Grandparents For Truth Mobilizes Against Book Banning And Censorship—People for the American Way

Friends:

I just became a grandma again this week for a third time. It's beyond glorious, as any grandparent knows. It also fosters that deep sense of concern over, and responsibility for, where our country is headed with toxic school board politics, censorship, and book bans. 

Consequently, grandparents, along with parents and anyone concerned with our fledgling democracy, need to step in the gap in this fight over book bans and censorship. I am happy to see the timely emergence of this organization, Grandparents For Truth. I just signed up here and hope you consider doing so, as well. As you can read for yourself, you don't have to be a grandparent to join.

Relatedly, the American Library Association also has an initiative that is organizing readers everywhere to fight against censorship. Censorship is what authoritarian regimes do so that they can limit and narrow the thinking and imagination of their people. 

What I find to be cognitively dissonant or discordant is that these extremist politics are playing out at a time in human history when knowledge is multiplying at an unprecedented rate. What we should be focused on instead is helping youth make sense of information, managing distractions and informations overload while learning how to be judicious over credible, as opposed to less credible or questionable information or data.

We must all push back on censorship wherever we see it playing out. Consider running for your local school board or alternatively, for your State Board of Education. A free society depends on access to the truth combined with an ethic and practice of lifelong learning. As for children themselves, they need to be able to see themselves in literature and history in order for them to be able to heal from their own traumas, or alternatively to expand their horizons and sense of self, as well as to navigate the complexities that life invariably brings, while also discovering the awe and beauty of lived experience and the natural world that becoming a grandma makes palpable and profound. Feeling blessed. ❤️

-Angela Valenzuela

#GrandparentsForTruth @peoplefor @UABookBans @ALALibrary #UniteAgainstBookBans 

#TeachInclusion #TruthInSchools

‘Grandparents For Truth’ Mobilizes Against Book Banning And Censorship

/ Community Organizing, Partner News

This blog post is from Miranda Jayne Boyd with People For the American Way – a Unite Against Book Bans partner.

People For the American Way—a proud partner to Unite Against Book Bans— has been fighting authoritarian attacks on the freedom to learn for more than 40 years. Now, with book-banning and censorship on the rise, and attacks on education becoming more and more aggressive, People For has launched a new campaign to fight back—Grandparents For Truth.

Grandparents For Truth is a voice against censorship and for the freedom to learn, mobilizing members who are grandparents, have grandparents, or know grandparents to join up and oppose book banning and censorship. Through on-the-ground rallies and petitions, as well as online organizing and activist trainings, Grandparents For Truth advocates for inclusive education reflecting the lived experiences of people with diverse identities, while helping members fight for truth at their local schools, school boards, and more.

Right now, there’s a coordinated assault against education in this country, especially against communities that have historically been marginalized. The vast majority of banned and challenged books are written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ and Black communities. Honest and diverse education is vital to an inclusive society and a thriving democracy, and authoritarians are doing everything they can to deny that education to our young people.

Under the guise of parental rights, groups like Moms for Liberty and their political allies are imposing their ideology on students, schools, school boards, and libraries and trying to control what other parents’ children can read and learn. Grandparents For Truth serves to counter groups like Moms for Liberty and combat these attacks on our children’s future.

Grandparents are the perfect people to push back against the tide of censorship we’re facing today. They’ve seen how censorship and book banning have played out as tools of authoritarianism in the past, and they have a stake in building the world their grandchildren will inherit. But it will take everyone to stand up to authoritarian assaults on education.

Regardless of age or whether someone is actually a grandparent, everyone who believes in the freedom to learn can be a part of Grandparents For Truth and take a stand for honest education. Backed by People For’s proud history of opposing authoritarianism and the determination of People For’s members to make their voices heard, Grandparents For Truth is a powerful force in the fight against book banning, censorship, and all other attacks on education.

Featured Image: People For National Field Director Alana Byrd rallies the crowd at a Grandparents For Truth event in Philadelphia. Photo by People For.

When Can I See My Grandkids? by Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times, May 20, 2020

I'm a grandmother.  It's agonizing right now not being able to see my grandchildren.  This piece was really helpful. Even encouraging.

-Angela Valenzuela

When Can I See My Grandkids?

The pandemic has separated many grandparents from their grandchildren. Here’s advice for  safely reuniting your family’s oldest and youngest generations.

By Tara Parker-Pope | New York Times

May 20, 2020

Grandparents have had enough. They want to see their grandchildren.

A life in seemingly endless lockdown and isolation from grandchildren is not how grandparents want to spend their golden years. But adult children don’t want to risk exposing an older, more vulnerable generation to the new coronavirus during a family visit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that eight out of 10 deaths from Covid-19 are in people aged 65 and older.

 

But a healthy life is more than just physical health. Loneliness is also a general predictor of decline and death in people over 60. As reality sets in that pandemic living will be measured in months and possibly years, grandparents are asking, “How can I safely visit my grandchildren?”

“This is a tricky one because older people are particularly vulnerable to this virus,” said Julia Marcus, an infectious disease epidemiologist and assistant professor in the department of population medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Of course the safest approach is to avoid any interactions with grandparents, but that won’t be sustainable for everyone, and there are important ways to minimize risk if people do choose to see older relatives.”

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To start, families need their own reality check about the actual level of vigilance by every member of the household.

 

“What I would consider quarantine and what other people would consider quarantine are often different,” said Shan Soe-Lin, a lecturer at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and managing director at Pharos Global Health Advisors, a nonprofit global health firm in Boston. “One of the gold standard questions is, ‘How many people have you come into contact with over the last week, or over the last month if you can remember that far back?’ I think that’s a clear test question. Everyone says that they are being super careful. Nobody self-evaluates as being completely reckless.”

So as a first step, think about human contacts, big and small, by every member of the household. How many times did someone go to a store? Did you meet up with a friend for a walk? When you jog, how close are you to other runners? At the park, did your children run up to another child before you could stop them? Is a teenage boyfriend dropping by the house? Do you always wear a mask? Do your children?

 

“If you’re a family and you have some leakage in your quarantine protocol — if you had to go to the grocery store, for instance, delivery people came over, other people entered your house — any time you have a break in that protective bubble I would be extremely cautious,” said Dr. Soe-Lin.

Now that you’ve taken stock, try to seal the “leaks” in your quarantine bubble. While it may be impossible to get your contact risk to zero, you can eliminate the biggest risks (like outside visitors), reduce shopping trips to once a week or less, improve hand hygiene and wear a mask. Once you’re confident in your family’s quarantine vigilance for 14 days, it’s less risky to visit an older family member. But go with a plan.

The safer strategy is to spend time together outdoors — the risk for viral transmission outside is far lower than inside. Everyone should wash their hands, and stay at least six feet apart. Some experts suggest 10 to 12 feet if the grandparent is a very elderly person or has a chronic health condition. Even outdoors, everyone over the age of 2 — and not just the grandparent — should wear a mask. Children are more likely to wear a mask if you explain to them that it’s to protect someone they love. [Read more: Children May Be Afraid of Masks. Here’s How to Help]

“A sneeze without a mask can spread up to 20 feet,” said Dr. Asaf Bitton, executive director of Ariadne Labs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It’s also the act of speaking — we expel droplets even in quiet speech. The mask really contains a great amount of them. The mask is protecting all of us from each other.”

Masks can be removed for meals, but everyone should stay at least six feet apart from the older person. Don’t share food or drinks — it increases the risk of close contact or catching germs from serving utensils and dishes. If you have hand sanitizer, use it often. And avoid touching the face.

Remember, the biggest worry is being in an enclosed space with someone who has the virus but doesn’t know it. Keep everyone outside, if possible. But if a child must enter a grandparent’s house, monitor them and allow it only when the grandparent is outside. Everyone should wear a mask, and sanitize the bathroom after use. If the grandparent is visiting you, designate one disinfected bathroom just for them and keep children outdoors.

Linsey Marr, an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech who studies viral transmission, said that before the pandemic, her 74-year-old mother-in-law cared for her two children twice a week. Now they meet outdoors for family meals, with everyone keeping their distance.

“We have a long table outside, and she sits at the opposite end more than six feet away,” said Dr. Marr. “We do not pass around dishes. She has not been in our house for months. We’re worried about her. We don’t want her to get sick.”

The Coronavirus Outbreak

Today’s Question: How can I protect myself while flying?

If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

While parents may worry that all these precautions will create too much stress, research shows that even young children understand the concept of keeping people safe, “kind of like how superheroes help save people,” said Dr. Neha Chaudhary, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Parents can explain the need to keep grandparents from getting sick by keeping their body to themselves, staying behind a particular landmark like a sidewalk or set of chairs, and keeping a mask on their faces since germs come from there,” Dr. Chaudhary said. “Young kids generally understand the idea of something bad happening and trying to do good instead.”

 

Don’t panic if a child breaches the social distancing barrier and gets close to a grandparent. Brief encounters are not a big risk, and you don’t want to create fear in children. But long hugs, cuddles and sitting in grandpa or grandma’s lap are not advised. If both grandparent and child are wearing a mask, a quick hug from a child around the waist or knees, keeping faces as far apart as possible, poses very little risk, Dr. Marr said.

Long-distance visits to see grandparents are more difficult. You should stay in a hotel or rental nearby, not in the grandparent’s house, and still limit visits to the outdoors while wearing a mask. Even if you drive instead of fly, stopping for food and using public restrooms along the way sets your quarantine clock back to zero. It’s safest to quarantine for 14 days before visiting the older person.

Be aware that the risk of being together during the pandemic will change over time. Areas where new cases and hospitalizations are low and dropping may be safer than places where illness is high and on the rise, Dr. Bitton said. Experts say the summer may be your best opportunity to visit with older family members in many states, partly because you can spend time together outdoors, but also because a surge in cases is expected in the fall and winter, when stricter quarantines may be recommended for the most vulnerable.

Do you have a health question? Ask Well

When Older Relatives Shrug at Coronavirus Restrictions

April 15, 2020

 

The Surprising Effects of Loneliness on Health

Dec. 11, 2017

 

Tara Parker-Pope is the founding editor of Well, The Times’s award-winning consumer health site. She won an Emmy in 2013 for the video series “Life, Interrupted” and is the author of “For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage.” @taraparkerpope

 

 

Why Grandmothers May Hold The Key To Human Evolution, John Poole | NPR | All Things Considered

This is so very interesting and mind-blowing. As a grandma myself, I know and           celebrate my power and way of knowing as an abuela, a grandma.  I know that 
                        I make a huge difference in the world for my grandson. And I'm pretty sur   e m   os   sure that most grandmas can relate. This is also why                                                         families need to belong together.  #ConnectedToTheSource                                                                                                          #FamiliesBelongTogether  -Angela

Why Grandmothers May Hold The Key To Human Evolution

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June 7, 20186:00 AM ET

John Poole | All Things Considered

A hunter with bow and arrow, in a steamy sub-Saharan savanna, stalks a big, exotic animal. After killing and butchering it, he and his hunt-mates bring it back to their families and celebrate.

About 'How To Raise A Human'

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This enduring scenario is probably what many of us have stuck in our heads about how early humans lived. It's an image with drama and danger. And it happens to coincide with Western ideas about the division of labor and the nuclear family that were prevalent in the 1960s when this so-called "Man the Hunter" theory first emerged.

A newer body of research and theory, much of it created by women, has conjured a very different scenario. It probably looks a little more like a quirky indie film than a Hollywood blockbuster. The star of this new film? Grandma.

Kristen Hawkes is an anthropologist at the University of Utah. She tries to figure out our past by studying modern hunter-gatherers like the Hadza, who likely have lived in the area that is now northern Tanzania for thousands of years. Groups like this are about as close as we can get to seeing how our early human ancestors might have lived.

Over many extended field visits, Hawkes and her colleagues kept track of how much food a wide sample of Hadza community members were bringing home. She says that when they tracked the success rates of individual men, "they almost always failed to get a big animal." They found that the average hunter went out pretty much every day and was successful on exactly 3.4 percent of those excursions. That meant that, in this society at least, the hunting hypothesis seemed way off the mark. If people here were depending on wild meat to survive, they would starve.

So if dad wasn't bringing home the bacon, who was? After spending a lot of time with the women on their daily foraging trips, the researchers were surprised to discover that the women, both young and old, were providing the majority of calories to their families and group-mates.

Mostly, they were digging tubers, which are deeply buried and hard to extract. The success of a mother at gathering these tubers correlated with the growth of her child. But something else surprising happened once mom had a second baby: That original relationship went away and a new correlation emerged with the amount of food their grandmother was gathering.

She describes this finding as "mind-blowing." In this foraging society, it turns out, grandmothers were more important to child survival than fathers. Mom and grandma were keeping the kids fed. Not Man the Hunter.

This finding led Hawkes to completely re-evaluate what she thought she knew about human evolution. Grandmothers were crucial in this environment to childhood survival. So maybe it wasn't an accident that humans are the only great ape species in which women live so long past reproductive age. If having a helpful grandmother increased a kid's chances of survival, natural selection may well have started selecting for older and older women. (This endowment would have passed also to human men.)

Sarah Hrdy is a primatologist at U.C. Davis who also studies connections between child-rearing and human evolution. She has spent a lot of time thinking and writing about a related topic. She says, "An ape that produced such costly, costly slow-maturing offspring as we have could not have evolved unless mothers had a lot of help." First among these helpers, she thinks, would have been grandma – likely joined eventually by many other new helpers, who could have included fathers, aunts, uncles and siblings.

If young kids were being fed by people besides mom, she thinks that over evolutionary time, this could have led humans to develop the deep social orientation that characterizes our species – to care so much about the thoughts and intentions of other people. She says, "People often try to explain the fact that humans are so good at cooperating by saying, well, we needed to cooperate in order to succeed at big game hunting, or so that men in one group could bond with other men to go wipe out the neighboring group. What that doesn't do is explain why these traits emerge so early."

She's talking about babies and the advanced social traits that we can see even before they begin walking – like pointing, sharing and paying attention to social cues like smiling and frowning. From the standpoint of a human baby, this caregiving situation is very different than for any other species of great ape child. Baby chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas are all cared for exclusively by mom. And these primate moms are extremely protective of their babies — sometimes not even letting another ape touch the baby for months after birth.

For human babies though, other human adults are usually present right at, or shortly after, birth — first helping the mother and then later helping and feeding the baby. We are the only great ape species that does this. Human babies, Hrdy argues, have an incentive to care about what other people are doing and thinking and feeling in a way that other apes don't. Knowing who might help and who might hurt, and learning how to appeal to the former, might be the difference between eating well or going hungry – maybe even the difference between life and death in some cases.

Michael Tomasello is a developmental psychologist at Duke University and the Max Planck Institute. After a career of comparing cognitive differences between babies and apes, he has found that other apes don't show anywhere near the level of interest in the sharing and cooperative behaviors that emerge so early in humans: "Humans as individuals aren't that much cleverer than other apes. It's the fact that we can put our heads together with others and communicate and collaborate and learn from others and teach others. Human children are adapted for cooperation and shared intentionality in ways that apes aren't."

Tomasello originally assumed that the pro-social traits seen in human babies were preparing kids for skills they'd need as adults, in line with the Man the Hunter hypothesis. Now he thinks that Hrdy's proposal – that human babies are so socially oriented as a result of shared child care and feeding – is a more compelling theory. The traits appear so early in a human's life that it makes better sense that they were adapted to early childhood situations rather than adult hunting behaviors.

It's this ability to "put our heads together," as Tomasello puts it, that may have allowed humans to survive, thrive and spread across the globe. While the men were out hunting, grandmothers and babies were building the foundation of our species' success – sharing food, cooperating on more and more complex levels and developing new social relationships. In a nutshell, humanity's success may all be dependent on the unique way our ancestors raised their kids. Thanks, Grandma.