (although when Danny said “She was good, you know what I mean,” I didn’t). But did you ever listen to the lyrics of “Greased Lightning”? How on earth did we get away with playing that song and dancing to it in the presence of our parents?

Ah, but in the late 1970s, Grease really was the word, wasn’t it? It had groove. It had feeling. It had… well, it had a little bit more than young children should see and hear, no? Because Grease really wasn’t a high school musical. It strikes me that Grease was produced in the 1970s for people in their 30s who were in high school during the 1950s. With a wink and a nod, it mocked truly clueless adults along with the unrealistic expectations of wholesome perfection. We all knew what Troy Donahue wanted to do. And when Rizzo was in trouble, we worried with her.

What was the message of Grease, anyway? Was it that you need to be a floozie (or just look like one) to get your man or to fit in? Or was it that you need not be ashamed of your sexuality?

And what is the message of High School Musical? Looks to me like the message is to be true to yourself and to your friends, and have a little fun in the process. They are a wholesome bunch, aren’t they? Even the villainess of the piece, Sharpay, ends up being so darned nice when all is sung and done.

The world of High School Musical is an innocent one, a world free of cynicism, a world that almost screams, “please, let kids be kids just a little while longer!”

Here’s the big difference: HSM is for people looking forward to high school. Grease is for people looking back on it.

Or maybe I’m just thinking too hard. As a stepparent to two teenage girls, I hope you'll forgive me forgive me for applauding HSM a little more than Grease. At least while my girls are still kids.

Go Wildcats!

> Please comment

One of the earliest issues that came up on Wednesday when the Sun Sentinel began covering the shooting death of a student at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale was whether the school had metal detectors.

As it turned out, the school uses hand held metal detectors on occasion, but it's not as if every student has to go through a metal detector to get onto the campus.

This raises a number of campus safety issues, some of which are explored by our colleague Kathy Bushouse in this article (Click Here).

One Dillard High parent said this morning that metal detectors may be an inconvenience, but they're also necessary to help guarantee safety.

"You need metal detectors," said Marion Stevens, whose son, David, is a junior at Dillard. "They have them everywhere.They have them in the courthouse."

Not to mention airports.

Is Stevens right? Are metal detectors worth the cost and inconvenience? Local columnist Mike Mayo thinks not. If the charges against Teah Wimberly (pictured left) are true, would a metal detector have stopped her from bringing a gun on campus to shoot Amanda Collette (right)?

Do you think your child's school needs a metal detector? What lengths should we go to in order to ensure safety in school?

And in case you missed it, this post by Lois Solomon (Click Here) talks about a counseling resource for teenagers. This came out about two hours before the shooting.

> Please comment

A recent study by the RAND research organization shows that teenagers who watch “sexy TV” are more likely to become sexually active and pregnant.

I know what you’re thinking. “Duh.” Ok, well, that’s what I’m thinking.

My wife and I are pretty lucky. Her daughters, 15 and 13, are still thrilled when an all-new episode of Hannah Montana airs on the Disney Channel. But we can’t kid ourselves. When it comes to trying to maintain a family-friendly atmosphere, we are outgunned, outnumbered and out of our minds if we think they’re not going to be bombarded with words and images of sex.

I mean, they’re into hip-hop. Hello!

A movie came out a couple of weeks ago called “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” Granted, the ads for the flick didn’t air on the Disney Channel. But they did air during the World Series. So now our girls know that if they should live platonically with a male roommate and find themselves low on cash... Aw come on, guys, we have to sit through these commercials during a baseball game?

But really, who has to go to the movies for this stuff, anyway? Whether it’s “Desperate Housewives” or “Two and a Half Men,” “Gossip Girl” or the revamped “Beverly Hills 90210,” our television sets just ooze sex.

Was it that bad when I was growing up? I saw a guy in a leather jacket snap his fingers and have a half dozen girls flock to him thoughtlessly. Was that lust? Or parody? How about a constantly-on-the-make man living with two women? Love, exciting and new?

Somehow, as racy as things were in the late 1970s and early 1980s, those shows seem so tame in comparison to what we’re getting today. What happened, anyway? How did we get from Potsie looking at a girlie magazine and picturing "a sweater on that" to Rachel letting Ross know it's okay (only to learn it was a juice bottle), and from there to "OMFG" in an orgasmic ad campaign?

And you know what scares me? In 25 years, we’re going to be amazed at how tame “Sex and the City” and “Gossip Girl” were.

Solutions? I can only think of one: If my kids are getting their values from television, television isn’t the problem. I am.

Time for us parents to step up. We need to be filters, and I don't just mean blocking their eyes from the things we don't want them to see. We can manage that to a certain extent, but if you want to know how successful you'll be at keeping these things from your kids, ask yourself how successful your parents were keeping them from you.

What I'm thinking is that if we as parents can establish right from wrong, if we can let our kids know what's appropriate and what's inappropriate, what's safe and what will hurt them, then they'll process the images they get according to the values we instill in them.

Somehow, I think they’ll respect us for it.

Failing that, we can always try keeping our kids in a bubble. I doubt that'll work, though.

Sigh. Anyone know where I can find “Little House” reruns?

> Please comment

The girls shrieked one of those high-pitched, make-an-appointment-with-the-ear-doctor-to-make-sure-there-was-no-permanent-damage kind of shrieks. The kind that tells you you’re watching a scary movie with a couple of impressionable teenagers a few days before Halloween. And you live on the ground floor muuuuhahahahaha.

This particular film, if you want to call it that, was “Vacancy,” starring Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale. It’s charming family fare about a lovely young couple who learn the motel they’re staying in doubles as the set of a snuff film, and they’re the stars of the next movie in the series.

You know, the kind of movie you want to watch with impressionable teenage girls.

It’s not the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen, but definitely not the scariest.

Yes, I did ask myself (and my wife) whether this movie was too intense for the girls. This wasn’t exactly a Disney flick, and some of the violent scenes were pretty graphic. Aren’t they too young for this stuff?

Well, I saw John Carpenter’s “Halloween” in theaters when I was 9. I saw “Mother’s Day” and “An American Werewolf in London.” I was 15 when “A Nightmare on Elm Street” was released. Oh, and can’t forget “Dawn of the Dead.” Caught that on video back when video was new.

All before I should have been allowed to see R-rated movies without adult supervision.

Aside from messing me up for life, the movies did no lasting damage to my psyche.

So should I worry about the movies the girls are seeing?

Yes, for two reasons. First, I want to make sure they can handle the images being thrown at them. Second, and more importantly, the stuff being passed off as “scary” these days simply isn’t. There hasn’t been a really scary movie in theaters since “The Sixth Sense,” and even that isn’t scary once you realize what it’s about.

Now, the original “Halloween” was scary, and I had to explain that to the girls the other night. This movie was scary because it seemed so possible. There was nothing supernatural about it (until later movies devolved into a sort of self-parody). And even then, the notion that you could kill the bad guy and still have to fight him was fairly new to audiences.

Today’s scary movies aren’t scary. They’re gross. “Saw.” Please. They should change the name to “Saw that Already.” Look at “Vacancy” again and ask yourself, how original is a movie about an isolated motel where bad things happen? Anyone? Anyone? Hitchcock? Beuller? Frye?

I know, I’m being as snobby as the generation right before me, the people who think “Rosemary’s Baby” is a horror movie rather than (as I see it) a sure-fire cure for insomnia.

Whatever. The point is… okay, I have no point. It’s Halloween this week. To each his own chills.

Boo.

> Please comment

I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago about a fired Seminole Police Department officer accused of molesting his daughter.

The night I wrote that, I was having dinner with my wife and stepdaughters, and we were taking turns talking about our day. When it was my turn, I suddenly became tongue-tied. Incest between a father and a teenage girl is not something I was prepared to discuss with two teenage girls. I was reduced to a kind of vague, abstract, “a man did a bad thing” summary.

Is it possible I did a disservice to the girls and to myself? By tripping up over a difficult subject, did I send a signal that sensitive topics are off-limits, making it less likely the girls will feel safe talking to me about other sensitive topics? Well, it’s more complicated than that, as my wife points out. And there’s nothing wrong with showing some sensitivity.

In working on a follow-up article about where victims can turn for help, I also decided to look for answers about discussing the subject with teenagers and other children.

“Parents should be able to have the comfort and ability to have a conversation about a tough subject, and this is a tough subject,” said Timothy, one of the Helpline advisers for Stop It Now, a Mass.-based non-profit that seeks to prevent the sexual abuse of children. “That lets them know you’re approachable, that it’s okay for them to bring it up.”

Deborah Donovan Rice, executive director of Stop It Now, expanded on that point: “I find the best way to approach this topic is in the context of a larger conversation about how we express ourselves sexually,” she said.

Good point. And good stuff on the subject of abuse at www.stopitnow.org.

Timothy (the telephone counselors on the Helpline, reachable at 1-888-PREVENT, don’t disclose their last names) points parents to another site, www.advocatesforyouth.org, for advice on talking to children of all ages about sex.

The one tip that seemed to recur in my own search for advice is that the conversation has to be age-appropriate. You may want to talk about good touch-bad touch with the younger ones while being more candid and mature with teenagers. The bottom line is that they need to know they can talk to you.

This isn’t a conversation I’m looking forward to. But if the opportunity should arise, I think I’m a little better prepared.

You should be, too.

> Please comment

Apparently, this didn't start with me, and that makes me feel better.

When the girls were younger, before I met them, their grandfather used to pick them up from elementary school every afternoon. He was telling me yesterday that he would often ask them, "What did you learn in school today?"

"Nothing."

"The teacher didn't talk?"

"Yes."

"So you already knew what the teacher was going to say?"

"No."

"Then the teacher said something you didn't know before?"

"Yeah!"

"Good, so what did you learn?"

"Nothing."

Grandpa should be happy to learn, then, that the girls have since made progress. Not long ago, I asked the older one what she learned in Spanish class.

"Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Stuff."

Gotta admit, she had me there. Everyone knows the difference between "stuff" and "stuff," right? Sigh. Maybe I'll have better luck with the younger one, who just got back from a CCD class (Catholic religious education).

"What did they teach you in CCD class today?"

"Things."

"What kind of things?"

"Things about God."

Imagine that. In a religious education class, no less. "Like what?"

"Things about God."

Note to stepchildren, grandchildren and all children: changing the emphasis you place on particular words doesn't change the answer. Note to stepparents, grandparents and all parents: No matter how many times you ask, and no matter how many ways you ask, they're not going to answer if they don't want to talk.

Maybe next time I'll send a text message. Resistance is still futile.

I'll say this much for "things" and "stuff": It's better than "nothing."

> Please comment

I'm going to concede that I've only been at this parenting thing for a year, and my stepdaughters (aged 13 and 15) are more interested in Chris Brown v. The Jonas Brothers than they are in Barack Obama v. John McCain.

So I have to wonder whether anyone could really be persuaded by their offspring to vote for or against a particular candidate.

I mean, I think of all that goes into parenting, particularly the sustained, 18-plus-year effort to instill your values in your children, only to have them travel halfway across the state, country or world to tell you that they have decided how you should vote.

Like I don't hear enough from TV commercials and Saturday Night Live; now I have to worry that my kids are going to grow up to tell me to vote Democrat. Or Republican. Or Libertarian. Or whatever.

I just wonder whether some McCain-supporting grandparents are just aching for their children's children to "schlep" on over to tell them to vote for Obama.

Let's remove the candidate names from this: You support candidate A. You grandchild pays you a visit to tell you he knows better; you should vote for candidate B.

How likely are you to listen?

> Please comment

My son kicked me in the face the other day.

Oh my God, it's really happening, isn't it? The baby's due in February, and we found out a month ago that it's a boy. We're getting advice from all corners. "Read to him." We hear that one a lot. Apparently, about this time, the kid's ears start working, so you want him to get used to your voice. He'll hear his mom's voice all the time, but mine, not so much.

I've been talking to him for weeks, of course, lying with my cheek where I think he might be. I tell him about my days, about our three cats, about his two sisters...

Whack! I mean, Chuck Norris doesn't give the kind of roundhouse kick in the face that this kid gave me. I was startled. I looked up at my wife.

"Was that...?"

She nodded, smiling.

"Oh my God, he kicked me!"

We picked up a bunch of children's books from grandma and grandpa last night. Lots of Dr. Seuss. A couple of Peanuts compilations. "Black Beauty." "Little House."

Last night, I lay there and read to him. "Oh, the Places You'll Go."

"That was him," my wife said.

As eager as I am to feel it again, I had to admit that this time, I didn't. Maybe next time.

I'm still trying to make sure he gets used to my voice. And every time I talk to him, I end it the same way.

"I can't wait to see you."

> Please comment

There was an old man who lived next door to my sister's house when I was a teenager. I don't remember his name - let me call him Sal, just for kicks. He was a nice man, and we were on friendly terms.

"You're a good kid," Sal said of me once, "when you're sleeping."

In our north Bronx neighborhood, we often blasted music from our stereos out the window so everyone could enjoy the sounds. Thriller was all the rage then. We had Beat Street and Jam On It, Ghostbusters and Purple Rain, Roxanne, Roxanne and The Fat Boys are Back.

I was the nerd of the bunch, of course, occasionally blasting Thompson Twins and Neil Diamond songs, but that's a whole other story.

Our neighbor couldn't stand it, but also couldn't do very much about it. His complaints were gentle and good-hearted, and they fell on ears plagued by the selective deafness of adolescence.

So long ago.

Today I live with two teenagers. I can't name the bands or the songs that blare out from their music systems. It's a lot of thumping, and I can barely make out the words. I often can't tell the high-pitched instruments from the shrieks of the performers playing them.

I hear these noises coming from the kids' bedrooms as bedtime approaches.

Hey, Sal, about that apology I owe you...

> Please comment

I love it when obnoxious, virtually unknown, foreign, painfully unfunny music awards show hosts tell me how to vote. Love it even more when they tastelessly mock the Jonas Brothers for the unspeakable crime of being virgins, especially when my stepkids are watching.

So you can imagine my wife and I had a blast watching the MTV Video Music Awards last night. My first thought when I saw the host, British comedian Russell Brand, was, "Who the devil is British comedian Russell Brand?"

Then the nitwit started talking, representing himself as a member of the global community and begging the U.S. to elect Barack Obama president. Now, I'm not going to declare my political leanings here, but I am going to recall something I observed four years ago: U.S. Americans really, really don't like it when foreigners tell them how to vote. If they did, President Kerry would be seeking his second term right now. In urging a vote for Obama, Russell Brand did as much to further the cause of John McCain as 10 Alaskan governors could hope to do.

Not content to have one foot in his mouth, Brand actually did the unthinkable. He kept talking. He targeted VP nominee Sarah Palin and her future son-in-law (in a bit that could have been a lot funnier than it was), then the Jonas Brothers (in a bit that wasn't even mildly amusing). Somehow, he worked a couple of "master of your domain" jokes in there, just to make sure parents were as uncomfortable as possible if they were watching with their younger teens.

"He's making me mad," my 13-year-old stepdaughter said. "He's making fun of the Jonas Brothers."

My wife and I looked at each other with a hint of relief. Turns out a 13-year-old girl, admiring the talent and wholesomeness of a trio of young men, actually proved to be smarter than a self-appointed representative of the global community. Bravo, kid.

> Please comment

Do they even call them jukeboxes anymore?

Kayla stepped up to one of those gizmos at a restaurant the other day and scrolled through the music selection. She didn't want to play anything. She just wanted to see what they had. She returned to our table with a self-satisfied grin.
"They have Chris Brown, but no Jonas Brothers," she said. It's because the Jonas Brothers are lousy, she reasoned.

Lately, Kayla and Paxtynn have been locked in a battle of the fans. Paxtynn, 13, enjoys the Jonas Brothers. Kayla does not share her enthusiasm, which is fine. What irks me is that Kayla cannot seem to allow Paxtynn to enjoy her fandom in peace. Why would anyone like the Jonas Brothers when Chris Brown is so much better?

Oh, please. Since when do other musical acts have to be bad in order for the one you enjoy to be good?

Could you imagine Billy Joel fans hating on Elton John fans?

"'Daniel' is boring. 'Piano Man' rules."

"'Piano Man'? More like 'Piano Loser.'"

Chris Brown is a fun entertainer. The Jonas Brothers are fun, too. There's room in our house for both their CDs and both their posters. And, dare I say it? It's possible to be a fan of both, kids.

Not me, of course. I mean, why would I be a fan of Chris Brown or the Jonas Brothers when Linda Eder and Lea Salonga are still singing?

Don't know who they are? Why not? What's wrong with you?

> Please comment

It's easy to quit smoking, the old saying goes. I've done it plenty of times.

I picked up the habit just a few years ago, a byproduct of where I was spending my free time. But when I got married last year, I decided to quit. And I did, for a few weeks. And I picked it up again. And I quit again. And I "secretly" kept going.

Turns out I wasn't kidding anyone. That smell? Yeah, kids smell it too. And they may be polite about it to your face, but they find it disgusting.

The other day we were walking into a restaurant and saw a woman sitting out front, smoking a cigarette. It was downright scary. Her skin was actually gray. I don't know what caused it, but the girls and I looked at each other and knew that the cigarette she was smoking couldn't have helped.

"Remember what you just saw if you ever think of taking up smoking," I said when we were far enough away from the smoker.

"I know," Pax said. "Lucky thing you stopped."

Ouch. She knew. I had kidded myself into thinking that the girls didn't know I had been smoking every day. Just stop in the early afternoon, and by the time you get home, no one will be the wiser, I thought. The girls weren't that dumb, thank you very much.

I really have stopped smoking. Haven't had a cigarette at all since July 11. They say you take it one day at a time, and that's true at first. But after a while, you do stop thinking about it. I don't remember what was "fun" about smoking, but I do know what's fun about being a husband, being a stepfather, anticipating biological fatherhood. To blow that away for the "pleasure" of a puff of smoke? Not me. Not anymore. Too much to live for.

> Please comment

Know what I hate? A lot?

Pictures people take of themselves. Arrogant. Self-centered. Vain. Look at me! I'm waiting on line for a movie. Look at me! I'm sitting in a car. Look at me! I'm outside the lion's cage at the zoo. Can't see the lion. Can't see the zoo. But look at me!

Can't stand it.

In my day (yeah, I said it), we took pictures of OTHER PEOPLE. Get it, kids? That's why the viewer and the lens point in the same direction. Oh, you don't have viewers anymore, do you? You have "preview screens." You can see the results as soon as you're done and delete the pictures you don't like.

We didn't have that. We had to use FILM, and we didn't see how the picture looked until after it was developed! None of this "wait, look at me! Oh, that came out bad, let me take another picture of me and another picture of me until we get it right." We wouldn't dare waste expensive film on the off chance a picture we took of ourselves would come out right.

If God had meant for us to take pictures of ourselves, He'd have given us invisible arms!

Sigh. Remember when pictures were taken on special occasions? Family vacations, holidays, visits from long lost friends and relatives? Even standing on line at a theme park or the DMV!

Now, being on line at the movies is a special occasion that requires a picture. Being on line at McDonald's rates a pic. Heck, you don't have to BE anywhere! Being ONLINE is enough of a reason to have your picture taken by you for you. Click!

How do I look?

> Please comment

"If it's a boy, will he be my step-brother or ... what will he be?"

Let me back up: Christine and I are expecting our first child together in February. She actually told me the day before Father's Day -- plopped the stick with the great big flashing neon "+" sign right in front of me. To be honest, I don't even remember my reaction. I think it might have involved some degree of drooling, squinting and deep breathing.

There is no single "big question" when you find out a baby's on the way. Every question is big. And one of the big questions we had involved my step-daughters. How would they respond? And how can we keep them involved so that they know we are all in one family, more than ever?

Well, so far, they seem to be excited. They want a brother (although we do not know the gender and would be perfectly happy with a girl).

But if it is a boy, is he a step-brother? How does that work?

Technically, I explained the baby would be their half-brother. But I don't like that term. It's perfectly useful for geneticists and whatnot, but not for real human beings. I've got seven brothers and sisters, none "full-blooded," but I wouldn't think of calling them "half-siblings" unless I needed a kidney or something and the doctors needed every little medical detail.

"Brother" or "sister" will do just fine.

> Please comment

"Why don't you like spaghetti sauce?" Kay asks the question with a hint of disdain. You expect her to follow it up with, "What are you, stupid?"

What can we say? Pax is a fussy eater. She doesn't like pasta sauce so much. Yeah, I find it frustrating that she doesn't like it, especially after I've worked my "this-is-the-only-thing-I-can-cook-with-confidence" magic on it, but she doesn't like it. Okay, I've come to terms with that.

But Kay has gotten into the habit of asking, with attitude, why people have personal preferences -- particularly if she has strong feelings about something.

"Why don't you like that sauce?"

"Why don't you like this show?"

"Why don't you like that music?"

The translation always seems to be: "I like it, so if you don't, something must be wrong with you."

Why? Why? Why?

I know younger children have a habit of asking why about everything, but that's curiosity. Why is the sky blue? Why are leaves green? Why do we sleep at night instead of daytime? Why can't we see stars when the sun is out? Why is Paris Hilton famous?

You know, reasonable questions.

But on matters of personal taste, the "why" question as it's being asked lately... well, to me, it borders on rude. Pax shouldn't have to defend why she likes or doesn't like a particular food (or musical group).

Why does this bug me? And what should I do about it?

> Please comment

"Oh, j/k."

What? I was befuddled.

"J/k."

My wife stepped in to translate. "Just kidding."

You know, that's where I draw the line. I completely sympathize with the mother in those commercials who can't get straight answers out of her daughter and her mother because they speak in text message abbreviations.

"IDK!"
"My BFF Rose!"

So one of the girls said something and was mistaken. What does she say? "Oh, sorry, my mistake"? No, that would be accurate. "My bad"? I got used to that one quickly, for some reason, regardless of the torture it does to grammar.

"J/k."

Just kidding. No, I wanted to scream! You were not just kidding. You were wrong, you were mistaken, you misunderstood something. I might be able to stomach the text abbreviations in actual conversation if the abbreviations made sense. But she wasn't just kidding.

So, here's my solution: when they speak to me or text me, it's proper English only. That means "was," not "wuz." Really, "wuz" is not an abbreviation. It takes just as much finger work, so no excuses. And if they insist on communicating using abbreviations and alterations that take a degree in linguistics to sort out, I'm taking their phones away and burying them in the backyard.

J/k.

> Please comment

Quick - find your driver's license.

If you have one, there's a good chance you've already found it. It's in your wallet, or in your purse, or in your front pocket.

Remember when you first got it? How long did it take you to remember to carry it with you at all times?

I'm in the middle of a discussion with Kayla, my older stepdaughter, about this subject. She recently got her learner's permit, and over the weekend she wanted to drive from her grandmother's house to Blockbuster.

"Oh, wait," she said. "I can't. Never mind."

"Why can't you?" I asked.

"I don't have my permit. I left it in mom's car." (We were in my car at the time).

I spotted a lesson there. "Your permit is something you should carry on you at all times," I said. "You wouldn't think of leaving the house without your cell phone. You should treat your permit the same way."

That struck a nerve, but not the one I wanted to strike. What I intended as experienced counsel, Kayla interpreted as "attitude" (by the way, she wasn't entirely wrong about that. But it missed the main point, which was that she could be driving more if she followed that advice).

Lesson lost.

So help me out here. If you've got a child old enough to drive, how did you get him or her to realize the importance of carrying a permit or license at all times?

> Please comment

Well, looks like I was right - about being wrong.

Yesterday I wrote about not being able to shake the feeling that my stepdaughters don't like me. But I did wonder whether I was being overly sensitive.

This morning I noticed a game on our kitchen table. It's called "Visual Eyes," and it apparently involves rolling dice with images on them and using those images to come up with common expressions. Never played the game before, but that's not really the point. The point is, it's a family game. It's a game that's no fun unless we all play it together.

Gametime is tricky in our household. Their talents are very different from mine. The girls are great at games like Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution. I'm much better at Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble. So we need to find games that we can all enjoy, which is not always easy.

Card games work, but the games we play are really designed for more than four people, so they're better at larger family gatherings. Scattergories is a big hit with us, too. We've got Yahtzee but haven't played it yet. Now we have Visual Eyes.

When I asked my wife about this new game, she replied, "The girls got it for you."

Maybe they sensed something was off in how I was feeling Sunday. I just thought it was a very sweet gesture on their part. And shame on me for thinking they don't like me.

What games do you play? And how do those games draw your family together?

> Please comment

I'm getting this feeling, and I can't shake it.

I feel as if the girls simply don't like me. I'm probably being overly sensitive, but the feeling has been growing lately. Yesterday was our first anniversary, and the girls said nothing to me about it. They wished my wife a happy anniversary, but I was on the other side of our car at the time. Maybe they felt their well-wishes to her counted for me, too. I don't know. When they reached me, they asked me to get a video game out so they could hook it up and play.

Maybe I didn't do enough. After all, it's their anniversary of being in my family, too. Maybe I should have gotten them a card or something.

All I know is that lately I've felt less like a "dad," step or otherwise, and more like "that guy who married their mom."

Any advice for shaking that feeling?

> Please comment

I wanted to believe. So did my wife. So did the girls.

But when a modeling/talent agency told us our girls had been “chosen” to be represented, and all you have to do is pay $500 per child plus $40 a month (per child), forgive me, but I got skeptical. My journalist’s instinct, dormant through the early steps of the process, kicked in when the modeling agency started asking for fees up front. One Google search later and I was on the phone with my wife telling her to get out, with the girls and with her money.

If you’re about to enroll your child in a modeling or talent agency, do your homework. I’d have to do a little more journalism homework myself before naming the agency in this space. From what I’ve been able to gather, agents are supposed to get paid when they find work for you. When they start asking for fees up front, start sniffing. If there’s any hint a bovine has been to the bathroom, run.

I did, and I trust the girls may someday forgive me. But not on Friday evening. Not at first. And who can blame them? Seemingly nice people were telling them they have what it takes to be a model. They were on the brink of being discovered, and these nice people were going to help.

“They’re cheats,” I said after their mom pulled them out and tried to explain my reservations. “They’re not going to help you. They just want your money.”

“You don’t know that!” they each replied, and they were right, in a sense. I was going by my gut, by a few web sites in which people who had dealt with the same agency warned other prospective customers to head for the hills.

I realized, with too little tact, that in their eyes I was not protecting them – I was doubting them. I was doubting their beauty, I was doubting their talent, and I was doubting their marketability as models. None of that is true, but it is what they were feeling. A dream was within their grasp, and I yanked it away from them. I felt an ache in my heart. It has not gone away.

But if they’re going to be serious about modeling, acting or dancing professionally, we are all going to have to realize that there’s hard work and investment involved. No one’s going to knock on our door and hand us the opportunity of a lifetime.

Worst of all, there will always be people and companies out there eager to exploit our hopes and dreams.

I know I made the right decision. If the people we were dealing with are running a legitimate agency, they weren’t acting like it. And maybe I’ve only been a “father” to these girls for a year, but I’ll be cursed if I’m going to let some vultures break their hearts.

I’d rather have them angry at me.

If You've Got The Look, Look Out! Avoiding Modeling Scams

> Please comment

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my younger stepdaughter's trip to the movies to see "Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna)," a film about a 9-year-old Mexican boy who crosses the border illegally to reunite with his mother in Los Angeles. You can find it in Blockbuster now. We did.

Pax, now 13, almost jumped out of her shoes with excitement when she saw it. We had to rent it. Had to. This was not optional.

I won't go into a full movie review here, except to say that I do recommend it and that I have rarely seen a movie end on a more perfect note.

But what really impressed me was that a teenage girl with no connection to the grand debate about illegal immigration would choose to see this movie in the theaters, gush about it when she got home, and then insist that we watch it together as a family as soon as it was available.

Afterward, we talked about the movie a little bit, about the characters and the storytelling and about one character's act of sacrifice. But I didn't want to ruin a child's enjoyment of a film by delving any deeper into the issues raised by this one. We now have a common reference point around which we can frame future, more profound discussions. The truth is, she didn't like this movie because of its immigration themes. She liked it because it was about a child's love for his mother.

Knowing how lovable Pax's mother is, I can relate.

> Please comment

"Can I drive?"

My older stepdaughter just got her learner's permit. I'm sure there are questions that strike more fear into the hearts of all parents, step and bio, but "Can I drive?" has to rank up there as among the scariest.

I hand her the keys. She gets into the driver's seat, adjusts the mirrors, turns the car on, looks behind her and begins to back us out of our parking space.

"Congratulations," I tell her. "You just failed your driving test."

She stops, puts the car in park and looks at me. "Sorry," she says. "Is your seatbelt on?"

I put my seatbelt on. "Go ahead."

She won't forget to ask that one again.

I'm (naively) convinced that nothing ages a parent faster than being driven around town by a teenager. I'm measuring her success by my silence. The fewer words I speak, the better job she's doing behind the wheel.

"You're too far to the right," I tell her. Poor kid. She's used to seeing the road from the passenger's seat. Now she has to adjust to being a couple of feet to the left. Worse, she has to adjust to my reminding her of this fact every single time the car veers a little to the right. My wife kindly reminds me that I might be overdoing it. After all, I'm used to seeing the road from the driver's seat. I need to adjust, too.

I think we all do.

"You can step on the gas," I tell her. "It's okay."

> Please comment

The name of the movie was “Under the Same Moon.”

Never heard of it.

Pax told her mother about it on Sunday, and later was eager to tell me about it. Seems much of the movie is in Spanish, with English subtitles. It’s a border story, about a boy seeking to reunite with his mother.

I had to admit, I was impressed.

Pax is my 12-year-old stepdaughter. She was out at the movies Saturday with her friend. Everything they originally wanted to see, such as “Superhero Movie,” was sold out. So they chose this film about one of the most controversial subjects around – illegal immigration. And she liked it. She wants us to rent it so we can see it as a family when it comes out on DVD.

This is not what I expected at all. I tend to think the movies I like are dull to my two stepdaughters, the other of whom is 15. This is especially true of those movies that aren’t really made with the younger audiences in mind. We’re in that period now where Disney-esque youth fare is still acceptable to the girls. I would think Pax is as likely to buy a ticket for “Under the Same Moon” as she is to bring a worn copy of “War and Peace” to the beach.

But she did, opening the door to an intelligent conversation about the struggles, morality and other themes inherent in the illegal immigration debate.

When I was about her age, I stunned my friends by going to the movies, by myself, to catch a showing of “On Golden Pond.” You have to picture me in that theater – a pre-teen Latino catching a movie about Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn aging. Not a lot of people in that audience who looked like me.

And probably not a lot of pre-teen girls at a Saturday evening showing of “Under the Same Moon.”

I don't want to push it, but I wonder if she and I can bond over other movies. Maybe we can trade. I'll sit through "High School Musical" again, if she'll sit through "12 Angry Men."

Okay, maybe I'm pushing it. But I don’t know why it surprises me when Pax and I have something in common. Still, it does. And I’m really proud of her.

> Please comment

Somewhere, my Abuelita is laughing at me.

My grandmother used to do all the cooking for the family, just about every night. She lived upstairs from us in an apartment building in the Bronx. She cooked typical Puerto Rican meals, heavy on the yellow rice (I hated yellow rice) and red beans (I hated red beans), occasional small pieces of steak (I hated steak), usually with onions (I hated onions). More than once, I would get a special serving of white rice and corn, so I could be spared the indignity of the meal Abuelita had spent so much time preparing for the rest of the family.

Fast forward... Years after Abuelita's passing, I'm a stepfather, and about twice a week, it's my job to cook for the family. Nothing fancy, mind you. I'm not much of a cook. But I make some fantastic spaghetti sauce, which becomes "pasta sauce" when you serve it with anything other than spaghetti. Sometimes, if I have one handy, I'll even cut up an onion to add that extra little bit of flavor. I love the taste of cooked onions. The other night, my wife asked if I could make sausage and peppers. Yum. And boil some spaghetti, too.

The sausage and peppers were just about ready when Christine and the girls got home. The younger one, Paxtynn, asked me when dinner would be ready. I pointed to the spaghetti, still boiling with about four minutes to go. "That'll be a couple of minutes," I said. Then I pointed to the sausage and peppers and said, "That's just about rea..."

"I don't like that!" she interrupted, as if to say, "You don't really expect me to eat the centerpiece of the meal you've prepared, do you?"

She is such a fussy eater. A hint of sauce for spaghetti, but no more. Ribs? She'll take two and eat half of one, leaving the rest on her plate. Rice? Sometimes, but not much. She doesn't like this. She doesn't like that (but she'll eat uncooked noodles straight out of the box like it's a potato chip -- I don't get that). No consideration for the work that goes into preparing a meal. Taste buds that can't handle taste. My masterpieces, unappreciated in their time. She's like a little, annoying, bratty, fussy... female version of me when I was her age.

When I remember that, I smile. Sometimes I laugh. She has no idea how much it stings when she points to food I've made and says "I don't like that." I never thought of what it must feel like to my Abuelita, who must be looking down at the situation right now and thinking, "Ah ha. Ahora sabes!"

"Now you know."

I do. And I know she's laughing. And I'm laughing with her. Lo siento, Abuelita. Y gracias.

> Please comment

There’s a job that can sometimes be even harder than being a stepfather, and that’s my wife’s task. She is the moderator, the referee between the stepfather who doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time and the daughters who would like to know who that grumpy man thinks he is. Mom, after all, is the one who invited/accepted me into their family. The girls kind-of sort-of got a vote, but it was ultimately their mom’s decision.

And that puts her in a pretty tough spot. For example, I don’t know how to tutor the pre-teen. I do a pretty good job with college students, but the 12-year-old feels so much pressure hearing a question from me that she’ll forget how many inches are in a foot. It’s not that she doesn’t know – it’s that I can be so overbearing while firing even simple questions at them that the answers hide behind a defensive wall in their brains. I throw my hands in the air, declaring to anyone who’ll hear me that I can’t work with this!

In steps their mom, able to leap tall communication gaps in a single comforting gesture. Back off, she tells me subtly, gently. You know this stuff, she tells the kid, coaxing the answer out of her.

I don’t envy my wife when it comes to that role. As parents, we’ve been a team less than a year. Now she spends as much time teaching me how to be a parent as she spends being a parent to the girls. I get the luxury of not getting it right all the time. The pressure on her is greater: she has to be right when I’m wrong, right when the kids are wrong, right when we’re all wrong. And she never has the right to be wrong. Ever!

Not fair. And all I have to do to resolve this unfairness is get it right all the time myself. Yeah, sure. I can do that.

Honestly, I think she has some idea how much I appreciate her. I know I’d be a flop as a stepfather if not for her support. I’d like to be just as supportive of her role.

But how?

> Please comment

Families have their own rhythm, their own cadences. They can speak to each other in ways outsiders can’t really relate.

When an outsider becomes a family member, as I did eight months ago, he quickly learns that the family language only bears a passing resemblance to his own.

I knock on the older girl’s bedroom door.

“What?” she calls out. It’s an impolite, get-lost kind of yell to my ears, regardless of whether she intends it to sound that way.

“Try again!” I yell through the door.

“Yes?” she replies, this time striking a you’ve-reached-Kay-how-may-I-help-you? tone.

That's more like it. The first response sounds like I have some nerve knocking on the door. The second strikes me as more polite. I'm happy.

The next morning, I knock on the younger girl’s door.

“What-ah?” she yells. When did the word “what” gain that extra syllable, anyway? “What-ah?” Sometimes-ah sounds-ah like you hear those-ah, old-time preachers-ah.

“Hey, I’m just checking to make sure you’re awake and getting ready for school. I don’t deserve the attitude.”

“I’m not giving you attitude!”

I love that. I get the attitude and the denial.

What I don’t get is that she’s telling me the absolute truth. She really doesn’t mean to be giving me attitude. Just like I don’t mean to sound like a holier-than-thou persnickety know-it-all who’s constantly correcting them.

They would know that if they spoke my language, and maybe I’ll go a little easier on them when I learn their language a little bit better. The good part? They’re comfortable enough with me that when they speak to me, it’s in their language.

> Please comment

I started calling my older step-daughter “Seven” a few months ago.

In the Star Trek universe, Seven-of-Nine (called Seven by her crewmates on the starship Voyager), was a human who was assimilated by a race of cyborgs and spent most of her life connected to them through cybernetic implants. I picture my kid with a cell phone on one ear and an I-Pod in the other while holding a digital camera to take a picture of herself, or maybe a video of her declaring: “Actual human contact is irrelevant. Resistance is futile.”

What I wouldn’t give to unplug all the gadgets, hide the batteries and try to engage her in an honest-to-goodness, face-to-face conversation.

But then I remember.

I remember my first home computer, and the hours I’d spend on it trying my hand at programming (I was no darned good). I remember handheld football games from Coleco. I remember video games that left me glued to the TV set seemingly for days at a time, with occasional breaks for food and such. Oh sure, I balanced it by cracking open my books to do my homework. But the point is the same. And when I started talking to my high school friends on the phone, it did seem for a while that I was spending an awful lot of time doing it.

Maybe the kid’s reliance on gizmos catches my attention because I didn’t see her phase into it one gadget at a time. Maybe I’m right to sound the alarm that over-reliance on these things is a tad anti-social and, occasionally, a little more than annoying. Maybe I am, as they say, pointing three fingers at myself whenever I point a finger at the kid for doing pretty much the same thing I did at her age.

Or maybe it’s not such a big deal after all.

Maybe resistance really is futile.

> Please comment

Is it possible, because the girls are 15 and 12, that I missed one of the toughest challenges of stepping into parenthood?

My wife thinks so. Early on, she banned a sentence from being spoken in our home, a sentence that declares emphatically who I am not. There’s an understanding that I am going to do my best to be a father-figure in every way I can. There’s an understanding that I won’t always be good at it, though not for lack of trying.

I’m not naive enough to think all will be bliss and joy in the household. It’s just that I’m lucky to have two girls who are mature enough to know who I am, in addition to who I’m not. It makes it less likely (though not impossible) that I’ll ever find myself at the receiving end of the biggest, boldest challenge to authority a step-parent can face: "You're not my father!"

How about it, fellow step-parents? Your kids ever remind you of your place (or lack thereof) in their genealogy? How’d you handle it? Any advice for those of us yet to encounter it?

> Please comment

Stepping into a fatherly role brought up a number of situations I never anticipated. One of them: how do you convey affection?

Most of the times I’ve dealt with other people’s children, this was never an issue. But when Christine and I got engaged, her two girls were about to become mine. I got to know them better than I’ve known anyone else’s children, and they got to know me. We bonded. Soon enough, I wanted to be able to say, as casually as any father would, how I felt.

But I have to admit, it was a little awkward at first. For a short time, I settled on “I don’t like you.” They knew what I meant. Variations popped up.

“I don’t like you too. Very much.”

“I don’t like you, with all my heart.”

It was fun for about a month. Maybe less. Then Christine told me one day that the kids stopped liking “I don’t like you.” It was charming at first, but it outlived its charm.

So it was okay to just say it now.

Kay, Pax... I love you.

> Please comment

I didn’t become a parent until I was 37 years old. Now I’m 38 and I have two girls, aged 12 and 15. That’s what I get for marrying their mother.

I’m fond of saying that we live in a one-story house, so there are no “steps.” It’s a charming expression, but not a realistic one. The simple truth is that I’ve got two girls sharing my home now, and I’m often at a loss as to how I’m supposed to behave. I’m not their “dad.” They call me by my name, as they should (their dad is still in the picture).

The girls have quirks I need to get used to. I have quirks they need to get used to.

I’m into musical theater, books and karaoke. They’re into hip-hop, wall posters and dancing.

I excelled as a student all through my school and college years. They're average students who might think “FCAT” is short for “Forget College After This.”

I sometimes teach grammar to undergraduate college students. They “tlk n txt msgs n dnt blv n vwls.”

Being a parent is something I’ve always wanted, but like most people, I expected to start from the beginning, with diaper changes, first steps, first words and first days of school. I expected I would be “Daddy,” not just “Mommy’s husband.”

And now I’ve got one teenager, and another about to become one. It’s like taking a final exam without having sat th