One of the very many things that makes me happy I am living in this era versus the early 1960s (at least as presented on “Mad Men”) is that fathers are expected to take an active role in childcare — and the icky diaper-changing nose-wiping stuff, too, not just playing with your clean, bathed children for an hour before bedtime. I even can think of four stay-at-home dads I personally know without even having to strain my memory.

But the culture is pretty slow to change around us. This NPR essay by Richard Weissbourd talks about being relegated to the role of secondary parent, that his wife is pretty much expected to know all and take responsibility for all, while he’s treated like an adjunct.

Weissbourd points out, for example, that schools rarely send report cards to fathers after a divorce Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

Swine flu, aka the H1N1 virus, has not gone away. In fact, advisers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are recommending that pregnant women get vaccinated against it, according to a report from NPR.

Unsurprisingly, the report points out that “recommendations that pregnant women be vaccinated will be a hard sell to pregnant women — and their doctors.”

Not all doctors are against this vaccination, however. Continue reading »

Tweet

16

Pin It

So Pixar’s latest, “Up” seems to be a big hit, earning rave reviews and scoring big at the box office.

But it prompted Linda Holmes, blogger for NPR’s pop culture blog Monkey See, to write a heartfelt open letter to Pixar.

“This is not an angry letter. It is especially not an angry letter about Up, which I adored,” she begins. “I could have sat in the theater and watched it two more times in a row….

So I’m not complaining; I’m asking. I’m asking because I think so highly of you.

Please make a movie about a girl who is not a princess.”

She points out that Pixar is making some of the best movies around right now, and that while they have very strong female characters, none of them are in the fact the protagonist, the person whose story it is. I didn’t realize this until I read her lovely and sweet blog, but wow, she’s right.

Holmes calls on Pixar to remember those “little girls with Band-Aids on their knees” who don’t see themselves on screen all that much. She want girls to have a great movie like “Up” that features someone they can dress up had for Halloween.

I agree. I have one of those little girls with Band Aids on her knees (and pretty much everywhere else a kid can fall over) and while she’s newly in love with the Disney Princesses and everything pink, purple or sparkly, she’s also a fearless little adventurer.

Holmes ends her piece with: “I’m just saying, keep them in mind, those girls in Band-Aids, because they want to see themselves on screen doing death-defying stunts, too.”

I hope sometime soon, the phenomenally talented people at Pixar take her up on it. Not just for my girl, but for my son, too.

Tweet

1

Pin It