olympics

This year, there were two Olympic medalists who were raised by single dads. But does highlighting the fact that they had only a father imply that single dads are likely to fare worse as parents than single mothers? Mom Lylah Alphonse at Child Caring takes offense to this notion:

It bugged me as I read yet another story about short track skating champ [Apolo] Ohno that asked “Where’s his mom?” And it finally hit me last night, as I watched a promo for freestyle ski phenom [Emily] Cook. “Raised by Dad,” marveled the voiceover.

As if they turned out OK in spite of the their fathers’ care, rather than because of it.

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There are some pretty compelling reasons not to watch ski jumping at this year’s Winter Olympics that have nothing to do with its inconvenient afternoon time slot or lack of high-ranked American competitors. Ski jumping is the only sport that will not include a competition for female athletes in Vancouver, despite a Canadian court’s ruling that the omission blatantly discriminated against women. That same court also ruled, however, that it did not have jurisdiction over the International Olympic Committee’s decision, while the IOC maintained its exclusionary policy in the face of a lawsuit from 15 would-be female Olympic ski jumpers.
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At the Boston Globe’s Child Caring blog, Lylah Alphonse says that parenting should be an Olympic sport. She’s kind of joking, but makes a pretty good point.

“It’s definitely an endurance challenge — much more so than cross-country skiing in the most adverse winter conditions,” Lylah writes. “As your kids get older, you encounter more obstacles than a competitor on a slalom course. If you have a partner then you have to work on coordinating your routine perfectly, and if you don’t then you’re skating every part of every routine by yourself.”

Too bad you don’t get years and years of training from Olympic coaches before you become a parent. USA! USA!