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• Having Kids Ruins Marriage

  Marriage, as many studies have shown, go a long way to increasing a person's happiness and longevity.  Just as long as you don't have kids. This recent study finds that people who have children experience a significant unhappiness in their marriage during the child rearing years. Children actually do make couples happier—before they arrive. Pregnant or planning for pregnancy couples get an upswing in  happiness, but that tanks once junior arrives on the scene. Married couples, should their unions survive the unholy process of childrearing, go back to being totally blissful once the kids leave the house. When is happiness at it's lowest point?... Read More... Posted May 13 2008, 09:00 AM by Cole Gamble with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: kids, birth, marriage, Harvard, study, singles, empty nest, child rearing, adolescence, unhappy, Ruin

• Growing Up Online

  I tend to play down the effect of computers on kids, probably because my oldest is only 6. But she likes to do stuff on the computer -- take care of her Webkinz, check out PBS websites. I'm fooling myself if I think that's where it all begins and ends. Sooner than I know it, she'll be all over IMing, and Facebook and whatever else will no doubt come along to grab her attention, ask for her personal details, dumb down her education, etc. Tonight, a PBS Frontline airs the documentary Growing Up Online, which looks at all the different angles of kids and the Internet and their parents who are often in the background feeling (as I do) fully in control but actually are not.   Read More... Posted Jan 22 2008, 04:09 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: PBS, internet, internet safety, children and parents, child development, kids health, child abuse prevention, children and media, children and education, documentary, internet goodness, internet scams, child rearing, internet use, frontline, internet and kids

• Friends Think Depressed Surrogate Mom to 8 is Crazy

  There are a couple of things going on in this story of a surrogate mom that are just, nicely put, very interesting. First, she is trying to get pregnant for the eighth time on behalf of someone other than herself. Wow, eight pregnancies is a lot of babies for any woman to bear. (Please don't confuse her with the surrogate mother to 12. Twelve!) The other thing is that this mom who has made a second career as a baby-haver is  43 years old and things are getting tough and she's starting to get depressed. She wanted to bear a sibling for the little girl, Isobel, whom she gave birth to in 2006, but nine weeks in to that pregnancy -- her egg and the 51-year-old father's sperm -- she miscarried. Her family is starting to worry. But the most striking thing for me ...   Read More... Posted Jan 22 2008, 10:35 AM by Madeline Holler with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: child, childless, child birth, Conception, controversy, surrogacy, surrogate pregnancy, child rearing, surrogate mother, surrogate mothers, conceiving

• Righteous Parenting Theories Go For Smackdown

  Did I ever tell you I considered going to grad school for sociology, but decided on the lucrative blogging profession instead? There is an excellent article in the Times Online by a sociology professor about how righteous and dogmatic we have become in our parenting styles. I'm not tackling the debate he refers to in the beginning, because I think the more important piece is the zealotry around different parenting philosophies. Start with this: " The polarisation of the debate is symptomatic of an unprecedented level of parental insecurity and anxiety." I feel that! He goes on to explain why certain decisions--breast versus bottle, co-sleeping versus crib--spark so much hating and vitriol among parents nowadays. Because when you think about it, it's telling that we get so darn worked up over what someone else says or does or says about what you, um, does. Is it because we see our parenting style as our identity and our children as evidence we are good? I'll call myself out here: When I was pregnant, I read a certain righteous and popular parenting book...   Read More... Posted Oct 10 2007, 10:31 AM by Kelly Mills with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: parenting advice, philosophies, child rearing, ferber, online hate, sears