Dadding
The prayer in question
Sixteen-year-old Rhode Islander, Jessica Ahlquist, knows how to stir things up.
The high school student and self-proclaimed atheist, who first made world headlines in her quest to have a decades-old prayer mural removed from school’s wall, has been awarded a $40,000 college scholarship by her internet supporters.
It all started in June 2010 when Ahlquist went through the American Civil Liberties Union to file suit against Cranston High School West, seeking to remove a mural which contained religious phrases that she claimed made her, as an atheist, feel “ostracized and out of place.”
That opened the proverbial can of whoop-ash and the student found herself in the middle of an increasingly volatile and heated debate between parents, teachers, fellow students, and people all over the world who stood firmly on either side of the debate.
Does religion belong in American schools? they argued.
Is an atheist minority to be considered when questions of church and state collide?
Who should have a say when God shows up for class? they demanded. And who should not?
This post originally appeared on HowToBeADad.com …
I swear I don’t wear tinfoil hats. I’m not a huge fan of bunkers. I don’t have an armory. Yet.
So, why am I anticipating the collapse of civilization these days?
I’d never admit it, but the end of the world and my fatherly place in that scenario scares the piss out of me. My wife and I used to love a movie with good “apoca-porn”, films depicting the end of days with plots centered on ‘survival of the best looking’ and truckloads of money spent on explosive effects. My wife was a fanatic. When our son arrived, that all changed. If I witness a child in harm’s way in a movie or in print now, all I see is red. I feel like I might burst into a billion particles of testosterone.
Baby Rhino On The Loose
At the Y, Monica and I say goodbye to the the kids from the the playroom door, but it’s pointless really.
“Bye Violet,” I say. Then I add, ” We’ll be back really soon, ok?”
But I am fearing the worst, her not even pretending to hear me.
She doesn’t even pretend to hear me.
“See ya, Henry,” I tell my son. “Catch ya soon buddy!”
The young guy who volunteers his free time to look after strangers’ kids in this room at the Y is standing with my boy and he looks down at him, but Henry growls and crawls behind a fake sink and two toddlers.
I know I am the last thing on his mind now.
I don’t know of many parents that would be pleased to hear that their kid(s) would like to have a meeting and go over their job performance. We parents usually have enough guilt to travel to the sun and back. We can barely hear our grown kids say “I hate you” without our soul crumpling into a speck.
And that’s precisely why we made this video…
It’s going to be difficult to talk about this amazing commercial without actually showing it, but I searched and searched and searched and, alas, nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zip Zero.
Still, you may have already seen it, so I invite you to delight in all its glory … even if you haven’t.
It’s a simple, short commercial for Capri Sun, and it shows a young girl building some type of flying bike … thing. She’s on the edge of a small cliff and it’s obvious she’s about to just chuck caution to the wind and go for it. I love this. I smile every time I see it.
If I’m going to rail against craptacular marketing toward our young girls, I need to also call attention to some gems, and Capri Sun really hit it out of the park with this one. Here’s why. Continue reading »
Elizabeth Smart and her daddy, 2011
I sighed the other day when I saw that Elizabeth Smart had gotten married.
You go girl, I thought.
What a day for the young lady who did a stint in Hell, with the Devil himself. Ten years ago, when Smart was snatched from her Salt Lake City bedroom in in the middle of the night, the world watched in horror.
Then, as the weeks/months slid by, all that remained of practical hope was its distant tail-lights slipping over the horizon and disappearing with the long lost kid forever.
She was gone, we figured.
And she ain’t coming back.
My son, Lucas, recently reminded me of something from my own childhood. Though oddly, something has happened to a lot of these memories of being a kid since having kids. The perspective of parenthood can shed a really different, very bright light on memories.
My parents gave me a very free hand as a kid. Though now that I think of it, it may be more accurately described as a balance between “me taking” and “them giving” this freedom. You see! The past is shape-shifting even as I’m writing about it! Continue reading »
How To Be A Dad 
Monica Bielanko 
Serge Bielanko 
Mike Adamick 
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