...and my two teens (17 and almost 15) and almost teen (11) are much more interesting than the teens I planned on! I love their choices in clothes, too: my son likes skater shoes, jeans, and black t-shirts with band names on them (or sometimes purple or green) and has the same bowl haircut that most of the boys in his school have that almost-but-not-quite defies the dress code, and my daughter wears cargo pants, layers of shirts topped off by a down vest, and Crocs. Today she informed me that she's wearing 19 "wish" bracelets that she made in different styles of contrasting colors of embroidery floss. Today's "jewelry" is a necklace made of a "recycled" bottle cap with some sort of decoration imbedded in it, she has a couple of campaign style buttons with slogans attached to her clothes, and sometimes she braids her hair into zillions of little braids for a day or so, and then unbraids it into a mass of crinkles for another day. The youngest copies her sister except prefers that her hair be cut very short, and (unlike sis) loves wearing dance clothes like skirted leotards or long filmy dresses. Or maybe she raids sister's closet for black plush gaucho pants, wide leather belt, white shirt, and embroidered vest.
Deborah
p.s. Tonight son was cooking his own grilled cheese sandwich when his sisters and I came home from a moonlight visit to a coffee shop. Wow! And he's decided to (His youngest sister produced a blackberry pie without a recipe at seven, and that's probably at least a decade in the future for him, but still...I do love being the parent of teens! Scary and exciting at the same time.)
Not to mention we do our young people a certain amount of disservice by not teaching them this.
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this statement. I think if a young person is going to be working in a more creative, liberal environment, their clothing choice isn't going to be as important as if they were to work on Wall St. Also, how do you know what a young person wears at the grocery store on the weekend is the same as what s/he wears to a more professional setting. I know that I tend to wear sweat pants to the grocery store which I would definitely not wear to a business meeting. I think it's more important to teach them that their is a time and a place for everything, as opposed to teaching them they have to look a certain way all the time.
<<...and my two teens (17 and almost 15) and almost teen (11) are much more interesting than the teens I planned on! I love their choices in clothes, too: >>
My 13yo is fascinating when she isn't infuriating.
I haven't waded through all the replies yet (my power was out for much of this debate from ice storm). But as I'm reading this, I'm surprised to say that I agree a little with Karen.
I just keep thinking about the cohousing community I used to live in. Cohousing is a planned community where people want to get to know their neighbors, and share certain "common spaces" like a community dining room, den, kids room, etc. We had about 10 common spaces for use by the entire community. THe first year after we moved in, I was extremely upset to find that one of our community members did not want any Christmas decorations of any kind in any common spaces. This family was Jewish and said they felt bombarded by Christmas.
Now, I can understand that, but at the same time, it seems to me that it was in a way promoting intolerance of Christmas. I was looking forward to celebrating the various religions' holidays that our community members observed, all of them, including Christmas, and instead was not allowed even a Christmas tree.
Basically I think every religion should be allowed to celebrate and no one should get mad or offended just because a lot of people celebrate Christmas and want to say things like Merry Christmas. It does seem to me that Christmas gets singled out as being offensive, and that's okay, but if someone says anything against, for example, Hanukkah, that is intolerant or offensive.
I'll admit, I didn't watch the clip in the OP. So, I'm not sure what the original intent of this topic was, but as it's developed over 250 posts, I see 2 issues here:
1. whether or not religious observation (such as a nativity scene or lighting of a menorah) should be permitted on government land and/or paid for with government money. My answer to that would be no, on all counts.
2. Should people get mad or offended when someone says Merry Christmas, or does their own private observation of Christmas, in whatever form that may take. It seems to me a lot of people do get offended, like they're being personally wronged. That seems wrong to me. I think there are a lot of people that get mad at their neighbor's nativity scene. Why shouldn't their neighbor be able to put a nativity scene on their own property without someone getting offended?
I just posted that I agree too. I was tired of wading through the posts, seeing no one say what I was thinking. I should have waded a bit further to find your post.
>>2. Should people get mad or offended when someone says Merry Christmas, or does their own private observation of Christmas, in whatever form that may take. It seems to me a lot of people do get offended, like they're being personally wronged. That seems wrong to me. I think there are a lot of people that get mad at their neighbor's nativity scene. Why shouldn't their neighbor be able to put a nativity scene on their own property without someone getting offended?<<
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...and my two teens (17 and almost 15) and almost teen (11) are much more interesting than the teens I planned on! I love their choices in clothes, too: my son likes skater shoes, jeans, and black t-shirts with band names on them (or sometimes purple or green) and has the same bowl haircut that most of the boys in his school have that almost-but-not-quite defies the dress code, and my daughter wears cargo pants, layers of shirts topped off by a down vest, and Crocs. Today she informed me that she's wearing 19 "wish" bracelets that she made in different styles of contrasting colors of embroidery floss. Today's "jewelry" is a necklace made of a "recycled" bottle cap with some sort of decoration imbedded in it, she has a couple of campaign style buttons with slogans attached to her clothes, and sometimes she braids her hair into zillions of little braids for a day or so, and then unbraids it into a mass of crinkles for another day. The youngest copies her sister except prefers that her hair be cut very short, and (unlike sis) loves wearing dance clothes like skirted leotards or long filmy dresses. Or maybe she raids sister's closet for black plush gaucho pants, wide leather belt, white shirt, and embroidered vest.
Deborah
p.s. Tonight son was cooking his own grilled cheese sandwich when his sisters and I came home from a moonlight visit to a coffee shop. Wow! And he's decided to (His youngest sister produced a blackberry pie without a recipe at seven, and that's probably at least a decade in the future for him, but still...I do love being the parent of teens! Scary and exciting at the same time.)
Not to mention we do our young people a certain amount of disservice by not teaching them this.
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this statement. I think if a young person is going to be working in a more creative, liberal environment, their clothing choice isn't going to be as important as if they were to work on Wall St. Also, how do you know what a young person wears at the grocery store on the weekend is the same as what s/he wears to a more professional setting. I know that I tend to wear sweat pants to the grocery store which I would definitely not wear to a business meeting. I think it's more important to teach them that their is a time and a place for everything, as opposed to teaching them they have to look a certain way all the time.
Clothing is different than religion, religion is different than
I totally agree.
<<...and my two teens (17 and almost 15) and almost teen (11) are much more interesting than the teens I planned on! I love their choices in clothes, too: >>
My 13yo is fascinating when she isn't infuriating.
I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure
I haven't waded through all the replies yet (my power was out for much of this debate from ice storm). But as I'm reading this, I'm surprised to say that I agree a little with Karen.
I just keep thinking about the cohousing community I used to live in. Cohousing is a planned community where people want to get to know their neighbors, and share certain "common spaces" like a community dining room, den, kids room, etc. We had about 10 common spaces for use by the entire community. THe first year after we moved in, I was extremely upset to find that one of our community members did not want any Christmas decorations of any kind in any common spaces. This family was Jewish and said they felt bombarded by Christmas.
Now, I can understand that, but at the same time, it seems to me that it was in a way promoting intolerance of Christmas. I was looking forward to celebrating the various religions' holidays that our community members observed, all of them, including Christmas, and instead was not allowed even a Christmas tree.
Basically I think every religion should be allowed to celebrate and no one should get mad or offended just because a lot of people celebrate Christmas and want to say things like Merry Christmas. It does seem to me that Christmas gets singled out as being offensive, and that's okay, but if someone says anything against, for example, Hanukkah, that is intolerant or offensive.
My Blog--Another Day Another Grey Hair
Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com
I'll admit, I didn't watch the clip in the OP. So, I'm not sure what the original intent of this topic was, but as it's developed over 250 posts, I see 2 issues here:
1. whether or not religious observation (such as a nativity scene or lighting of a menorah) should be permitted on government land and/or paid for with government money. My answer to that would be no, on all counts.
2. Should people get mad or offended when someone says Merry Christmas, or does their own private observation of Christmas, in whatever form that may take. It seems to me a lot of people do get offended, like they're being personally wronged. That seems wrong to me. I think there are a lot of people that get mad at their neighbor's nativity scene. Why shouldn't their neighbor be able to put a nativity scene on their own property without someone getting offended?
My Blog--Another Day Another Grey Hair
Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com
My Blog--Another Day Another Grey Hair
Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com
>>2. Should people get mad or offended when someone says Merry Christmas, or does their own private observation of Christmas, in whatever form that may take. It seems to me a lot of people do get offended, like they're being personally wronged. That seems wrong to me. I think there are a lot of people that get mad at their neighbor's nativity scene. Why shouldn't their neighbor be able to put a nativity scene on their own property without someone getting offended?<<
Who are these people?
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I'd agree if your community voted to not allow Christmas but to allow other religious decorations in the common spaces.
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