Free Republic

Competitive Parenting 1-A http://fetchingjen.blogspot.com/2007/05/competitive-parenting-1.html http://tinyurl.com/2q3zwh By KATY GRIMES, Sacramento Union Columnist Thursday, May 24, 2007 (online) Friday, May 18, 2007 (paper edition) (Sacramento Union) When did parenting become America's most competitive adult sport? Outrageous stories from parents all around Sacramento abound, from parents behaving badly at kids competitive sports events to academic competitiveness. Competitive parenting is out-of-control. Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a world where children could play at being children. …playing fields for games of soccer, baseball and capture-the-flag; and tight-knit neighborhoods where kids played hide-and-go-seek and red-rover until it was dark…...

Last week, recently resigned Sacramento Union Publisher James Smith went public with his claim that a member of the McClatchy family--the clan that owns The Sacramento Bee--is threatening editorial diversity in the River City. The Union, a venerable newspaper that until 1994 provided a second daily news dose in town, was resurrected last year as a fledgling Internet site and sort-of-monthly glossy magazine. Smith, a longtime newspaper exec who revived the name, promised that the Union would again be a conservative alternative to the Bee. When the Union announced last year that it would begin publishing a monthly magazine, 4,000...