Free Choice- No Place Like Home

I recently took a trip out West to San Diego California, to go visit one of my good friends. So recently in fact, that I just got back today. For the past few weeks I have doing nothing but look forward to being away from my two kids, away from my job, away from school...away from it all. Being on vacation in the wonderful world of California, and beautiful town of San Diego seemed like just what I needed to help ease my mind and "escape my own reality." The funny this is, that as soon as I landed down in San Diego...I wished that my kids were with me. Although I had a lot of fun camping and drinking in the dessert with my friends, or hiking up mountains...and of course I loved shopping without one of my kids pulling on the bottom of my shirt begging "Mommy...can I PLEASE have this", but in all reality, I think that most of us try to escape reality, only to realize that where we are in life, is exactly where we are meant to be. As much as I thought that a break or time away from everything and everyone was what I needed to "zen" and re-group...I realized that my kids help me re-group and keep me positive. As much as I loved sittin on the beach, with only myself, I would much rather be at home with my kids, or have them with me. Instead of being out at a club with my friends in San Diego, I would have much rather been at a museum, or at a park with my kids. Although vacation should be for relaxation and require no thought at all, I found myself more anxious as each day passed to get home, and thought constantly about my kids, what they were doing, how their day at school went, etc. I guess long story short, vacations are great...people do need time to relax and escape their own reality...but maybe instead of trying to escape reality, we should embrace it. Instead of running off to an expensive place to try to "find" our answers to our lifes problems, maybe we should stay at home and try to make peace within our place of living...learn to apprecaite what is around us, and who is around us. In the words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, there truely is "no place like home", and I am happy to be here!

Free Choice Blog

Out of the Woods: Today's Kids Can't See the Forest for the MTV

In the column titled "Out of the Woods: Today's Kids Can't see the Forest for the MTV" of the Washington Post, writer Joel Achenbach brings up the idea that today's children "stay indoors too much, are alienated from nature, and are going a little crazy."  With the new technology that has surfaced society, Joel claims that it is hard for parents, or care givers to expect children to want to go outside and be "bored", or stay inside and play with their awesome new Nintendo game. Joel recalls his life as a child and how like most kids we were forced to be outside, simply because there was nothing else to do. He claims that children who grew up before the Internet Phase were more "in tune with nature" than children of the 21st century. Joel makes funny comments regarding how intense some parents can be with trying to get their children to drop their cool new video games and toys and go outside. Joel also says that as parents, "at some point, you'll deliver the entire canned speech how, as a child, you were always building forts, exploring Forrest trails, roasting squirrels over a fire and so on, the classic Huck Finn sort of existence." - when maybe we exaggerate a bit. I believe that Joel does a great job using comedy to explain to parents that it is okay if our children can't or don't enjoy ALL the things we did as children, but also does a horrible job really explaining in depth reasons why children may enjoy staying inside. He also seems to be all fore nature, but makes fun of being outdoors so much that it becomes unclear at times what his stance truly is. Also, he starts the paper off talking about how our children are "going a little crazy" from staying indoors but delivers no facts about perhaps children with attention disorders, or learning disorders from being over exposed to digital media/games/television. I think that with less jokes and more facts, and fully sticking to his argument on why children need nature, this article would have been not only more effective, but not taken as just some lazy guy writing about how he doesn't seem to mind his children sitting on their butts all day. Hopefully Joel will let his children go outdoors and establish some exercise, because their father had a hard time exercising his ability to present a good argument.