A few months ago, I wrote that, by 1979 standards, your first-grader is probably emotionally and physically stunted. Indeed, according to education expert Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D., here are the 1979 prerequisites for 1st grade:
1. Will your child be six years, six months or older when he begins first grade and starts receiving reading instruction?
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I am so on-board with the whole "teach men not to rape" thing, it's not even funny. It's something I wrote about in The Stanford Kink Klub Has The Healthiest Sex on Campus - Here's Why, and again in The Secret "Catcalls" of Educated White Men - My Problem With "Pickup Artists." It's not because I "hate men" -- it's because I think a lot of men sincerely do not understand the definition of rape. They honestly don't get that getting a woman intoxicated and taking advantage of her is illegal. They honestly don't understand that trying something sexually, over and over, until she gives up and stops saying no (quite possibly because she's now very intimidated) -- but still hasn't said yes! -- is an ambiguous form of sexual assault.
But you know what I'm not on-board with? People who get offended by well-meaning advice about how to avoid getting raped. Because you know what? An inevitable part of rape culture is that women learn dysfunctional behaviors that increase their likelihood of being taken advantage of -- starting at a very young age. For example, being polite. Girls are taught to be polite, often with disastrous results. No one says it better than Tina Fey in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. After being abducted and locked in a bunker for fifteen years, Kimmy Schmidt and three other survivors appear on the Today show. Matt Lauer asks one of the women about her kidnapping. She replies, I had waited on Reverend Richard at a York Steak House I worked at, and one night he invited me out to his car to see some baby rabbits, and I didn’t want to be rude, so…here we are.
Graduating from college and officially entering adulthood is exciting... but many recent grads are surprised by how much harder it is to make friends outside of school than it was in school. And it's true -- kids make friends way more easily than adults. For a zillion reasons: some you can help, some you can't.
I've spent some time thinking about the best possible way to make more friends -- when you travel, as a child, as an adult. And here are some of my favorites.
***
1. Ask for favors. Research shows that one of the best ways to make someone like you... is to ask them for a favor.
Last night, a real estate developer gave the nation his expert opinion... on medicine. During the GOP candidates' debate, Trump argued a link between autism and vaccines, despite the fact that medical studies have widely shown there is no proven link between the two. Experts call his claim "false," "dangerous," "damaging" and "repugnant."
I, too, am appalled. And I just can't stop asking myself, "Why is a real estate developer giving medical advice?"
Update: Inspired by the response this post has generated, there is now a Facebook group for feminists who have been Banned by Everyday Feminism.
Anyone who's read my blog knows I'm a feminist. With posts like Guns Don't Kill Women - Male Entitlement Kills Women, For the Love of God, STOP Asking Women if They're Okay, Advantages of Traveling While Female, and The Real Reason Women "Spend So Much Time In The Bathroom", it would be pretty hard to argue that I stand for anything BUT equality and empowerment.
And yet... I've been blocked from commenting on Everyday Feminism's Facebook posts, which they pay good money to promote on my feed. I was not trying to sell their readers Viagra or Louboutins. I wasn't trying to teach anyone how they can make $1,000 per week working from home! I wasn't being mean or calling anyone names. All I said is that maybe, JUST MAYBE, the reason a doctor didn't diagnose an overweight 19-year-old with lung cancer... was because it's exceedingly rare for teenagers to get lung cancer. And not because he was "medical fat shaming."
As everyone who reads The Happy Talent (hopefully) knows, I do some really cool life coaching and college consulting work at my company, Paved With Verbs. Sometimes, when brainstorming ideas for college essays, a student will ask me, "What did you write about? How did you stand out when you applied to Stanford?"
The answer... is scuba diving. I've loved diving ever since I was old enough to pass as a 12-year-old (the minimum age to participate in Discover Diving programs). So maybe since I was nine? I got certified as soon as I was old enough for a PADI Junior Open Water Diver Certification, and began spending summers at ActionQuest, a summer camp in the British Virgin Islands, where I earned my Advanced Open Water Diver, Underwater Naturalist, Underwater Navigator, Search and Recovery and Rescue Diver specialties (in addition to Red Cross CPR for the Professional Rescuer, DAN Oxygen Administrator, and other first aid certs).
Best. Summer camp. EVER.
Cosmo recently published “People Judge Me Because I’m Pretty,” by Felicia Czochanski. Predictably, the Internet is ENRAGED. Not because Felicia’s article kind of totally misses the point (catcalling isn’t about physical attraction – it’s about gross ass creeps exerting power and control over women – more about that later)…
but because a woman had the NERVE to self-identify as beautiful.
Graduating from college and officially entering adulthood is exciting... but many recent grads are surprised by how much harder it is to make friends outside of school than it was in school. And it's true -- kids make friends way more easily than adults. For a zillion reasons: some you can help, some you can't.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about the best possible way to make more friends -- when you travel, as a child, as an adult. And this is probably THE NUMBER ONE WAY to make new friends as an adult: ***
The 1790s will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking. Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft. We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs. It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead. -- Billy Collins, "Nostalgia"
In the 19th century (which is basically the 1790s), human dissections were showcased to the public. They were featured as an evening highlight of education mixed with entertainment.
For artists, familiarity with internal anatomy is indescribably helpful when drawing bodies, whether they are animals, clothed people, or video-game monsters. Enter Patreon. |
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