Editor's Note
By Irene Lacher 09/01/2010
You can consider this our back-to-school issue, but here at Arroyo Monthly, we’re declaring September Parents’ Month. Our hats, if we had them, would be off to Pasadena-area parents steering their kids toward adulthood around the hazardous shoals of family life in 2010 — school budget cuts, rising private tuition costs, ballooning childhood obesity and more.
So we’d like to offer a hand to families braving the new millennium. As Scarlet Cheng explains, Pasadena-area kids grappling with school budget cuts for music have a symphony of after-school and weekend options for a finely tuned education. There’s no reason to limit your children’s schooling to the ABC’s when the Pasadena Conservatory of Music is happy to introduce them to G clef and other pleasures of the musically literate. And many music organizations offer financial aid for families in need.
That’s true of area private schools as well. Brenda Rees, whose own children’s school raffled off a year of free tuition, spoke to local principals and headmasters to find out what parents can do if the grim economy threatens their plans.
Of course, one of our favorite clichés – the best things in life are free – is still hanging in there. Mother Nature has plenty to offer SoCal families willing to put on their walking or biking shoes, and environmental reporter Ilsa Setziol has a myriad of suggestions for terrific excursions that come child-approved by her son, Mateo.
Hitting the great outdoors has the added bonus of fending off that other dreaded trend, childhood obesity. Noela Hueso offers additional tips for parents who want to pack a healthy lunch that keeps kids interested — and away from fatty and sugary snack foods.
And lest we forget, not all parents need stress about looming college tuition bills and other charms of family life. Some can kiss their four-legged brood on the head as they plan their Christmas in Italy. Nancy Spiller, who has parented both kinds of offspring — two-legged and four- — considers their respective pros and cons in her delightful illustrated musings, “Kids vs. Pets.”
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