Once a village with both Muslims and Jews (the synagogue still remains), Bayt Baws (the kissing house in Arabic) is now a city of squatters, families who’ve moved to the mountain top town out of necessity. My friend tells me last year 13 families lived here, now there are 22. Not a good sign. Each Ramadan she organizes a food and basic needs drive–roughly about $50 worth of goods per family. The men here chew khat (Yemen’s narcotic of choice) and do not work. Women are left running the household and raising children on a meager existence. As we arrive, goats, two donkeys and waves of children come forward. An older boy I’d say around 10 or 11 (he doesn’t know his age, few if any do as they have no birth certificates) emerges as the pack leader. He recognizes my friend, the Ramadan lady, and instantly strikes up a conversation. This is a great tourist destination in Sana’a–amazing scenery, hillside views. Today, the sun strikes through the clouds glistening off ripples from a damn of water below. Not long ago, tourists were detained and kidnapped here. But on this day, I sensed no violence. The children were more than pleased to show us their town, the best views, their sister and brother. Picture! Picture! They love digital cameras that let them see their photos instantly. They made a list of all the families in the village for Ramadan–in two months. They haggled over who would be on the list of needs. “Not that family, they have a truck!” And our guide told my friend about the problems at home. He gets money from tourists he guides through the area but gives the money to his mother. His dad doesn’t work . A young girl, a twin, emerges and follows the group. She’s very shy, her clothes dirty and soiled but she desperately wants to participate in the tour. I catch her behind a wall and snap a picture. She cracks a small smile. Already it seems she knows how much harder it’s going to be for her life here and how easy it’s going to be for her twin brother. And there’s not much you can tell her that will be optimistic. But today, for a little bit, she’s a little girl, running and playing with a kitten enjoying a day with foreigners in her home. It’s a nice hour, a happy few moments she’ll have. We dig in our wallets for money to give the children, not the adults. Never the adults. And we walk back through the village past crumbled rooms where trash and goat droppings are left. It’s getting darker. We must leave. One last photo of a boy scaring goats.

I’m taking a weekend trip to Las Vegas today and so excited about the opportunity to dress up, gamble a little and have a good time. But it’s always a downer to see kids in Las Vegas. Can parents out there tell me why you bring your kids to Sin City? I get the difficulty of finding a babysitter. But Las Vegas is a plane ride away. Not a trip to Chili’s. I know there’s places like Circus Circus that cater to kids but who wants to bring their child with them to a casino? What do you say to your kids about the couples in the cabanas rubbing on each other? “Mommy, why is that man touching that girl’s bottom?” Or the drunk guys with a yard stick in one hand, gripping an easy ride escalator. I’ve seen people lay down and pass out on those things! And the stripper flyers everywhere not to mention the strippers, call girls, show girls etc. They have places like Disney World for kids. Not Las Vegas. That’s for big people. That’s for mommies and daddies to get away and have fun. I don’t get it, but don’t give me a dirty look if I walk over your child to get to slot machine.

Mommy and Me groups are popular meetup locations. For many moms (and a few dads), a support group help you vent concerns and learn or get advice from other mothers. But as one new mother atMomLogic found out, not all mammas are as accepting and helpful as you think, “In the first class, we went around the room introducing ourselves and shared what brought us to the group. Up first, I figured I might as well be honest — so I told the mom strangers that my husband and I weren’t getting along, the baby wasn’t sleeping, I’d had to stop breastfeeding and that I felt like the most unsexy person ever. One mom interrupted and said, “You’re not breastfeeding anymore? Ugh. WHY?” Another then said, “You’re going back to work? Already?” Yet another chimed in, laughing, “I hope you have childcare for your kid, ’cause you’re not going to get in a day-care around here, they’re full!” The new mom concluded this wasn’t the place for her, “Needless to say, no one else was really honest. It’s hard for me to believe you’re just in a class because you’re “bored at home,” or because you were just “looking for a social hour” or “something fun to do” — which is what most of them said. It’s hard to believe you’ve somehow squeezed into your skinny jeans again and your baby is happily sucking on your boob and sleeping through the night at just a few weeks old. It’s hard to hear that you and your husband have date-night once a week and that you have a night nurse watching over your baby so you can sleep.”

I hope not all Mommy and Me or Mother’s Day Out or any other group is like that. I’d be very discouraged as a woman and a mother if other people implied I wasn’t good enough. My mom never attended these groups. She did what other mothers and fathers back in the day–the 80s–did. She took us to a park or event and talked to parents. There weren’t play dates or scheduled get together times. We just went to a neighbor’s house and said, “Hey, is Sally home?” and that was it. I don’t know why it’s so complicated now with indoor gyms and play locations. What happened to monkey bars in the back yard and mud pies? I never had a scheduled play date, my mother was my “mommy and me” and I think I’m fine.

It’s a question we’ve asked before on this blog before and one that got contributor Lorrie Irby Jackson to thinking. In her piece on the homepage today, she answers the question with a resounding no. After a divorce from her first husband, Jackson said, “I needed life to be as drama-free as possible to show [my son] that parents could still love and care for him even from separate addresses, and most of all, I had to prove to him with my actions that instead of languishing as part of a couple, it was better for me to struggle on my own. It was scary having to start all over again, and I didn’t relish being one of the 70% of African-American women rearing their children as an unmarried woman, but if any reality was worse than that, it would’ve been knowingly modeling a dissatisfying and dysfunctional relationship for him to fall into as an adult for another generation to endure. I simply couldn’t let that happen.” Read more here.