Raising Awareness?!?

So, do these "I Love Boobies" bracelets and "Save the Ta-Tas" campaigns truly raise awareness for breast cancer?

Well, in case you were wondering, here are my opinions on the matter...

I find them completely and utterly distasteful. 

My mother battled breast cancer for 8 long and agonizing years before ultimately losing her life to this terrible disease. In the process, she was severely disfigured from multiple surgical procedures as well as from the cancer itself. 

To me, these kinds of slogans and campaigns make a laughing stock out of just how horrifying this disease can truly be. They place the focus on a part of the body, NOT on the life of the person...which is what truly matters. As I stated earlier, my mother was left severely deformed, so these types of campaigns made her feel even more insecure about her breast disfigurements and was made to feel "less of a woman" without breasts because so much emphasis was placed on the body part and not the person. 

They trivialize the seriousness of the issue and objectify body parts of women thus turning this disease into something sexual. 

As a mother, I want my son to learn to treat women with respect...hearing others refer to a woman's body parts so haphazardly does nothing to help in this area.

As a woman and the mother of a daughter, I find these terms degrading and they cause men to focus on the physical appearance of breasts rather than the actual underlying disease. 

Some people will say, 'But they raise awareness and any publicity is good publicity'.

Really?!? Last time I checked, people don't go around calling mens' breasts 'boobies' or 'ta-tas'. These bracelets and campaigns totally gloss over the fact that men can have this disease too. Sure, not close to the extent in which women are diagnosed, but the threat is there nonetheless. (see statistics here)

Who do you see wearing these bracelets?

...Men and teenagers...mostly boys, but I have seen a few girls as well.  Moms - do you really want your boys wearing these?

Do they truly care about breast cancer or just the fact they can blatantly get away with wearing something that says "I love Boobies" out in public? And, seeing that males (more so than females) wear them really makes me raise some eyebrows as to their reasons for wearing them.

I think I'll strike up conversations next time. Should make for some interesting ones.

What if these slogans, phrases, and campaigns were used in the context of other types of cancers, would they still be so widely accepted?

Here is just a small list of them. I'm sure you can use your imagination as to what the slogan might be. No, I am not intentionally trying to be crude, but seriously stop and think about it. I am aware there is already a bracelet or two on the market that "raises awareness" of some of these cancers. And yes, I find those disgraceful and distasteful too.  I personally know some great men who had testicular tumors and cancers removed and a few nearly lost their lives because of it. Don't even get me started on the 'other' slogans being pushed out there. And would you want your daughters wearing those bracelets!?!...I digress...

anal cancer

cervical cancer

Colon Cancer

Colorectal cancer

Ovarian Cancer

Penile Cancer

Prostate Cancer

Rectal Cancer

Testicular Cancer

Vaginal Cancer

Sorry if this post offends you. With the close of breast cancer awareness month all my thought on the issue are finally spilling over. And yes, I am aware there are those people out there wearing these bracelets who have no clue of the message they are really sending or just how hurtful and harmful they can be to others. I just think there are more helpful, beneficial, and worthwhile ways of raising the awareness of breast cancer...

So...what do you think about these bracelets and slogans? 

MFW-ECC - Week 13 - Being ignored, a sad kitty, and sky terrors!

Our Week in Review

Well, this week has been a bit crazy! Realized (a few days after the fact) that our cat was missing...and she's an inside house cat...how bad is that! We found her in the laundry room closet - traumatized, of course. Poor thing! She has a bad habit of running into a room just as we are closing the door. This week was insane running here and there that we just never stopped long enough 1) to realize she was missing and 2) to hear her crying and pawing at the door. Sad, sad kitty!

Tuesday was pretty much a wash. We attended my high school brother's cross-country meet and between that, the park, band practice, and dance practice that day, it left very little room for school-ish things. So we took the day off :)

Ahh, there's nothing quite like getting up early in the morning (with kids in tow), driving 2 hours round trip to watch your brother run, get eaten up by mosquitos THE ENTIRE TIME because they are immune to bug spray, then totally be ignored like you are not even there because your brother is too cool to even acknowledge your existence in front of his friends. Good times....NOT !!!

Art/Music

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the Lapp felt project. The felt was a bit hard to cut and I thought they'd poop out on me and give up, but I was really surprised at their creativity and sticktoitivness!  How do you like that word ;)

A's

J's

S's

Science & Geography

Sorry, I know this section is pretty empty. We managed to squeeze in some of the required book reading, but had trouble completing ANY of the fun outside activities. The mosquitos were TERRIBLE! There was not enough bug spray in the world that could keep us out there. Oh, cold front, please move in quickly so these sky terrors will move out! We did manage to squeeze in a few zips around the merry-go-round at the park where my brother's cross-country meet was being held though. 

We also tried out another hair-do on A. This one was super simple and only involved pony-tails and a lot of twisting.

I get most of these hairstyle ideas from http://www.girlydohairstyles.com

MFW-ECC - Week 12 - Free viking lapbook, fire safety, and a hair-do

Our Week in Review

Art/Music

Man! We are lovin' art this year! That is a far cry from last year. Why, you might ask? I am a procrastinator...well on some things anyway. Gathering art supplies is at the top of my list. This past summer, following the advice from a friend (thanks again, Rachel), I went through my MFW manual and made a list of all the art supplies I might possibly need throughout the school year. I get the Hobby Lobby weekly e-mails, and as something I need goes on sale, I look at my list, then buy the items when they are on-sale. Some things just never go on sale, so that is when those 40% off coupons come in real handy. This does take a little time and planning to get your supply list together, but then you have all summer long to gather and buy your supplies, plus, you'll save a ton of money and your hubby should like that part ;) 


I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to simply walk over to my school cabinet and know, whatever supplies I need for their art project that day, will be there :) 

 Rosemaling

The kids enjoyed this project. Naturally, the boys were not thrilled about creating flowery designs, but when I told them they only had to draw flowery things on just 1 side of their boxes, they were ok with it. Of course, they chose to draw them on the back or the bottom where no one would see them ;)

Geography

A great, short ariel video of Stockholm can be found here. Beautiful! My kids were fascinated by the fact it is 14 islands separated by water and bridges.


Beautiful pictures of Big Ben are found here.


Here are a few good pictures of Stonehenge.

Click here for a free viking lapbook. Once you get to the page, scroll down about 3/4 of the way and you'll see the downloadable pages. This site, Dynamic 2 Moms, overall has some great free lapbooks, notebooks, and units for homeschoolers. 




The kids also enjoyed a field trip to the local Fire Museum. This may have been our last trip to the museum though. My kids are getting older *sniff sniff* and moving on to other things. 

And last, but not least....we tried a new hair-do on A. 

(This post has been linked up at 2 Ladybugs and a Lizard )

MFW-ECC - Week 11 - Head Hunters, story spoilers, and an 'egg'speriment

Our Week in Review

Before I jump into this week's review, let me start off by saying, the Nate Saint Bible notes you are supposed to read from the MFW manual each day this week will spoil the Nate Saint Christian Heroes chapter book you read each day...specifically starting with Wednesday's Bible notes. I did not like the fact the chapters and Nate Saint Bible notes were not better aligned. The first few Bible notes seemed redundant as well. Knowing what I know now, so as not to spoil the story or be overly redundant, I would follow this plan instead...

  Day 1 - Read chapter 11 as indicated in the lesson plans then do Monday's Bible notes on Nate Saint and plane activity as indicated in the lesson plans.

Day 2 - Read chapter 12 as indicated in lesson plans only.

Day 3 - Read chapter 13 then read Day 2's Nate Saint Bible notes.

Day 4 - Read chapter 14 and 15 then read Day 3's Nate Saint Bible notes as a recap.

Day 5 - Read chapter 16 (it's very short) then read Day 4 and 5's Nate Saint Bible notes.

Geography

We decided to wait until this week to make our Brazilian treats. On Monday, we made Brigaderiros...4 simple ingredients to toss into the pot, then we kept stirring and stirring and stirring and stirring, well, you get the idea. No joking, I think we stirred for 20 minutes!

I really didn't think the kids were going to like them, but they surprised me...S, A, Dad, and my other brother (J) gobbled them up. J ate his 1st one, but wanted no more. I licked my fingers and that was enough for me ;)  

Science

The kids took turns reading pages 106-109 in Living World. We decided to look up some videos to go long with what we read. Short videos depicting the Argus pheasant dance can be found here and the Peacock dance here. Chameleon color change here.


We learned about eggs and God's design for bird reproduction through laying eggs. We also learned of the egg arch shape and how its shape is one of the sturdiest and strongest shapes in architecture. The kids, as well as myself, were quite surprised at how hard it was to break the egg. 

It was only until we fractured or made a tiny crack in the egg that we were able to break them by squeezing.

The next part of our 'egg'speriment, as J called it, was to see how much weight our egg arches could hold.

12 workbooks and 2 spiral notebooks later and the back 2 egg arches collapsed.

The 'popping' sound of the shells made us all jump. LOL!

Bible

{We consider the read-alouds as part of Bible.} As we were reading Chapter 11 in 'Nate Saint' this week, the kids were intrigued with shrunken heads and wanted to know more. Before delving more into the subject, I took the time to explain how sad it was that people were killed for this and how sad it was for the Jivaro people to not know the one true God who could save them from this kind of life and treatment of others. With that being said, we looked up pictures of shrunken heads on the Internet. Of course then the kids wanted to know how they shrunk heads.  I found a short article here and we discussed a few of the elements they saw in the pictures...not everything though :-/


The kiddos also had fun flying (or *trying* to fly) their little yellow Nate Saint planes.

I hope you had a great week as well!

(This post has been linked up at Discover Their Gifts and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers)

MFW-ECC - Week 10 - "Honey" the Police Dog

Our Week in Review

Field Trip - Yay!

On Friday, we had the pleasure of meeting "Honey".

Honey is a beautiful 2 year old police narcotics dog. She is trained to sniff out 4 types of drugs. The officer showed us how she does this by hiding something in one of the kids backpacks. She went from pack to pack sniffing. Just as soon as she found the pack containing the "illegal substance" she immediately sat at attention, very still, staring at the pack. It was pretty neat to watch. 

The kids had fun when the officer let each of them take turns throwing Honey her ball.

 They really got a kick out of racing Honey. Boy was she fast!

Art/Music

The art project we chose this week was to make flutes. The kids had a lot of fun decorating and playing their straw flutes. A word of warning though...I would snip off the sharp ends of the flutes and NOT allow the kiddos to walk around with them while playing them. We had one kiddo bump into another, the straw got shoved into his mouth, and he got a pretty good slice at the back of his throat. OUCH! 

Science

We started the week off by watching a short movie from Netflix about biomes. The kids liked it and the narrator is pretty goofy, which is always a plus in my kids' minds. lol!

The kids took turns reading pages 94-95, 100-101, and 102-105 in Living World.  I did take MFW's recommendation and change the wording, however, we still used this opportunity to discuss the lies they may see in textbooks from time to time regarding evolution, apes, and humans.  

Geography

Kids took turns reading pages 24-27 in the Illustrated World Atlas.

We also watched another Netflix show the kids really liked called "Really Wild Animals: Totally Tropical Rainforest". 

Bible

The Auca people we are hearing about in our Nate Saint story, reminded us of the Yanomamo people we read about on Monday. It is so sad to read of the killing and hatred between people, the mistreatment of women, and the child brides. I came across an article in a National Geographic magazine about Child brides when visiting a relative's house a while back. So, so sad and heartbreaking! You can see the full article here. I will warn you though, although there are no graphic pictures, many of the factual issues facing child brides are discussed and are likely to turn your stomach as it did mine. 

We had a GREAT week and were so glad to get out of the house and meet Honey. 


How was your week?

(This post has been linked up at 2 Ladybugs and a Lizard and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers)