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Red Pill Mama

I’ll Admit It: I Yell At My Kids

I hate this about myself as a parent.  A little voice says, “Red Pill Parents don’t yell.”  It usually happens when we have to be somewhere at a certain time, when being late has consequences (the bus stop, dance class, a birthday party, etc.)  And it’s typically because despite all the literal verbal clues I’m [...]

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Movie Ratings – Half the Story, or More Like 5%?

Last year I purchased a kids’ movie (rated PG for “momentary language”) based on a book that I read and loved as a child, and have read over and over with my daughter especially.  I figured the movie was based on such a fantastic book that it was a pretty sure bet, and in general [...]

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Specifying Gifts: Party Invite Faux Pas, or Conscious Parent Protocol?

Anastasia (faithful reader, commentor and Red Pill Parent) brought up a really interesting point after reading my It’s Time to Fall Out of Love With Cheap post.  She writes: It’s difficult to control children’s possessions when well-meaning family and friends give gifts that you wouldn’t buy for your children (i.e., cheap plastic). Not only cheap [...]

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Oh, This Bloody Coke Thing

Consider if you will: a public elementary school has a fundraiser for Juvenile Diabetes.  This school offers reduced-fat and whole wheat items on its lunch menu.   Its students are asked to bring a healthy snack and water to school each day.  Some of its students have the opportunity to earn play money for good [...]

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It’s Time to Fall Out of Love With Cheap

Lately every time I sit down to post I feel like Tippi Hedren in The Birds, frantically swatting away at all the competing topics flying around my head.  But today, there is a very large, very insistent bird on my shoulder with its talons dug in, that’s been pecking away at my cranium like a [...]

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Branded Kids and the Diabolical Depot

I’ve been reading a lot about advertising’s effect on kids and the general over-prominence of big corporate brands in our culture lately, as I’ve cruised through Packaging Girlhood and Consuming Kids (Red Pill Parent bibles, by the way: and Packaging Boyhood, by the same authors, was just published in October).  But I had an opportunity [...]

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Germs, Part Deux

I am so bloody guilty of thinking short term about food – it’s almost like a mental illness.  It’s certainly like an eating disorder.  I might know, intellectually, without a doubt, that I shouldn’t eat something (the fish sandwich from Long John Silver’s for instance, which I inexplicably crave on cold, rainy days).  But there’s [...]

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Germophobia-phobia

Lately, I can’t seem to get through an issue of The Week without coming across something worth sharing.  This time, it’s about germs – a topic extremely relevant to parenting, no?  In the December 11th issue, on the Health & Science page, there’s a little bit entitled “More germs, please.”  Now I am decidedly a [...]

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Are you a Red Pill Parent?

Welcome to The Red Pill Parents.  We are Red Pill Mama and Red Pill Papa, both parents with young children, who are in the process of waking up and looking very, very closely at everything “coming at” our kids.  If you haven’t figured it out already, the term “red pill” comes from The Matrix.  This [...]

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