Currently viewing the tag: "bullying"

Surviving Under-35 Mommy Cliques

Posted by Angel La Liberte on November 30, 2010 · 2 Comments
Mommy Cliques 2

When I started hanging out with baby Alex at the playground  at 43, I remember thinking that—sometime during a surreal, Rip Van Winkle-style afternoon nap—I must have landed myself on the set of the 2004 film Stepford Wives. Being around tightly-knit groups of dewy-eyed younger mothers made me feel old and marginalized–an outcast from a [...]

The Kindergarten Koffee Klatch (KKK)

Posted by Angel La Liberte on September 21, 2010 · 2 Comments
Gun and coffee

There are few situations where I am more aware of my age and experience as an over-40 mother than the beginning of the school year. Being older and starting your child in kindergarten is always special. It’s where—for the first time—you meet the moms of the other kids your child might be spending the next [...]

Anatomy of a Bully

Posted by Angel La Liberte on February 7, 2010 · 2 Comments
Bully

Six weeks ago, we made a drastic decision to pull Alex from 2nd grade (see link below), and his school, half way through the school year.  He came home for Christmas holidays and never returned. The journey we’ve been on since then has been akin to a ride at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk—intermittently hair-raising, frequently [...]

To Sir, With Disillusionment

Posted by Angel La Liberte on January 14, 2010 · 2 Comments
to-sir-with-love

A lifetime of schooling has convinced me that teaching, at its heart, is like poetry—more a gift than it is an art or a science. Catholic elementary school in the 1960’s was an experience that bore closer resemblance to novelist Frank McCourt’s book (and later film) Angela’s Ashes (1999, see link below), than the cloistered [...]

A Generation of Precious Snowflakes

Posted by Angel La Liberte on October 22, 2009 · 0 Comments
Typewriter

As much as I admire Scarlett Johansson, The Nanny Diaries was as rife with stereotypes about wealthy, morally bankrupt employers,  unrepentantly neglectful of their children as it was about self-abnegating Jane Ayre-knock-off nannies packing self-appointed halos the size of potty seats. It was about as palatable as The Princess Diaries meets The Devil Wears Prada, [...]