So I was catching up with the blog of a “crunchy conservative” mom I know in Des Moines, and I read this post describing a recent exchange on Dr. Laura’s radio show. (She often listens to right-wing radio while she makes cloth diapers and baby carriers for her home-based business.)

Dad calls in. Son is 3. Likes to play with his train set. Dad is “not into that.” Dad is not sure if he should suck it up and spend time with his son playing trains.

What kind of loser is too selfish to spend a little time playing trains with his three-year-old? Not only that, he seeks permission from an outside authority on whether it’s ok to refuse to play trains with his kid.

What does Dr. Laura advise?

Dr Laura says, he’s the dad. he is the parent. he is the head of his household. the kid does what he says. the kid can do something dad likes.

Great idea! Teach that kid who’s the boss. Except that the lesson the kid will probably learn is that his dad doesn’t enjoy doing things with him and doesn’t care about what’s important to him.

As Mr. desmoinesdem observed, the same dad will probably call Dr. Laura 13 years from now wondering why his sullen teenager never wants to talk to him or hang out with him.

To her credit, crunchy conservative Des Moines mom was as horrified by Dr. Laura’s advice as I was.

But it’s pretty sad when a leading voice of conservative talk radio advocates a power play like that with a young child. Would it kill this father to spend a little time doing something his son loves?

Being a parent doesn’t mean you let your children call the shots, but if your kid is really into trains or Legos or Play-doh or puzzles or whatever, don’t deny him or her the pleasure of sharing that with you.

If anyone is seeking parenting advice, I’d stick with the Sears family or Marguerite Kelly.

Today is the last day of Children’s Book Week.

My husband and I spend a lot of time reading to our kids and have a lot of opinions on children’s books.

If you ever choose books for children (your own or someone else’s), please join me after the jump for some thoughts on this non-political subject.

Here are some links for you to enjoy on Mother’s Day.

If you are a mother with children of any age, chances are you will find articles worth reading at Mothering magazine’s site, or discussion forums on topics that interest you at Mothering.com.

If you are a new mother, you can find valuable information and support at the websites of Attachment Parenting International and La Leche League.

AskDrSears.com has good information on medical and parenting topics, relating to older children as well as babies and toddlers.

I also want to pay tribute to LaVon Griffieon, a friend who has inspired me by balancing her passion for making the world a better place with running a farm and bringing up four children.

The Griffieons are being profiled in a series of reports on National Public Radio: here is a link.

LaVon won the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation’s Hagie Heritage Award in 2000. Read why here.

Drake University and the alternative weekly Cityview gave LaVon the Central Iowa Activist Award for Environmental Activism in 2004.

Marc Hansen recently profiled LaVon in the Des Moines Register.

This amazing woman even figured out that she could save time by roasting a Thanksgiving turkey in the back of her minivan while driving to a relative’s home. Unfortunately, I can’t link to the article which told this story last November, because the Des Moines Register does not make its archives available for free.

If you know a particularly inspiring mother, tell her you admire her and why.

If Mother’s Day is painful for you, either because your mother didn’t provide the childhood you would have wanted, or because you are the parent of a child who has died, I recommend this diary Cronesense posted at Daily Kos last year: Mother’s Day – the other side of the coin.

UPDATE: Frankenoid’s diary, Mother’s Day in the Land of the Bereaved, is also very moving.

After an unusually long and cold winter, we are finally getting some nice spring weather.

But according to the Des Moines Register on Monday,

officials with the Polk County Health Department and Polk County Conservation are concerned that many kids will stay in front of the TV.

The two agencies have teamed up to combat what they say is the increasing threat of “nature-deficit disorder.”

Author Richard Louv identified the term in his 2005 book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.” Louv describes it as the consequences of children being alienated from nature.

Health risks from avoiding the outdoors include obesity and a lack of creativity, said Rick Kozin, spokesman for the Polk County Health Department.

The solution is in our own backyards and neighborhoods, Kozin said. “It’s a health issue with a conservation treatment.”

The role of parents in getting kids outdoors is key, Kozin said. “Children will follow the lead from their parents.”

The Register’s article includes 15 ideas for getting kids in touch with nature, so click the link if you are interested.

It’s tempting to try to keep your kids occupied indoors so that you can get chores done around the house (or spend too much time on your computer). But it’s so important for kids to get exercise outdoors, especially if they are not in school, where recess and P.E. class may be outdoors in good weather.

Any teacher can tell you how much easier it is for kids to learn, and how much better they behave, after they’ve been able to run around outdoors.

According to Dr. Paul Fleiss, a pediatrician, getting exercise with exposure to natural light in the morning helps children sleep better at night (the sunlight triggers brain chemicals that help establish circadian rhythms).

You can learn more about that in Dr. Fleiss’s book, “Sweet Dreams,” which is a good and easy read. Or, just read this article, which is a condensed version of the advice in his book.

Parents, get your kids outside to play this week, even if it’s just for a walk around your neighborhood.

I understand why the Des Moines Register strives for ideological balance in its letters section, but one thing I can't figure out is how some letters, which deliberately miss the point of the article they are responding to, get past the editors.

A case in point is this letter, published in the Sunday Register, in which stay-at-home mom Lori Leporte of Des Moines attempted to strike a humorous tone. The letter is written as an apology to her four-year-old son:

I'm sorry that you're stuck with me and with the choice I've made to raise and educate you myself instead of letting the state of Iowa – which, according to Rekha Basu, is becoming a better parent – do it (“Iowa Becoming a Better Parent,” May 13 column).

She goes on to apologize for her plans to home-school her four-year-old, providing him with an individualized curriculum, etc.

And now, it seems that, should you choose to go to college, you will be doomed to a life of hard work and perseverance in order to pay your own way because you are cursed with living with a set of parents who love you and have taught you that you are not entitled to one dime of the taxpayers' money just because you got a bad rap in life, thereby rendering you ineligible for a free college education, courtesy of the state.

Anyone reading this letter without knowing the context would naturally think, whah? The state is providing free education to some kids but punishing those who have good parents? The Register's liberal columnist is saying that the state of Iowa is a better parent than I am?

Let's look at the Rekha Basu column that this letter is reacting to. The headline read, “Iowa Becoming a Better Parent.” But was Basu really saying that the state of Iowa is a better parent than a child's own mother and father? Not at all. She was talking about recent improvements for kids who age out of foster care:

For some Iowa kids, mother doesn't look like a woman. She looks like a logo of sun rising over a cornfield attached to the slogan “Iowa – Fields of Opportunities.” The state of Iowa itself is both mother and father to about 1,500 children in foster care.
[…]
But last week, the state of Iowa, as parent, gave its foster children a sort of Mother's Day gift. It became the first state in the nation, according to the bill's Senate floor manager, to promise to pick up the cost of college for any foster-care kid of college age. It was one of several new laws intended to strengthen the welfare of the children to whom Iowa is parent.

In the past, foster children who turned 18 or 19 were often literally turned out onto the street with no public assistance. Is this the future that Lori Leporte think these unfortunate children deserve, just because they have not been cared for by their own parents? Apparently so, since she alludes to teaching her son that “you are not entitled to one dime of the taxpayers' money just because you got a bad rap in life.” 

Here's another excerpt from Basu's column:

While the government can never take the place of real parents, another bill passed by the Legislature appropriates money for the Preparation for Adult Living Program, helping these young adults find a job or school or pay rent.

As we can see, Basu explicitly states that real parents are better for children, but also talks about one program that may mitigate some of the disadvantages kids who have aged out of foster care face. But Lori Leporte twists this and sarcastically writes to her son,

you don't really need me anyway – the state of Iowa will be there to watch you blow out the candles on your birthday cake and make all your wishes come true.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, as are many of my friends. Although my husband and I will send our children to the fine public schools in our area, I have many friends who are home-schooling or plan to home-school their kids. It's a free country.

But I can't imagine any of my friends saying that some government program to help foster kids is somehow unfair to their own kids, or devalues their own parenting.

Maybe Lori Leporte honestly didn't understand the point of Basu's column–if this is the case, I sure hope her home-schooled son turns out to be better at reading comprehension than his mother.

Or maybe she was deliberately distorting the message in order to make herself feel self-righteous and score some rhetorical points against big government.

I'm sure that the Register receives plenty of letters from conservatives who don't like Basu. Next time they decide to print one of these, the editors should choose one that bashes her with some semblance of understanding the point she was making in her column.

 And note to Lori Leporte: next time you feel like griping because some kids who have had difficult childhoods are going to get some financial assistance with college, ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?”