An Open Letter to Kuntry Kitchen,

Dear Kuntry Kitchen,

I drove by your establishment on our way home from a weekend trip with the family. I saw your sign and was completely disgusted. I was driving and hubs was playing a game on the iPad, so neither of us could take a picture of your offensive restaurant sign. Below is a sign I found here, which concerns me because this means you might be part of a chain.

Here's why it was offensive to me: first of all, the first syllable, kunt, is very close to a word that is extremely offensive to all women. Just because the first letter is different does not make it okay.  The thought of this ugly word is not appetizing, so how you think you're going to get business is beyond me.

Second of all, you're probably not a teacher (or educated at all, for that matter), but there is a thing in literacy education called "print awareness." Basically, this means that when a child is first beginning to read, he or she is aware of the print around them and using the familiarity of said print is able to understand what the word says. Therefore, a child can "read" words like McDonald's, Snickers, Stop and other words that they see in their physical environment. This is an extremely important step in their literacy development and you, my friend, are messing it up.

Here's why: you are on the access road of a busy highway. Many children are gazing out the window due to sheer boredom when they pass your establishment. They see the word and ask mama and daddy what that says. They tell the child Country Kitchen. Child now associates the word kuntry with country. Child now has to relearn (in a sense) the word country.

This is not hypothetical; it happens in real life. I blame Winnie the Pooh, that chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff, for my misspelling of the word honey. You see, Pooh labeled his beloved honey pot as "hunny," therefore causing me to think that hunny was the proper spelling.

It's not and neither is kuntry.

I'm going to wrap this up but I need to throw in one more reason this sign offends me. You, good sir, by misspelling the word country, are inferring that people who live in the country can only spell phonetically and thus would not be able to understand the word if it were spelled correctly. As someone who was raised in the country, this offends me. I am offended on behalf of my family in the country, who don't need to spell anything phonetically before they grace your establishment with their presence.

I imagine your food is not great either, with it's beens, stakes and gravie. And let's not forget the biskits.

Good day,
gin

A Rant and An Opinion: Why I Don't Like Teen Mom or 16 & Pregnant

Maybe it's because I'm sweating.  Maybe it's because I'm a little stressed at work with THE BIG TEST coming up.  Remember last night when I mentioned 16 and Pregnant was on in the background and that it was irritating me?  Well, it continued to irritate me for quite awhile.  Hubs was watching it as I halfway listened in disgust.

In a nutshell, here's what I think of these shows:  they are glorification of teen pregnancy at its best and exploitation of children at its worst.  When I say children, I mean baby AND mother.

I got into Teen Mom when I was pregnant with Toph and quickly found it to be a show of what not to do with your child.  I felt sorry for the girls but since I had no experience as a parent, I watched the show with rapt interest. 

Toph is born.  I continue to watch the show but this time, I start to feel a little icky about it.  Watching Amber beat the ever-loving snot out of her boyfriend in front of her child made me squirm on the inside:  what was I being a party to by watching this?

New season of Teen Mom comes on with all new moms.  Toph is about the age of the babies on this show.  My ickyness quickly turns into a range of emotions, from disgust, to sadness, to anger, to disbelief and finally, to tears.  A television program should not make me feel these emotions in the range of an hour.  I quit watching but sometimes hubs puts it on in the background when there's nothing else on; I don't blame him, it's like watching a train wreck.  This proverbial train wreck involved tiny, innocent children and I can't get behind watching that.

My worry is (and I'm sure this is the worry of many) is this:  when do teenage girls start finding this as "cool"?  You see these girls during prime time on MTV (the go to station for this demographic), you see these girls on the cover of magazines and you hear that these girls are making a sizeable amount of money for exploiting their children. I mean, why NOT get pregnant as a teenager if you could be famous?

I'll leave you with something I saw today with my very eyes, the thing that spawned this little ranty rant:  today, after a long day, I rushed out the door to go pick my baby up from daycare.  It's my favorite part of the day, I will never get over the smile on his face when he sees me in the doorway, ready to take him home.  As I'm driving to the daycare, I am behind a school bus.  I quietly pray that it does not stop and hold up traffic while the kids get out, I'm in a hurry (I'm always in a hurry, I would fit into New York City perfectly).  This bus, which is an ISD bus, paid for with our tax dollars, drives into the driveway of the day care.  I find this odd as I think, "surely, they don't let high schoolers in for after school care??"  I get out of my car, try not to sprint to the door to pick up my child.  The three 17 year old high school girls walk in with me.  As I go to the infant room to get Toph, the girls go to the two year old room to get their children.  Yes, one girl had more than one.  I watch as they walk back outside with their babies, get on the school bus with their children in their arms, and leave.  In the school bus.

We've got a problem in this country folks.  And I don't think MTV has found the answer.

Disclaimer:
I have nothing, not one thing against teen moms.  Most teen moms (incidentally, the ones not shown on MTV) are wonderful, hard working mothers.  My MIL was a teen mom (but not single) and my husband is the kindest, most caring and compassionate person I know.  My problem is with promoting it in this manner.  It's one thing to show how hard motherhood as a teen is, but it's another to not address misbehaviors by these young women.  No one is telling teenage viewers that what these girls are doing is wrong or innappropriate, and my fear is that teenage viewers with think it's right or okay.