The Responsibility Project

Liberty Mutual

Responsibility. What’s your policy?™

Blog: Parenting

Fight Club Junior

Posted on May 12, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (3)

When two dogs are in a cage to fight each other, it’s illegal. When two children are in a cage to fight each other, it’s part of the fastest growing sport in America: “ultimate fighting.” Read full article »
America’s Worst Mom?

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (13)

Mothering without smothering. That’s the responsible balance Lenore Skenazy was seeking when she recently allowed her 9-year-old son to ride the New York City subway alone for the first time. Read full article »
Cash for Grades

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (10)

Education opens many doors. But should the main one be at the bank? School districts throughout the country are increasingly paying students for coming to class, taking tests, and improving their scores as part of controversial incentive programs known as “cash for grades.” Read full article »
Father’s Day

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (1)

Responsibility encompasses a lot of inevitable territory: family, friends, job, and country. But should responsibility extend to forgiveness? Giving second chances? Seizing the moment before it’s lost forever? Read full article »
Shot Through the Heart

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (8)

Like most competitive athletes, in-line speed-skater Corey Gahan hoped fierce determination and hard training would give him the edge he needed to fulfill his dream of becoming the best in his sport. But unlike most competitive athletes, Corey Gahan’s father insisted on supplying that winning edge, regularly injecting his son with steroids and human growth hormone, the same illegal substances at the heart of the ongoing major league baseball scandal. Read full article »
The Nanny Diaries

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (47)

On a hot afternoon in New York City, my friend Miriam was sitting at a grassy public venue, watching her child play alongside other kids in the care of various moms and nannies. A long-time New York resident, Miriam is fully aware of the city’s urban imperative: mind your own business. But she couldn’t help but notice the crying of a nearby baby, approximately nine months old, strapped in his stroller facing the sun, while his nanny ignored him and chatted with another nanny. Read full article »
Attack of the 3rd-Graders?

Posted on April 4, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (92)

The shocking headlines out of Waycross, Georgia— 3rd-graders plotted to attack teacher, brought knife, handcuffs —lowered the bar on school violence and raised the alarm among parents, teachers, psychologists and just about anyone with an opinion about the country’s future. Read full article »
Mandy & Lester

Posted on April 1, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (2)

Responsibility sometimes presents itself in small packages with big challenges. In Mandy & Lester, two charming, quirky kids lead the way in showing us what real responsibility is about. No excuses. No hesitation. No giving up. Read full article »
Babies in the Bar

Posted on April 1, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (115)

So this baby walks into a bar, and …Well, the baby didn’t actually walk into the bar—it was in a stroller, pushed by its mother, who was going to have a drink or two with some other moms who brought their kids, and…that’s why this is no joke. There’s a bar fight brewing across the country. In Seattle, Austin, Philadelphia, Boston and beyond, bar patrons are getting lathered up on both sides of a polarizing parenting issue: is it responsible (or even acceptable) to belly up to the bar with young children in tow? Read full article »
Gone Baby Gone

Posted on March 11, 2008 by Kathy McManus Comments (102)

At 7:30 on a Monday morning, a teenage girl holding a newborn baby approached a bus stop in Sacramento. The bus stop is only a few miles from the California state capitol building, where a law called the “SSB” was enacted—the safely surrendered baby law. The SSB allows a desperate mother to give up an unwanted baby within three days of birth, no questions asked, no prosecution for child abandonment, and hopefully no infant left in a trash dumpster, the kind of tragic scenario the law was designed to discourage. Read full article »