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Latest Con Job May Kill Us All
They conned us again and this time might be the worst. First, they told us cigarettes were safe and even healthy, all the time knowing they were killing people. With grassroots efforts, we quashed that. Then, they ignored the fact that thousands of people were dying from drunk driving. They ignored it until Mothers Against Drunk Driving launched a nationwide effort to solve that problem by getting more enforcement and stricter laws. Now they have covered up the incredible harm plastics are doing to the Earth, acting like recycling will solve the problem. NO IT WON’T and they know it. Reporter Susanne Rust kept a record of all the plastics…
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Everyone is a Winner When Kids Have the Supplies They Need to Start School
There’s nothing better for kids than the first day of school. It’s like the first day of the baseball season: everybody’s a winner. They’ve got the shiny new backpack, be it Spiderman, Roblox or Barbie (probably not Oppenheimer). There are the fresh new pencils, crayons, notebooks, book covers. And there are endless possibilities. They strut into the classroom that first day so proud and colorful. But what if your kid can’t afford all that new stuff? How would that feel? It’s too sad to even think about. Luckily, people in Santa Cruz have taken up the challenge to help the 2,000 or so students who are unhoused or living in…
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Symphony a Great Night Out for Kids
I took my 7-year-old to his first symphony last month and he loved it. So did I. Our first was the Santa Cruz Symphony’s pop concert, which was devoted to music from the movies. I was worried he wouldn’t have the patience to sit through long, complicated classical pieces. You can tell by the smile on Parker’s face in the picture–this music lit up both of our hearts. Keep in mind, the program was kid friendly, consisting of music from Up, The Pink Panther, James Bond, Mission Impossible, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Batman and more. Conductor Danny Stewart brought the songs to life in his explanations, but the…
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Hate Speech Doesn’t Belong on Campus
We are deeply disturbed by the fact that some UCSC students held a birthday party for Adolf Hitler complete with a cake filled with Nazi symbols. It’s something we didn’t think could happen in this time and place and it’s seriously frightening that it did—and that the university has done nothing about it. But it also tugs at our gut in another way. We believe in freedom of speech at almost all costs. It’s one of the things that makes this country a bastion of liberty. The right to speak freely is protected in the Constitution and the protection isn’t for speech we agree with but for all speech, especially…
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Editor’s Note
One of my main reasons for buying this magazine four years ago was to help me be a better parent. With all of the experts writing for us and all the input from families across the county, I figured I could get answers to all the questions I had about raising my now 7-year-old son. It turns out, however, I have far more questions than answers. I guess, like all families, I feel like I’m guessing about what to do and hoping I get it right. I’ve got challenges and questions and would love some feedback from you readers. Consider it a homework assignment and think about how much you…
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Editor’s Note
This month we take on one of the biggest challenges parents face every summer: how do I decide where to send the kids to summer camp? The good news and the bad news are the same: there are so many great options to choose from, how do I stick to only one or two? We are considerably lucky here. A recent article in the Washington Post described a real struggle, with parents having to get kids into camps that book up instantly and competing against thousands of families for a small number of spaces. In Santa Cruz, we have a huge variety of types of camps and price ranges—many featured…
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Editor’s Note
We asked an Artificial Intelligence program to write a poem about being a teen whohas grown up in Santa Cruz and this is what we got in 20 seconds: In Santa Cruz by the sea, Where the waves crash wild and free.I spent my teenage years, With laughter, love, and tears.The sun-kissed sand, the salty breeze, The boardwalk bustling with glee.The pier where we’d fish and dream, Our youth so full of promise and esteem.The town was quirky, artsy, and kind, With open minds and hearts refined.Where we could be ourselves, express, And never feel the need to impress.We’d hang out at cafes, skate parks, and beaches, Taking risks, pushing…
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Community Comes Together
If there’s a silver lining to all the storms we’ve faced—besides fighting back on the long drought—it’s the way our community has come together. People have taken both big and small steps to help each other. Big corporations, once considered the Evil Empire around Santa Cruz, have rushed forward to help bring service to so many people stricken by the floods, often not seeking publicity for their efforts, but thanked by residents nonetheless. While everyone praises first responders from police and fire departments, we rarely see enough credit given to workers who climb poles in torrential rains to bring back electricity, cable and phone service. We’ve tried to call out…
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Editor’s Note
There were a few qualities I sought out when I was looking for my ideal place in which to live—It had to have excellent schools, lots of culture, proximity to nature at its best and idealistic people who cared about helping the world. I found it right here in this county of almost 280,000 people. In decades of living in Santa Cruz, I’ve never been bored and I’m always appreciative of the fact that tourists pay fortunes and travel hundreds and thousands of miles to enjoy what I wake up to every day.I had to live over the hill for work for too long and it was torture. Yeah, the…
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Should we R-E-S-P-E-C-T respect?
I can hardly express the joy I felt when my 6-year-old-son, Parker, won an award for being respectful at an assembly after his first month of first grade. What parent doesn’t burst with pride for any of their children’s accomplishments? But that night, I tuned in Bill Maher’s show and heard him lament that we give our children too many participation awards and make them feel entitled for the rest of their lives, regardless of their actual accomplishments. Now Maher knows as much about raising kids as I do about splitting atoms, but he was echoing the conservative platform that schools and teams now reward students just for showing up.…
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After School Conversations
Editor’s Note By brad kava It doesn’t seem right to start school before Labor Day, or as many in Santa Cruz know it, weeks before Burning Man. (As a college teacher, I can always tell the ones who miss the first week of school claiming to have been at a funeral or stuck overseas on some secret mission by their desert tans. Busted.) That said, one of the biggest challenges parents face as their youngsters return home from an arduous day of learning is getting them to talk about it. It can be as tough a job as a police person interviewing a suspected murderer trying to get the facts,…
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Missing Van
Editor’s Note By Brad Kava The school year is starting out sadly at Watsonville’s Pajaro Valley High School. The school’s only van—a beloved seven-passenger Ford, nicknamed “Grizzly Van” — was stolen from the campus in July.he white van was a fixture for the 1,650-student school, transporting classes, special ed students and athletes to events. It was last used on a Saturday to take members of the football team to Monterey for training. The next day it was gone. “At first I felt disbelief,” says Athletic Director Joe Manfre. “Nobody is going to steal a van from a high school. We’re across the freeway from most people and you have to…
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Community Kindness
Editor’s Note By Brad kAva You want to make America great again? How about focusing on kindness? I know, it sounds hippy dippy cliché, but when people put aside business as usual and do great things for each other the world really becomes a better place. It happened to me last week.My engine lights were flashing and the warning signals looked like a missile was pointed at the Starship Enterprise. “Oil pressure low,” it blared. Luckily, I was near the Valvoline in Watsonville, by Target. I coasted in, thinking I just needed an oil change, but no, the oil had all leaked out and even a mechanical dolt like me…
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Yes on D
Yes on Measure D Keep travel safe for kids and get them off the couch! By brad kava On June 7 Santa Cruz voters will have a chance to build something world class that will bring in tourists, cut down pollution and help locals get fit and travel safely. It will be a 32-mile-long bike, walking and wheelchair path that will wind along stunning beaches, majestic forests and picturesque landscapes between Watsonville and Davenport. It will attract tourists, as do similar well-traveled paths in Santa Monica, San Diego, Sacramento and hundreds of counties across the country that have converted useless rails to useful, joyful trails. It will be the most…
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Editors Note May 2022
Editor’s Note By Brad Kava Like so many other readers, we found a camp for our 5-year-old son, Parker, from an article in Growing Up in Santa Cruz. It was a story about an intriguing camp, Thomas Farm Films, which hires movie directors to teach kids how to make films and then makes them on an Aptos organic farm. I was afraid it might be too much for such a young kid. We’d already had a bad experience with a highly recommended preschool, but he hated it. It’s so hard to know what a kid will like. But Parker loved the film camp so much that even though we’d signed…
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March 2022 Editor’s Note
Fentanyl Epidemic Hits Home By Brad KAva We had a tragedy in the Growing Up in Santa Cruz family—the son of one of our longtime sales executives, Sophie Véniel, died of a fentanyl overdose. The incredibly dangerous and increasingly popular drug was secretly put on what looked like prescription medicine. It’s devastated us all. But in the tradition of journalism, it got us asking questions. Why is this happening? How often is it happening? What can we do about it? Writer Suki Wessling got answers and suggestions for help and you can read them in this issue. As a stepparent to two teens, it got me thinking. What should I…
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Art in Schools
Studying the Masters so Young? By Brad Kava When I asked my 5-year-old son what he did in his afterschool program the other day, he said he learned about Monet. “Money?” I ask. “No, Monet, he’s a painter,” he replies. I sent him to the Apple Afterschool program, thinking it was just a place for him to play after school, where they even walked him from his half-day kindergarten class to the nearby center and did the usual crafts, games, and child projects. The next day, a different conversation.“Do you think Frida Kahlo was friends with Monet?” he asks me.I was pretty much stumped on that one but knew they…
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Editors Note Jan 22
Editor’s Note By Brad Kava Talk about traumatic. My dog, a 7-month-old standard poodle, ran away for nine hours and I must have walked and driven 20 miles looking for her. It was my fault, as my 5-year-old boy reminded me. I had her on a field and I looked down to answer a text. Next thing, she had run off somewhere around Aptos. I couldn’t believe she could disappear so quickly. After three hours of searching, I got on the internet and put out a call for help on NextDoor. For a while, nothing came back and at noon, while Parker and I were searching, we heard the howls…
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Editor Note Dec 2021
Editor’s Note by brad kava We’re about to flip the page on 2021 and while it’s been a tough year for many, there are some good things to celebrate. We love those little libraries sprouting up all over town outside people’s homes. It’s such a great way to give back. We also love the food libraries we’ve seen at places such as Leo’s Haven. Left to their own devices people will do good works and that’s reason to celebrate. Over in Scotts Valley we caught a plant library! “Need a plant? Take a Plant. Have a Plant? Leaf a Plant,” it says. “Sharing is caring,” my kindergartner says.The holidays are…
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We won
Bring Home Awards By Brad Kava Growing Up in Santa Cruz won four big awards in a national contest sponsored by the Parenting Media Association, a trade group that reaches six million family and parent magazine readers each month in the U.S., Canada and Australia. The competition was judged by the journalism department of the University of Missouri. We took top honors for humor, with our wonderful monthly cartoon by Patty Benson. Here’s what the judges said:“This illustrated column uses multiple visual devices as a framework for funny observations that most moms will recognize from their own lives. The approach is hilariously on point as well as entertaining and original.”…
