Thanks to whomever posted the OWL guidelines, which are much shorter and succincter than my letter, and yes, the senior minister should be involved, and most definitely the director of religious education. (Sorry--I thought that was obvious.)

Every church has conflicts of some kind, and in every denomination--Methodist, Baptist, or UU--you'll find churches that are themselves dysfunctional in one way or another. Personally, I've never been part of a Unitarian church that, whatever petty feuding might go on between certain members, didn't, as a whole, adhere to the guiding principles of the UUA and take them very seriously. The most important of these is seeing and respecting the dignity and worth inherent in every person, and it's not hard to see that this needs to be a priority for RE teachers.

The situation the LW described is probably pretty damn rare, all things considered, and it would be rarer still for the DRE not to act appropriately in response--the swift actions of our religions education minister would probably be very much the norm. After the incident, everything was absolutely fine. At the end of the year, the kids and their parents wrote us lovely notes--some of them thanking us for making them feel safe and giving them the confidence to talk about things that were sometimes hard to discuss. We knew all the parents very well, and they knew and trusted us--in fact, they usually came in and talked to us at the end of class. It was critical to us to have their trust and support.

That people get into teaching for the absolute wrong reasons happens everywhere, and I'm sure that for every flaky wacko found in a UU church, there are ten with equally freaky ideas teaching Sunday school in Christian congregations. It can be prevented. Instead of slamming the OWL curriculum, get involved--get on your RE or Sunday School committee, volunteer yourself to teach or help in the classroom, and above all, get to know your children's teachers as well as possible. And if a church is too screwed up for you to do this, then leave, but don't blame it on the denomination.

What if she just turned on her favorite episode of Springer and left the room? What that be abusive, too?

No. But Montel Williams? I'd be calling CPS in a heartbeat.

I'm amused by and a bit embarrassed for all those people (mostly middle-class) who want the status associated with parenthood but who haven't quite come to terms with the fact that they can no longer live as though they don't have children. Recent Broadsheet postings have mentioned issues involving screaming children on long plane trips and free admission for infants to expensive theatre productions--both of which allow a certain kind of parent to continue to delude themselves that having children hasn't drastically altered their lives. Or the Patron Saint of Self-Delusion Herself, Caitlin Flanagan, who advocates that mothers stay at home and devote themselves to childrearing and housework, but who appears proud of the fact that she knows neither how to cook or do laundry and couldn't even get her sons through toddlerhood without a nanny. And the SUV stampede of the last several years--it has less to do with being safe and more to do with not driving a minivan, which just screams domesticity. Oh, and have you heard about the $85 designer diaper bag designed not to look like a diaper bag?

That's about as pathetic as married middle-aged guys on business trips who take off their wedding rings and pretend to be single.

Raising a kid is hard work and requires sacrifice. It sounds as though these younger men and women have grasped this, at the same time that their counterparts in their 30s and 40s are wringing their hands and whining all over the Style section of the New York Times and the bestseller section at Borders about how haaaarrrrd it is and how they had to give up their identities and lives and so forth and why are all those mean-spirited people in the expensive restaurants giving them dirty looks when they bring their "quietly fussing" broods in, anyways? Doubtless some of these kids will in fact change their minds ( pace my childfree compatriots), but I like to think they'll be going into it with their eyes open...and that, as a result, they'll be better parents.

I think what annoys me most is the idea that Cruise believes (as so many other people do) that maturation is signalled by childbearing.

I worry about that kid, I really do. And I'm not talking about the baby.

Actually, I can just see the thoughts forming in his little brain..."Huhuhuhuhuh, this is funny--oops, right, I'm the target--we are not amused!"