Educause, the higher-education technology consortium, will continue to administer the .edu Internet domain through at least 2011. The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced today that it has extended its contract with the group — which was set to expire at the end of September — for an additional five years.
The new deal will allow Educause to levy a $40 annual fee to the owner of each .edu address — a charge, the consortium says, that will help recoup some of the costs required to manage the domain.
47 Responses to Five More Years
hmprescott63 - March 6, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Pediatricians are already working on this issue. They have a section on oral health to advise parents. One of the problems is that parents with good health insurance may not have good (or any) dental insurance.
cpotter01 - March 6, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Not having dental insurance does not, however, explain why children are not having their teeth brushed or learning to brush them. I would also say — in the scale of things, a dental checkup is not an outlandish expense for a middle class family. Costs less than having the tires rotated.
crankychemist - March 6, 2012 at 2:15 pm
I agree with the main point- parents not brushing their kids’ teeth is ridiculous. I brush my kids’ teeth every day, 2x a day, screams or no.
However, your comment, “… I
checked the “historian” box after college instead of “baby machine.”” is downright offensive. (1) People can have kids AND be historians (or chemists, or lots of other things) and (2) Women who have children are not baby machines. They are people with children, but still people. Tenured Radical, you know both of those things, and you know the importance of choosing your language carefully. This comment is beneath you.
matt_l - March 6, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Hi TR,
An interesting post and article. I see the grounds for your outrage, but there is a dearth of clear information about when to start brushing.
My partner and I have a ten month old, who just got her first two teeth last month. When the second tooth came in, the partner and I wondered when we were supposed to start brushing them. There wasn’t a clear answer in the parenting books. The books are full of caveats like “every child is different,” or “some parents do this,” and “different children go through different developmental stages at different times,” (Parenting books, even the best ones, are irritating. As a historian, I appreciate prescriptive literature when it is, well, more prescriptive and not full of hedged bets).
So I asked my hygienist at the next cleaning. Apparently you can start wiping their gums down with a wash cloth as soon as the teeth start coming in. You can start brushing once they are all in, and you can tell them not to swallow the tooth paste. You don’t need to bring them into the dentist until they are two or three years old It was nice to have a clear answer, but we really haven’t started brushing yet either. We feel like winners if we can get her to fed, bathed, and into bed by 7.
cpotter01 - March 6, 2012 at 3:37 pm
touchy, touchy. Why is it that parents entirely lose their sense of humor about all things parenty? It’s like suddenly y’all have a monopoly on what can be said about ye olde institutione of the familye. And forgive me — but I the general political atmosphere about female reproductive health puts this remark way down the list of offense-inducing humor.
urbanexile - March 6, 2012 at 3:47 pm
This is a wonderful posting, though I agree with crankychemist about the “baby machine” line: Regrettable.
That said, this fact of decaying children’s teeth speaks volumes (I think) about the immaturity and perhaps even emotional immaturity of the culprit parents who are not parenting. The Articles of Parenting, as you and I are well aware, has as its first paragraph “doing that which, though good for the child, will make you extremely unpopular.” But kids want to be popular with the other kids, so they don’t make ‘em do the icky stuff.
Ponder this: As of 2011, the average age (AVERAGE) of video game players was 37. The reason for the mass regression in our society which is not present in other societies, like India for example? Don’t know. Somebody had best figure it out though.
jliedl - March 6, 2012 at 4:01 pm
The idea that baby teeth are disposable probably leads too many parents and caregivers to figure “why force them through the unpleasantness of brushing and flossing” but it’s a bad decision as we well know. Baby teeth have to last for many years and you’re spot on when you note that sugary juices wreak havoc.
I remember how tough grad school was simply due to no dental coverage. I had a wisdom tooth fracture in my mouth and fortunately found a kind dentist to extract the remains at a reasonable charge.
crankychemist - March 6, 2012 at 4:16 pm
You’re right– there are a zillion things out there on the internet and in the world I could be calling offensive that more deserve it. That doesn’t make your comment less irritating, but context is useful.
I don’t think, though, that I (or other parents) have fully lost our sense of humor about parenting, the family(e), or our own foibles. Note, for example, that I didn’t complain about your crossed out comment about mom washing a Valium down with a Manhattan. Sure, theoretically, someone could complain about this– stereotype of a checked out mom, blah, blah, blah. But I recognized it as humor and rolled with it.
The thing is, I feel, every day, like I am being told that my life should be an either/or. Either mom, or professor. Either person, or breeder. Either smart/hard-driving/ambitious, or nurturing/home with my kids. (And PS I don’t think my male colleagues get this message nearly as intensively as I and my female colleagues do.) Of course, you’re not the person telling me this (explicitly or implicitly) on a daily basis. But you’re the one, today, who put it in writing, so you’re giving me a chance to write back.
I do think non-parents can say lots about the institution of family- like I said, your overall comment on teeth, and the meta-comment (which I’d summarize as, “Parents! be actual parents, and not such weenies!”) is dead-on. Think of this as a compliment- I’ve come to have high expectations for you, and that one line didn’t meet them.
historiann - March 6, 2012 at 4:25 pm
This is true–and pediatricians give conflicting information, too. A lot of parents are also scared away from using fluoride toothpaste for their children–when I think it’s advisable to have them on the fluoride around age 2. Dentists usually have much better advice–but as some in this thread have suggested, the parents may not have insurance and/or may be techy about going to the dentist themselves.
Something I wonder about–especially with the SAHM and the IT dad kind of family–is if they’re also anti-vaxers. My sense is that there’s a strong connection between people who don’t vaccinate their children and people who fear fluoridated water and toothpaste–they’re people who get too much “medical” information from the non peer-reviewed world wide timewasting web, of course, but they’re also people who may be part of subcultures that foster resistance to allopathic medicine & traditional dentistry.
At least, these seem to be the families that I hear about from my pediatrician friends & family members as the families who have the most rigid (and ridiculous) notions of health care for their children.
On the issue of noncompliance because it’s not “fun”: maybe parents need to get over their own mouth phobias? My sense is that babies and little kids think pretty much everything is fun so long as you do something with them and act like you’re having fun. Remember Michael Banks from Mary Poppins? “I don’t want to go to the park. I want to play tidy up the nursery!”
historiann - March 6, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Right on cue!!!
historiann - March 6, 2012 at 4:34 pm
p.s. Just make sure you brush really well after that “spoonful of sugar!”
sciencegrad - March 6, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Why do people like to place blame with video games, but not anything else? Last time I checked, the time the average gamer would spend on video games is less than the average person would spend doing other distracting things, like spending time at a bar.
urbanexile - March 6, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Hi science grad. You misunderstood me: I am not suggesting it is the FAULT of video games. I am suggesting that people who go into adulthood still fanatic about video games are people who are likely lacking in emotional maturity. That said, didn’t used to be that skinny white kids strode into their middle america high schools and wiped out a bunch of classmates. Just saying.
hmprescott63 - March 6, 2012 at 5:02 pm
I’ve posted more comments at my own blog:
http://hmprescott.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/toddlers-have-bad-teeth-so-lets-blame-mom/
vonrankle - March 6, 2012 at 5:35 pm
“everything should be about candy, shouldn’t it?”
To me, this is a bigger problem than you’d imagine. Not to go full MeMe Roth here, but my partner and I have been borderline horrified by the food at our daughter’s preschool. Cookies and juice for snack (plus challah and juice on Fridays, but I guess we can let that one slide . . .), weekly Domino’s pizza days, and on and on. Not to mention the fact that kids are now given juice and snacks to accompany every mundane task or outing they’re taken on. The constant sugar is bad enough in itself, but I also have to wonder if the parent who wails that junior simply refuses to sit still at the grocery store without a snack in his hand is also the parent who can’t be bothered to brush his teeth afterward.
sciencegrad - March 6, 2012 at 6:27 pm
I’ll need you to define “fanatic.” If you mean obsessed to the point where the hobby is destructive to the life of the individual or their dependents, then that is a problem. If you mean that video games are a persons favorite hobby, that does not imply that they are shirking other responsibilities in order to play. In either case, video games can be replaced with anything that has any history of addiction.
urbanexile - March 6, 2012 at 6:41 pm
For reasons unknown I couldn’t respond to your last comment, so I do so here. Look, I get it that you probably like video games and you’re probably a good person. I am just comparing two facts: the average age of video game fans is 37; and kids teeth are rotting because their parents aren’t parenting. Make of it what you will.
librarianmer - March 6, 2012 at 6:53 pm
I have to say that I had a similar reaction to crankychemist on this one, though it didn’t bother me enough to comment. Your response to her in saying that she lacked a sense of humor was what really bugged me. Isn’t that what men who make sexist (or even harassing) comments say? Or racists? Maybe Sandra Fluke didn’t get Rush Limbaugh’s humor the other day (and wasn’t that actually part of his “apology”)? Oh those humorless feminists. It just seems ironic for you, of all people, to come back with that kind of a response.
As a middle-class parent/babymaker AND a professor (and a former student of yours), I was bothered by what you wrote… but I’m probably just humorless.
tenured_radical - March 6, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Well, not to stir the pot unnecessarily, but I continue to be mystified about why many academic mothers are in solidarity with all mothers, even bad or mythical ones. Christ on a cracker, can we never tell a mother joke ever without some of you telling me I have driven a stake through your heart? Why does it have to be about you?? So you thought it wasn’t funny — crap, are you pissed off at Eugene O’Neill too? Edward Albee? Mary Karr?
But I digress. When I am writing seriously in this post, it is about parents, not mothers — and I am not making this $hit up. It came out of the newspaper article.Seriously, since when did teeth being little and only in play for ten to fifteen years mean they didn’t require brushing?
radiosaturday - March 7, 2012 at 8:36 am
Well, Orwell has something on that in “The Road to Wigan Pier”…
usaret - March 7, 2012 at 10:16 am
I wonder how many parents of these children with dental problems let their children drink bottled water–most bottled water does not contain fluoride, while most municipal water does (New Jersey has issues with this, as a recent NYTimes article pointed out). My wife and her sister are both dentists, and frequently have patients who drink nothing but bottled water, thinking it “safer” than their local water. Of course, as the article points out, there are lots of kids drinking lots of soft drinks and juice, which both contains a great deal of sugar.
Guest - March 7, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Amen to that.
miskeena - March 8, 2012 at 12:56 am
Being a good parent is very hard. Sometimes you’ve got to hold their little noses and shove the brush in their mouths. You’ve got to mean business.
edwoof - March 8, 2012 at 1:30 am
I actually thought the “baby machine” comment was self-deprecating and respectful in a backhanded-type and ivy league-ish way (“being a Homemaker is not an easy career, I grant you, which is why I checked the historian box instead of …..”——- I also would suspect that the fact that the box was ”checked” rather than “ticked” indicates that the move from Zenith University to Metropolis has been completed mentally.) You will note that the ‘H’ in Homemaker was capitalized while the ‘h’ in historian wasn’t and what possibily could be better evidence of TR’s self-deprecation and respect for Homemakers? This is actually a compliment and a shout out to Homemakers which would be obvious if You All Baby Machines and Baby Machine Lovers weren’t so busy wallowing in the mud pit of righteous indignation. Geez.
And the TR called being a Homemaker a career (more evidence of respect), which I think is overgenerous. A career implies structured training and then an upward trajectory of responsibilities and an associated increase in compensation, all of which homemaking ain’t.
But with respect to teeth, my gut reaction is that
1. One’s own teeth are no longer considered permanent and the parents have internalized the idea that the alternatives to natural teeth are actually better. Teeth are therefore imminently replaceable now, just like clothes. Therefore, taking care of junior’s teeth isn’t on the radar.
2. Children are now considered by many parents to be an accessory not unlike a fancy type of pet. You don’t brush your dogs teeth, do you?
3. The teacher will brush the kid’s teeth at school as part of No Child Left Behind.
4. The cold war is over so the Russians are no longer flouridating our water.
5. When you are a child today, there is no more nightly ritual of washing up, brushing your teeth and having your parents read to you because after you eat (also no longer a ritual, just sustenance) you are online in your room until at some point you and your parents yell a perfunctory “good night” through the closed door.
TA4EVA - March 8, 2012 at 10:28 pm
i’d be curious to know how many kids TR has troubled herself to raise.
Jason Curtis Fossella - March 9, 2012 at 1:16 am
I brush my *dog’s* teeth every night. How are they not brushing their children’s?
Jason Curtis Fossella - March 9, 2012 at 1:17 am
and, the dog loves it. probably has something to do with the chicken-flavored tooth paste. it’s like pâté with an abrasive agent
jiminnc - March 9, 2012 at 8:01 am
This sentence doesn’t work: “Otherwise known as “the Gospel of the Toothbrush,” Washington preached his belief that dental hygiene was the key to all other forms of success.”
“Known” here must go with Washington, who of course himself is not a gospel.
It’s as if you said, “Wearing a new collar and dog tags, Washington walked his dog.”
profivy - March 9, 2012 at 6:08 pm
How dare you think that my job as a Homemaker is so easy that you could do it simultaneously with your job as a historian or other academic? I mean, you wouldn’t try to be both a banker and an academic, or an airline pilot and a college professor, at the same time, would you?
My point is that you’d think readers of an academic blog would be familiar with the literary tool of hyperbole.
cpotter01 - March 9, 2012 at 8:57 pm
This was exactly my point. Bless you.
cpotter01 - March 9, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Because only people who actually own children have the right to speak about them. This would, of course, have ruled out people like Jane Adams, Molly Dewson, David Souter and Pauli Murray from having had any policy role regarding children, just so you know where you are going with this line of argument. Don’t forget to floss, you hear?
cpotter01 - March 9, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Jeez, thanks for the grammar lesson: consider it fixed. As Mitt Romney would say, “Sure appreciatcha!”
TA4EVA - March 9, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Heh. You had me at “own.”
racmonti - March 12, 2012 at 5:56 pm
Hey my boy was brushing his teef before he was 1 (with help from me). Did all by my lonesome self, too (not by choice). Only 1 cavity in 10 years, not too bad and that (baby) tooth fell out. He even uses mouthwash and flosses! Contact me if you want to make a movie about us.
racmonti - March 12, 2012 at 6:01 pm
After I brushed my son’s teeth I washed down a valium with lite beer. Not now, though, since he’s old enough to do it alone. It was very traumatic.
racmonti - March 12, 2012 at 6:04 pm
I grew up in NJ and I remember the water fluridation debate–everything from a communist plot to “it causes cancer,” ironically possibly the only think in NJ’s environment that doesn’t cause cancer! I do think your hypotheses about the connection to the anti-vaccine gang is an interesting one.
graddirector - March 13, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Well, my oldest daughter was one of those kids with a root canal at the age of three and cavities in most of her baby teeth. We started brushing her teeth when the first one came in, did not give her juice, took her to the dentist starting at age 2 and gave her fluoride supplements (we are on well water). There is no clear reason for her horrible baby teeth (thankfully her adult teeth are still cavity free) and her younger sister never has had a cavity with the same approach.
While I don’t doubt that some of this is parental behavior, I have become convinced that some kids are just more susceptible to cavities as well.
notafeminist - March 13, 2012 at 4:26 pm
This is why I will never again call myself a feminist or align myself with the malignancy feminism has become. Your complete and utter disrespect for my life and choices indicates quite clearly that feminism now means “all y’all except you dumb bitches at home raising your own kids”.. Well screw you. If I were raising someone’s else’s children in a daycare, I would be given at least a bare minimum of respect, but raising my own children invites nothing but invective and sneering contempt from the very women who profess to support all women in their choices. Yep. Screw all of you.
barberl - March 13, 2012 at 4:26 pm
I agree with graddirector. I hardly ever brush my little kids’ teeth and they are cavity free! and I definitely think that there is a good deal of misleading information on this: lots of parenting books that discuss tooth-brushing as getting your kids into good “habits” for when their adult (read: real) teeth come in, admonitions to avoid fluoride until your child is old enough not to swallow it (when is that?! how do you know?!). Reading the NYtimes article definitely made me more committed, but I certainly wouldn’t characterize my previous practices as neglectful.
And to answer your question, TR, about why parents get so defensive about this sort of stuff, I think it is because parenting is something that everybody and their mother has an opinion on (sorry, couldn’t help the pun), and parents are simply inundated with advice. Yet in spite of all this (conflicting and sometimes misleading) advice, we still make major, often stupid, mistakes. It is hard, when we see another parent getting judged for a stupid mistake, not to identify…
BintelGrrl - March 13, 2012 at 5:04 pm
I’m an adjunct. I can’t afford to take my child to the dentist. That’s not a joke.
BintelGrrl - March 13, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Not if they find something that needs to be fixed.
graddirector - March 13, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Not sure where all of that anger is coming from, from what I can read no one is picking on you for being a stay at home mom. However, there is generally alot more invective towards working mothers for not “being there” for their children every day until they enter college (and the associated messy house) than from working mothers towards the ones who stay at home. While I could not have done it when my kids were little and stayed sane since I find babies/toddlers mind numbing, there is nothing wrong with it as a choice per se as long as one goes into it with eyes open..
cpotter01 - March 13, 2012 at 8:23 pm
You might want to stay off the interwebz until you feel a little better…..
tenured_radical - March 13, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Which is really awful, and I’m sorry. I hope you know that the NY Times article is about people with dental insurance who don’t brush their kids teeth and many of these comments for some reason are about other things.
Just so you know: dental schools usually run inexpensive clinics where you and your child can go to have your teeth cleaned by techs and dentists in training, supervised by professors. If you are near one, that is an option to get the two of you through this time.
edwoof - March 14, 2012 at 12:00 am
If you “were raising someone’s else’s [sic] children in a day care”, chances are you’d be prosecuted if this e-mail is indicative of your character and propensity toward anger.
joejoe1 - March 14, 2012 at 5:34 pm
Anne McLeer, SEIU: ”Adjuncts who work a full-time part-time load are part of the new working poor now.”
From the upcoming documentary: ‘Junct: The Trashing of Higher Ed. in America:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDTYjqjc-SU&feature=player_embedded
RetroGal - April 14, 2012 at 1:11 am
Maybe it’s the “sarcastic” tone of the writer of the article – “baby making machine” doesn’t exactly scream acceptance of those women who choose to become mothers. It’s a degrading way to put it. I don’t care if you want to have kids or don’t want to have kids – that is your choice. But referring to those who DO as “baby making machines” doesn’t show much respect.