Browsing: Miscellaneous

Hi Readers — Here’s a heart-sinker:  A Minnesota community doesn’t want a facility for Alzheimer’s patients to move in, because old people, even though supervised, might hurt  – or even traumatize by their very weirdness — their kids. So much for diversity. So much for community. So much for compassion. As John Tevlin writes in […]

Simple as that. Read it here. And it was the insurance companies fighting each other anyhow, as it turns out, not the grandparents suing the pants off the quick-thinking girl who saved their grandchildren. And that b.s. about the girl being “too young” and “inexperienced” to babysit? That was all the insurance companies’ balderdash, too. […]

Hi Readers: Just had to pass along this story. I’m Free-Range all the way —  well, most of the way — but sure am glad we live in New York City. Not a tempting bull in sight (even on Wall Street these days!).  – L.

Today’s Free-Range cartoon, as seen in the brilliant Baby Blues. What a great comic strip that is! And alas, I can’t figure out how to shrink this to fit my screen here, so I will give you the punchline: “To run a background check on Amy’s parents.” (Sorry — the comic shows up full screen […]

Hi Readers — Jen Singer runs Mommasaid.net, a blog that manages to be funny, moving (like, seriously so) AND perkily helpful AND pleasantly ironic all at once. And this she does while raising two young boys and writing, it seems, a book every other week. Like Stop Second-Guessing Yourself — The Toddler Years, and Stop […]

Oh Dear, Readers. Here’s the latest story: A 12 year old girl babysitting two boys in a trailer noticed a fire and quickly got the kids out, got the pet out, and even dialed 911. BUT the fire damaged the house next door (owned by the boys’ grandparents). They’re suing her, and they’re suing the […]

Dear Readers: The blog post below this one says it all –I thought: Our modern era considers it a news story when a child accidentally gets left behind on a small excursion for a small amount of time. Why? Because the underlying idea is, “What if  something BAD happened? Then it really WOULD be a […]

Hi Readers: It’s not like I advocate, “Take our 2-year-olds to the park and leave them there.” But why is this story national news? A day care center took its kids to a park that is a 10 minute walk away. On the way back the workers realized they’d left a 2-year-old behind. They went […]

Simple as that. A four level tree house is coming down by the end of the week.  Here’s the story, from over  in Australia. I get that it’s a liability. All tree houses are. I just wonder when and how society will ever get back to accepting SOME risk, now that even the tiniest risk (and […]