Common Core Yay! Now Can We Bury It Already?

Being that I am a father of a ten year old daughter, and run an after school program at a library, two words have haunted me more than any other. If you had guessed Donald Trump, orange hair, or Steel Magnolias, your were close... really close. Truthfully those two words have been Common Core.

When I first heard that phrase in the educational lexicon, I asked myself what they considered core, and who was going to determine what was common?  It made me question what they were going to do. Why create a new educational system wholesale, leaving parents in the dust?  What were they correcting with the old educational system that they were somehow fixing here? And why do packages of hot dogs have ten and yet there are only eight in a hot dog bun pack? I mean seriously, it's like a math problem. When they came out with the No Child Left Behind initiative under President Bush, I didn't realize that they weren't taking about parents.  I thought parents and children were a package deal. To the government, evidently not. This travesty can not stand!!!  I was going to have to do some research on what Common Core was if I hoped to help my child.

At first I was going to have to figure out the why's before I figured out the what. Why was Common Core created in the first place? Why was the older system considered inadequate?  This story began in the 1990's, as standardized testing revealed that many students were not able to grasp some of the basic functions of math and writing.  They found these students were trapped in substandard schools, whose dropout rate would make even a prostitute blush.  The government decided that too many schools were substandard and so decided to come up with an accountability project that would standardize what everyone needed to know at every grade level.  The thinking was that they would hold the teachers responsible for failing students.

There had been surveys taken among employers who would hire high school students and these students were determined to be woefully inadequate to handle the tasks that they were given. Whether through a system that was declining or whether employers expected more from their students, people decided they needed to do something. So they started to develop the common core methodology.

So based on the belief that the system was failing them, a need to hold someone accountable for those failures, and a society that was telling them that their students were spectacularly unprepared for life, people went about changing things.  But here is the problem. Everyone is interested in maintaining power, and those in power are excellent at shifting blame.  So instead of taking a better look at the teachers who are phoning in a paycheck, the administrators who have allowed their students to run wild for fear of lawsuits, or the lives of the students going to these failing schools who have living situations not unlike war zones, the blame was shifted to the set of standards that were previously in place.

Now when anyone tells you that you have to do something because you can't not do something, be afraid, very afraid.  It's not a question of whether something needs to be done. You should be afraid of these people because it's most likely not your best interests they have when they want to do something.  They have ulterior motives! What a shock right? And even if they plan on dealing with a situation, they overcorrect. Imagine an apple grower who finds one bad apple on a tree. The grower decides to not just take out the apple, or just the tree.  He burns the whole orchard completely so he can start fresh. One might consider that apple grower crazy.  One might even have a straight jacket and anti-psychotic pills waiting for him.  This is Common Core.

But as a parent, and as a practical matter, why they decided to go about doing that doesn't help you with your child. And it certainly doesn't help me with my ten year old.  I needed to find out the what part of my question.   What had they started teaching my daughter and when?

I remember the two scary words being uttered when my daughter was four, but I think it wasn't until she was seven that they started to implement these standards. I started to take notice and ask my daughter questions about what she was learning and how she was being taught.   Then the students I was helping in the after school homework help program started showing me questions that made me have to think for a while before I could even answer.  I knew I needed to investigate further. (Another side effect of this is it made my tutors who had come to help these kids stressed because they had not been taught mathematics or English that way. They felt unprepared.)

While I suppose that there was no great way for changing a whole system of standards and making everyone happy, the real issue for me is the application of those standards and their practical effects.  As an English major I wasn't too troubled by the direction of the standards.  Arguments over what is classic literature and what should be taught has been going on for eons. It didn't start yesterday. And it won't end tomorrow.

How they teach spelling I'm a little less comfortable with. I realize that more reading gives you more exposure to words, which should help ones spelling skills. (Autocorrect and spell check are not good spelling teachers. But they do make for hilarious sentences.)  Having students continue to write out sentences when their spelling is atrocious does not assist them in the process. And watching people leave elementary school now having to be taught basic spelling lessons is a consequence.

The way they teach reading and argumentation is not a bad thing. It promotes, at an early age, students being able to develop their critical thinking skills.  Teachers focus more on the ability to defend ones position than on whether they believe the argument to be right or wrong.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Whether these teachers then add their own political beliefs that they impart on our children and make them come up with critical defenses for those beliefs is another matter entirely. Developing critical thinking does stretch the student, and for that I'm pleasantly surprised they might have done something right there.

But for every praise you might heap upon this newly created mess, there is a Frankenstein monster looking for people to hurt.  Mathematics curriculum is that monster.  I call it integrated mathematics. They integrate multiple principles within every new concept.  It's a little complicated but let me try to explain.

My first foray into this new Math occurred when my daughter reached the fourth grade.  When my daughter's school first started implementing Common Core they did it slowly, and the teachers were not necessarily big fans.  But when my daughter reached the fourth grade, I met its first big proponent.

This teacher, who I will leave nameless, went into a whole lesson with the parents on back to school night about why it was important to her.  She felt that it gave explanations for all the different questions she had when she was growing up.  She encouraged math like it was a critical thinking course.  I sat there pondering whether she would correct me if I had stated two plus two equals five, or would she ask me to give a defense for my answer. And if I gave a good defense would she then consider me to be right?  The world may never know. (Just like tootsie pops and how many licks.)

What she really reminded me of was all the students who had been in my high school classes with their hands raised all day long. If they could ask 100 questions every class they wouldn't be satisfied.  Half the time you thought it was to get out of work. Half the time you wondered if they really could not understand something. And if they couldn't, why?

My daughter had been in class for a little while by this point and I started to watch how she learned multiplication, especially numbers longer than one digit.  I watched as she drew Mendelian diagram's to solve a problem. (Take a look at a biology textbook if you don't remember.)  Slowly but surely it dawned on me what they were learning. They were learning the distributive property of mathematics through this instruction. But why were they learning it here?  And isn't there a simpler way of teaching them multiplying large numbers. I thought there must be an easier way. But this teacher was convinced that this method of instruction would answer all the why's her students would want to ask.  I was not sure.

To demonstrate my trepidation about her misplaced confidence I will take you back to my senior year in high school. I was in a mathematics course for Calculus. We were doing summer school work because the teacher felt like we wouldn't have enough time to cover the materials if we had to cover those first three chapters during the school year. I'd come in once or twice a week to do the work and get credit. Problems we had to solve for those first three chapters were a ton of work, multiple steps, and would go on for three pages in length. But I was happy I understood how to do them and felt pride in my work.  And then the school started and we reached chapter four. What did the first lesson in chapter four teach me? That all of the work in the first three chapters only took one step. This means I could have written the answer on the next line, not three pages later.

I understand that with those three pages I was learning a larger concept. Analytic Geometry was like a revelation for me understanding the basis for the theorems and postulates of regular geometry, expressed in algebraic terms. But did I feel happy that I wasted my time learning those three pages of background, let alone those crazy theorems in geometry? No! No! And let me think . . . Heck no! I felt like it was a big waste of time.

I think that when these students are exposed to an alternative method to solving some of these problems, and they will be, they will be frustrated by a system they felt like had wasted their time. Yes, they may have learned concepts that they will apply later. But will they even care?   What they will feel is that you wasted their time.

While I didn't like this methodology of instruction, I could understand it.  But I didn't realize it's insidiousness until later that year when the teacher started teaching the kids long division.  That understanding would come with an email.

One afternoon, while at work, I received an email from my daughter's teacher about her intentions to teach my daughter's class division. Normally I wouldn't have cared. But the email had an addendum. Do not teach my child to solve the division problems the way I had learned or it will screw her up. And I will have a messed up child on my hands.  This intimation that helping my child would screw my child was bad enough.  But the real fun came later.

My ex, whose penchant was always to fight, wanted to fight the teacher after receiving this email.  After talking her off the ledge I told her she needed to tell the teacher that she needed to understand how to do division this new way or she wouldn't be able to help our daughter.  She agreed that was better, and did so.  The teachers response was less than kind.  She intimated that it would be a waste of time to do so, and that the kids would be learning in class anyway.

I now noticed the house of cards that Common Core was built on. And it needed to be kicked down.  Common Core wasn't about a new methodology per say. It did protect some inadequate teacher's behinds from firing; because how could you know whether a teacher was qualified enough to help your child if you couldn't explain what was going on in the classroom? It was about control over your child. If the parent can't help, the school and by proxy the government steps in.

I couldn't let that stand. So we got parents together to complain to the administrator about the instruction given. I knew that once my ex was on the war path, there was no letting up until success. And success came in an email with video instructions how to do these division problems.  We could be parents to our children once more. But this is not what happens for many.

So unless you have a state that has ditched the standard, and 42 haven't, you as a parent are stuck with this crazy system.  What do you do?  I suggest two things. Supplement your child's education where you need to, like with the spelling and reading curriculum. Try to appreciate the things it does right, like developing argumentation skills.  And finally, fight the administration and organize when it tries to supplement their parenting abilities for your own.  They are not your child's parents. And they aren't invested in your child's success the way you are. It may take a lot of time but it's worth it.

Tell me your own experiences of teaching your children. Or share horror stories about fighting the system. I'd love to know your thoughts.  So this is me, closing another chapter and signing off.

David Elliott, Single Dad's Guide to Life

If you like my writing, I continue to blog at singledadsguidetolife.wordpress.com

Blustery days and the Top Ten ways to make indoor magic

As an adult, it is easier to take the rain of a blustery day than our children counterparts.  We could always use that extra nap or hour of sleep we missed some day during the week.  And when it’s rainy out, we don’t have to worry about what’s going on outside our doors when everyone stays in.  Of course this does not mean that we turn a blind eye to what may be happening in our own home.  We just have to wait for the house to get “disturbingly quiet” and then we know that something is dangerously wrong.  (Disturbingly quiet is an oxymoron with which parents are frequently confronted.)  So we have to find ways to come up with creative things to do with our kids.  No turning on the TV or putting on Netflix all day will suffice.  It will not hold the children’s interest for long, especially when you have day after day of bad weather.  (Being a Southern California person I understand the rest of the world is giving me eye rolls, but bad weather does happen for two or more days in a row . .. sometimes . . . I swear!!!)



And speaking as a single dad, I also know that engagement is such an important thing with the little time that we do have with our children.  It is why I know that when I have my daughter I want to get out of the house and do something.  Getting out and away from the house and the TV means that my daughter actually has to talk to me.  (Yes, talking to our kids is a good thing, even about scary topics that we don’t want to mention like Donald Trump, or what kind of hair style we were wearing in the 80’s.) So what things are there to do when it’s a rainy, or even a snowy day and the kids are stuck indoors?  This may be another top ten list, but I hope many people add on to this list as I am always looking for unique things to do.  I would love to know what fun and inventive things others do amidst the gloomy weather outside.

#1  -  Puzzling.  Ummmmmm….. is puzzling even a word?  I didn’t think it was until this last week when I put up pictures of a puzzle I was working on with my daughter and friends of mine asked whether I was “puzzling.”  They said they would love to be puzzling with me.  I am hoping that this meant that they wanted to engage with me over a puzzle and not to do some 20 questions game because I am not good at that game.  (And yes I do know that animal, vegetable or mineral is usually the first question in that game.)  Take out a puzzle and work on it with your kids.  It may not engage them for more than an hour at a time, but it’s something you can do and come back to later as you have cycled through other things to do in the house.  Try to keep it at your kid’s level, although a little more challenging is not necessarily a bad thing.  My daughter just got excited by learning that with any puzzle that is 500 pieces or more, you should be starting with the edges and then you can fill in the center.  I just don’t recommend any circular puzzles no matter how beautiful they look.  They are scary, and way beyond most child’s capabilities.  Unless you are raising Einstein and then by all means, best wishes.

  

#2  -  Board Games.  Here is something similar to puzzling where you can pull up a chair and a card table for a little while and play a game that is suited to their level.  It’s also something that with a game like Monopoly, you can start, go away from, and come back to as you find other things to do throughout your day.  Monopoly is a good one for this.  I love Risk personally.  Candyland or Chutes and Ladders works for the little ones.  Settlers of Catan can also be a really fun game to do if your kids are up for it.  There is even a Lord of the Rings board game that you play as a team as you try to get the Ring into Mount Doom.   The only dangerous thing about some of the board games is that one person can end up losing while the others continue on.  That can be dangerous because it can lead to those disturbingly quiet situations.  My recommendation is that you make sure you lose first, or you find a way to count up money, troops or whatever so that when someone loses the game ends.

#3  -  Cooking.  If you haven’t already gone to the store to pick up a bunch of groceries to have around the house in order to cook for yourself this might be difficult.  But cooking can be a lot of fun and is a hands on activity.  Kids always love to engage with you on things you enjoy.  Maybe you don’t enjoy cooking.  I think that as long as you make sure you are the one around the stove, you will have a fun activity to occupy your time.  And on a rainy day, you have the easiest and probably best thing to cook where you and your kids can get creative:  Soup!!!  Who doesn’t love soup on a nice cold day?  Older kids cut up the veggies.  Maybe the younger kids make sandwiches.  Let them be experimental for a day.  (I might make them reconsider if they tried to make a peanut butter, jelly, and mustard sandwich.)  Or just be safe and have them make toasted cheese sandwiches.   This does get more difficult the more kids you have, but maybe you portion out the jobs to each child. I’m getting hungry already.



#4  -  Playing hide and seek in the house.  I suppose that this can also be very scary.  The possibility for disturbingly quiet moments are endless.  Obviously, you don’t want your kids getting into dangerous things.  Just establish some ground rules before you begin the game.  No running; limit places that they can hide; limit the amount of time that they can hide; Increase the amount of seconds someone has to count before they can start looking; etc.  It may be difficult to find places to hide inside of an apartment, but you would be surprised at how good your kids can be at hiding from you.

#5  -  The mall game.  I know a bunch of you are looking at your computer screens with a quizzical look on your faces wondering what in the world I am talking about.  I will give a shout out to my ex, her mother and father.  I am not the kind of single dad who pretends that the former family had absolutely no good ideas to their credit.  This was one of theirs.  The rules of the game:  Each person is given a limited amount of money with which to spend.  Everyone goes throughout the mall and spends that money.  They try to get the best deals possible with the limited amount of money that they have.  (You will be surprised how many free things you can get at the mall like food, candy, tea, facials, etc.)   Make up your own prizes that everyone gets to vote on at the end.  Awards usually go for things like most things purchased or received, best individual deal, most items that are the color red, etc.  Make up your own awards for your game.  Announce what the awards will be for and let everyone vote on them when you are finished.  This game might be more fun if you have a few other parents and kids come with you, especially if you are a single parent.

#6  -  Build a fort!  Hey! Building a fort is a classic of indoor fun.  It’s pretending like you are camping inside instead of outside.  And now that everyone is forced to be in doors, be sure to make the fort as elaborate as possible.  I’ve seen some pretty impressive things done in my time.  I wouldn’t suggest attaching anything to a ceiling fan or any other part of electrical equipment.  I don’t care how cool the blanket is when it’s electrified to make the fort warmer or whether it looks cool with some bed sheet being flung across the room by the ceiling fan.  As Nancy Reagan once opined: Just say no!!!

#7  -  Time to form your own family band.  Even if it’s just the two of you, you can form a duo.  Who doesn’t love a good duo?  But what about the noise?  Too loud, you say, on a nice rainy day.  Would you rather have loud or that dangerously quiet moment?  Besides, now the next door neighbors won’t be hearing all that “loud banging” coming from your house and you probably won’t be accused of throwing a house party.  It allows you to do something productive and have fun.  Be inventive in the kinds of instruments you create.  Have them learn whistling or snapping if they haven’t mastered the skill yet. There are all kinds of songs you can practice, or make up a few new ones of your own.  Just have fun with it.

#8  -  Legos.  I know your children have to have Legos around the house somewhere.  Pull those out and get to building something.  It can be as easy as building a set that you haven’t put together yet, or you haven’t put together for a long time, or creating one of your own.  You can build a house or a tall skyscraper as I was always one to do; you can make your own exotic garden of Legos; or you can go in an entirely new direction and do like the Lego movie says and be your own master builder.  Don’t use the crazy glue, unless you really love what you have made.  I know I had friends of mine who engaged with their kids in some pretty incredible engineering projects with Legos.  You want a teachable moment?  Mic dropped!

#9  -  Scavenger/Treasure Hunt.  Have the kids find different items around the house from items on a list.  I wouldn’t recommend having anything too specific because you don’t want your children fighting over the particular items that they are looking for.  Be broad and have them find things that are round, square, or some other shape.  Or have them find their favorite book, or a book they really enjoy.  If you haven’t gotten to engage with them about a lot of things, this is something where the broader the topic in the scavenger hunt, the more likely you are to find something about them that is specific to them.  Maybe they will share a secret with you that they only tell their friends at school.  Whatever happens, it’s a win for you and a win for them.

#10  -  Read a book to them.  It does get a little harder with multiple kids of multiple reading levels, but when it’s dark outside it’s a perfect setting for telling scary stories.  You can turn off all the lights in the house. (Hey!  It’s an excuse to use less electricity.  Reduce that carbon footprint.)  Get out the flashlights.  Prepare the creepy voice.  Turn on the scary background music. And let your children’s imaginations run wild.  It’s a good way to help them enjoy reading.  And it encourages them to read further.  Your child’s imaginations are far better than anything that goes on with a TV screen.  Just make sure that you tell these stories in the middle of the day so your kids get to fill their minds with other things before going to bed unless you want your kids to sleep in the same bed with you at night.  As cute as that is, I prefer my ribs to be in one piece in the morning.

And with that I am done.  But don’t be done thinking of ideas yourself.  I am sure that there are a ton of to do list things out there for kids, and mine is hardly the first.  Although I think number 5 is pretty darned unique.  Thank you Reese family.  Would love to hear about some of the things that you do when you have several days’ worth of weather for which to prepare.  So sit back this weekend, relax, and happy puzzling to all of you.

David Elliott – Single Dad’s Guide to Life

Wild theories, conspiracy theories, and those darned things that children say

So I was talking to my daughter this week and as things are bound to come up, we have a wide variety of topics with which we discuss. You know those deep topics like what her favorite flavor of ice cream is, or whether pepperoni or sausage is the best pizza topping.  I try to figure out about what's going on with her school and she tries to find out whether her dog Oreo is getting enough exercise. (Dog park here I come.)

So in the course of those topics we cover, somehow the Smurfs get brought up.  You know the Smurfs, those blue creatures who had names that were directly associated with their personalities. All except Surmfette, who was created instead of . . . how exactly do the Smurfs come to be?  So we started talking about the new Smurf movie that is going to come out. How will Demi Lovato compare with Katy Perry?  What will Papa Smurf sound like for this movie?  And what is up with that new secret Smurf village?

And then she says,"I have a theory."

A theory? Hmmm... This could be interesting.  They have whole TV shows on kid theories. But being a parent I knew I had to find out.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I think the secret Smurf Village is where all the Smurf women are."

I thought for a few seconds, and then thought some more.

"Smurfette was just created. The rest of the Smurfs had to get here somehow."

She was right. The Smurfs had to come into being in some way.  They weren't all Gargamel's creations.  If he had created all of them he'd have their powers anyway. He wouldn't need them.  This doesn't exactly solve the problem of there just being one Papa Smurf.  This also doesn't answer my question about the nature of the Smurf names. (Did Papa Smurf name them those names causing them to have those personalities, which makes Papa Smurf a monster. Clumsy and Vanity Smurf? I rest my case.  Or was Papa Smurf prescient about what his Smurfs would turn out to be? Is Papa Smurf God then? That's a whole other blog post.). But it could solve where all the rest of the Smurfs might have come from.

It made me think about all of the crazy theories that can be out there.  I could just come up with more wild theories that my daughter or other kids come up with, but everyone does that.  So I started thinking about the nature of theories. And as adults we have our own wild theories, only at our age we call them conspiracy theories.  I started thinking about why we believe in them and where they come from.  Maybe they are just a continuation of the need to believe in something and to explain things to ourselves that don't make sense. And in that vein I figured I would come up with a top 10 list of conspiracy theories. This is my list so feel free to argue with it. I'll countdown from ten to one.


Number 10 - Ferris Bueller in the movie does not exist. He is really the Fight Club version of Tyler Durden. He is merely Cameron's ego expressing itself. Cameron has an interesting relationship with the girlfriend then.  And what to make of the sister . . . Whatever the case,  I just don't remember Cameron punching himself in the face.

Number 9 - The Big Lebowski is haunted. Donny is a figment of Walters imagination. He passed away years before.  The Dude only addresses him once and it's possible it was done just to placate Walter. Of course then the question is did Donny exist at all?  And what is in the mind of Walter that he imagines Donny?  Is it some strange conflict within because of the divorce from his ex? Whatever the reason, the Dude still abides.

Number 8 - Fluoridation is an illuminati plot to make people more compliant to accept a new world order and complete control over our lives. I knew that there was something wrong with dentists.  They are hiding their real purpose by causing us to like the fluoride treatment after they torture us. It's like good cop bad cop, with fluoride.  Dr. Strangelove, here I come!!!

Number 7 - RFID chips will soon be inserted into humans just like they do with animals and library books. As a librarian I never knew that we were all a part of the new world order where they can track our every move. I'm still curious as to when they will install these chips and if it will be optional. Will they force it on babies or give the parents a choice? Like circumcision, yes, RFID chip, no.

Number 6 - William Randolph Hearst and several other newspaper magnates were responsible for the elimination of hemp and pot because they were afraid that it would compete with paper products and limit the value of paper. I can only imagine what elementary school would have been like as we wrote on sheets of hemp.... hmmmm.... I guess it would make for a more compliant class, even if no one understood math.

Number 5 - The United States was actively engaged in creating a Tsunami Bomb. We were engaged in this research which eventually lead to the tsunami that occurred in the Indian Ocean in 2004. With the one that happened in Japan later, the US has been really busy with these crazy Tsunamis. Wait!  We created a nuclear catastrophe in the region, and possible worse fallout? What Tsunami bomb?

Number 4 - The Apollo moon landings were all staged in a Hollywood studio to cover up what really happened on the moon. Did we meet with the Russians there and divide up the planet? Did they find mass graves on the moons with human skeletons? (Another lunar, or shall we say looney, theory) Only the black helicopters will ever know.

Number 3 - Area 51 has been hiding all the secrets of the alien invasion for years. From the Roswell Landing to other nefarious projects by these aliens, Area 51 has it all.  These aliens have engaged in all sorts of illicit activities.  Crop circle formations? Special alien technology.  Abductions to run human testing in order to create a new super being? The reasons for midnight disappearances.   I'm not really sure I can swallow this one. Wait a second, we do have a President Trump. His super orange being has indoctrinated millions of Americans. Maybe I am being convinced. . .

Number 2 - The government of the United States had advanced knowledge of the bombings at Pearl Harbor and purposefully allowed it to happen in order to benefit the war industries in the US as they would make millions from the coming war. Instead of warning those at Pearl Harbor they just let it happen. If that's true then Roosevelt's statement about December 7th, 1941 is the understatement of the century.  It would be an infamous day like no other.

And last but certainly not least . . .

Number 1 - The Coca Cola Company specifically introduced the color of Santa's red suit as it perfectly matched the color of the Coca Cola Cans. I'm thinking that the Santa outfit should have one of those big tags on it saying, "Sponsored by Coca Cola."  It all makes sense now.  People deride Christmas as being commercial, when it was all a commercial project in the first place.  With holidays like Valentines Day and Sweetest Day engineered by the candy and greeting card companies, it seems totally plausible. I wonder if they had anything to do with Rudolph and possibly the color of his nose.

I just thought that this was a fun list. I know I could have gone with JFK but that was just too easy a target. You can argue with the order or come up with some of your own. I'd love to hear them.

David Elliott, Single Dad's Guide to Life

The Dreaded 11 - Or Weeknight Dad Date Part Deux

So I came into the weeknight date thinking about where I was going to go.  I was agonizing about the restaurants that I was going to choose from. I'm always for trying things new. I know some of those people who can go to the same restaurant multiple times a week and order the exact same things every time. I say good for you!!! I am not that person. I need to try different things from time to time.  But I was struggling and then I thought about going to Claim Jumper. I love Claim Jumper. It's probably way too much food for any one or even two people but if I get a good steak and some roasted veggies I'm doing alright. Or at least that is what I tell myself anyway. (And for those of you who are Vegetarians or have Gluten concerns there is a growing part is the menu just for you.)  Not only that, but when you take your kids they can order a decent sized meal off the kids menu, and it's pretty reasonable.  I know I have gone here before with my daughter since I was given a midweek night with her, but the last time the doctors were suggesting dairy free and gluten free. So this was a whole new experience right? Shhhh!!! Let me live in ignorance.


The irony was that my daughter ordered the exact same thing almost. She did get Mac and Cheese this time and was able to eat the cheese bread so it was a whole new meal. (And cake is a reasonable breakfast food. Or so several mom blogs are swearing. Breads and Cereals, Poultry, Dairy . . . Make it a carrot cake and add a cherry on top, with cream cheese frosting and you have all 5 major food groups.  Maybe there is something to this.)

Anyway, then we moved on to talking, which was the whole excuse for eating. While there, my daughter asks for the kids menu. She then looks at the top of the menu nervously and then sighs a big sigh of relief.

"What," I ask her.

"I'll be able to eat on the kids menu until I'm 13 here. So many places the cutoff is eleven."

And there dropped the mic. What? My daughter is about to turn 11. She's speeding into her tween years. She will be in Junior High before I know it. But the real problem is that I'm going to have to pay more for her restaurant food. That's it! I'm throwing down the gauntlet. Why in the world do they choose 11 as the last year they can eat off the child's menu?

As if I didn't have enough fears in my life as boys start coming around, and you are going to make me start paying more for this??? There will be periods, the sex talk, the boys talk, the junior high years, the not wanting to spend time with her dad any more, and you, the restaurant industry is going to make me pay more for that privilege.

And beside that, you are going to make me pay more for her food, while at the same time giving her more food than any two persons should eat at one sitting.  She's not a growing boy after all. (No slight to growing boys.) And they won't stop over feeding her until she is 55.  There is something that's just crazy about this.  Why in the world do we do this and what is it about that number?

And there was that dreaded number 11 again. Why 11?  I realize that you couldn't start going to Hogwarts until you were 11. And my daughter has made this known to me more than once as she wants it for her birthday party theme, Hogwarts is school from a book. And that book only came out in the last few years. She's not starting Junior High just yet, despite local school districts making it middle school instead of Junior High. Darn you middle school. But what's up with this?

And then there is the doubling of the costs of going out with my daughter, all because she has turned some random number. I know some people lie and tell restaurants they are actually younger. Or when their kids turn three they tell Disneyland they are still 2 so they get in for free. (I especially sympathize with those Disneyland lies given their skyrocketing costs.). I am not that guy.  To my ex's chagrin, I hated lying to people to get something. I'm not claiming sainthood here but it just felt wrong to tell a lie to get a discount. Layers of guilt would wash over me. I just can't be the guy who does that.

Now 13 I kind of get. It's the last year before Junior High. In Judaism it's when the child is considered to become an adult.  It's when boys went out to work for their fathers. It's when women way back in the day used to get married because most had already had their bodies go through puberty. Or for those of you who are younger, that big red button in Inside Out.   Thirteen is when everyone is going through physical changes that mark growing up. Eleven is Eleven. What's with 11?

This is Bob the Frenchman Mouse . . . Ho! Ho! Ho! (A little like Santa Claus but a French one with whiskers.)

Wait... I know now. It's the highest dial on the amp for Spinal Tap the faux rockimentary band.  I suppose if their "hit" Big Bottoms is in the top 50 Heavy Metal songs of all time, then going to eleven must be important. Because you know, "My Amp goes to eleven."

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David Elliott's Single Dad's Guide to Life