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Strollerderby
A group of Arizona moms descended on McDonald’s en masse to hold a nurse-in after an employee kicked a nursing mom out.
On August 11, Clarissa Bradford and her kids were asked to leave a Phoenix McDonald’s when Bradford began nursing her 6-month-old baby. The restaurant has apologized, and says it won’t happen again.
But about 100 women turned out for the breastfeeding demonstration all the same. The protest wasn’t targeted so much at McDonald’s as at the mixed public reaction to the story. Commenters on the Internet and talk radio suggested women should not breastfeed in public. Many thought nursing moms should feed their babies in the bathroom if they must do it at all.
As one mom said, “Would you want to eat in the bathroom? That’s disgusting.”
It is. It’s also a pretty common request to nursing moms.
Three-year-old Alessaundra Tafoya has made her parents very proud. In fact, the preschooler is winning praise from her community and the news media, too, for being such a brave little girl this past weekend.
The tiny tyke was home alone with her dad when he collapsed. Instead of panicking, she walked two blocks to the local fire station, and brought firefighters home to help him. Doctors said he would have died without immediate medical care.
Wow. And I’m impressed when my three-year-old can carry her plate from the dining table to the kitchen without breaking it. This girl deserves all the gold stars.
What’s most amazing to me about this story, though, isn’t that a three-year-old had the presence of mind to help her dad, or the ability to walk two blocks to a fire station. It’s that the adults around her prepared her to do it, and let her.
Think washing the dishes after dinner is killing the mood in your marriage? Not so, says science. A new study in the Journal of Family Issues reveals that married folks who both work outside the home and do more household labor also get it on more often than those who work less or blow off chores.
The message, as one of the lead researchers put it, is that those who work hard play hard. Sweet.
So next time you’re looking to spice things up with your sweetie, consider an evening of vaccuming the family room, dusting the cabinets and finally settling in for some good old fashioned spoon polishing.
Doesn’t this fuzzy white suit just make you want to snuggle the little sweetie wearing it? That’s just what it’s for. But don’t overindulge. The suit is wired to set off flashing lights and alarms if the child inside is touched for too long or in an inappropriate place.
No, you can’t buy one at Target.
Artist Helge Fischer made this suit as an ironic statement on our culture of overprotective parenting. But there were plenty of moms and teachers eager to suit up their young charges.
Twenty-somethings are moving home in record numbers. It’s not just the recession. The “boomerang kid” trend started before the economy collapsed, and social scientists expect it to continue. These young adults aren’t just broke; they’re not ready to leave the nest. Does it just take longer to grow up today than it did a few generations back?
Some experts think so. The New York Times has a feature coming out this Sunday on “emerging adulthood,” a new psychological term for the increasingly common developmental stage between finishing high school and settling into Real Life.
If we can’t expect our kids to be fully adult until they’re 30, does that mean those of us raising little ones now are on the hook for another 10 years of parenting? What will our job description look like, if childhood is extended another decade?
Spanish speaking sitters and nannies are in high demand these days. Eager to give their kids the benefit of a second language, parents are seeking out sitters who will speak Spanish with their little charges.
For nannies from Latin America, the trend is a boon. Suddenly, their Spanish is an asset, not a barrier to getting a job. For families, their kids get an immersion in a second language that no lesson program could hope to match.
Raising a bilingual child is hard work. Even in families like mine, where one parent is a native speaker, the second language often doesn’t “take”. Having a caregiver immerse your child in it for many of her waking hours helps their little brains absorb the language skill and use it.
And more and more research shows how beneficial a second language is for young children. It doesn’t make them “smarter”, but it does lead to more creative thinking. Plus, being multi-lingual is a practical skill all on its own that they can use throughout their lives.
Bedtime isn’t just about sleep anymore. Increasingly, how you handle your child’s sleep needs is being seen by researchers (and other parents) as a referendum on your overall parenting skills.
Those of you letting your little ones cry it out won’t be earning any extra credit. The debate about the best way to put a baby to bed still rages, ranging from fierce advocates of cosleeping to devotees of Ferber. But more and more, scientific research sides with the snugglers.
The Globe and Mail sums up several recent research studies about infant sleep and finds the consensus leaning towards a no-cry approach to baby’s bedtime.
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