When my son was 2, he used to play with dolls. Now at 5, he wouldn’t be caught anywhere near one.

I never discouraged him to stop playing with dolls – in fact, I prefer them to the superhero action figures – but somewhere along the line, he got the message somewhere that only girls play with dolls.

Earlier this month on the website for Mothering magazine, writer Joe Troxell discussed how his wife bought a cotton doll for their son when he was just an infant. She named the doll “Ollie.”

“I tried to look as expressionless as the limp Ollie in my hand,” Troxell wrote in his essay, “Real Boys Play With Dolls.” “Nathan was not yet a year old. In the next few years there would be plenty of time to undo this affront to his masculinity. It would mean I would just have to buy him his first BB gun sooner than I’d expected, or start giving him baseball cards and sporting equipment at every religious holiday—even holidays I’d never heard of before.”

Troxell wrote about growing up in the rural south and learning traditional gender roles. So he was frustrated to see his son take to the doll and eventually bring Ollie wherever he went as a toddler.

Over time, however, he discovered that his “aversion to my son’s playing with a doll might be based on obsolete traditions that no longer served their original purposes.” When he asked his wife if there were any benefits to having boys play with dolls, she replied: “Do you want Nathan to someday grow up and be a good dad? … So he’ll need to have qualities like compassion, sensitivity, and patience, as well as some practical experience with things like holding a baby, right?”

Troxell explores the issue in his essay and comes to this conclusion: “In a culture that often equates masculinity with violence and exploitative behavior, I can think of no better toy for a young boy than a doll to help him model kindness and responsibility for his actions. … If we want the next generation of men to be good fathers, compassionate citizens, and sensitive leaders, perhaps this process begins with something as simple and as countercultural as a childhood doll.”

How about you? Did your sons play with dolls?

When a friend asked me what I was up to these days, I gave her a sample of my usual “to do” list.

“Mothers have always quilted,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s what women have to do survive.”

I don’t like to sew and would never have the time to actually make a quilt, but what my friend described as “quilting” in this case is what many women have been forced to do in order to balance work, family and other obligations – especially in an economy like we have today.

Many of us no longer have a choice, so we try to be creative with our time and resources. I know moms who have launched their own businesses, moms who work two or more part-time jobs, moms who weave income-generating work in between caring for their kids by putting their hours in early in the morning, during naptimes and then again late at night.

My own quilt is a huge mess right now – a little uneven and patched with scraps that have no foreseeable pattern. When people ask me what I do these days, I tell them I teach a little, I write a little, I go to classes at night, I take good care of my kids.

In other words, I juggle like a growing number of moms. It’s what we do to survive.

Volunteering as a family provides quality time for busy families, strengthens communication and promotes cooperation, according to the Corporation for National & Community Service.

For many families, the experience also increases problem-solving skills while enabling parents and older siblings to be role models to the younger ones. It can be as simple as visiting seniors at a nursing home or picking up litter along the Centennial Trail. Or, it could be a regular family activity such as the birthday parties that the Collins Whitehead family of Spokane Valley organizes every month for the mothers and children at St. Margaret’s Shelter.

By working side-by-side, families who give back to the community learn about social issues and spend quality time together, according to experts. As a result, children learn values from their parents that include empathy, tolerance, respect and civic engagement.

Is your family involved in community service? How did you pick your project? What prompted you to volunteer together as a family?

Also, how old were your children when they started taking part in volunteer work?

Every year, the Association for Library Service to Children awards the prestigious Caldecott Medal to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. Some of those books are probably already on your bookshelves at home – they’re the ones with the gold sticker on the front featuring a rendition of the medal. Many of these books also can be found at the Spokane Public Library and other libraries in your area.

The award was named in honor of Randolph Caldecott, a 19^th-century English illustrator. It’s his birthday this month so Auntie’s Bookstore is having a Caldecott Storytime on Saturday.

Come down to enjoy the amazing artwork as we read some Caldecott Medal and Caldecott Honor books. All Ages. 11 a.m., Auntie’s Bookstore, Children’s section, 402 W. Main Ave. Free. (509) 838-0206.

 My family’s favorite book this year didn’t win the medal, but it did receive the Caldecott Honor (those are the books with the silver sticker). It’s called “How I Learned Geography,” written by one of my favorite artists, Uri Shulevitz. (He also wrote and illustrated other Caldecott honor books including “Snow.” In 1969, he won the Caldecott Medal for “The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship.”) “How I Learned Geography” is about a boy forced by war to become a refugee. Although he was often hungry, he found solace in a map that his father bought one day at the market instead of food. The book is based on Shulevitz’s life, and how his family fled the Warsaw Blitz during World War II. (Shulevitz now lives in New York City.) It’s an absolutely beautiful and inspiring book, I think.

What are your some of your family’s favorite books this year?

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but my kids recognize a bad word when they hear one.

Thankfully, they don’t use expletives in their conversations with friends and family but I know for a fact they’ve heard me utter the occasional cuss word during stressful moments. I’m not a huge potty-mouth, but I’ve had to make a more conscious effort to watch my language ever since I became a mom. That’s why I laughed out loud when I saw this story earlier this week about the efforts for a cuss-free week in Los Angeles County.

It all started with McKay Hatch, a 15-year-old who established a No Cussing Club two years ago at his school.

As a result of his work, Hatch’s hometown of South Pasadena declared itself a cuss-free zone for a week last March. Yesterday, county officials in Los Angeles declared this week “No Cussing Week.”

“Next year I want to try to get California to have a cuss-free week,” Hatch, a sophomore, told the Associated Press. “And then, who knows, maybe worldwide.”

According to the AP, Hatch lives in a household where swearing isn’t allowed. When he was in seventh grade and noticed that his friends started cussing, he decided to start a group. Now, the No Cussing Club has its own website and hip-hop theme song. People all over the world have been contacting Hatch because they want to join. By cutting down on swearing, people treat each other with more civility, said the teen, which then compels people to work together and solve problems.

So parents, do you ever catch yourself swearing around your kids? What are the rules surrounding language and the use of profanity in your household?

My youngest son had a half-day today. When he climbed into the car he started crying quietly. “I had a bad day,” he said.

“What happened? Did you get in trouble?”

“No,” he sniffed, and cried harder.

“Did someone hurt your feelings?”

“Yes!” he sobbed. “I don’t wanna talk about it!”

We were quiet for a bit. “Would a Happy Meal help you feel better?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he said.

As we pulled out of the drive-thru I asked him if he wanted to talk about what happened, or if he was getting over it. “I’m getting over it,” he replied.

When we got home he gave me a big hug and kiss. “Thanks, Mom.”

How do you handle it when your kids get their feelings hurt?

Earlier this month, I asked you about your thoughts on family planning and how factors that include money, time, religious beliefs and environmental concerns all play into your decisions. So along those lines, I thought I’d bring up the California couple that gave birth to octuplets – six boys and two girls, born weighing between 1 pound 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces and delivered via Cesarean section. (The babies, by the way, are all breathing on their own and five have started bottle feeding. And, according to news reports, the woman who gave birth to them also has six other children.)

Yesterday, The Los Angeles Times wrote about the risks and ethics involved in such a pregnancy. “When we see something like this in the general fertility world, it gives us the heebie-jeebies,” Michael Tucker, a clinical embryologist in Atlanta and a leading researcher in infertility treatment, told the LA Times. He added that, “if a medical practitioner had anything to do with it, there’s some degree of inappropriate medical therapy.”

The reporters noted that these multiple births not only involve the potential for all kinds of health problems for mother and babies; they also “consume enormous financial resources for hospitals, health insurers and families.”

Some people have strong opinions on this issue. On The Seattle Times website, a woman who identified herself as Bothell mom wrote: “This woman went into the hospital and had a ‘litter’ like an animal. This is going to cost society at some point. There is NO way you can convince me that this family is going to foot this bill on their own for the lives of these kids. Unless this family is pulling in A-List Hollywood paychecks, they’re going to end up being a drain on taxpayers. …”

What do you think?

I’ve been going through some journals I kept when my three oldest were all under five. I’m not sure how I stayed awake long enough to write because in almost every entry I mention trying desperately to get some sleep.

One of my favorite entries starts: “They can’t stay up forever, can they? They will go to sleep eventually, won’t they?”
Another entry exults: “Ethan and Alex are both napping at the same time!”  Other mothers and parenting books advised me to nap when my children were napping. Right. That’s when I cleaned house and read the paper.
How about you? If you have young children, do you feel well rested? Do your kids take naps? For parents with older kids, how did you cope during those sleep deprived months/years?

Sometimes, it is easier to measure how much a child has learned through scores, a grade or something equally tangible.

But as many of us have discovered, the numbers or grades don’t tell the whole story. They’re a snapshot of a moment, perhaps, but they’re certainly not a reflection of the whole child – his or her knowledge, talents and awareness of others and the world.

Since I’m relatively new to parenting, I sometimes worry that my 5-year-old isn’t ready for school, that he hasn’t learned how to read and write like other kids, that he might already be behind everyone else even before starting kindergarten.

I’m grateful for my son’s preschool teachers, who continue to teach me that there are other ways of knowing, other indicators that my son is on a healthy path to becoming a lifelong learner besides the traditional methods of paper and pencil exercises and keeping score.

One of the teachers recently loaned me this pamphlet, “A Parent’s Guide to Early Childhood Education,” by Diane Trister Dodge and Joanna Phinney. (It’s available through a website called www.TeachingStrategies.com.) “Our goal is to help children become independent, self-confident, inquisitive learners. We’re teaching them how to learn, not just in preschool and kindergarten, but all through their lives,” they wrote.

One section also addresses how and when a child should be learning reading, writing and mathematics:

“We could give your children workbooks. We could make them memorize the alphabet. We could drill them. We could test them. But if we do, your children may lose something very important. …

“Children who are rushed into reading and writing too soon miss important steps in learning and may suffer later on because they lack the foundation they need for using language. Children who are taught to read before they are ready may be able to sound out and recognize words, but they may also have little understanding of what they are reading. If they haven’t been given time to play, they won’t have explored objects enough to know what words mean. …

“Because math involves more than memorizing facts, because it involves logical thinking… children need many opportunities to count objects, sort them into piles and add some to a pile and take some away. It is by playing games like these that they will learn to truly understand addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. Without these concrete experiences, children may give correct answers but probably won’t understand what they are doing and why.”

What do you think? When and how did your child start learning how to read, write and do math? How do you teach your children to become lifelong learners?

 The hosts of NPR’s Tell Me More (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98325158) recently shared their favorites. They include:

• ”Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood,” by Leonard Pitts Jr.. A book about African American men and their experiences as dads and with their own dads.
• “Infants and Mothers: Differences in Development,” by T. Berry Brazelton. A book that identifies three categories of infants in this formative period: quiet, active and average.
• “Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent,” by Meredith Small. A look at how child-rearing differs from culture to culture, and the effects on our children.
• “The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two,” by William, Martha, Robert and James Sears. All about attachment parenting.

That last one by the Sears family became the “baby bible” at my house. I also read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” but that book made me a little paranoid.

Which baby or parenting books would you give as gift? And since we’re talking books again, what are your children’s favorite holiday books?