The Mess of Child’s Play
By LISA BELKIN“Play is the work of children,” Captain Kangaroo (a k a Bob Keeshan) once said. “It’s very serious stuff.”
Equally serious, therefore, is the fact that children are getting less plain old play time lately. As my colleague Hilary Stout explores in the Home section today, a long list of social changes — the increased presence of screens and electronics, the decreased percentage of children who live near a playground or park, the escalation of parental fears about leaving children unsupervised, the growing pressure on schools to spend classroom time on academic pursuits — all make it harder for children to do their work.
And yet, she continues, much is gained in play.
As she writes:
How high is your disorder threshold? Is a swirl of “blocks, games, crayons, magazines to cut up and draw in, as well as toys and dress-up clothes,” simply the price your home pays while you are raising children?
You can read Stout’s story here. Then use the comments below to discuss the mess of child’s play.
Jessica Martin-Weber, the founder of both the Web site and the Facebook page received the following message: “Your Page ‘The Leaky B@@b’ has been removed for violating our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual. If your Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in the permanent loss of your account.”
Within hours the original page was replaced by two others — Bring Back the Leaky Boob and TLB Support. Several parenting Web sites — notably The Stir (at Cafemom) and parenting.com (which is the online home to Parenting and Babytalk magazines) took up the cause, and within a day or so the rebel pages had more than 10,000 fans. Traffic also increased on an existing page, Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding is Not Obscene! (Official Petition to Facebook).
Soon things got interesting. Martin-Weber issued a statement asking for her page back, and also demanding that Facebook stop treating breast-feeding as an obscenity. Facebook, in turn, appears to have deleted the pages of several women who were members of the original group. On Tuesday the Leaky B@@b page was reinstated, and Facebook called the deletion a mistake.
Then, that same night, it was deleted again. Yesterday afternoon it was back. Last I checked, though, while one of the protest groups, TLB Support, is still in existence, the other, Bring Back the Leaky Boob has disappeared. A third page, Bring Back the Leaky Boob — Again, seems to have popped up in its place.
Now, to the question at the center of all this coming and going: are photos of nursing infants obscene? Does Facebook need to protect us from them?
On her Web site, Martin-Weber defended pages like hers, saying:
To which Martin-Weber responds:
Update from Facebook:
Hi Lisa,
I saw your story on the NYT parenting blog this morning and thought I would reach out to clarify what happened here.
Our reviewers look at tens of thousands of pieces of content a day that are reported to them and take action according to our policies, which are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe and trusted environment for everyone, including the many children (under the age of 13) who use the service. Of course, we make an occasional mistake. This is an example. When this happens, and it’s brought to our attention, we work quickly to resolve the issue. In this case, we restored the Page and reactivated the accounts of the people who were impacted. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this mistake caused.
Simon Axten
Facebook
Equally serious, therefore, is the fact that children are getting less plain old play time lately. As my colleague Hilary Stout explores in the Home section today, a long list of social changes — the increased presence of screens and electronics, the decreased percentage of children who live near a playground or park, the escalation of parental fears about leaving children unsupervised, the growing pressure on schools to spend classroom time on academic pursuits — all make it harder for children to do their work.
And yet, she continues, much is gained in play.
As she writes:
…scientists, psychologists, educators and others who are part of the play movement say that most of the social and intellectual skills one needs to succeed in life and work are first developed through childhood play. Children learn to control their impulses through games like Simon Says, play advocates believe, and they learn to solve problems, negotiate, think creatively and work as a team when they dig together in a sandbox or build a fort with sofa cushions. (The experts define play as a game or activity initiated and directed by children. So video games don’t count, they say, except perhaps ones that involve creating something, and neither, really, do the many educational toys that do things like sing the A B C’s with the push of a button.)A little more mess as well. “Building that fort, for example, probably involves disassembling the sofa and emptying the linen closet,” she notes, and her article is filled with stories of mothers who are learning to “embrace the disorder” that is intrinsically part of unstructured play.
Until recently, these advocates were preaching to educators, with the goal of restoring “recess and unstructured playtime to early childhood and elementary school curriculums,” Stout writes. But lately they are “starting to reach out to parents, recognizing that for the movement to succeed, parental attitudes must evolve as well — starting with a willingness to tolerate a little more unpredictability in children’s schedules and a little less structure at home.”
How high is your disorder threshold? Is a swirl of “blocks, games, crayons, magazines to cut up and draw in, as well as toys and dress-up clothes,” simply the price your home pays while you are raising children?
You can read Stout’s story here. Then use the comments below to discuss the mess of child’s play.
Facebook vs. Nursing Moms,
Round 2
By LISA BELKIN This past weekend, Facebook deleted the page for The Leaky B@@b, a breast-feeding support group where thousands of women come to ask questions and trade answers. It was the latest in an ongoing series of skirmishes between Facebook and nursing mothers — specifically those who have posted photos of their children breast-feeding.Jessica Martin-Weber, the founder of both the Web site and the Facebook page received the following message: “Your Page ‘The Leaky B@@b’ has been removed for violating our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual. If your Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in the permanent loss of your account.”
Within hours the original page was replaced by two others — Bring Back the Leaky Boob and TLB Support. Several parenting Web sites — notably The Stir (at Cafemom) and parenting.com (which is the online home to Parenting and Babytalk magazines) took up the cause, and within a day or so the rebel pages had more than 10,000 fans. Traffic also increased on an existing page, Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding is Not Obscene! (Official Petition to Facebook).
Soon things got interesting. Martin-Weber issued a statement asking for her page back, and also demanding that Facebook stop treating breast-feeding as an obscenity. Facebook, in turn, appears to have deleted the pages of several women who were members of the original group. On Tuesday the Leaky B@@b page was reinstated, and Facebook called the deletion a mistake.
Then, that same night, it was deleted again. Yesterday afternoon it was back. Last I checked, though, while one of the protest groups, TLB Support, is still in existence, the other, Bring Back the Leaky Boob has disappeared. A third page, Bring Back the Leaky Boob — Again, seems to have popped up in its place.
Now, to the question at the center of all this coming and going: are photos of nursing infants obscene? Does Facebook need to protect us from them?
On her Web site, Martin-Weber defended pages like hers, saying:
We get an average of 16,000 impressions on our posts, and reading the posts on our wall from women with urgent questions has committed me to find a way to provide real-time support in a safe atmosphere. Many women don’t have other resources if they have a question in the middle of the night, or don’t know where else to go for referrals to help in their local area.Or, as parenting.com put it:
they offer support for nursing moms around the clock, wherever they are. If a woman feels uncomfortable calling her pediatrician or a lactation consultant with every little question, or is suffering with bloody nipples and a screaming baby at 3 am, The Leaky B@@b offers a supportive place for her to turn.Facebook, however, says a nipple is a nipple, and they violate the Terms of Service.
To which Martin-Weber responds:
As excited as we are to have The Leaky B@@b back, the problem remains and any page, individual, or photo is at risk of being deleted when related to breast health. Facebook has a responsibility to it’s customers to clearly communicate that they are pro-women by creating a new way to moderate materials flagged as obscene. No doubt the company is overwhelmed with reports of obscenity but surely they are smart enough to develop a system that would allow them to remove the truly obscene materials while those related to breast health including breastfeeding and breast cancer are able to remain. Additionally they need to have a provision for an exempt status for all groups, pages, and companies related to breast health. If they don’t, well entrepreneurs, there’s a market here for you to create a new social media site that can do just that. Facebook, your customers are unhappy and many of us are waiting to see what you decide to do now before we take our business elsewhere. I appreciate your efforts to keep pornographic images off Facebook, I really do but please, breastfeeding is not pornographic. Reinstating The Leaky B@@b indicates that you are aware there is a significant problem with your current mode of operation. The first media coverage I could find on this problem dates back to 2007. You would think Facebook would get tired of this and make some necessary changes. Four years is long enough, fix it.The company does get the last word, of course, since they have the power to block a page. But, for the moment at least, all the fuss seems to mean that more people are seeing the photos, not fewer. Membership on the Leaky B@@b Facebook page was about 5,000 when the controversy began this weekend. It has nearly doubled since.
Update from Facebook:
Hi Lisa,
I saw your story on the NYT parenting blog this morning and thought I would reach out to clarify what happened here.
Our reviewers look at tens of thousands of pieces of content a day that are reported to them and take action according to our policies, which are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe and trusted environment for everyone, including the many children (under the age of 13) who use the service. Of course, we make an occasional mistake. This is an example. When this happens, and it’s brought to our attention, we work quickly to resolve the issue. In this case, we restored the Page and reactivated the accounts of the people who were impacted. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this mistake caused.
Simon Axten
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