I wrote the other day about Ohio mom Jennifer Tyrrell, whom the Boy Scouts expelled as den leader of her son’s Cub Scout troop because she is a lesbian. Now, her Change.org petition asking the Boy Scouts to reconsider their policy of not permitting gay Scouts or leaders has gained nearly 130,000 signatures. Tyrrell also […]
The Boy Scouts of America has recently told Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian mom in Ohio, that because of her sexual orientation, she can no longer serve as the den leader of her son’s local Cub Scout chapter. Although parents of the other boys in the den supported her, the local Boy Scout council revoked her membership. After the jump, find out what Tyrrell and the other parents are doing in response, and how you can help.
Yet another in my occasional but ongoing series on why I love IKEA. This adorable carrot family shows that what matters is love and happiness. The gender of the parents doesn’t matter–or can be imagined to be whatever the child wants them to be.
Now that we’ve all had a little time to recover from the holidays, let me ask: Which of your children’s holiday presents are you most glad they got? Are there any you regret? And do they feel differently? Speaking for myself, I have no regrets. We seem to have progressed past the age when he
The winter holidays always seem to highlight that the world tends to divide toys into “girls” and “boys” varieties. Most of us here, I think, would agree that  no one should be forced into particular types of play based on real or perceived gender. Over at Skepchick, Natalie Reed has a great article on “Guyliner, Murses,
OK, let’s have a little group participation on this one. I need to get a birthday present for a classmate of my third-grade son. The boy is friendly enough to invite my son to his party, but not in the “best friends” category. I’ve never met the boy or the parents. Other than “Star Wars,” my
Lesbian news and entertainment site Autostraddle is terrific, but perhaps not the first place you’d turn for parenting information. If you haven’t read executive editor Laneia’s posts on “How to Live With Kids: Toys & Entertainment” and “How to Live with Kids: Food & Cooking,” however, you’re missing two of the funniest yet most truthful
My eight-year-old son is on a secret agent kick right now. He runs around the backyard talking into an old, bulky, non-working digital watch I gave him, and plots the overthrow of evil villains. I’m pleased to say our backyard is villain-free. (Unless you count the mosquitoes, but I think they’re the henchbugs of a distant insect overlord.)
There’s a new summer camp for kids with LGBT parents! Camp Highlight joins a small list of other such camps, and has burst onto Twitter with a flurry of posts in the last day or so. I don’t have any personal experience with it, but I’m happy to pass along the information so you can
My son is always complaining that his school doesn’t do enough science. It’s the result, I believe, of the much maligned No Child Left Behind educational policy and its focus on core math and reading skills to the neglect of science, social studies, history, and other subjects. Not that the core skills aren’t important—but I firmly
