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Strollerderby
According to a new study this photo exemplifies excellent parenting.
I’m constantly feeling guilty for not playing with my daughter enough. Generally it’s not because I’m lazy, but busy. Still. There are times when all I want to do is lay on the couch and read something that ISN’T The Poky Little Puppy or Dr. Seuss, which is why I was so happy to stumble onto an article called Why Lazy Parents Make Happy Families.
Ew, her house is SO dirty! She must be a terrible mom!
Moms judging other moms is nothing new. We all do it. If you say you don’t, well, I just don’t believe you. I try not to but, inevitably, there is the mom who lets her toddler stand up in the shopping cart at the grocery store and I’m cringing as the kid comes THIS close to falling out… I walk away shaking my head in disbelief… But there it is – I’m judging this mom.
A new survey conducted by TODAY and Parenting.com finds that nearly 90 percent of us judge moms.
Check this out. According to the 26,000 moms questioned, one in 5 will judge you for not breastfeeding. But wait, there’s more! If you breastfeed for what some consider “too long” you’ll get judged by 43 percent of mothers. Can’t win, can you? Continue reading »
Is it ever OK to drug your kids?
Most of us would never drug our kids, right? That’s the stuff of tabloid headlines, not good parenting. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves until we’re getting on an airplane with an overtired, agitated toddler who just can’t seem to settle down.
Then the bottle of children’s Benadryl in your first aid kit starts looking awfully appealing. Surely that kid has a little sniffle, right? A precautionary dose of Benadryl couldn’t hurt. If it happens to make her sleep through the flight, so much the better.
Benadryl is the secret weapon of the traveling parent. It’s a pretty open secret, too. According to a recent Today Show/Parenting.com survey. 1 in 5 moms admitted to drugging their babies to get through a big event like a plane ride or long car trip. Continue reading »
It’s a common parental fear that their children will be exposed to the sexual kaleidoscope of horrors that can be found all too easily on the internet, but research presented yesterday at the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting shows that the internet only accounts for 16% to 25% of exposure to sexual content by children ages 10-15.
While this may easy your fears about the internet, it leaves a seemingly innocuous (and much more insidious) presence as the main provider of sexual content to our kids.
Dad and his girl, Violet.
Yesterday I let my daughter take a ride in the back of a pick-up truck. And I’m glad I did. The decision wasn’t an easy one to make. I went back and forth for several minutes, every What If scenario loudly making itself known. Then, one simple thought occurred to me and I decided that I want to be the kind of mom that okays a ride down the street in the back of a pick-up truck for ice cream on a hot summer night.
Here’s what I thought:
Anyone who’s been around small kids knows they have an overdeveloped sense of fairness. “That isn’t fair!” is the rallying cry of the affronted child.
Often, their notions of “fair” seem to be completely congruent with getting their own way. My daughters believe that being asked to clean their room or eat their veggies is unfair. I don’t think fairness really enters into the picture on those ones.
On other things, though, my kids are highly attuned fairness detectors. They know when one kid has too long a turn on the swing, and how the ice cream should be divvied up so everyone gets an equal treat. They’re acutely conscious of who left the markers out, and whose job it should be to pick them up.
So I shouldn’t be surprised by a new Harvard study that shows kids are deeply committed to fairness in play.
In German artist Paul Ripke’s photo series, kids are the parents and parents are the kids. The resulting effect—beards in onesies and pacifiers in business suits— is completely bizarre, slightly disturbing, and quite amusing.
Aside from being amazingly cool to look at, these images ask some bigger questions.In this child-centered age, parents are often judged for letting their lives revolve around their children.Where previous generations of children were given a finite place in a world defined by adults, this generation of kids is being raised in a world increasingly designed around kids’ needs, both physical and emotional. Whether or not this style of parenting benefits kids…or parents, is up for debate.
Ripke’s work seems to address this question, asking:
Just who is the parent here?
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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