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Strollerderby
American mothers have long had Sweden to remind us of everything we don’t have: paid maternity leave, high breast-feeding rates, excellent medical care for all, highly subsidized childcare and preschool, and paid maternity leave. Also, did I mention paid maternity leave?
Today, the New York Times is rubbing American fathers’ noses in the glory that is Swedish parenthood in an article headlined, “In Sweden, Men Can Have it All.”
Understatement! Continue reading »
Nobody really declared war on moms in America, it only feels like it. No one knows this better than the people Sharon Lerner interviews in her first book, The War on Moms: On Life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation.
If you’re a mother in the U.S., you know it well. Too-short maternity leaves, paid only after cobbling together sick time, vacation time and the few weeks that only the most generous of employers bestows on its most valuable workers. Expensive childcare and preschools that you clawed at a waiting list to get into. Higher health insurance premiums. A no-win choice of 40+ hours or no work at all.
This is modern life as a middle-class (and working-class and upper-class) parent in the U.S., falling especially hard on mothers. What’s funny is that Americans were once so close to having government subsidized childcare for all (passed by Congress! Vetoed by Nixon!). We were once this-close to having maternity insurance, which would have covered lost wages during time off after a birth, at the turn of the century – the last century!
Mothers have already hit rock bottom and things, believe it or not, are looking up. Lerner explains how in an interview with Strollerderby. Continue reading »
Doctors in western Sweden have announced they will no longer perform circumcisions on newborn baby boys.
Their decision to suspend routine circumcisions isn’t another of Sweden’s enviably holier-than-the-rest laws regarding parents and babies (I’m thinking maternity leaves, breastfeeding rates, etc.). Rather, it’s a matter of resources. Watch out, this will also be fodder for those in the U.S. who oppose universal health care. Continue reading »
A father in Sweden is facing charges after confronting a bully who was targeting his son. The man, known only as Michael, says that after authorities at his son Christoffer’s school refused to take action against the boys who were abusing him, he had no choice but to take matters into his own hands.
The bullying began in April but Michael says that he only recently learned of it. After months of complaining of stomach aches and expressing a reluctance to go to school, Christoffer finally revealed that he was being bullied at school. Michael did what any parent would do: He contacted the school with every expectation that they would do something about it.
But when the parents of the accused bullies refused to believe that their children were involved, the school dropped the matter. After that, the bullying escalated. When Christoffer came home one day and revealed that he had been assaulted and told he would “die over Easter,” dad had had enough. Continue reading »
Murphy’s law says that if your child is going to get bumped, bruised, scratched, or the impulse to suddenly cut their own hair, it’s going to happen in that seven day period before school picture day.
Today’s technology takes care of most of that. With a swish of a digital paintbrush, that three-inch scratch disappears from little Tommy’s school photo. (Those sharply angled, ultra-short bangs your daughter cut, though? Those are just going to have to remain a really funny family story.)
But what happens when photographers take it upon themselves to do a little more digital work on your child, like removing a scar? Or a birthmark? Does that take things too far?
Swedish researchers are calling for special training after a new study found midwives there treated lesbian patients and pregnant women with male partners differently.
These findings appear in the November issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.
Ten lesbians from 30 to 46 years of age, all of whom had experienced pregnancy and childbirth in the Swedish healthcare system, were interviewed about the care and treatment they received prenatally, during the birth and afterward. The study concluded that, too often, the midwives focused more on their lesbian patient’s sexuality than the fact that she was expecting a baby. Continue reading »
A group of Swedish sixth graders studying gender roles noticed something fishy about a Toys ‘R Us Christmas catalog: The boys pictured in it were all doing active things — playing with action figures or sports toys. The girls, on the other hand, played passively with dolls and princess. Continue reading »
Joslyn Gray 
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