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Strollerderby
Choice or Law?
Can you imagine a place in the world where government puts laws in place to encourage women to breastfeed longer than they currently do in the region?
This is becoming a reality in one of the worlds most populated countries. Indonesia, with 250 million people and one of the most disaster prone countries has started working on laws that would not only encourage breastfeeding longer for mothers, but help ensure babies in the region are safe from illness often passed through dirty water supplies.
The Bully Police, a watch-dog organization devoted to advocating for bullied kids, gives the state of New York an ‘F’ for efforts to end bullying in schools. But that’s about to change. On Tuesday, the Dignity for All Students Act overwhelmingly passed in the Senate and is now headed to the governor’s desk.
Governor David A. Paterson has previously voiced his support for the measure, which will require school districts to report instances of bullying to the State Education Department. Continue reading »
New York’s nannies may soon enjoy the labor rights other employees take for granted. Both halves of New York’s legislature have approved a bill to extend basic workplace protections to domestic workers. The governor is expected to sign a reconciled version of the bill soon.
This measure will affect about 200,000 workers in the New York metro area. That’s a lot of people getting new labor rights. Will it impact someone in your home?
Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids, has declared May 22 “Take Our Kids To The Park and Leave Them There Day”. Today, she runs a great essay by an Arizona man on what the authorities might or might not do to parents who dare to go ahead with this crazy scheme.
The short answer is whatever they want. Neglect laws in many states – including Arizona and Massachusetts, where I live – are subjectively enforced. The bottom line is that you have to provide appropriate food, shelter, clothing, supervision and care for your kids.
It’s up to individual cops, judges and social workers to decide whether or not letting your kid play unsupervised at your local playground is neglectful.
Sometimes being a nanny is a sweet gig. I spent my summers during grad school hanging out on a posh resort island with a couple of adorable kids and their sweet mom, writing my thesis in the evenings and playing with the girls while Mama got in some tennis time with her sisters.
Sometimes, being a nanny isn’t so great. Employers have been known to seize immigrant nannies passports to prevent them from leaving, to require 24/7 on-call status, to pay as little as $2 an hour for what I can assure you is grueling work, and to provide living quarters most of us wouldn’t expect our pets to put up with.
And for the most part, they can get away with it. A proposed New York law would change that. Continue reading »
Friends and supporters of Phoebe Prince have begun a campaign to craft anti-bullying legislation in her honor.
The young Irish immigrant who committed suicide in January, after being viciously bullied by for months by popular girls at her school. The incident sparked a national outcry, and criminal charges against 9 of the students involved.
A court has ruled three police officers innocent of using excessive force after they Tasered a visibly pregnant woman pulled over for a speeding ticket.
Run that by me again? What is it about “shooting electricity into a fetus” that sounds reasonable? Continue reading »
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