French Parents are Not Superior. But They Do Have an Awful Lot Right. (“Bringing Up Bebe” Book Review, Part I)
I remember being told that making assumptions got you into trouble. (Remember that old saw: When you ASSUME you make an ASS out of YOU and ME, which is one of those plays on words that never felt terribly clever to me.) When I became a parent, though, I made a whole mess of assumptions. I assumed my babies would eat and sleep well; I assumed they’d be fine with the caregivers I chose for them; I assumed that they (probably) wouldn’t stick their fingers into electrical sockets and would eventually be able to eat a whole banana without having …Keep Reading
Mean Mom Question Time: What’s Bedtime Like at Your House?
I don’t think it’s a huge leap to say that sleep — from your newborn’s earliest days to your teen’s freakish ability to sleep for what seems like days — is a major parenting issue. Can I get an amen on that? Amen. Thanks. I’ve always been … let’s call it “a stickler” or “tough” or, oh, I don’t know, mean, when it comes to my boys and their sleep. Getting them to settle down and sleep, stop crying and sleep, eat and then sleep: it was my whole world when they were babies, as it is for most parents …Keep Reading
Turning Tikes into Tiger Woods: What’s Wrong With Sports For Babies?
I never have to wait around for very long, or dig very deep, to find something to be either baffled or outraged about when it comes to modern parenting. Yesterday’s crazy-making dose came in the form of a New York Times article about sports for babies. Yes, I meant to write “babies.” The article opens with a quote from a woman named Doreen Bolhuis, whose company, Gymtrix, sells DVDs of activity programs for kids as young as 6 months. There’s something about the idea of promoting organized physical activity for babies and toddlers that, to me, straddles the line between …Keep Reading
A(nother) Farewell to the Daughter I’ll Never Have
OK, so Pam and Jim had their baby on The Office last night. (And if you’ve got it DVR’d and haven’t watched yet, go away now and come back later, because spoilers are ahead). They had a girl. I want a girl. I really, really do. And for all the ridiculous reasons — the clothes are cuter, the hair is more fun (if more work); and for all the selfish reasons, or the one major selfish reason. I want a MiniMe. Or a version of me with a big dose of my husband. Here’s an essay I wrote on the …Keep Reading
When it Comes to Babycare, What Happened to Instinct?
I have a brand-new nephew, Nicholas (Nico, for short). His parents, my brother and sister-in-law, are mostly going minimal when it comes to baby gear. Part of that is a space issue–their house is pretty compact. But a bigger part of it is that, from what I can tell, and not including having read probably four million books on pregnancy, birth, and babycare (they approach most things fairly intellectually), they plan to rely largely on instinct. (And by the way, the photo above is not little Nico, but stay tuned to the end of this post for a gratuitous, isn’t-he-the-cutest …Keep Reading
The Second-Child Syndrome
Today is my baby James’ fifth birthday. My second son. And even though I’m a second child, and my husband is, too, we still managed to infect our darling baby with Second Child Syndrome. I’m beginning to believe it’s inevitable. All parents are prone, the second time around, to be less awed (and less cowed) by baby number two; you can’t help it. And we got a double whammy, having a second boy, born just weeks from Boy Number One’s second birthday. So same season, too. I went into it with a naive, blase, “I know what this is all …Keep Reading
Smile, Honey! It’s Picture Day!
The other day, both boys came home with the familiar order form and info sheet in their backpacks: Gear up, mom and dad, it’s almost Picture Day! I hate picture day. To be precise, I don’t hate the day itself, since I’m not, literally or otherwise, in the picture. True to my meanness and aversion to being a Joiner, I don’t even volunteer to herd kids to the all-purpose room or comb hair and fix bows. What I hate is the form itself (murky, impenetrable); the packages offered (many choices, none of which make sense); and even the modifications you …Keep Reading
Baby Lust (And How It Clashes With Mean Mommyhood)
If I were as mean a mommy as I profess, if I were so hooked on schedules and eager to turn my little babies into independent boys-to-men, if I so valued my me-time and my work ethic, then I wouldn’t want a third child quite so badly, would I? But I do. And I’m not going to have one. The reasons not to range from the silly to the sublime. Here they are, in no particular order: I’m 43 years old. I don’t think that’s too old to have a baby. And in fact, my instinct, my health, and my …Keep Reading
Why I Didn’t Childproof
Years and years ago, well before I had kids, I was hanging around in my sister’s newly refinished basement, playing some board games with two of her kids and my dad. My niece and nephew, Tara and Nick, were drinking juice out of those foil pouches, like Capri Sun (which now, by the way, are being recycled into adorable purses and tote bags by an enterprising company called Terracycle). Anyway, both those kids, being kids, had a hard time sitting still. They were scooting around the table where we were playing, hanging upside down from the couch — all while …Keep Reading
Babies are smart after all! (Or, why I’m justified not having gone to Mommy & Me class)
Have you read this article in the New York Times yet? It’s by writer and psychologist Alison Gopnik, and it’s gotten a bunch of media play in the last few days, because it’s about something supposedly revolutionary: Babies, Gopnik asserts, are quite a bit smarter than we think. I’m pretty sure I knew that already. I mean, I knew it already because it’s not exactly new news (though the research Gopnik cites, some of it her own, from the University of California, Berkeley, where she’s a psychology professor, is new). I know that science has discovered amazing things about a …Keep Reading
