Grasshopper New Media Presents...

People often ask me what it’s like to have teenagers. Unfortunately, for them, my answer is a very bland: “Everything’s great, I couldn’t ask for better kids.” Now, I’m not one to fall under the hypnosis of my own rose-colored glasses, and I often spend time looking for anything typical that my teens may get into, because we all saw The Stepford Wives and I’d hate to think that my kids were evil robots.

This leads me to my daughter, just turned thirteen. She’s been very tame, very sedate for a long time now. And then, finally, some normality: My daughter came home from school the other afternoon and threw out all of the M&Ms. Turns out that the M&M/Mars company tests their additives on animals, and my daughter, who has had me donate to the ASPCA since she was old enough to read, decided to take a stand. So into the trash went the Starburst, the Snickers, the Twix, the Skittles, and of course the M&Ms.

Those who know me can imagine the horror in my eyes as perfectly good chocolate was thrown into the trash. And yet I was so filled with admiration, I could only cheer her on. This was her fight, and right was on her side. I couldn’t have been more pleased - there’s *nothing* I want for my kids more than a sense of social responsibility.

And so it goes: I now have a long list of companies that I must boycott when I go grocery shopping. This adds to the difficulty rating of a successful trip to the market, but I’m so very cool with that, because I can see that I’m doing something positive and it’s on account of my kid. I dig that a lot.

by Stu Mark

Photo graciously provided by Rentahamster, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved