children

Smile you’re on Deadbeat Camera

01/27/2007 by Debra

The Ontario government has decided to post your picture and personal information if you don’t pay up on your child support.

the website will include names, physical descriptions, last known addresses and occupations.

While I am unsympathetic to those who can and simply refuse to pay child support, there can be legitimate reasons why support payments have fallen behind. And we all know that the government is famous for mistakes.

They do apparently rely on the permission of the person owed the money, however, many people involved in these situations are quite adversarial and so might consider the smack at a former spouse before all else.

I think we are becoming far too comfortable with the idea of stealing peoples privacy “for the greater good”.

Cameras everywhere, more and more stringent ID requirements, less privacy and fewer civil rights.

These are easy targets, of course, who doesn’t want parents to fulfil their obligations? But if we do not protect the rights of those who we may feel do not deserve them, we set up easy inroads to take away the rights of those that we feel do.

We may agree that it is easier to prosecute if a crime has been captured on video. But do we agree that all our movements should be recorded?

Where does the line between defence and offence blur?

The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative

01/17/2007 by Debra

OTTAWA – The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative – a proposal to make safe and healthy food available to all of Canada’s children – will help working families address real concerns relating to childhood obesity and malnutrition.
NDP children’s advocate Olivia Chow (Trinity Spadina) says the initiative calls for universal nutritious food programs to make breakfasts, snacks or lunches available to any child in Canada under the age of 18, in venues deemed most appropriate by each local community. This initiative will mean that no Canadian child will go to school hungry.
The initiative was unveiled today in Ottawa by a group of concerned Canadians led by Chow, Dr. Robert Cushman, former Medical Officer of Health for the City of Ottawa, and Ulla Knowles, a parent and Student Nutrition Facilitator at FoodShare Toronto.

Providing children with nutritious food has a long history.

Today most countries provide for at least one good meal per day. There has been some success here with school breakfast programs but they depend heavily on support from corporations who are not likely to be providing fruits and cheese and other foods children may not have access to at home.

[Read more…]

Victory for same sex parents

01/02/2007 by Debra

An Ontario court has ruled a boy can legally have two mom’s and a dad.

TORONTO — An Ontario boy can legally have two mothers and a father, the province’s highest court ruled Tuesday.
The same-sex partner of the child’s biological mother went to court seeking to also be declared a mother of the boy.
After hearing arguments in 2003, Superior Court Justice David Aston dismissed the application saying he didn’t have the jurisdiction to rule in the case.
Court was told the child has three parents: his biological father and mother (identified in court documents as B.B. and C.C., respectively) and C.C.’s partner, the appellant A.A.
Related to this article
A.A. and C.C. have been in a stable same-sex union since 1990. In 1999, they decided to start a family with the assistance of their friend B.B.
The two women would be the primary caregivers of the child, but they believed it would be in the child’s best interests that B.B. remain involved in the child’s life.

How wonderful for this child to have such caring parents.

Away in a manger

12/24/2006 by Debra

Christmas Eve many focus on a birth of long ago, and so I give you a story of birth.

From the Independent

In two days, a third of humanity will gather to celebrate the birth pains of a Palestinian refugee in Bethlehem – but two millennia later, another mother in another glorified stable in this rubble-strewn, locked-down town is trying not to howl.
Fadia Jemal is a gap-toothed 27-year-old with a weary, watery smile. “What would happen if the Virgin Mary came to Bethlehem today? She would endure what I have endured,” she says.
Fadia clutches a set of keys tightly, digging hard into her skin as she describes in broken, jagged sentences what happened. “It was 5pm when I started to feel the contractions coming on,” she says. She was already nervous about the birth – her first, and twins – so she told her husband to grab her hospital bag and get her straight into the car.
They stopped to collect her sister and mother and set out for the Hussein Hospital, 20 minutes away. But the road had been blocked by Israeli soldiers, who said nobody was allowed to pass until morning. “Obviously, we told them we couldn’t wait until the morning. I was bleeding very heavily on the back seat. One of the soldiers looked down at the blood and laughed. I still wake up in the night hearing that laugh. It was such a shock to me. I couldn’t understand.”
Her family begged the soldiers to let them through, but they would not relent. So at 1am, on the back seat next to a chilly checkpoint with no doctors and no nurses, Fadia delivered a tiny boy called Mahmoud and a tiny girl called Mariam. “I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in the hospital,” she says now. For two days, her family hid it from her that Mahmoud had died, and doctors said they could “certainly” have saved his life by getting him to an incubator.

Wheel of misfortune

12/15/2006 by Debra

Italy has revived the medieval practice of establishing special depositories where parents can safely and anonymously abandon their unwanted newborn babies.
From the as far back as the 8th century, it was common for desperate mothers to lay an unwanted child on a wooden wheel, which was half inside the wall of a convent and half outside. This allowed mothers to leave their babies without been seen.
Today’s version of the so-called “foundling wheel,” follows the same concept, but has been updated. The new foundling wheel offers a heated cradle area and is located half inside the Casilino hospital in Rome.

Some would ponder why we are still using medieval concepts to deal with women’s issues. Some might ponder the circumstances of these pregnancies, the emotional after care of the mothers and children.

Others might say

“It represents an intelligent and efficient way for social structures to face dramatic situations…it follows the call of all those struggling to give children, women and all those who live in difficult conditions, equal opportunities and dignity,” Turco said in a statement.

huh.

Here’s a list of things that contribute to equal rights and dignity see if you can find the one that doesn’t seem to belong;

Obviously this is better than a child being left in the street but rights and dignity?

I don’t think so.

Feel good gifting

12/10/2006 by Debra

Came across this story today.

Amamanta, Spanish for breastfeeding, is a blend of two words that mean love and protection.
It is also the name of a doll family whose members may appeal to holiday shoppers looking beyond the latest Barbie or Bratz doll for a present that’s non-hazardous to body image and can also educate about how babies are made, born and nurtured.
Each 16-inch cloth adult Amamanta doll has genitals and pubic hair, and the mother doll features breasts that can be snapped onto the baby doll’s mouth to help reinforce the importance of breastfeeding.
“I wish children to be happy and grow with the idea that sexuality is important and is part of our lives,” says Margarita Maria Mesa Leal, owner of the company that makes the dolls. Leal hand sews dolls herself, in addition to employing 27 local women in Medellin, Colombia, all of them mothers.
Dolls aren’t cheap; an individual can be purchased for $39 or a family for up to $199. Leal didn’t go into the particulars of what she pays her workers, but she says these prices allow her to pay a living wage and use only high quality materials.

Fantastic too that they show proper birthing, breastfeeding and come in multi racial/cultural varieties.

Giving a great gift, supporting small business, supporting ethical business, now that says christmas! [Read more…] about Feel good gifting