Would you vote for a bully for President?

We all know bullies and, as parents, we worry about when (sadly, not if) our children will have to deal with them and how they’ll manage. While we all navigated our way through our own individual middle school and high school torments, these days it feels like bullying behavior is talked about more openly because there are more places for it to happen — bullying is now not just on the playgrounds and in school hallways, it’s online, too.

For most people, being bullied or even having been a bully is something that we live through and outgrow on our way to adulthood.  That’s not the case for everyone, as we’ve seen with stories of how mean girls sometimes turn into mean moms. But if someone running for President of the United States has a bullying past, is that a fair factor to consider when deciding who to vote for?

Who knew that partisan politics were at play when it comes to naming your baby? Well, not politics per se, but a recent survey at BabyNameWizard revealed an interesting fact that I would never have guessed — there’s a growing trend in naming babies that can help you figure out if their parents are liberal or conservative!

Well, at least whether they live in a left-leaning or right-leaning state.  I would have thought that lefty states would be home to moms and dads who are still choosing “interesting” names from the hippie days, like Blossom or Dharma or Phoenix! (Not that there is ANYTHING wrong with any of those names!) And that those in somewhat redder areas of the country would opt for tried and true, solid names such as William and Mary.

But it turns out that if your child’s name is along the traditional lines of, say, Elizabeth, Abigail or John, your state probably favored President Obama in the last election and — surprise! — if you like the way Paislee or Liberty sound, your state probably liked John McCain better.

That seemed a little counter-intuitive to me, so I decided to poll some of the Babble Voices parents to see if that red state vs. blue state naming trend holds out for their kids!

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Things are heating up in lots of political contests around the country, but plenty of eyes are focused on the Senate race in Massachusetts, where consumer protection champion Elizabeth Warren is taking on the incumbent Scott “Trust me, I drive a pick-up” Brown for his U.S. Senate seat. If you don’t live in Massachusetts, you might be thinking: “Why should I care?”

The simple answer is two words: health insurance. And given some recent news about his college-aged daughter, it looks like Brown is living in a political “Do as I say, not as I do” world.

The news about his daughter is nothing salacious. But if you’re struggling to figure out how to pay for health insurance for your own college-aged kids … as many families are … you might want to hear about his story.

News broke this week that Senator Brown has been taking advantage of the Massachusetts “Romneycare” insurance which allows him to keep his kids on his family insurance, including his 23-year-old daughter Ayla. And while he’s been making sure his daughter has insurance that lots of other people would love to have, he’s been voting against the so-called “Obamacare” health insurance plan in the Senate, which would give all the rest of us the same option he has for his adult children.

So why isn’t what’s good for the political goose good for his constituents’ ganders?

Image via Joanne Bamberger. All rights reserved

Now that the 2012 presidential campaign is pretty much down to the final two candidates — President Barack Obama for the Democrats and former Governor Mitt Romney for the Republicans (sorry, Ron Paul!), we can finally turn our attention to some of the other races that are going on across the country.

Of course, the race for the White House is the one that will have most of our attention, but while these two guys duke it out, there are a lot of moms running for various elective offices across the country who are trying to make a difference, as well.

Of course, those are some pretty powerful moms in the photo here with Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s most senior advisors. And I have no doubt they’re making their own change in their communities (myself included!).

But here are ten moms who you’re going to see on the campaign trail this year in various roles — they’re ones we should all be watching!

I know it’s only April, but I’m starting to see more political bumper stickers on the road. I’m not usually a person who puts those permanent decorations on her car, though I will happily drive around with a magnet touting my sixth-grader’s fabulous soccer team (GO FIREBOLTS!).

OK, I did make an exception for this one when George W. Bush ran for re-election, but that’s where I had to draw the line.

But as the general election is heating up, you know there are going to a whole new crop of them to choose from. What kind of message would you be willing to drive around with until the next time your trade-in your van or SUV?

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Will I live long enough to see a world where the mommy wars are over and we can all hold hands and sing a song of harmony and peace? Yeah, I guess that’s too much to hope for because the mommy wars generate buzz, especially in campaign seasons.

Just as the media engaged in skirmishes over whether Sarah Palin was a good mother or a bad one for going out on the vice presidential campaign trail with young kids still at home in 2008, and as many took Hillary Clinton to task in 1992 for her remarks about staying home and baking cookies, now we’re at it again with. CNN commentator and adviser to the Democratic National Committee Hilary Rosen stepped in it when, as she was trying to make a point about using Mitt Romney’s campaign relying on his wife as a surrogate on the economy:

“Ann Romney’s never worked a day in her life.”

Image via Wikimedia Commons/FEMA-Dave Gatley

As parents, my husband and I try really hard to make sure our daughter knows how lucky she is. Our 12-year-old has a whole lot more than either my husband or I did growing up and it’s  extremely important to us that she appreciates the life she has.

I’m OK with the fact that she’s got shelves full of books and the benefit of a house with a variety of electronics. But it’s important to us that she learns that many of her possessions are luxuries, not necessities, and that because we’re fortunate enough to have certain things, we have an obligation to share our good fortune with others.

Image via FEMA Library

What do the words “dinosaur,” “divorce,” and “disease” have in common?  No, it’s not the theme of the latest TV show that’s a cross between Lost and Desperate Housewives.  Those are just three of the words that have been banned in New York City school tests because officials fear that some of them will cause kids to be afraid and make them feel “unpleasant” emotions.

I’m pretty shocked that we really have to address the issue of keeping certain words and phrases away from schoolchildren. If we were talking about the ‘seven words you can’t use on television’ made famous by George Carlin, that would be a no-brainer. But I’m a mom who loves words and books and newspapers and magazines and libraries and book stores. I’m all about words and ideas, as is my husband, and given the rate at which our sixth-grader plows through books, it looks like we’ve been successful at raising a daughter who loves words, too. So I’m really wondering how in 2012 we’ve become so afraid of things that aren’t familiar to our own lives that we ban any discussion for our children for fear of some unintended offense?

Image by Joanne Bamberger. All rights reserved

I know many others have weighed in on the Trayvon Martin tragedy and the question of talking about his killing, as well as the issue of race, with our kids. But as a white mother of an Asian daughter, I’m still struggling with exactly how to explain to her not only the horrible story itself, but also the reality of how the world is for me and how it will be for her.

Yes, I’m white. And I know that carries with it the whole “white privilege” thing. And, yes, my husband and I have had many talks with our daughter, who is now a middle-schooler, about issues surrounding race in this country.  She’s learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. We recently took her to see the MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C. We’ve talked about why it’s there and why it’s important for it to be there.  We read all the inscriptions on the wall that runs along the perimeter of the magnificent statue of the civil rights leader.

But how can you explain things that are as horrendous as Trayvon Martin’s murder in a way that a child of any age will understand? Children, as probably most of us do, have a way of tuning out or filtering the ugliness of life so that we can manage day-to-day. I think children our daughter’s age are particularly adept at that after having read the Hunger Games series. If they couldn’t, how could they devour books that graphically describe teenage kids battling each other to the death in such gruesome terms?

Image via Wikimedia Commons/Pete Souza

First Daughter Malia Obama is in Mexico for spring break! And that has Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum throwing down the ‘bad dad’ card at President Obama.

Now, Malia is apparently not sunning herself on the beach (as Santorum recently did in Puerto Rico!) or having a big party. The few reports that haven’t been scrubbed because of the no-press policy when it comes to covering kids in the White House suggest she’s on a school-sponsored service trip of some kind.  So there are other kids, and teachers, and, yes, 25 Secret Service agents along for the ride.

But taxpayer expense for that kind of security team isn’t the issue that’s got Santorum’s hackles raised.  He’s upset because he thinks the President is being an irresponsible father for allowing his teen-age daughter to travel to a country the State Department says is dangerous for other Americans.

Now, if Santorum had checked the State Department alert, he’d have seen that the region of Mexico that Malia is visiting isn’t part of that country that Americans have been warned to steer clear of for safety reasons. OK, an earthquake hit that area shortly after Malia and her classmates arrived, but I doubt that even Santorum could blame that on the President. But I guess as a father of seven, Santorum thinks his experience trumps that of a dad of two.