Should younger children say "sorry" after doing something wrong?

My friend and fellow Dad blogger Jim Turner (aka Genuine) and I had an interesting discussion this evening over a rather extraordinarily long and delicious dinner away from the wee ones where we talked about whether children should be required to apologize if they break the rules or hurt someone. It sprang out of a relatively minor incident at Jim's house, but we see something transpire every day with our three that might warrant an apology or two.

This isn't as obvious as it may appear on first glance, and Linda and I have discussed this very matter more than once in the recent past too.

Obviously, you want to teach your children to be kind, polite and mind their manners, if nothing else than just to be able to survive having them in your house for so many, many years, so from that angle, yes, they need to be taught pleasant behavior like "don't throw the broccoli at the dog during dinner!" (no further explanation needed, I bet)

How do you deal with aging, sick dogs?

We're a bit stuck on this issue so I'm turning to the blogosphere for advice: we have two old dogs that we've had for many, many years, since we got them as 10 week old puppies from a breeder. They're both standard poodles, smart, funny dogs, but they're also both old now, about 13 or so.

The problem is that their health is failing. One of them is basically blind and half-deaf, has arthritis and has a difficult time going up and down stairs, getting up from a dog bed, etc., while the other is completely deaf (as far as we can tell, or she's just mastered the "ignore your master's voice" trick!) and is sporadically spirited, but has various skin and internal infections that we've tried to treat for years unsuccessfully.

Japanese "Gender Equality" minister opposes maiden names?

In the name of "family values", it appears that the Japanese are going to be taking a step backwards and surprisingly little is being written about it here in the United States. This is all thanks to Sanae Takaichi, who was just appointed as (ready for this?) Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs, science and technology policy, innovation, gender equality, social affairs and food safety. Yes, you read that right. Gender Equality issues.

The title's interesting (especially "food safety") but I'm just amazed by a woman being appointed to this role who is opposed to women keeping their maiden names, but uses her own maiden name as a politician. Yes, she's married to another politician, Taku Yamamoto, but doesn't go by Sanae Yamamoto.

Am I missing some nuance here?

We Survived Chickenpox!

Oh man, what a few weeks it's been. It started with me in Las Vegas, speaking at a conference and having Linda tell me on the phone that "Oh! G- has the chickenpox." Now, unto itself, that was actually good news: since we're not proponents of vaccination, we were glad to know that a common, relatively harmless childhood disease was going to run through our children while they're still young and more easily able to pass through it.

But what I didn't realize was that rather than efficiently have it all in parallel, the kids would have it by taking turns with the virus. And so we've had three weeks of spotty kids, oatmeal baths and incessant "don't scratch!" reminders wafting through the air.