Children must see themselves as who they can become What makes us know we're A-OK? What helps our children operate with high self-esteem? The books they read have a high impact on their self image. At an early age, schoolbooks help teach…
Back to school includes considerably more than the activities associated with shopping, classwork review, teacher acceptability and homework. Back to school, for the working parent, includes all of the above, but at the top of the list, there should…
A very handsome and intelligent-sounding young man finally landed a job - his first job. He was hired as a security guard. The company supervisor told him to report for work at 8 a.m. the next day. Our twenty-year-old was…
It sounded like the woman in the grocery store was mumbling something about our country's economy being in trouble. I spotted her strolling down a store aisle pushing an overloaded shopping cart while, of course, chatting on her smart phone.…
"I can’t do a thing with him, Ms Shirlee,”I was told by one of the mothers sitting in a front row seat at one of my parenting workshops. She blurted out the rest of her dilemma. “Him and his Homies…
Mom always gives her young kids a piece of candy to keep them quiet when situated in their car seats while riding in the car. She is conscientious when it comes to her youngsters having the best. She knows to…
Recently a special needs student with Down Syndrome was left out of her school's yearbook because, we can guess, because her photo wasn’t portraying what school administrators wanted their learning environment to be about. Link to full story At about the…
Back in the sixties, the catch phrase was Black Power and it was accompanied by a raised arm with a clenched fist. “Power to the People” was the militant chant initiated by those wearing black leather jackets and black leather…
Here’s an odd sort of Mother’s Day salute, one which needs to be given to a group of mothers unknown to most of us, but hopefully not forgotten by their children, or by California taxpayers. This salute goes out to…
A radical and unpopular view is not an uncommon perspective that I’m known to unleash, and this one, I’m sure ,will hit the top of the top of most readers' charts of annoyance. I’ve watched in horror as miscreants burned…
Women’s History Month has come to a close, but we have yet another chance to focus on women with Mother’s Day fast approaching. For those of us who are women, black and mothers, we can tout a triple whammy with…
A train ride to Oakland on the scenic Amtrak Coast Starlight and a stay at a hotel at Jack London Square on the ocean, wasn't quite the Holiday getaway I had in mind. An interview on Oakland CBS (which never…
Ever since the Ferguson Mo. grand jury failed to indict Darren Wilson, the white officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, protests against law enforcement’s murdering of African American males have been sweeping the country.…
Cleaning up America. Getting rid of the undesirables; killing one poor Black man at a time. Eric Garner, who was black and poor, said he couldn’t breathe and nobody listened. “I can’t breathe” are the same words my asthmatic daughter…
My mother always preached “What you put into life is what you’ll get out.” Then she had another one about our bad deeds coming back to haunt us. Geez, what makes these old-time parents have such an acute sense of…