Are We Raising America’s Most Unemployable Generation?

What happens when high-school kids can’t (or don’t) work part-time summer jobs.

I do an exercise in my persuasive writing classes where the students have to write about the worst job they ever had. I’ve been doing this exercise for at least 10 years; it works as a way to show them how much specific details matter. I get volunteers to read their pieces aloud and then we discuss them: Do you agree that was a bad job? Why? Etc. Just because this is America, we also frequently pick the winner of the worst job. Here’s the problem: More and more frequently, hands go up when I first give the assignment, and students say, “What should I do if I never had a job?”

Your Mom Doesn’t Want an iPad for Mother’s Day

However, there’s this lovely beer for women over 50.

I know that Mother’s Day has become a manufactured holiday, but I would be pretty hurt if my family ignored it, i.e., me. As with all other holidays, families have very different ideas of how to spend the day, with brunch seemingly the most popular time to get together, but then again, that could just be my perception due to the preponderance of Mother’s Day brunch advertising.

In Post-9/11 World, the Definition of Terrorist Gets Blurry

How will those who were kids in 2001 shape future policy based on that day?

I was half listening to the news, and they were talking about those would-be terrorists who were recently arrested, when I realized that I didn’t flinch, or even pay that much attention. It made me realize how desensitized we’ve become to even the word terrorist. I’m thinking that right now, if you’re reading this, you don’t even know which would-be terrorist I’m referring to, there are so many …

Welcome to the Era of the “My Generation”

My, my, my has replaced me, me, me.

I have been advised by those who know to build my own website, as well as one on ramp agent parenting, in order to promote, and “own” the term and concept I’m developing. Actually, I’m lying. I’m being kind to myself: I haven’t been advised so much as been met with incredulity that I don’t already have one.

American Teens Have Lost Ability to Shock Anyone

Nothing can raise our eyebrows anymore.

Shock me. Go ahead and try. I almost feel bad for young adults now: All your tattoos, piercings, and spiked and colored hair really only tells us how you want others to label you, how you categorize yourself, but otherwise makes us yawn. Remember when spiked hair was interesting? When candy-colored hair made you look twice? What would someone have to do now to really get your attention?

Your Coffee Maker Could Kill You

The world is basically a deathtrap.

Plastic covers for electrical outlets are a choking hazard. Suction cups on baby-bath seats can suddenly release, causing babies to tip over. Crib bumpers can cause accidental suffocation. Kids can get trapped between their bed rails and the bed, while their mothers are electrocuted by faulty baby warmers. It’s enough to make you scream, “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!” like when you’re watching a scary movie and can see the bad guy hiding in the kitchen.

Grocery Shopping in the Burbs: Acme’s Walk of Shame

If you run into anyone you know, be prepared to explain why you’re not at Wegmans.

Nobody would ever take a reusable Acme bag into Wegmans. No one would want to represent Acme, the lowest rung chain of grocery-store chains, its utilitarian store with one 12 x 12 refrigerator case of prepared foods, its awful, awful kelly green bag. Acme is the store you run into for trash bags, furtively, hoping no one will see you. Never mind that if someone you know sees you that means he/she is also at Acme—it’s still a humiliation. If you do bump into someone that’s what you say: “I just ran in here for trash bags.” And you prove this point by holding up the box of trash bags, show the other hand empty, so glad now that you did not take a cart when you parked and thought about how you do need a case of water and are probably low on cat food. But, you did not take one of their forest green carts with real-estate advertisements affixed to the end; you did not, thank God.

There’s a Difference Between Overprotective Parents and Greedy Monsters

Do you want the best for your child or just more?

The scariest thing about the Easter Egg hunt that was cancelled due to parents’ overly aggressive “help” is that I’m not surprised. I have been to enough decorate-your-bike 4th of July parades, box-car races, and science exhibitions, that I have seen all levels of parental involvement, from four-foot-high moving dinosaurs supposedly made by a third-grader, to book reports with words that I would have to look up.

Recession Diet: Pay Less to Eat, Eat Fewer Calories

Do it for cheese fries on Friday.

I have a lot of experience with dieting. Not the commercial diets, per se, but lots and lots of simply not eating, bowls of Special K, boxes of Lean Cuisine that made me say “Is that all there is?” I drank gallons of Tab in the '80s and have eschewed white bread for so long I don’t think I could choke a slice down if that's all there was. I’m used to the constant juggle: “I’m going out to dinner tonight, so I better just have half a grapefruit for breakfast, minestrone soup for lunch.” “I drank four beers and shared those cheese fries last night; it’s oatmeal day today.”