She went off. And then she went viral.

Little Riley Maida of Newburgh, New York, made news recently with a video clip known as Riley’s Rant. In it, the precocious 4-year-old stands in a toy store railing against toy makers for assuming that girls only want to play with pink princesses and boys only want to play with superheroes.

“The companies try to trick the girls into buying the pink stuff instead of the stuff the boys want to buy,” she asserts, smacking a packaged doll for emphasis as her dad asks leading questions from behind the camera.

On YouTube, then Facebook, then in the news media (and, no joke, at the table next to me at a burger joint today) this four-foot feminist’s invective made hundreds of thousands pump their fists and chant “Riley for president!” Diane Sawyer all but declared Riley a sage of the age.

But I had a different reaction to the clip. I thought it was icky. Also icky: the viral video of 8-year-old Elijah Cromer confronting gay-marriage opponent Michele Bachmann last month in South Carolina. The boy waited in line to whisper, “My mommy’s gay, but she doesn’t need fixing,” while said mommy stood behind him, filming it all.

Continue reading Your Child, Your Mouthpiece

Circumcision. Gay marriage. Immigration. There are a handful of subjects so controversial, so likely to propel people into disparate, dueling factions, that one dare not even broach them in mixed company.

They’re surefire feud igniters. They’re quarrel kindling.

Who knew thank-you notes were among them?

With the holidays approaching, I asked some friends what they think of thank-you notes — those customary expressions of gratitude scribbled, stamped, and sent by refined recipients of thoughtful gifts and generous gestures — and I was surprised to find people staunchly divided on the value of these mannerly missives.

Some insisted that thank-you notes are gracious, timeless, and classy. Others declared them outdated and meaningless. And the fight was on.

“I am dumbfounded at the numbers of people who think they don’t need to acknowledge a gift, or who think an email suffices,” said a woman who wouldn’t let her kids use any gift until they had written a thank-you note for it.

“Better to look someone in the eyeballs and say a sincere ‘thank you’ than to go through that paper-wasting ordeal,” argued another mom.

Continue reading Thank-You Notes

I’m not what you’d call a natural salesman. Having never worked in retail, and rarely even hosted a yard sale, I’m uncomfortable pawning merch onto other people. My idea of a solid marketing pitch: “Hey … you don’t want one of these, do you?”

Yet in 15 combined years of my children’s schooling, I’ve hawked enough nearly useless junk to fill a 3rd-grade classroom. And not one of the tiny portable ones either: a huge classroom, like the kind we used to have before schools were penniless and begging for bucks.

Sucked into countless school fundraiser sales — whining and grumbling all the while — I’ve slung chocolates and coffee. I’ve moved magazines, pushed potted poinsettias, and hustled gift wrap. I’ve hit up friends, trapped neighbors, and pleaded with long-since-tapped-out family members to buy muffin tins and scented candles and macadamia nuts.

I’ve done it for two reasons: to funnel field-trip/assembly/art/lab money to our sickeningly cash-strapped schools, and so that PTA moms don’t mutter “slacker” when I skitter past them, hoping to avoid being tapped to work the clean-up shift at the scrapbooking booth. (I will write a check for \$100 right this instant if you promise never to make me scrape craft glue off of someone’s decorative scissors.)

Continue reading Gift Wrap This

Do you love buying shoes? Are you someone for whom shoe-shopping begets a Zennish euphoria? Yes?

Here’s some advice for you: Don’t do it with a 12-year-old.

My 8th-grade-bound son has long coveted classic Converse low-tops. Last week, we found a pair of lookalikes on sale for \$15. Sweet! “We’ll take ’em,” I bellowed, relishing the rare and unparalleled near-delirium of buying fabulous shoes at ridiculous prices.

“Um,” my son muttered sheepishly, staring at another pair of shoes: The Converse brand. All Star Chuck Taylors. Same color. Same style. Forty-five bleepin’ bucks. “I’d rather have the real ones.”

In my mind, I said this: “Well, I’d rather have a ’57 Chevy Bel Air convertible, yet somehow we’re leaving here in a dinged-up Honda.” But sensing that we were heading into tricky parenting territory, I uttered this instead: “But … they cost three times as much.”

“Yeah,” he said, forcing himself to meet my puzzled gaze.

“And they look … exactly the same.”

“Not exactly,” he explained. “These have a label.”

I had several problems with this situation. First, when pressed, my normally articulate child could not put into words why the brand mattered so much. His stuttered attempt contained the phrases: “important to me,” “make fun,” and, of course, “cool.”

Continue reading The Brand Canyon