Weekend Links: The Easing Back In Edition

I worked a full work week this week.... sort of.  And I have some links for you, but no theme or attempt to tie them together. Maybe I'll have my act together next week.

Anyway, to the links.

You may have noticed from my Twitter rants on the topic, that I'm beyond disgusted by the stories that keep turning up about Black single mothers having their children taken away from them because they cannot find child care while they work or apply for jobs. I'm not saying that I think the solutions the mothers found were optimal, but I do think the solutions were probably the best of the bad lot they had to choose from, and if that bothers us as a society the appropriate thing to do would be to make child care affordable, not to throw mothers who fail to perform some sort of magic and create an acceptable solution where non exists into jail.

After the most recent case, a lot of people- myself included- were on Twitter noting we were latchkey kids. Stacia L. Brown wrote a powerful reminder that not all latchkey kids are viewed through the same lens in this country.

And speaking of the same behaviors not being viewed the same in all people... a study found that engaging in diversity promoting behavior is bad for your career if you are female or Black.

I have so far managed to avoid reading that Esquire article about how some women my age are still desirable (or something like that), but I keep coming across good responses. This response from Rebecca Traister is particularly good.

Here is a really good article about Sally Ride.

Janet Stemwedel (a.k.a. @docfreeride) wrote a nice piece about science being for all girls, including the princesses. My annoyance with how even some feminists pigeon-hole girls who like princesses was the inspiration for my most recent kids' book (title: Petunia, the Girl Who Was NOT a Princess). It was nice to read someone else defending the "pretty pink princesses." They are more than that one aspect. Girls, like boys, can have multiple interests at once.

If you have a kid who likes both Barbies and battle armor, you can now get a suit of armor for Barbie.

And someone has taken on the problem of getting water to boil faster... but only for gas stoves, so it won't help me. I'll stick with my "boil in the electric kettle, transfer to the pan" method, I guess.

This story about how a French supermarket cut down on the waste of fruits and vegetables is fun.

And finally, I give you Story Pirates, a Twitter feed to add smiles to your day.