Salon.com > Christopher Healy

A nation of little princesses

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 23:46:00 +0000

When my daughter turned 2, among the gifts she received were a doll and a fire truck. It was that bright red plastic emergency vehicle that captured her attention for days on end, while the doll, for the most part, languished atop a pile of untouched stuffed animals -- except for the rare occasions when its plush body was squished into the back of the fire truck. Progressive parents that we are, my wife and I saw this as vindication of the decision we'd made, while Bryn was still in utero, that we would not outfit our child's world in the trappings of traditional girldom. If she were to end up conforming to any classic little girl mold, it would be with no help from us.

A year later, that truck is gathering dust in the bottom of a closet and Bryn has openly expressed her desire to live in a pink castle. It all began when Dora the Explorer betrayed us.

Of goblins and gospels

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 16:50:00 +0000

For a kid, one of the biggest joys of Halloween was that moment when you'd first arrive home from an evening of trick-or-treating and get to dump the contents of your pumpkin-faced bag onto the living room floor. Sorting out the big-ticket items from the eye-rollingly lame handouts was never too difficult. Pack of Smarties: thumbs up. Unwrapped apple: straight to the trash. Mini Krackle: eat immediately. Pennies: you've got to be kidding. But what about the Gospel literature?

This year, as they sift through their loot, many little Batmen and Dora the Explorers might find verses from Deuteronomy or First Corinthians among the candy corn. That's because many Evangelical Christians, who have always had a shaky relationship with occult-laden Halloween, have decided that instead of boycotting the holiday, they're going to take advantage of it to spread their message of salvation through the acceptance of Jesus Christ. "There are few occasions when you have people coming to your door, asking you for things," says Geoff Dennis, vice president of publishing services for Good News Publications, which turns out 8 million Halloween-themed gospel tracts each year. "So it provides easy access to sharing the Good News that we have."

Parenting through art direction

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 18:38:00 +0000

I slept with my Star Wars comforter until I was 10; by 1982, when I finally crammed it into the back of my closet, behind the life-size E.T. bank, most of the stuffing had escaped through unmended tears at the seams and its original role as a source of warmth had been long since forgotten. Still, for half a decade, nothing made me happier than waking up every morning to the sight of a poorly painted Wookie across my chest. That officially licensed duvet, with its overcrowded starscape of characters and horribly clashing color scheme, was not an item my parents found particularly attractive. Yet they, just like the parents of my friends, quietly suffered the whims of prepubescent interior design. My desire for that sci-fi bed set went completely unquestioned.

Although it would probably have been more pleasing to the adult eye, I can't imagine the younger me would have had the same fondness for a reversible embroidered silk Pottery Barn Kids quilt with matching sham. I try to keep this in mind now, when purchasing décor for my daughter's room. It's difficult, though; I know a Dora the Explorer light fixture would elicit endless squeals of delight, but would it go with the Picasso print hanging over her crib?

BECAUSE I SAID SO!!

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:40:00 +0000

The day my daughter was born changed me profoundly. The first time -- when, in her toddlerhood, I saw her squeezing Legos through a heating vent into our furnace -- I screamed "Stop that!" after more gently spoken pleas went ignored was also a pivotal day in my life. According to renowned sociologist Murray Straus, that was the day I became an "abusive" parent.

Needless to say, it came as quite a shock to find out there were bona fide family experts who would consider my behavior toward my daughter, the most important person in my life, cruel. Yet according to Straus, yelling at my daughter even that one time was "abuse the moment it [was] done."

A few weeks ago, the respected Journal of Marriage and Family published a study by Straus and his colleague Carolyn Field that reports that "psychological aggression" toward children is "so prevalent as to be just about universal." This is the result of a telephone survey of 991 parents, 98 percent of whom admitted to using "psychological aggression" against their child by age 7. While the researchers' definition of "psychological aggression" includes such inarguably objectionable acts as calling your children obscene names and threatening to throw them out of the house, it also includes actions that most parents regard as a normal part of raising kids -- shouting and yelling. In fact, the 2 percent who came off completely clean in the study probably either lied or have nannies who do the hollering for them.

No sex, please — or we’ll audit you

Tue, 28 Oct 2003 08:56:00 +0000

Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, condoms: George W. Bush has a lot of enemies. And the question is finally starting to be asked, just what steps is his administration willing to take in order to silence them? Network anchormen and coffee-break pundits alike were abuzz over the did-they-or-didn't-they CIA leak scandal. But the outing of Valerie Plame isn't the only instance where the federal government has been suspected of using its resources in direct, if somewhat sneaky, retaliation against its political opponents. Ruining the lives of CIA agents may make for dynamic headlines, but recent evidence shows that the Bush administration also has much smaller fish to fry.

Take Advocates for Youth, a national nonprofit organization that provides teens with accurate and informative sex education. In 18 years as a federal grantee, it has never been subjected to a government financial audit. That is, until it was suddenly hit with three in less than a year (one by the Centers for Disease Control back in October 2002, a second by the General Accounting Office in early 2003, and the third just two months ago, by a different arm of the CDC). The organization is crying conspiracy -- saying that it's being unfairly targeted because of its negative views toward the administration's abstinence-only education policies -- and the claims appear to be more than just paranoia.

Queer eye for the queer mom

Tue, 05 Aug 2003 17:11:00 +0000

When the scientists at the National Institutes of Health finally discover the elusive "gay gene," they're sure to find it intimately entwined into a double helix with the chromosomes that predispose proper coordination of accessories. At least that's what TV would have us believe. This month's case in point: Bravo's overnight smash, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" -- the makeover show in which a team of five quip-spouting gay men take some poor hetero schlub and transform him into a beacon of style, taste and savoir faire that would make Rupert Everett jealous.

The show's makeover artists, or the "Fab Five" as they call themselves, are performing an invaluable service to heterosexual America. I, unfortunately, will never be one of their straight-to-great success stories; too many people assume I'm gay already. I own shiny shirts; I cry at chick flicks; I have a favorite kind of goat cheese. Besides, the number of Kiehl's products in my bathroom cabinet would disqualify me immediately.