Say this for the wholesome teens of Disney’s “High School Musical” franchise: there are worse things they could do.

At first glance, there’s not much difference between the halls of East Side High and those of Rydell High, the school attended by the students of “Grease.” Each school has impossibly bubbly teens who break out into song with little warning. And somehow, everyone knows the words to every song, along with the accompanying dance moves.

But the similarities pretty much end there, especially if you’re a parent. I think if my mom and dad had really listened to the lyrics of the “Grease” soundtrack, they would have banned it from my house. Oh, sure, “Summer Nights” was harmless enough on the surface (although when Danny said “She was good, you know what I mean,” I didn’t). But did you ever listen to the lyrics of “Greased Lightning”? How on earth did we get away with playing that song and dancing to it in the presence of our parents?

Ah, but in the late 1970s, Grease really was the word, wasn’t it? It had groove. It had feeling. It had… well, it had a little bit more than young children should see and hear, no? Because Grease really wasn’t a high school musical. It strikes me that Grease was produced in the 1970s for people in their 30s who were in high school during the 1950s. With a wink and a nod, it mocked truly clueless adults along with the unrealistic expectations of wholesome perfection. We all knew what Troy Donahue wanted to do. And when Rizzo was in trouble, we worried with her.

What was the message of Grease, anyway? Was it that you need to be a floozie (or just look like one) to get your man or to fit in? Or was it that you need not be ashamed of your sexuality?

And what is the message of High School Musical? Looks to me like the message is to be true to yourself and to your friends, and have a little fun in the process. They are a wholesome bunch, aren’t they? Even the villainess of the piece, Sharpay, ends up being so darned nice when all is sung and done.

The world of High School Musical is an innocent one, a world free of cynicism, a world that almost screams, “please, let kids be kids just a little while longer!”

Here’s the big difference: HSM is for people looking forward to high school. Grease is for people looking back on it.

Or maybe I’m just thinking too hard. As a stepparent to two teenage girls, I hope you'll forgive me forgive me for applauding HSM a little more than Grease. At least while my girls are still kids.

Go Wildcats!

My son and I had a rare evening to ourselves tonight and flipped on Fox Soccer Channel to watch a US Major League Soccer (MLS) game between The New York Red Bulls and Real Salt Lake. The game was pretty good and the play was exciting but it's the first time in watching a lot of soccer that I've ever seen streamers thrown on the playing field by fans and it sucked.

I'm not a hardcore fan of any sport or team though if I had to pick a sport, it'd be European soccer and specifically the World Cup (indeed, the single biggest sticker on my laptop is a World Cup 2010 South Africa sticker. Ask me to see it next time we meet up. it's cool).

But I just don't think I have what it takes to be a fan in these offensive and unpleasant modern times...

Among the waves of email I get from my blogging efforts are some that are targeted to this parenting / daddy blog, which is definitely cool. In fact, sometimes the messages are from vendors or PR agencies who are hoping that I'll write about their product or service. Some are cool (I have some samples of a new product from the company that makes Emergen-C, for example, coming in the mail) but some, like this release from MealpayPlus help me realize just how far we are from the normal day-to-day childhoods of typical American children...

Here are their five key points related to their product...

Contributed by Akilah Johnson, SunSentinel.com

Is there a Florida Prepaid for pre-K?

Parents can send their 4-year-olds to three hours of free pre-K per day during the school year, but they still have to shell out big bucks so their kids can spend the rest of the day learning their ABCs and 123s.

So they can probably relate to a new study by Pre-K Now, which found that early childhood education is breaking the piggy banks of middle-class families across the country. The study looks at states where, unlike Florida, families must meet income thresholds to qualify for free pre-K. Earn too much, and you have to pay.

And pay they do.

In those states, preschool costs eat up about about 30 percent of a family's budget, beating out food, rent, car payments and healthcare, the study says. The study defined middle class as a family of four living on $51,523 to $103,046 a year.

Monthly expenses for Maryland's middle-class families look like this: $1,324 for rent, $995 on food, $1,559 on early education. That's a bit on the high-end of the scale. The low-end would be Louisiana, where rent cost $758 (which is wishful thinking down here), while childcare is about $809.

Another startling fact listed in the study: In every state, for families earning $60,000 year, a year of childcare costs more than a year's tuition at Harvard or Yale.

Pre-K Now is a national non-profit organization funded in part by the Pew Charitable Trust. The report, which was released Wednesday, is available here.

Contribution by Cindy Kent, SunSentinel.com

So my son brought his report card home yesterday.

It was really wonderful; great grades earned him a dinner out to the Melting Pot. After all, he's also earning some high school credits even though he's still in 8th grade. And we celebrate everything together, little achievements and big ones.

But now he's being wooed by area high schools for their magnet programs. It's kind of cool, but daunting too. We must consider the possibility that he might go to a high school that is farther away from home. And we value, as he does, his current friendships, staying in touch with the kids he's been going to school with since elementary school.

However, a good education is a priority too, and positioning himself to be at the doors of opportunity when they open is just as important. If he doesn't go to the high school we thought he'd be going to all along, then are we responsible for transportation? That will a definate concern.

Regardless of the school he goes to, isn't it all about what the kid himself makes of it, himself, in the end?

There is a lot to think about: Friends. Transportation. Exposure to educational opportunities. Learning environments. These considerations will give him, and us, practice on managing the options when it's time to pick a college.

Each issue is important. How would you rank them?