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Showing posts with the label right to privacy

Loving and Protecting Other People's Children (and Their Privacy)

Hi. You. Yes, you , my fellow parent. Here you are, in the class with our kids. Aren't they incredible? It's amazing, isn't it, how cute they all are, and how warm and fuzzy it makes us parents feel to see them having fun with each other. Cameras and video cameras don't even really capture it. We'll have to make an emotion memory that the photos and videos will trigger. The little inside jokes. The things they like. The toothless grins. The grins with teeth a little too large yet for faces still sort of small. Not as small as last year, though, or even last month. They all have something just so particular to the special stage of this age. I don't know how to explain it. It's how they like certain things now, things they didn't appreciate or even know a few months ago, things that may not matter in a little while from now. There are things right now that our lives revolve around and sometime soon, it will be a memory. Remember that lovie, the one that ha...

Why I think "coming out" to other parents is a good thing to do, in certain circumstances

"Mom! Guess what happened today," Patience demanded as we returned home from school the other day. "What's up?" I asked, panting more than a little, speed walking and jogging to keep up with her fast bike riding. "My friend Emma* in gym class is gone again. They said she had to move away for a while. Can you believe that? She's gone again!" Patience told me, confusion and sadness ringing in her words. I recalled the last time I had seen Emma. She and another girl were being silly with Patience and a few other kids at a school event a couple of months ago. My husband and I sat on the side and watched the children, noting Emma and another child in particular. "I don't mean to sound rude," my husband had said back then, with more than a little hesitation and concern edging his voice, "But I think something might be going on with two of those kids. I'm not sure. I can't tell. I don't know." And that's the thing. ...