'I thought being a parent meant you prepare your child for the real world'
Helicopter parents. It’s a term originally coined in the book “Parenting with Love and Logic” by Dr. Foster Cline and Jim Fay, and refers to parents who hover over their children like a helicopter. Gay moms and dads, don’t let this be you.
I was not aware of how prevalent helicopter parenting was until I recently had dinner with a friend who is a teacher. She told me that on the first day of school this year she witnessed parents coming in to stock and organize their children’s lockers. Not just one kid’s parents, several.
Oh, and did I mention she is a high school teacher? I thought it was a joke until she reassured me she wasn’t kidding.
One of the things I admire most about my girlfriend, Katie Jo, is her community. A Georgia native, Katie has maintained friendships with folks from high school, college, graduate school, and her jobs.
Since I moved away from Tennessee, most of my hometown and college friends live hours away. Plus my growing phobia of the telephone hinders any opportunity for those hours-long conversations to catch up on every detail of each other’s lives.
One group of Katie’s friends is the “Book Club.” I put this in quotes since I’m not convinced they actually read books or even talk about them. My take on their monthly meetings is like a shirt I saw recently — they “Read Between the WINES.”
Melissa Carter finds hope in tragedy
I still have stretch marks. They’re not from pregnancy or weight loss. Instead, my stretch marks came in the early ‘80s during a very painful growth spurt. And this week’s final space shuttle landing reminded me of that time.
My love of all things space began at a young age, and my first dream was to be an astronaut. Of course, at the same time my biggest fear was flying so I soon realized the only way I was ever going to see space was by watching “Star Trek.”
My room back in 1981 was filled with images of all things celestial and in my mind those walls doubled as NASA Control. Scotch tape framed images of the space shuttle Columbia, whose maiden voyage had just taken place, at about the time the aching of my growing legs kept me up at night in tears. And to see those images of Columbia’s dusty landing at Andrews Air Force Base helped focus my mind on something other than being elongated in torture like Stretch Armstrong.
I really didn’t think they would do it. Yet while it is historic that New York legalized gay marriage, you would think it would already be legal there by now and even be allowed in California (and we saw how that worked out with Proposition 8).
I mean, both of these states pride themselves on being more progressive than the rest of the country on most everything. I think a majority of the United States would agree with them, especially Georgia.
But the fact that New York and California still fight it out on whether gays should be allowed to marry in their state proves to me they aren’t as progressive as they would like to think. And Georgians should not assume that we have to wait in line behind the Northeast and West before we get our turn at anything, including gay marriage.