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Links to Think: 04.16.12

April 16, 2012 in child training, human rights, links, parenting, pregnancy and birth, quotes, Resources with 0 Comments

Rethinking Tattling - A thoughtful article on working to communicate with our children when they “tattle,” rather than simply viewing their attempts to communicate as an annoyance.

“Few other things irritate adults as quickly at a tattle-tale. The kneejerk response is often “Stop tattling” or “Handle it yourself’ or even to punish the little tattler. But what is being communicated? What is a child actually trying to say when they tattle, and what is a child actually hearing by our response?

Tattling is, in effect, a child seeking wise counsel for a situation they don’t know how to handle. When faced with a conflict that just weeks or months earlier would have resulted in tears or snatching or hitting or some combination of all three, a child who has matured and begun to develop some self-control is learning to stop and think instead of just react. But what do they do if no solution presents itself? What if they’ve tried to reason or negotiate with the object of their conflict and been unable to come to a resolution?”

“When a child approaches a trusted adult with a problem, the child is saying, “This is important. Hear me. Help me.” This is a wonderful opportunity to guide the child through the process of conflict resolution. So often we relegate life skills such as conflict resolution to textbooks and worksheets, if we address them at all. But learning is far more powerful and effective if it is tied to real-life, real-time issues that are important to us, that impact our lives, that matter.”

Afghanistan sees rise in ‘dancing boys’ exploitation - Readers of The Kite Runner will be somewhat familiar with this aspect of Afghan culture (as portrayed through Hassan’s orphaned and abused son, Sohrab). This is a sad plight for a growing number of boys in Afghanistan that will hopefully gain greater exposure and push for an end to this practice.

““You cannot take wives everywhere with you,” he said, referring to the gender segregation in social settings that is traditional in Afghanistan. “You cannot take a wife with you to a party, but a boy you can take anywhere.””

“Although the practice is thought to be more widespread in conservative rural areas, it has become common in Kabul. Mohammed Fahim, a videographer who films the lavish weddings in the capital, estimated that one in every five weddings he attends in Kabul features dancing boys.”

The hot names of 2012, revealed - I always find baby naming trends to be a fascinating study (though this one isn’t a particularly scientific analysis), and with our own baby’s arrival expected next month, I found this interesting.

“Baby names 2012 are already proving to be very different from last year’s choices, with The Hunger Games taking over from Twilight as the primary cultural influence on names, the hottest boys’ names taking a cue from the girls, and musical names trumping Hollywood for inspiration.”

Your Children Want You! - Since the majority of these links seem to be in connection with parenting/mothering, I might as well link to an article that seemed to be going viral last week, in case anyone missed it. (Of course, this is a great reminder for dads, too, though they might not find themselves feeling badly that they haven’t made flower-shaped soap. :) )

“There’s something deeper going on in family life than can ever be expressed on a social network. Whatever it is we feel we are lacking, can we collectively decide–as deliberate mothers–that we are not going to sit around feeling discouraged about all the things we’re not?

Can we remind each other that it is our uniqueness and love that our children long for? It is our voices. Our smiles. Our jiggly tummies. Of course we want to learn, improve, exercise, cook better, make our homes lovelier, and provide beautiful experiences for our children, but at the end of the day, our children don’t want a discouraged, stressed-out mom who is wishing she were someone else.

If you ever find yourself looking in the mirror at a woman who feels badly that she hasn’t yet made flower-shaped soap, please offer her this helpful reminder: “Your children want you!”

Related: Johanna offers some helpful, related insite on her post, “Jealous? Overwhelmed? Or Inspired?“

Reading 2012: In the Garden of Beasts

March 13, 2012 in 2012 Reading, biographies, human rights with 0 Comments

Erik Larson gives readers a front row seat to the unfolding of Hitler’s rise of terror in his book In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin.

Continue Reading…

Reading 2012: The Orphan Master’s Son and The Aquariums of Pyongyang

February 28, 2012 in 2012 Reading, books, human rights, quotes, reading with 3 Comments

I recently finished two books about North Korea. One is a novel, the other a biographical account of one man’s life, imprisonment, and defection from North Korea. While human rights and social justice are frequent subjects I study, these two books were of particular interest to me because they take place in North Korea, just across the border from where my husband was born (South Korea) and where my in-laws currently reside.

The Orphan Master’s Son

Adam Smith takes years of research and investigation of North Korea, and brings them to life in his novel, The Orphan Master’s Son, currently a New York Times bestseller.  Through the life of Pak Jun Do, readers hear more than just the story of a boy, then man, searching for his identity. The use of propaganda by Kim Jong Il’s totalitarian regime is an inescapable theme that is well-woven into this story, as the audience is daily reminded that North Korea is “the greatest democratic nation in the world, with the greatest ruler in the world,” while the actual story reveals the opposite. Pak Jun Do’s life takes him from assumed orphan-boy, tunnel soldier, government kidnapper, hero-fisherman, traveler to America, prison miner, and lover of the national actress. Gradually he moves from doing whatever his government demands of him to finding out who he really is, even if it means loss of life.

The plot is fascinating and the reader hardly knows which direction it will take next. While there is usually little question that what is fiction in the story is likely fact for a majority of North Korean citizens, the final portion of the book does seem a bit of a stretch. Readers may also wish to be warned that this book does include some colorful language and some graphic depictions of human suffering. Halfway through the book, the narrator of the story changes and then switches back and forth between his thoughts and narration and Pak Jun Do’s. This can be slightly confusing at first, but certainly adds to the novel.

 

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

The story of Kang Chol-hwan’s life in North Korea in The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag is “the first extended account of a young adult’s life in contemporary North Korea.” Although Kang Chol-Hwan’s family lived a life of relative comfort and wealth in comparison to many of his fellow citizens, it did not exclude his family from being deported to 10 years of grueling life in the prison camp of Yodok, where they lived in mud huts and worked in dangerous job assignments. Children were not excluded from prison camp life; Kang Chol-Hwan was 9 years old at the time they arrived, and his sister was only 7 years old. Yet in many ways, their family was still kept from some of the harsher conditions and punishments that others endured.

The first portion of the book provides helpful background details to the Korean War, the division between North and South Korea, and the history of the North Korean government. It also provides important history of Kang Chol-Hwan’s family, his grandparents’ comfortable life in Japan as part of the Chosen Soren, their eventual move back to North Korea, and a growing disillusionment over the promises they’d been made by the government over their return. (It was also the aid of the Kang’s family in Japan that made their survival after release from prison possible.)

The main portion of the book deals with Kang Chol-Hwan’s life in the Yodok concentration camp. Similar to The Orphan Master’s Son, this book shows the powerful role propaganda plays in North Korea. Not surprisingly, those who were sent to the prison camps for the purpose of “re-education” left (or died there) with much less confidence in the North Korean government than what they entered it with. The this book depicts a dark story in a dark place, Kang shares some his happier moments and reflects on his life in a prison camp, too.

The final portion of the book follows the family’s release from the concentration camp, their difficult reintegration into North Korean society, and Kang’s defection from North Korea into China and eventually South Korea. In this newer addition, Kang also notes that his story is over 10 years old (now 20 years old, as his escape was in 1992) and that stories and defectors are indicating that life in North Korea has become far worse than what Kang saw and experienced.

If you don’t have any previous interest in North Korea, I still recommend reading this book if for nothing more than awareness. And like  Pierre Rigoulot, Kang’s co-author wrote in the book, ”Reading this book is a first step toward making the repression in North Korea a major concern for human rights defenders around the world.”