Sometimes wisdom comes from the strangest places.
ByGD
You may be a cartoon villain if…
The other day my kids made me watch Descendants. I’m a fan of the fractured fairy tale, so I liked the premise: a generation after all the fairy tale villains have been banished, the new king invites their children to return to the kingdom, where they must decide for themselves whether to integrate into society or play to type. Unfortunately, the execution was everything one could have hoped from a made-for-TV Disney movie, complete with a live action “hip hop” cover of “Be Our Guest.” Despite my best efforts to follow the family rule of “no complaining when it’s not your turn to pick the movie,” I couldn’t resist giving it a bit of the MST3K treatment. Apparently, I cackle when I crack myself up, which resulted in my being compared to the Evil Queen. Which got me thinking… Read More
ByGD
Perfectly Safe
In the white, liberal, upper middle-class circles I usually inhabit, safety trumps all other values. Helicopter parenting has become the standard for responsible parenting, despite data to the contrary. Schools and parents are increasingly making decisions based on the fear of lawsuits or the fear of disapproval from more safety-conscious parents instead of their own best judgement. So this quote from Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book struck me as particularly meaningful.
“I wanted to keep you perfectly safe,” said Silas. “But there is only one perfectly safe place for your kind and you will not reach it until all your adventures are over and none of them matter anymore.”
We should not seek perfect safety for our children, or for anyone we care about.
ByGD
A Beautiful Smile
At the China Community Art and Culture Hotel Restaurant, a puppet show to celebrate Children’s Day.
A few days into our trip, my daughter commented that people in Qingdao seemed nicer than people at home. She said, “Even when it’s their job to be nice to us, they just seem to mean it more. Except for the traffic, Qingdao feels safer than Seattle.” I knew what she meant, and I had to agree. I talked about the curious stares and occasional stink-eye in an earlier post, but the truth is, more often than not, once people figure out our relationship, the most common response is a thumbs up. After a couple of days in Qingdao, the first two words that came to mind to describe Qingdaonese were “kind” and “gentle.” Read More
ByGD
Dreams of War
I bought Brown Girl Dreaming for my daughter for Christmas, and now I am reading a poem to her each night before bed. Last night I read “South Carolina at War.” I’m going to copy the entire poem here, which is a lot of text to pull from a copyrighted book. But I can’t say what I need to without first making sure you know the whole story. Read More