Free Republic

As the Tories pledge to curb meddling officials, glorious images of days when childhood was allowed to be fun. A new book presents scenes from a bygone era when men from the council with clipboards did not swoop down on children swinging from lampposts, climbing walls or dangling from the string of a kite. Not to mention practising the noble art of boxing...

Sarah Foss, 39, got pregnant at age 16 and was so traumatized by the birth, she swore off kids for another 10 years. After having her second child in 1996, Foss has gotten pregnant every year since then. Now Foss is pregnant with her 14th child and vows to keep her OB-GYN busy, until he places a set of twins in her arms. The Derby, UK, "mum" says, "All I've ever wanted is twins or triplets. It's my biggest wish, and I'm going to keep trying until I do it. It would be fantastic. In fact, I won't stop trying...

New York - The birthday boy was turning 6, and my own young son and I arrived at the celebration in our somewhat loose definition of party clothes: Timothy in his best bluejeans and a tiny button-down shirt with stripes the colors of popsicles. The party room was filled with balloons; parents drinking coffee; a stray baby sister or two; and a dozen little boys, more than half of whom were dressed in various pieces of camouflage sportswear. Together, they suggested a small army squad. For a moment, I thought I must have missed something in the invitation – that...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Parents may be setting their daughters up for weight problems simply by allowing them to drink two or more sweetened drinks daily while young, study findings hint. Higher sweetened beverage intake, such as sodas and fruit and sport drinks, at age 5 years was linked to more body fat during the following 10 years, Dr. Laura Fiorito, at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park, told Reuters Health in an email. Higher body fat during the teen years has been tied to long-term overweight and other health problems such as diabetes and later heart disease,...

Other than taking time for the Lord on a daily basis and learning to abide in Him, what else is important? As promised, here’s my list: 1. Time for my family: Yes, I homeschool, and yes, my kids are with me 24/7. So how much more time do I want with them?

School nurses mistakenly gave the swine flu vaccine to two students who didn't sign up for it - including a Brooklyn girl with epilepsy who wound up in the hospital. "I was outraged," Naomi Troy, 26, told the Daily News after her 6-year-old daughter, Nikiyah Torres-Pierre, had a possible allergic reaction to the shot. Officials at Public School 335 in Crown Heights called an ambulance to take Nikiyah to SUNY Downstate Medical Center when she fell ill following the arm jab. "My stomach was hurting, and I was itching," Nikiyah said after she was released from the hospital. The snafu...

Swine Flu Kills 19 Kids In A Week 114 children have died in U.S.; widespread in all but 2 states By ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTA (AP) | Swine flu has caused at least 19 more children's deaths - the largest one-week increase since the pandemic started in April, health officials said Friday. At least 114 children have died from swine flu complications since the spring, up from 95 reported a week earlier, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, the government has decided to release the last of its stockpile of liquid Tamiflu for children because of reported...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT We've got another song. We don't even know where this one's from but we got more school kids singing a song about President Obama. Hey, Ed, by the way, you need to find the song in there, and I don't know if you know where it is, H.R. can help you, I just thought of this but we have a song of school kids singing to me. This happened, put it together, I'm sure this bothers President Obama. All right, this is from February of this year. That's all we know. It's an unknown school, here is a...

JACKIE KLEIN is a devoted mother of two little boys in the suburbs of Portland, Ore. She spends hours ferrying them to soccer and Cub Scouts. She reads child-development books. She can emulate one of those pitch-perfect calm maternal tones to warn, “You’re making bad choices” when, say, someone doesn’t want to brush his teeth. That is 90 percent of the time. Then there is the other 10 percent, when, she admits, “I have become totally frustrated and lost control of myself.” It can happen during weeks and weeks and weeks of no camp in the summer, or at the...

Swine flu is causing unprecedented illness for so early in the fall — including a worrisome count of child deaths — and the government warned Friday that vaccine supplies will be even more scarce than expected through this month.

Laura S. Scott loves her husband. And that, she says, is enough to sustain a marriage. They don't need children. "Two Is Enough" is the name of her book explaining a couple's guide to living childless by choice. "I think I knew very early I didn't want to be a mom," Scott tells me. "I never imagined myself a mom, even as a small child. I never played with dolls. I was 15 when I told my mom, and she suggested things might change with my hormones. Nothing changed." Scott is 47. She's too young to conceive (excuse the pun)...

A father of a high-school student is infuriated after he said a teacher provided "banned books" to her 11th-grade students, including at least one with explicit descriptions of homosexual sex acts, rape, masturbation, profane language and even bestiality. John Davis, father of an 11th-grade student at William Byrd High School in Vinton, Va., told WND that English teacher Kathleen Renard provided her personal copy of a book called "Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky to one of her English students, and it was passed to his son. The book is published by MTV Books. Davis found the book...

<p>Children in a school in Germany had a day to remember this week when four pupils found around 15,000 euros (22,000 dollars) and then handed it out to their friends in the playground, police said Friday.</p> <p>The four, two boys and two girls aged between 10 and 13, found the bundle of cash stuffed in a dirty brown envelope on the way into their school in Frankfurt on Tuesday morning.</p>

Our Senses and the Bible The Bible talks about the senses in ways that teach us more about Jesus and God’s Word...

This one is not as bad as mmm mmm mm Barack Hussein Obama mmm. How widespread is this in our schools?

This was filmed around June 19, 2009 at the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, NJ. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zrsl8o4ZPo

Saw this in the checkout lane at WalMart... We gotta really keep an eye on what our children are exposed to...

Explaining the recession and changes to your family economics to your children may not be an easy task but Elmo is here to help. Sesame Street has produced, in association with David Letterman's production company Worldwide Pants Incorporated and Lookalike Productions, a new PBS primetime special, Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3, 2009 – An Air Force firefighting squadron is making a big difference in Iraq by training firefighters and helping local children. The 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron Fire Protection Flight, a 40-man team of firefighters who provides fire response and airfield operations to Ali Base, Iraq, are training Iraqi firefighters in lifesaving and firefighting skills. The team provides fire response for airfield operations and all coalition forces assigned to the base, about 13,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, said Air Force Master Sgt. Charles M. Harrison, the flight’s operations chief. “The team responds to everything on the...

Our Organizer-in-Chief will address students across America come September 8. In preparation for that teaching moment, Teaching Ambassador Fellows at the Department of Education have prepared a Menu of Classroom Activities to prepare the kiddies. Here are a few of the leading questions: Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials ...? Why is what they say important? What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do?

Well. Not content with an unprecedented four primetime news conferences to date in his young administration, President Obama now needs to address the entire public school system. And not just for a Hey-Kids-Howya-Doin-I’m-Your-New-President-So-Be-Good-In-School-This-Year-Mmmkay? speech. You know, like back when I was a kid and Jimmy Carter would come around and hand out balloon animals at parties. Or maybe those were clowns. I get confused. Anyway. Nope, Obama can’t just say hey to the kiddies and encourage them to do their homework. He has to make this a — what does the Left call it? — a teachable moment. A speech-in,...

I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We’ll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. I do not believe President Obama’s plans for our nation include genocide or gas chambers. And the socialist I see in him is far from the National Socialists we see represented by Nazis. However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler’s power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth. And its not just Nazi Germany. Totalitarian regimes around the...

FORT BLISS, Texas (Army News Service, July 27, 2009) -- More than 50 children of Soldiers who are deployed, or awaiting deployment, participated in "Freedom Camp" June 29 through July 3, just outside of Ruidoso, N.M. The children, ranging in age from 13 to 18, participated in rappelling, ran an obstacle course and completed mock Soldier Readiness Processing in order to understand what their parents experience. The first day, the children met at the Soldier Readiness Processing center where they underwent an administrative process like their parents go through when preparing to deploy. "They hear their parents say, 'I'm getting...

Litchfield – Litchfield school officials reacted swiftly to an outcry from parents concerned about stories students were assigned to read in a Campbell High School English class. "Some of these stories contained explicit, vulgar and gratuitous language and school administrators have determined that these stories are not appropriate for a high school curriculum," School Superintendent Elaine Cutler said in a statement yesterday. She said some stories assigned in the Short Stories class have been immediately removed from the curriculum and the entire course will be "reviewed and revised" over the summer. The statement comes one day after approximately 25 parents...

I've got two kids (12 and 10) and we are moving about 800 miles away from their friends. They want to be able to stay in touch so I am thinking about letting them have email addresses BUT with conditions. Is there a safe way to allow kids this age to surf the web and email? I just looked at my gmail spam box and I'm having second thoughts. What are your suggestions? Spam filters? Web filters? Is there a way to only allow access to specified incoming email and specified web sites? I'll take all the help I can...

PHOENIXVILLE, Pa. — Police in suburban Philadelphia say a man weary of children playing in his cul-de-sac blared a pornographic soundtrack to chase them off. Michael Buck faces a felony obscenity charge and two misdemeanors for the alleged May 31 stunt at his upscale Phoenixville home. Irate neighbors told police they could hear the sexually explicit audio a block-and-a-half away.

Mrs Ethelston's Church of England Primary School, in Uplyme, Devon, prohibited photos and video filming, claiming it was due to changes in child protection and images legislation. It is the first time the school has taken such measures.Parents criticised the move and said they felt there was no legal reason why they cannot take photos for personal use. Jane Souter, who has a son at the school and is chair of the Parents Teachers and Friends Association, said: "It is a shame but that is the way it is all going now, you are not allowed to do a lot...

A South Shore preteen band named after a Dropkick Murphys song about a drunken bruiser is getting support from their punk rock heroes as they fight for the right to perform in bars. Ken Casey, a Dropkick Murphys founding member, told the 9, 10, 11 and 12-year-old members of Barroom Heroes yesterday: We survived and so can you. “Most of the good punk songs out there are about the man keeping you down. You are not a true punk band until you’ve been shut down,” Casey said yesterday in a Herald interview before he invited members of the pint-sized band...

Hey folks I gave my brother's Christian kids album a plug in a previous post, but now it's officially available on iTunes! Videos starring the Grace Place puppets are free on the site! So far they have one Freeper fan (Thanks LongElegantLegs)! If your kids like it let me know and of course tell a friend!

WALKER, LOUISIANA - The Livingston Business & Career Solutions Center is holding its first Summer Youth Work Program. The program was made possible by federal stimulus money to help 36 youths between ages 14-24 with low income obtain employment. Along with nine other parishes, Livingston is participating in this experiment. "The goal of this program is to help children become self-sufficient," said Case Manager Virginia Dauzat. "The students work a typical 40 hour week and are paid $7.25 per hour. The jobs they have been given are mainly with the schools and in the parish libraries where they do primarily...

I've been posting here for almost 8 years so I figure I can get away with a shameless plug for my brother's just-released Christian kids album, Meet the Grace Place Kids now available for a whopping $8.99 on Amazon and soon to be on iTunes as well. The album will be followed shortly by a whole series of web videos starring some cute puppets and a good message. This is a true home grown project about 17 years in the making and some nice people are very excited about it. They are hoping to do grassroots marketing with churches, etc....

Thursday, a group of 150 kindergartners from Conway Elementary School in Stafford County, Virginia were turned away from a scheduled visit to the White House so the President could, instead, meet with the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers football team. White House spokesperson, Lisa Parvenu brushed aside the youngsters’ disappointment as “a consequence of poor timing by the school’s officials.” “Look, the President gets to visit with school kids nearly every day of the week when he’s home,” Parvenu explained. “He only gets to meet the Super Bowl winners once a year. So, I think you can understand why the...

A new propaganda video created by an extreme environmental activist is making its way into America's classrooms and The New York Times loves the whole idea. Enviro obsessive Annie Leonard, Greenpeace member and activist, has created a 20 minute video filled with anti-capitalist, anti-American propaganda to encourage kids to eschew "stuff," calling the presentation "The Story of Stuff." Leonard's propaganda piece is so anti-American she even begins her video by saying that her "friends" say she should describe the United States by using the symbol of a military tank because "it's true in many countries and increasingly in our own."...

Video: http://www.butasforme.com/2009/05/07/michelle-obama-visits-sesame-street-best-thing-ive-done-so-far/To the UN: "I'm thrilled to be here, but I was just at 'Sesame Street' -- I'm sorry," she said. "And I never thought I'd be on 'Sesame Street' with Elmo and Big Bird and I was thrilled. I'm still thrilled. I'm on a high." "I think it's probably the best thing I've done so far in the White House. But we were there talking about nutrition and healthy eating, and it's just been a thrill," Mrs. Obama said.

Children who can stay focused and don't sweat the small stuff have a better shot at good health in adulthood -- and this is especially true for girls, according to a new study.

To be fair, the child really isn't a looker. Kids have stronger grips than you realize. I can't believe this t-shirt was ever made. Oh the things you can find at a flea market. That's not so uncommon. I'm pretty sure the same picture of me as a child is floating around somewhere. Kids love clowns! They really are so flexible. They have totally different legal ages in Europe. Hey, at least he has a chair. Insert joke about "sticky situation." Pictures on sitehttp://interestingemailforwards.blogspot.com/2009/04/best-parent-in-world-nominees.html

“There’s something about a good bomb . . . night after night, day after day, each majestic scene I witnessed was so terrible and unexpected that no city would ever again stand innocently fixed in my mind.” So said William Ayers, yet another of Barack Obama’s miscreant friends. Despite the campaign’s ludicrous talking points about Obama being a mere child of eight when Ayers was planting bombs, there is no question that the relationship between Barack Obama is of long standing. Doing yeoman’s work, Stanley Kurtz has researched the Ayers/Obama connection and found that the unrepentant domestic terrorist’s tentacles run...

Leaders and representatives of the Jenin refugee camp on Saturday condemned the participation of Palestinian teenagers from the camp in a concert honoring Holocaust survivors in Holon last week. Palestinian children from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank play for Holocaust survivors at a center in Holon, last Wednesday. SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World The 13 Palestinian musicians, aged 11 to 18, are members of the Palestinian orchestra Strings of Freedom that is based in the refugee camp.

I don't know the status of parenting in America. But I know a little about the status of education in America. Parents' growing inability to impose manners and limits on their kids when the kids are in school is reflected in record dropout rates, as well as teen drug and alcohol abuse, teen sex, and unwed pregnancies. Maybe it's parenting that's on the decline, more than the schools.Exhibit A: My wife and I have just been seated for dinner when the maitre d' walks over and seats a young family at the table next to us and the kids start...

MSNBC will be showing a documentary titled: Locked and Loaded: Kids and Guns. Given that MSNBC is the most liberal, wrong headed news source originating from the USA, we know what the slant of this documentary will be. The show is scheduled to air tonight, Sunday, May 22, 2009 @ 7:00 PM PDT.

The RedEye gang discusses.

From an e-mail I recieved: I recently asked my friend's little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?' She replied, 'I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people.' Her parents beamed. 'Wow...what a worthy goal.' I told her, 'But you don't have to wait until you're President to help people. You can come over to my house and mow the...

NC military mom heads for Fort Benning with kidsBy TOM FOREMAN Jr., Associated Press Writer 13 mins ago DAVIDSON, N.C. – A North Carolina woman who was recalled to the Army four years after being honorably discharged was driving nearly 400 miles and braving a Southeastern winter storm to report for duty Sunday, with her children by her side. **SNIP** Pagan is among thousands of former service members who have left active duty since the Sept. 11 attacks, only to be recalled to service. She filed several appeals, arguing that because her husband travels for business, no one else can...

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but haven't. There was an article not to long ago in the NY Times, about Marketing Solar Panels to Fifth-Graders. 5th graders you say? Sounds like indoctrination you say? I agree. "Employees of the Sharp Electronics Corporation were at Joyce Kilmer Elementary School in Mahwah, N.J., recently to teach a lesson on climate change and renewable energy. The cartoon image of an ailing Earth — a thermometer sticking out of its mouth — was the opening slide in their presentation... “The big picture is, you really want to try to tie...

It's a case that cries for the wisdom of Solomon. On one hand, a pregnant mother of two was fatally shot in the back of the head and left to be found by her frightened 4-year-old who was alone in the house. On the other hand, an 11-year-old boy is accused of the horror, caught in limbo between adult and juvenile courts, sitting in isolation in a county lockup with little more than a cot, a sink and a commode for company. "Yeah, it's enough to make me throw up," said Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo, prosecutor of the...

No doubt there are a lot more details to come out about the murder of Kenzie Houk. Another youth, Jordan Brown, will be on trial for taking another human beings life. And a life yet to be born was taken with no chance of a future. And society, if it takes the time, will have to examine itself and ask how and why we are raising young kids to solve their problems with violence.

A nine-year-old computer programmer in Singapore has hit the top ten selling list on the iTunes store with an application called Doodle Kids.

A father allegedly threw his four-year-old daughter off a bridge in front of the girl's two young brothers and scores of motorists during rush hour in Melbourne today. Witnesses said Arthur Phillip Freeman, 35, suddenly stopped his family car – which also had his two young sons inside – and, with young Darcey Iris in his arms, walked to the side of the West Gate Bridge, just after 9 a.m. He then allegedly dropped his young daughter over the railing and into the water, 190 feet below. Shocked drivers who witnessed the incident – which police say occurred in a...

A man's children are his highest court. Even Rod Blagojevich, the strange and tragicomic governor of Illinois, seems to know this. Being condemned by your children, failing in their eyes, is the greatest fall from power. "I'll fight to the very end, first and foremost, and most importantly," Blagojevich said on "Larry King Live" the other night, "because my children need to know that their father is not the person that some of these people are trying to say that I am." "These people" is almost everybody in Illinois these days. Blagojevich, these people say, is a criminal. A clown....

"HAMAS AND THEIR SYSTEMATIC VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAWS (NOT TO MENTION BASIC HUMAN DECENCY)" "Video follows"