Wouldn't it be great if you could just walk into your child's school and pink-slip the teachers you don't like?


That's exactly what Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have done. The Hollywood powerhouses have fired Jacqueline Olivier, the head of The New Village Leadership Academy, a California school that the megawatt married couple founded two years ago, according to RadarOnline.

New Village opened in 2008 and has been the subject of some controversy due to an alleged Scientology-based curriculum. For example, some feel that the schools' motto, "Spiral Up!", is derived from Scientology teachings. Oliver and the Smiths, "were said to have clashed about the school's mysterious Study Tech curriculum which was devised by Scientologist founder Ron L. Hubbard," according to RadarOnline.

The couple has denied that New Village is associated with any religion. In June 2008, Jacqueline Oliver told the Los Angeles Times, "We are a secular school and just like all nonreligious independent schools, faculty and staff do not promote their own religions at school or pass on the beliefs of their particular faith to children." There is no mention of Hubbard or Scientology on the curriculum section of the New Village website.

Other celebrities have put their educational money where their mouth is. Tiger Woods started the Tiger Woods Learning Center in California in 2006. Tennis star Andre Agassi opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in 2001. And then there is the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy School for Girls, which has had some very real scandals in recent years.

According to the New Village website, the school is fairly small, with 60 students in Pre-K to 6th grade; they are planning to increase that number to 75. It's probably one of the only elementary schools to have a music video produced by the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.

Will and Jada had been homeschooling their children before deciding that they wanted to "revolutionize the public school system," according to published reports. It's unclear how starting a private school will achieve that goal. Then again, firing public-school administrators can be very difficult, no matter how famous you are.

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Years after I quit believing in Santa Claus and cellulite creams, I still clung to belief that living a "balanced" life was possible. In my mind I envisioned a slender, married mother of three who had mastered the time-management system that smoothes every bump, makes every appointment and absorbs surprises like a ShamWow!

Over-commit? Not this mom. She preheats the oven. She starts preparing in August for the holiday pageant in December. Her kids never look disheveled. Their beds are made and their rooms are tidied before breakfast. Their books stay shelved according to the Dewey Decimal System, and her kitchen is spread before her like a NASA control center. Oh, how I longed to be like her.

Then, one day, in the face of overwhelming evidence, I accepted the fact that the mom I dreamed of becoming was a myth. As I let go of my dream, I held on to a few time management principles that had emerged as truth. I've been pondering those principles this week while our family is on vacation in the mountains of Colorado. I realize that little of those truths has changed over the years, though some applications have shifted with the size and age of our family. They continue to point me due north, and I share them here for those searching for a way -- a realistic way -- to manage the minutes of your days.

As a general rule, I think, many of today's moms are far more open about sex than our mothers and grandmothers were. Our kids know the actual names of their body parts (and aren't afraid to share them with the cashier at the grocery store). We don't dodge the questions about where babies come from or make up silly stories. Experts in general advise that sex ed happen over a series of conversations on the subject, rather than one uncomfortable "talk" somewhere during puberty.

So, yeah, we're enlightened. We're empowered. We're dishing out accurate information on an age-appropriate basis. So the next logical step, says "Oprah" sexpert Dr. Laura Berman, is to buy our teenage girls their first vibrators.

Uh ... er ... ahem ... that is, I mean, what?

Awkward, yes, and also controversial. On "Oprah," Gayle King sat shaking her head. "Too much information," argues King, "....They know too much, they're doing too much, I'm just not in favor of giving them this much information." But Oprah disagrees. "They already have the information," she counters.

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How long has it been since you had a shower? A haircut? Sex???

No matter what you said, no matter how long it's been, you're not alone. Trust us.

This week Oprah has moms buzzing: On Monday, she invited a group of moms on her show to spill the beans about the Dirty Little Secrets of motherhood. And spill they did, with confessions about skipping kid baths for weeks on end and serving pizza for breakfast three days running and hating their husbands for getting them into this. Project Runway finalist and Daily Beast columnist Laura Bennett acknowledged that she has a favorite child; blogger Heather Armstrong admitted that motherhood left her wondering, "What the hell did I do to my life?"

And while many of the confessions were hilariously funny (like the mom who peed into a diaper while driving cross country, rather than stop when the kids were sleeping), all of the women on the show agreed that being a parent sometimes left them feeling isolated and frustrated and lonely.

Being the mommy can often feel like being a contestant on "Survivor": You do what you have to do to get off the island alive. To make it worse, we treat motherhood like a competition, measuring ourselves against each other to see who can be the best mommy, the mommy with the cleanest house and the cutest kids and the cheeriest smile. But the real secret is that we're all cutting corners in some way, because none of us is perfect; sharing our secrets is a way to get past the competition and start supporting each other.

So what's your dirty little mom secret? What, in your moments of Mommy Desperation, have you done to make it through the day? Passed bakery cupcakes off as homemade? Suggested a game of hide-and-seek so you can nap in a closet? Feigned sick to get someone else to take the baby? Let's hear it.

Think your daughter knows her boyfriend shouldn't hit her? Think again -- teen girls are rushing to defend Chris Brown, and are placing the blame for her beating squarely on Rihanna.

Last week, Oprah Winfrey devoted an entire show to talking about dating violence, specifically to the recent incident between rapper Chris Brown and pop diva Rihanna. There was a lot of eye rolling on the part of viewers, because really, do we need to hear this again?

Apparently the answer is yes, we do. Or at least our teenage daughters do, because they are flocking to Brown's defense. Brown, 19, is accused of assaulting Rihanna; the 21-year-old wound up in the hospital with a black eye and bloodied face. Yet in spite of the graphic nature of her injuries, Brown's female fans are standing by him -- and blaming Rihanna for the incident.

"She probably made him mad for him to react like that," a ninth grader told the "New York Times." "You know, like, bring it on?"

Another girl added, "She probably feels bad that it was her fault, so she took him back."

And this from a third: "I don't think he'll hit her like that again."

Last week Oprah Winfrey and Tyra Banks teamed up for an hour-long discussion about domestic violence inspired by the Chris Brown and Rihanna February 8th domestic assault case now before a Los Angeles court.

The question on everyone's mind is: Can Brown overcome his anger problem? Well, according to Oprah, "If a man hits you once, he will hit you again...Love doesn't hurt."

"Rihanna reconciled with Chris because she doesn't think she's worthy of being with someone who won't hurt her," says Oprah. "If you were raised with self esteem, to think you're a worthy person you won't tolerate abuse."

And the same principal rings true for the abuser. Oprah says when a child grows up witnessing domestic abuse, violent behavior becomes ingrained. And the abusive cycle perpetuates because the child doesn't have an alternative coping mechanism for his anger.

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In 1956, Coach Jerry Sacharski couldn't turn away the little guys who showed up wanting to be part of his summer baseball program, so he started the first PeeWee T-ball league to teach the six -to-eight-year-old set the fundamentals of baseball and a thing or two about good, clean fun. Mr. Sacharski passed away on February 27th, and this week the the Wall Street Journal pondered whether parents, concerned with our shaky economic climate, might be foregoing expensive family vacations this summer to rediscover less costly family-bonding activities like T-ball and a game of catch in the backyard.

That story reminded me of an Oprah episode I recently saw about Candice, a widowed mom who agreed to undergo a week-long experiment with living with less – no shopping, no eating out, and no TV. During the week, Candice confesses to feeling guilt and shame for having financed her family's lifestyle on credit. She also comes to realize that she shops to medicate the pain of her husband's death.

By the end of the week, the entire family had undergone a profound transformation. Prior to the experiment, Candice's teenage sons couldn't remember the last time they ate a sit-down, home-cooked family dinner; now they eagerly look forward to it. And despite their initial protestations, they admit that living without TV or video games brought their family closer.

Candice's final exercise was to think back on a time when her family was happiest and most connected. She took the camera crew back to the modest home she once shared with her late husband and recalled a day when the family spent an afternoon playing together in piles of leaves. "[Now] I know my children don't need the stuff. All I ever needed was them, and all they ever needed was me."

Just yesterday, my husband was talking to a man who owns a few rustic rental cabins on a lake in northern Wisconsin. He told Sean that this season, rentals are down for his usual customers, men-only group fishing trips, but he's seeing an unusual uptick in cabins being booked by young urban and suburban families with kids: "Back to basics, I guess, in this economy," he mused.

There is plenty to bemoan as our country struggles to figure a way out of this financial mess. But maybe it also means more T-ball, leaf-piles, and fishing weekends for time-strapped families and technology-saturated kids. As the famous Spanish saying goes: "No hay mal que por bien no venga." ("There is no bad thing from which something good doesn't emerge").

How is the economy affecting your time with your family?

The spotlight seems to have permanently shifted from the octuplets themselves to octomom, Nadya Suleman, her father, Ed Doud, and the octo-nana Angela Suleman. And now, boyfriends from the past.

Doud hit the television circuit, appearing on yesterday's Oprah to defend his daughter against claims that she doesn't deserve empathy.



"Don't punish her or her babies," he told the rapt audience. "It's God's will. If he didn't want this to happen he would have destroyed her embryos. I will do whatever I can to help her."

What's more, Suleman's dad says he had no idea his daughter was pregnant -- and apparently neither did her mom. According to Radar Online, when Angela confronted her daughter, Nadya denied she was pregnant and said: "I have a tumor."

Sigh.

Hot on the heels of bringing twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline into the world, rumors have been flying that Angelina Jolie is pregnant again. The twins joined Ange, partner Brad Pitt and four other children mere months ago, with Angelina sporting a post-baby figure few hope to achieve in the rest of their lifetimes, let alone less than a year post-pregnancy, so I'm confused why folks are seriously thinking she could be preggers again. Well, there is that thing where she sports a baby bump for months and refuses to comment on it or confirm the fact that she is pregnant. "Denial" certainly is more than a river in Egypt with the Brangelina camp.

One reason the rumor wheels are spinning could be recent comments Papa Pitt made to Oprah, as well as those made by Angelina in the past. The celebrity couple don't plan on limiting their number of kids to six, biological or adopted. Pitt's attitude is sort of "why stop now?" As for Ange, she has commented that she'd like to act less and be a mom more, a statement she naturally backed away from moments after uttering it.

Another reason is that she refused a drink at a restaurant in London recently. Well, I can tell you from experience, even though I am not pregnant (and in Ange's case, she is no longer nursing) that even if you can drink, when you have kids you don't always want to--even when you really feel like you might need a shot of something. Drinking, even one drink, can make you feel tired. Plus, Angie didn't get back down to her pre-baby size by knocking back useless calories! Part of me also likes to think the couple start these rumors themselves--hey, it assures they're always in the spotlight, hit movie on the horizon or not!

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Firstborns get all the attention, so Julia Roberts is making an effort to even the score for her youngest child, five-month-old Henry Daniel.

When Henry's older siblings, Hazel and Phinnaeus were born, they made the cover of People magazine. Until now, the Pretty Woman has been a little less willing to share her latest addition with the rest of the world- no photographs of Henry have been released.

However, all that will change on tomorrow's Oprah Winfery Show where Julia Roberts will share a photograph of the baby with the talk show queen.

"There's been a lot of curiosity. There's not been a picture of him. I thought I would just show everybody," Roberts says.

Hopefully the Oprah introduction to millions of viewers will keep the little guy from having an inferiority complex over not landing his own magazine cover!

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One assumes Jessica Seinfeld's recently released cookbook was called Deceptively Delicious in reference to the pureed vegetables hidden in each recipe.

However, claims that several of Seinfeld's recipes bear a striking resemblance to those found in Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef published six months prior, puts a less than savory slant to the name of Seinfeld's featured-on-Oprah bestseller.

Lapine and Seinfeld's books both have recipes that add spinach to brownies, hide sweet potatoes in grilled cheese sandwiches and mix avocados with chocolate pudding to boost the nutrition level.

Jessica is no stranger to controversy. Her history includes leaving a first husband immediately after their honeymoon to date (and eventually marry) Jerry Seinfeld in 1999. The couple has three children, daughter Sascha and two sons, Julian and Shepherd.

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It's been 20 years since the hit show thirtysomething used to have me on the couch dreaming of the day I would be old enough to have that successful thirtysomething life. (Though for some reason, at the age of 13, I related most to Melanie Mayron's flaky redhead character, Melissa.)

From Thursday's Globe and Mail comes an article questioning whether the Me Generation measures up to the thirty-somethings portrayed on the show. "If a show with the same title were made today, it is a fairly good bet that excess would not be an issue. Few of the characters would be married, many would work as Web designers or graphic artists, they would all be renting condos, and at least one would be considering freezing her eggs for future in vitro fertilization."

Wow, we really have come a long way -- but that description doesn't sound very flattering. At freshly 33, I fit the profile somewhat. I do work in "online" and until recently, I rented. (Though we preferred duplexes to condos.) But although I am married and fertile, it doesn't take more than a quick look around to see I'm in the minority amongst my friends.

Many of us in our thirties feel we are not where we thought we would be at this age. I've written about this same topic being discussed on Oprah before, and it continues to fascinate me. I talk about this frequently with my husband. We both agree that we "played" too much in our 20s and should have focussed a bit more on our careers, so that we would be in a better financial position now that we have kids and want to take time off to be with them. We spent a lot of money on trips and weekend benders, instead of saving up for a house. Now we're stuck with a teeny two-bedroom, (a tight squeeze with the growing family,) praying that interest rates don't go up too high.

I drive a 20-something home from work on occasion. She recently turned 25 and said to me, "I don't know what it is, but I'm not really interested in settling down just yet."

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Like many of you, I recently saw the episode of Oprah that featured boys who had been sold into slavery and felt so sad, wishing there was something I could do.

It is easy to forget that there are people out there in such poverty that they'd sell a child into slavery. Here's an article about slave girls in Nepal, who have also been sold by their families. The girls, who are officially indentured servants, number around 20,00 in western Nepal, are paid for by "landlords," who keep the girls for years.

Sometimes they are sold for about $60 a year.

Now there's a group working to free these girls, even though the indentured servant practice was recently outlawed. If, after reading the article and you're interested in learning of ways to help these girls, check out Friends of Needy Children, a group that works for the rights and welfare of the young children of Nepal.

Today's episode of Oprah focuses on being 30-something in America today. From the impossibility of finding a date, to the impossibility of getting pregnant. Kind of makes me want to dig up some old episode of Thirty-Something and compare being three decades old in the nineties to the issues we face now.

It looks like the episode will cover what it's like to be 30 in different cultures. The show will also follow a day-in-the-life of a thirty-something mother of eight, aged 19-3. Be sure to tune in.

Personally, at 32 I feel content. Though career-wise I'm not quite where I thought I would be, I finally feel comfortable in my own skin. I care a lot less what others think of me. I no longer have time to obsess over mirrors and scales. I have eliminated a lot of the people and things that weighed me down in my twenties and finally feel like I've a found a good balance. But I can't help but worry about the pleas of my single girlfriends that there are no good men left, or the struggles of friends who are trying to conceive.

What are some of the issues you face today as a woman in your 30s?

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The American media has been all over the story of Shawn Hornbeck, the teenage boy that went missing four years ago, only to be recently rescued.

There's been much news, not to mention speculation, about Shawn and his time in captivity. Heck, Dana over at Mamalogues recently pointed that Shawn had published personal profiles online.

Shawn is now 15 and, in light of the recent publicity, went on the Oprah show with his parents. At one point during the taping, his parents said they thought he was sexually abused.

Usually, when we are speaking of a rape victim, the media tries to keep the name out of the public for the person's privacy. I can understand his parents' need to talk about their feelings and experience, but I can't help but think announcing that your child might have been sexually abused on a show that is seen by millions of people around the world is a good idea.

Kidnapped or not, he still is a 15-year-old boy. The child has obviously been through so much and will continue to be under incredible scrutiny. I just can't see why his parents would tell such personal information about their child on television.

What do you think? Should they have kept quiet on this issue?