Classic Family Movies

Classic Family Movies

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Pride and Prejudice 1940
Jane Austen’s classic story comes to life in a sweet re-telling of a family of five sisters and their mother’s humorous attempts to find them husbands. Learn more at Amazon.com

Abbott and Costello Movies 1940-1956
This series of the comedy team Abbot and Costello are sweet and funny. Kids as well as adults will enjoy the hilarious adventures. Learn more at Amazon.com

All Creatures Great and Small 1974
The wonderful story of a young man in pre-WW II Britain trying to become a veterinarian. Learn more at Amazon.com

Andy Hardy Series 1937-1958
These fun movies feature Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in their teenage years. A lot of singing and dancing and strong moral examples of family life and choice to be made in the teen years. Learn more at Amazon.com

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 1945
A coming of age story about a young girl who dreams of being a writer. A five-star selection. Learn more at Amazon.com

Barefoot Executive 1971
Disney movie. A TV executive starts to schedule his programming based on the selections of his girlfriend’s chimpanzee. Learn more at Amazon.com

Born Free 1966
Animal lovers will enjoy the story of a husband and wife living in Kenya who raise a lion cub. They must eventually re-train the lion to live in the wild. Learn more at Amazon.com

Captains Courageous 1937
A truly wonderful story of a spoiled, rich boy who falls overboard and is recovered by a gruff group of fisherman. The experience changes the boy forever. Learn more at Amazon.com

Day the Earth Stood Still 1951
Thought provoking science fiction about a man from another planet. Learn more at Amazon.com

Father of the Bride 1950
Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy star in the original version of this darling story. The sequel to this movie was Father’s Little Dividend. Both movies are still as fresh today as they were then…even better than the re-makes. Learn more at Amazon.com

Flipper 1963
The son of a Florida fisherman befriends a dolphin named Flipper. It’s a friendship story but also an adventure story. Learn more at Amazon.com

God is My Co-Pilot 1943
An exciting wartime drama based on a true story. Learn more at Amazon.com

Reluctant Astronaut 1967
They don’t come much funnier than Don Knotts in a spacesuit. Learn more at Amazon.com

Shaggy DA 1976
A district attorney is turned into a crime-fighting dog! Learn more at Amazon.com

Shaggy Dog 1959
The adventures of a boy who turns into a dog! Learn more at Amazon.com

Swiss Family Robinson 1960
A family gets shipwrecked on an island but still manages to have fun and fellowship. Learn more at Amazon.com

That Darn Cat 1965
A fun mystery involving a cat who carries a clue. Learn more at Amazon.com

Top Hat 1935
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers glide into funny antics in this dancing sensation. Learn more at Amazon.com

Yours, Mine and Ours 1968
A widow, Lucille Ball, with eight children, marries a widower, Henry Fonda, with ten children of his own. A touching story of the challenges of blended families. Learn more at Amazon.com

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Simplicity

(Preface from his book: SIMPLIFY And Live the Good Life)
By Bo Sanchez

My parents breathed simplicity. Oxygen too, but that’s pretty obvious. Dad was an assistant vice president for a humongous company, yet I didn’t “feel� like I was a rich man’s kid because my parents made it a rule to live below their means.

A millionaire’s son rode a sleek Benz; I rode our sixteen-year old Toyota that sounded more like a drum and bugle band, with its cacophony of bangs, rattles, and whams.

An heir of the moneyed class was chauffeured to school, but as early as Grade III, I was taking the public jeepney– sitting, standing, or swinging from its handrails like a flapping flag.

The wealthy dined on gourmet meals every day. But the culinary highlight of my whole week was when Mom bought Coke for our Sunday lunch– the only time we tasted the stuff. I’m not kidding.

Rich kids wore outfits from America, England, and Paris. I wore clothes from Avenida, Escolta, and Pasay.

The mansions of the rich and famous are veritable furniture showcases, complete with sixteen Egyptian jars from the Nephertiti era. I learned that one of those monstrous flower vases was equal to the price of our entire house. But naturally, we too, had our own flower vases. If my archeological knowledge serves me right, they came from the Nescafe era.

Their estates have playrooms with life-size Barbie’s and Power Rangers. But the way I played with expensive toys was admiring them from the store shelf and using my magination to the hilt. That way, I owned all the toys in the world.

You’ll be shocked by what I’m going to tell you, but through all this, I recall never feeling deprived in any way.

Let me tell you why.

I remember my father coming home every night and we’d go jogging together–around our old car parked in the garage. (Dad says he wasn’t vying for the Olympics anyway.) Then I’d sit on his lap and we’d talk about how to solve the problems of the universe.

After dinner, we’d read the comic pages together. Tarzan was my favorite, until I reached puberty. From then on, it became Jane.

Almost every Saturday afternoon, it was father and son time. We’d walk to the shopping center and Dad would buy me a hotdog. Then we’d walk back home, bringing a little something for Mom, usually a chocolate bar. To add sentimental value to our token, I forced myself to take a few bites from it.

I guess being with Dad and Mom was all that my little boy’s heart ever wanted. And I got it, every single day.

I believe that God chose to write the “map of happiness� on the ordinary parchment of simplicity– like a treasure map written on recycled brown paper.

Consequently, many people ignore that map, and are attracted instead to the more glossy, loud, shiny maps around. But when they follow these others maps,they end up tired as a dog chasing its own tail.

I have a radical suggestion……..Simplify.

Simplify because you want to discover the depths of your soul.

Simplify because you want to start living deliberately.

Simplify because you want to love from an uncluttered heart.

Remember that simplicity is only the first step of the journey. Holding the treasure map, memorizing it, photocopying it a thousand times, and keeping it safe in a vault won’t make you claim the gold. You actually need to sail through oceans, climb peaks, cross valleys, and explore caves.

Simplicity will point to you where and what and who the gold is in your life.

Once you know your gold, the game has just begun.

Will you treasure your gold?

My parents knew their gold:

1. Each other,
2. Their six children, and
3. Their faith.

They tried to live uncluttered lives so that they could have time for what was most important.

They didn’t busy themselves buying a bigger house, because that would mean working harder to pay the monthly amortization, doing overtime
work or taking a second job. Who would then go jogging with little Bo every night?Who would read Tarzan for him?

They didn’t burden themselves buying a BMW because that would mean laboring and worrying about installment bills. Besides, walking to the shopping center every Saturday afternoon with his son gave my dad his needed exercise, and made little Bo feel special.

One of the delights of my heart was seeing Dad and Mom in their bedroom at night, after our nightly family prayer. The lights were turned off, and I’d see the silhouette of my father seated on his old chair and mom standing behind him, gently massaging his shoulders. I’d hear them talk about what transpired during the day. Even as a child, I sensed their quiet pleasure at being together. My question today: Could they have done this rich ritual each night and nourished their marriage if they had been busy paying for designer outfits for themselves or their kids, or if they had been worrying about monthly bills for new hi-tech happliances?

I don’t think so.

And I’ve made the choice: I don’t want that kind of life either.

No Education Like Adversity

There is no education like adversity

Benjamin Disraeli said, “There is no education like adversity.” Amen! It’s the tough periods of our lives where we grow the most. The same is true for your children. You’re not doing them a favor if you’re always bailing them out of tough scrapes. In fact, you’re doing them a disservice. Kids need to know their actions have consequences for them personally, not just for Mom and Dad. It’s how they grow. But “helicopter parents” stunt their kids. Want to know if you’re a helicopter parent? Visit http://www.allprodad.com/9helicopter.asp

All Pro Dad’s Play of the Day is the most popular and most read daily fatherhood e-mail in the world! To subscribe to this service or to sign up a friend visit AllProDad.com.

© Copyright 2006 by All Pro Dad. All rights reserved.

Colleges Ward Off Overinvolved Parents
By Sue Shellenbarger
From The Wall Street Journal Online

As colleges and universities gear up to receive a new class of freshmen this fall, they’re bracing for a potentially more daunting onslaught:

Helicopter parents are going to college.

A new generation of overinvolved parents are flooding campus orientations, meddling in registration and interfering with students’ dealings with professors, administrators and roommates, school officials say.

Some of these hovering parents, whose numbers have been rising for several years, are unwittingly undermining their children’s chances of success, campus administrators say. Now, universities and colleges are moving rapidly to build or expand programs aimed at helping parents strike a better balance.

A number of colleges and universities are having to assign full-time staffers or forming entire new departments to field parents’ calls and email. Others hold separate orientations for parents, partly to keep them occupied and away from student sessions.

The University of Vermont employs “parent bouncers,” students trained to divert moms and dads who try to attend registration and explain diplomatically that they’re not invited. At one parent-student orientation session in June, more parents than students attended, swamping the meeting hall, says Jill Hoppenjans, the university’s assistant director of orientation.

At the University of Georgia, students who get frustrated or confused during registration have been known to interrupt their advisers to whip out a cellphone, speed-dial their parents and hand the phone to the adviser, saying, “Here, talk to my mom,” says Richard Mullendore, a University of Georgia professor and former vice president, student affairs, at the universities of Georgia and Mississippi. The cellphone, he says, has become “the world’s longest umbilical cord.”

Rachel Rosalez acknowledges she is part of the problem. She chose the Texas university her daughter will attend this fall, successfully lobbied administrators for a particular roommate, helped pick her daughter’s courses and bought her books. Ms. Rosalez has also been e-mailing administrators on a range of topics for months. She admits she’s “much too involved.” But she’s too anxious about seeing her daughter leave home to let go, she says.

Her daughter, Roni, says she’s close to her mother and grateful for her support. Enrolling in college is so complex, she says, that “I do need her” to help out.

Ms. Rosalez and others like her are part of a cultural shift toward more involved parenting — which many of today’s students welcome. There are some good reasons for it. The trend reflects societal fears about campus safety, amid growing media coverage of campus murders and deaths, mounting mental-health problems, and rising alcohol and drug arrests at colleges and universities.

Soaring college tuitions play a role, too. Increasingly, “parents see the institution as a product, and they’re consumers. They want to know their investment is being protected,” Dr. Mullendore says.

Reflecting a growing activism, college parents acquired their own lobbying organization last year, the 7,000-member College Parents of America, Arlington , Va. , which advocates for tax breaks, grants and loans to help parents.

Of course it’s important for parents to know campus counseling, tutoring and medical resources, so they can refer students to the right source of help when they need it. And parents should maintain listening skills.

When Mary Anna Thornton’s son got pneumonia as a college freshman, she could tell by the way he was breathing during a phone call that he needed medical help. She pressed him to go to the college infirmary. The staff there sent him to a hospital for testing, but he wound up back in his dorm room afterward, seriously ill and alone. Ms. Thornton picked him up and took care of him for a couple of days.

“That’s the kind of situation that makes you feel like you should be overinvolved,” says the Land O’Lakes, Wis. , mother.

The trick is to distinguish between when you’re truly needed, and when you need to push a kid out of the nest. Campus officials say they’re seeing a growing number of freshmen lacking basic skills — negotiating for what they need, getting along with others in a shared space, using common sense to stay safe, and solving their own problems.

Administrators prefer that students pick their own majors and courses. At California Polytechnic State University , San Luis Obispo , Calif. , last week, a mother showed up — without her son — to register him for classes and meet with his academic adviser, says Andrene Kaiwi-Lenting, the university’s orientation director. She intercepted the mother and urged her to leave and let her son come alone later; “there’s going to be a time when he needs to do this on his own,” she says she told the mother. But the woman said her son was traveling and refused to be dissuaded.

Other universities report having to teach kids basic safety skills, such as not propping open their dormitory doors at night. Even in class, professors “can’t assume that students coming into the classroom know they already should have bought their books,” says Gwendolyn Dungy, executive director of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. “All the decisions have been made for these young people.”

Some colleges are training parents how to let go. Maryville College , Maryville , Tenn. , stages skits with student actors, showing how parents can coach students to solve problems, rather than taking over.

“We want parents to think about these situations in advance,” says Bill Seymour, vice president, administrative services, “so they can handle them when they come up.”

Email your comments to sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com

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