Pop Culture References and Being a Mom, How I incorporate mainstream subjects into Day to Day Parenting with Love, Trust, and Respect Model

Pop Culture References and Being a Mom

When I am out if the house and hearing and seeing the world thru the lens of pop culture, these new terms and ideas often enter our home. We cant run away from the outside world! Whether it's a new movie or book, or even a song, my sons want to know what there about, and the underlying meanings. Even if my sons don't "pick up on" the undertones, there friends do... To my shagrin :-( > > Whether its a movie reference or a new term my kids either bring it up or I do. I reflect on the subjects, usually as a blogpost or a tweet. I work through some thoughts, if needed, and then bridge the conversations. Twitter comments are linked here too.

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> > Pop Culture and Teaching my Kids, at the movies: Kingsman and 50 Shades of Grey > > When my husband and I saw "Kingsman" on Valentines Weekend 2015, there is a scene between the leading men discussing what makes a gentleman. "Manners make the man." And you don't have to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth to learn manners. For example, when entering a room, if not invited, you ask permission to sit and join them /someone already seated.



Or you knock on a door before entering. > > These Manners reminders came home with me, especially when mom is using the bathroom.

> > Follow me on twitter for the immediate #popculture #learning > twitter.com/minstr0interior/status/567859396190978050 > >

Another example is either beloved or dreaded: 50 Shades of Gray. When my kids asked what the fuss was about, I summarized that you have to think through your own personal feelings on a subject, and this book forced some "non mainstream" ideas onto our society, making people talk about it. And many people have strong opinions.

> > My under 140 characters #popculture #learning about #50ShadesofGray > twitter.com/minstr0interior/status/567860091115810816 > >

"Whats do you think mom?" I gave my kid my house philosophy "sex ed / talking about it with my kids" answer. "Love, Trust and Respect should be the reason for doing anything in a relationship. When your older, life can get more complicated, maybe your curious about something new, or your partner wants something that you may / or may not want. How do you decide? Let Love, Trust and Respect guide you." Luckily older son assumed plain vanilla Kissing or Sex (phew!).

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Clearly we had a busy Valentines season in 2015!!!

Pop Culture: Jian Ghomeshi, Q CBC Radio and beating charges.
Before both these movies there was another instance of two similar stories, where one without the other might not have made me say anything. Facebook had an article on another rape case on a college campus, however this article said many young man rapists don't realize what they're doing is wrong. The second story was the sudden firing - from one of my favorite public radio shows on NPR via CBC radio, Q - the shows creator and on air host Jian Ghomeshi. He was fired for his alleged sexual beating of multiple women. Situations where he dated women and pursued aggressive, non consensual BDSM sex scenarios with these women. He claims the women were in agreement - however the countless women claimed otherwise.

I sat in my car and realized I don't ever want my sons, or my daughter, to ever have a moment of doubt for what is / is not consent! There can be no question for themselves or their partner... Which lead to another Love, Trust, Respect talk. It was a little more in depth, saying girls have to say yes BY Themselves, you don't try to "convince them, beg or ever force." There is no game around these types of things. If a girl is drunk or on drugs, that means No! You can't do anything. If a girl is hurt or sleeping, that means No too. We will be revisiting this conversation many more times, I assure you.

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Our family has had many adventures through the years. Mom, the @Minstr0Interior had an a-ha moment . . .  Suddenly I See what we will have filled our life with, ADVENTURES! We travel, craft, sing, dance, collect insects and spend loads of time together. Sometimes too much time together. Our kids have recently begun to document their own adventures, and so this channel was born. Enjoy our adventures. Or not. WANT MORE? If there is a blog post accompanying this video we will share it here. Sometimes we will include the ingredients list of the craft or recipe, or the itinerary of our trip. In the meantime click play. 

From our family: 👍 + 🙃 + ❤️ ( Thumbs up, emoji face, hearts! )

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Make Mistakes, breathe, reflect and Laugh.Out.Loud

The lesser of two evils: Tap Water

Ah tap water. Free flowing into homes around the U. S. and mostly drinkable. Our tap water in Chicago is chemically treated to be drinkable, with he michaels like chlorine, fluoride and other additives to be considered Drinkable and mostly "safe."

Theres been taste tests on water where people taste 3-4 samples of water, including tap, and they have to tell which tastes better or "find the tap water." Usually tap water can be guessed easily. It has an awkward smell and a taste. When water shouldn't have a taste, right?

So what's so great about tap water. Because it flows from the tap, and while there's an aftertaste, it is drinkable. Or easily filtered to eliminate most of those additives.

Tap water is the lesser of two evils, with the great evil being "oral fecal." Not familiar with that term. Most water around the world IS NOT drinkable from the tap. Most of the worlds water is infected with water illnesses including diarrhea, hepatitis, dysentery, and tyfoid. The author acknowledged that nearly everyone in his family has hepatitis due to the water born problem in their country.

I too, a born and raised American, am relearning All. The. Time. why this is "such a great country." why it's a privilege to live here. Can you even imagine getting cramps, diarrhea, and life threatening disease from water? The water appar ently, as discussed to my horror in the interview, is odorless aind mostly clear, however it has trace levels of feces capable of causing these water born illnesses.

Hamid's wife was diagnosed with hepatitis the day after their wedding. "And it was the second time she had had it," he said. "Virtually everybody in my family has had either hepatitis or typhoid or something of that sort. You know, water-borne illness is everywhere. It affects the poor, and it also affects the affluent in a place like Pakistan... 

And dont think your safe traveling to high end resorts and hotels, water is precious, and scams are one way that you can also get sick,

Jamie shared further "So people are selling water, and both at the luxury level, where you have these high-end mineral waters and also at the level of just poor people needing something to drink. So his scam (the books character, taken from real life scenarios) is to take mineral water bottles that have been consumed at high-end restaurants, buy the empties, take tap water, boil it a little bit, pour it into these mineral water bottles and reseal it so it looks like it's an authentic water bottle and sell it back to the exact same restaurants, who probably suspect that it's a scam product, but because it's so much cheaper than the water they buy normally are happy to take it on."

This fabulous interview came from NPR on Fresh Air.

Mohsin Hamid, the author of How to Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia. The business that Hamid’s main character in the novel finally makes his money in is … water. Bottled water, however, in this case. A sneak peak at what Hamid has to say on the subject of water.

I highly recommend (unsolicited, un-paid endorsement) this podcast, so you can hear about something I'm certain you haven't even fathomed before.

So, the next time I'm in a fancy schmancy restaurant, and the waiter asks "Bottled Water, or regular?" I'll go regular, good 'ol Tap! Because we can.

Water-born illness is everywhere. It affects the poor and it also affects the affluent in a place like affluent in a place like Pakistan. … Basically you get it either from drinking water, brushing your teeth with tap water or perhaps somebody prepared your food and they had washed their hands in that water or touched the water or handed washed their hands at all. The mode of transmission is what’s called oral-fecal and that sort of unsavory term really sums up how you get it.

How to get filthy rich in rising Asiahttp://www.npr.org/2013/03/13/174021020/a-young-man-gets-filthy-rich-boiling-bottling-tap-water


Make mistake. Breathe, reflect. And Laugh.Out.Loud ... Enjoy that glass of water too.