Saturday Seven ~ Week 27

1:: Russ put up the tent this past weekend and had a backyard camp out with the boys for a couple nights. I have the most awesome husband.

2:: Luke ended up at urgent care, again. This time for stitches in his pinkie finger. Not good. So glad Russ was home to take care of this emergency. Did I mention I have an awesome husband?

3:: As if he needed more points this week, he ALSO had to play the part of hunter/protector and save me from an animal-type-thing-which-shall-not-be-named in the middle of the night *in our bedroom.* I get points for not shrieking. First the skunk (oh, I didn't tell you that story, did I?) and now this. Ugh.

4:: I'm photographing a wedding today. Pray for me. My stupendously amazing sister is designing/coordinating/hostessing. This girl has talent you can't even imagine. It's going to be AMAZING. Have I mentioned my awesome family, yet?

Food for Thought:

5:: On Gender Wars and the Work Force : The End of Men at The Atlantic.

"The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true."

The Case for Working With Your Hands at The New York Times. Really good stuff, here.

'When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options...

'If the goal is to earn a living, then, maybe it isn’t really true that 18-year-olds need to be imparted with a sense of panic about getting into college (though they certainly need to learn). Some people are hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, when they would rather be learning to build things or fix things. One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.” '

And I Choose My Choice at The Atlantic.

'Linda Hirshman claims that “the family—with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks—is a necessary part of life, but allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government.” Many people would no doubt find unpaid household chores less interesting than Professor Hirshman’s job … But walking up and down the super­market aisle selecting food for a family dinner is a job that has more variety and autonomy than the paid work being done by the supermarket employees who stack the same shelves with the same food day after day, and those who stand in a narrow corner at the checkout counter all day tallying up the costs of purchases, and the workers next to them who pack the purchases into paper or plastic bags. That space in the market is a bit cramped for human flourishing.'

Or, if you'd like to get really annoyed with the entitlement attitude of the new generation (which segues nicely into thought #6), you can read American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation at The New York Times. (Emphasis and [ ] comment are mine.)

After several interviews, the Hanover Insurance Group in nearby Worcester offered to hire him as an associate claims adjuster, at $40,000 a year. But even before the formal offer, Mr. Nicholson had decided not to take the job. Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out [while living with his parents and letting them pay his expenses] for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder....

For young adults, the prospects in the workplace, even for the college-educated, have rarely been so bleak. Apart from the 14 percent who are unemployed and seeking work, as Scott Nicholson is, 23 percent are not even seeking a job, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The total, 37 percent, is the highest in more than three decades and a rate reminiscent of the 1930s.

6:: On Prolonged Adolescence: Long Road to Adulthood Is Growing Even Longer at The New York Times.

“A new period of life is emerging in which young people are no longer adolescents but not yet adults,” Mr. Furstenberg said.

And Why Young Men Delay Adulthood to Stay in Guyland (originally for Newsweek).

In his new book, "Guyland," the State University of New York at Stony Brook professor notes that the traditional markers of manhood—leaving home, getting an education, finding a partner, starting work and becoming a father—have moved downfield as the passage from adolescence to adulthood has evolved from "a transitional moment to a whole new stage of life." In 1960, almost 70 percent of men had reached these milestones by the age of 30. Today, less than a third of males that age can say the same.

7:: On Morality: Bad Books for Kids

"Making any sort of moral judgment is always bad, unless it reflects a mainstream piety, one of which is the wickedness of moral judgments. People who make any other sort of judgment are not attractive and lead lives the hero and the reader know they do not want to lead."

In The Core, Leigh Bortins quotes Ravi Zacharias, a popular debater at Ivy League schools, as saying:

'We are living in a time when sensitivities are at the surface, often vented with cutting words. Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true. Morally, you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a "better" way.'

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

And locals, don't forget the Mondays @ Monteith concert series starting this next week!!