Lego has come out with a new line of gender-specific toys and it has enraged a group of women who collected more than 1,000 signatures overnight to protest it, according to an article in the New York Daily News.[1] The girl-themed Lego sets offer curvy figurines, a hot tub, beauty parlor and a rash of pink colors. Construction sets include: an inventor’s workshop, a splash pool, a hot convertible, a design studio and a dog show. Dana Edell, head of [...]
Ben’s kindergarten teacher sent me a note. It said, “Ben made an inappropriate comment: ‘Bomb a head off.’” I pulled my little boy aside immediately and asked him, “What did you say to upset your teacher?” He giggled, looking innocent (read: no dimple showed) and explained: “We were making these Hanukkah books, with pictures where the girls walk around with a candles on their heads, and this is like a bomb, the candle is, so I told the girls at [...]
What if Santa is a woman? What if the idiotic Elf on the Shelf is a girl named Julie instead of a boy named Jack? What if Mary Magdalene was the 13th Apostle? Sigh, I apologize for this last question, I really do, but I can’t help it: what if God is a Goddess? Did I start asking these questions this morning? No, of course not. I raised my hand in Honors Comparative Religion and asked a few questions [...]
Little El sits really still and doesn’t move. He hunts her. They are coming. If I were there with her now, with the rest of her family hovering over her and screaming at her, maybe I would finally say all the things she buried and stuffed inside. The best times in my childhood were the ones I spent hoping and dreaming for something better to happen. I never lived in the moment because the moments hurt too much. I dreamed [...]
Madeline slammed the bedroom door against the door wall and dramatically glided into my room. For much of the afternoon, I had been lost in contemplation. The day before, a friend had threatened suicide. She lives thousands of miles away from me, and the only thing I could do to help her was to call the police in her city. Now she is furious, and keeps finding new and creative ways to tell me just how furious. As she burst [...]