Living in the city cheaper than living in the suburbs? Could it be?

When I saw the headline in the Saturday New York Times, I was convinced my salvation was at hand. This New York City native has many days where she would like to bid adieu to suburban life, to say sayonara to the land of manic gardeners and never ending school board fights. Never mind the fact that my two boys, used to making as much noise as they like and running out the door at will, would sue to terminate my parental custody at once. I was ready to call the moving vans.

Then I read the article. Sad to say, the New York Times, in an effort to prove it costs 18% less to live in the city than in the ‘burbs, loaded the deck in favor of their (and my) hometown. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

“Should This Be the Last Generation?”

That’s the provocative question posed by Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, in his recent Op-Ed in The New York Times.

As someone who was pregnant and living in downtown Manhattan for 9/11 and its afermath, I often fretted over the future of the world my daughter was soon going to enter. Would she grow up in a war zone? Would she lead a life of suffering and deprivation? Luckily, my dystopian “Mad Max” vision of the future didn’t become a reality — at least not yet.

Singer wonders whether it is inheritantly good to be brought into existence. Is it fair to bring a child into a world with global warming, the threat of nuclear annihilation, environmental disasters and the rest ? Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

If we’re not blaming mothers, we’re blaming fat people for all of societies woes.

The New York Times manages a two-fer in its piece, “Growing Obesity Increases Perils of Childbearing” (yet, interestingly, tagged “Obese Mothers a Burden on Hospital Resources”). There, we read all kinds of speculation that America’s obesity problem is the (possibly! some say!) the cause of America’s rampant c-sections problem, which is connected to the nation’s alarming rise in maternal mortality rates.

The concern is that fat women are going ahead and getting pregnant, without bothering to lose weight. Doctors are scared to council overweight and obese women because of fat issues in our society. And also (article takes a sudden left turn), hospitals are having to stock sturdier beds, bigger gowns, longer needles and step-stools (for surgery) to accommodate the big ladies.

But then to illustrate the point — the point being, obese women sometimes have tiny babies — they follow a 5-foot, 261-pound new mom (she was 195 pounds when she got pregnant), whose child was born very premature (and weighing less than two pounds). Patricia Garcia was put on hospital bed rest when she was 7 months along and couldn’t feel her baby kick. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

Are girls more gifted than boys? The answer to this question is yes, at least if you live in New York City.

According to the New York Times, an analysis of enrollment in the city’s public school kindergarten giftedness programs found 56 percent girls to 44 percent boys. At some schools, the gender ratio is even bleaker, with classes containing 18 girls and 10 boys.

What gives? Weren’t we reading just a few years ago that the education system was failing girls, squelching their voices before they had even learned to use them? Well, our system, it seems, doesn’t want to hear voices be they male or female, but simply wants students who can sit quietly at a desk, calmly penciling in the bubbles of standardized exams. And those quiet students are more likely to be female. Continue reading »

Tweet

2

Pin It

“Everybody has such weird names these days,” says Steve Martin’s character in the movie “L.A. Story.”

He’s relieved when he finally meets Sandy, a girl with a normal name (played by Sarah Jessica Parker).

Then she spells it for him: “Big S, small a, small n, big D, small e, big e and then there’s a little star at the end,” SanDeE*explains.

That was nearly 20 years ago and name spellings have gotten increasingly creative since then. Some parents strive to create a memorable spelling for their baby’s name, while others are irritated by the popularity of kree8tive spellings. Continue reading »

Tweet

24

Pin It

The worst of news today at Babble.

Work/Life blogger Katie Allison Granju‘s 18-year-old son has died. He had been hospitalized following a drug overdose and physical assault just over one month ago.

Late in April, Granju’s son, H, was taken to the hospital after he had overdosed and been brutally assaulted in a drug-related incident. There, he was in a coma for several days.

Granju chronicled some of her son’s — and her own — struggles following the tragedy in her Work/Life blog. She was also featured in the New York Times Motherlode blog. There, she spoke of the secret she was no longer willing to keep — that her son was addicted to drugs. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

“The New York Times” reports on new research which shows that enemies can help children grow emotionally.

“Friendships provide a context in which children develop, but of course so do negative peer relations,” Maurissa Abecassis, a psychologist at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire told The Times. “We should expect that both types of relationships, as different as they are, present opportunities for growth.”

But when is an enemy not an “opportunity for growth” but a nasty bully? Schools are increasingly vigilant against bullying after two teenage girls who were bullied committed suicide earlier this year. Is the theoretical upside of an antagonistic relationship worth the potential risks? Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It