If I were designing sex ed classes, after all the up to date biology, disease, birth control, and so on, I'd have a whole section on the economics of teen pregnancy. Show them how much child care costs. What it costs to feed, clothe, transport, etc. a baby. How much quality child care costs. What they're likely to earn in their futures with more education. Run the numbers--no high school diploma, diploma only, post-high school certificate (like hairdressing, vet tech, trades, etc... licensed professions that don't require college), 2-year college, 4-year college. I had to take a completely useless, badly taught "Personal Finance" class in high school. I'd make that over into "Personal Finance and Pregnancy".

Teens are smart. Much smarter than we give them credit for. Give them the information. All of it, in complete un-varnished truth. I'm still convinced that if we provide them with good information, continually, they'll use it.

Shame isn't necessary. Information is.

I know with my own elementary school aged kids, they're far more likely to follow a rule if they understand WHY that rule is there. "Because I said so" isn't good enough. Yes, they still forget, they're still careless, thoughtless kids sometimes. But they understand a lot more than I think they're capable of.

For the first time in living memory, I have a candidate who looks like me. No, I'm not a black man (I'm a white woman). But in the ways that count, I can identify with Obama.

He's a parent of young children.

He's closer to my age than anyone running.

He's traveled internationally, and most important, he's LIVED abroad for parts of his life.

When he got an advance for one of his books, he used the money to pay off his law school loans--he understands what it means to be in debt for school.

His wife is an accomplished, professional woman--he understands what it means to be half of a two-career family.

He has the guts to be idealistic about what America can be, not what it has been. I haven't had the hope to be idealistic about government for a long, long time.

Viva Obama!

"Please put on your own oxygen mask before you assist your child."

The message: you can't take care of a child properly if you can't breathe yourself. Your child needs you to be a breathing, functioning, parenting adult, and you need to do what you must to provide that.

Only you can decide what you need to do... not family members who are not living in your shoes or in your house. It seems that you already know this. Your priorities are straight--your child comes first, not your partner. What you need to do to protect your child, financially and emotionally, are your first priority.

Good luck.

For some reason, that one article burned itself into my consciousness. I discovered, like many people, that I have re-usable canvas shopping bags tucked all over the house... they're now all by the front door where I can grab one (or a stack) when I go out. My goal for 2008 is to become a nearly bag-less family... if I can just convince my husband to use them. I even invested in four plain black (aka manly) reusable bags.

What I've discovered is that the reusable bags don't tear, they don't fall apart in a rainstorm, and they don't clutter up the pantry.

I bought a couple of collapsible string bags, one of which lives in my purse.

That Salon article has made me see a vision of jellyfish and sea turtles dining and dying on plastic bags.

I'm out here in the burbs, where my nearest shopping is a mile and a half away, with incomplete bike paths, inconvenient sidewalks, intermittent buses, and not enough crosswalks. And even if the transport was easier, I don't know many people willing to walk a mile and a half with shopping bags.

But just wait. I could propose closer shopping, changing the beloved pattern of the suburbs with our acres and acres of car-centered neighborhoods. Notice that the shopping is always somewhere else, (near the apartments, where the "undesirables" live). But if I even proposed such a change, you'd hear the screaming all the way to the next state.

WHAT? You want a row of shops HERE??? Next to MY house??? So THOSE people will walk down MY street? Are you KIDDING??? But what about MY property values? Who will compensate ME when the value of MY house goes down?

The truth is, we would rather drive ourselves into armageddon, inventing the next more fabulous transportation device that uses resources in ridiculously selfish ways (steel... copper... rubber... plastic... before you even get to the fuel) rather than actually change the fabric of our neighborhoods.

We can't just abandon the suburbs, that would be beyond wasteful. There's too much infrastructure here. But we can't just keep building cars to get us to somewhere else.