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• Babble Talk: Sandra Tsing Loh

  Somehow, I find myself with an almost four-year-old who hopefully will be starting kindergarten next year, or if not the year after. Which means thinking, or more accurately agonizing, about schools. I thought it was just here in Detroit that where to send your kid and which private schools are good and are any public schools good and $8,000 for kindergarten are you KIDDING me are major topics. Wherever two or more Detroit parents are gathered, there is talk of schools.  And based on this extra awesome Five-Minute Time Out with author Sandra Tsing Loh (written by our own Madeline Holler), this isn’t unique to my city. Loh's book Mother on Fire: A True Mother*^$Sing Story About Parenting, chronichles her school search. Takeaway message: the neighborhood school's all right.  And she reserves special scorn for those parents who talk a good, liberal, egalitarian game and yet enroll their kids in the priciest, most exclusive private schools because their kids just are a little too awesome for the publics. If they spent the same time and money on the public school, she points out, they'd be almost as great. Rarely have I read something like Loh's interview, where I was muttering "damn straight" and "hell yes" right along, but have no intention of following along with anything she advised Read More... Posted Sep 16 2008, 11:07 AM by Amy Kuras with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: teachers, schools, babble talk, public school, Detroit, private school, sandra tsing loh, elitism, mother on fire

• Babble Talk: Are Boys Held Back From Kindergarten More Often Than Girls?

  I read Holly Korbey's essay on "redshirting" kindergarten boys, part of Babble's Back to School issue, with a mix of shock and awe. I knew how hard it was to decide whether to send a child to kindergarten when his birthday falls dangerously close to a school system's cut-off date. But I did not realize that, as least as Holly describes it, boys are often pressured to be redshirted and wait a year so they can mature. I had even less of a clue about the motivations behind it. Do other moms, as the essay describes, really think their sons will have a better shot at an athletic scholarship if they cool their heels for 12 months before starting school? And do they honestly make the call based on the impact on their boys' future dating abilities? Read More... Posted Sep 10 2008, 09:22 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: kindergarten, babble talk, redshirting, boys vs. girls, Jen Chaney, Holly Korbey, starting kindergarten, school cutoff date, sons vs. daughters

• Babble Talk: Is It Wise to Let Your Kid Run Around Naked?

  When in public, kids should wear clothes. That may be a little prudish of me to say, but it's the conclusion I must reach after reading Ellen Friedrichs's essay, "Clothing Optional." In the latest installment of Bad Parent, Ellen confesses that her two-year-old daughter Clementine frequently runs around naked in public places and, despite some misgivings, she ultimately thinks this will give her a positive self-image. I understand the fine line Ellen walks as she struggles with when to tell her little girl to cover up. Understandably, she doesn't want to send any signals that might make Clementine feel shame about her body. But there is one very important reason why no child should, in the parlance of Bart Simpson, strut around nude: Safety. Read More... Posted Sep 08 2008, 09:28 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: babble talk, Bad Parent, playground etiquette, Jen Chaney, Ellen Friedrichs, children and nudity, naked kids, kids and clothes

• Babble Talk: When Baby Makes You Hate Your Pets

  Melissa Anderson Sweazy, as she writes in this essay, has two cats, a dog and a daughter. Ever since the baby was born, she has entertained the notion of giving away all three of her pets. I know how she feels. After having my son, my beloved beagle-mix has often gotten in the way. He jumps up and licks my face when I'm trying to play with the baby. He sometimes pees in the house to get mine and my husband's attention. On a few occasions, he's even gotten territorial with our boy. No biting, of course. But enough doggie bitterness to add to my frustration with him and make me wonder if (and it breaks my heart to say it) we might have to get rid of our canine baby someday. Read More... Posted Aug 22 2008, 09:26 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 17 comment(s) Filed under: babble talk, dogs and babies, dogs and kids, pets and children, bad dog behavior, Melissa Anderson Sweazy, pets and babies

• Babble Talk: Worst Toy Makeovers

  I've gotten a bit negligent in my RetroFitted posts. So I was happy to see Jeanne Sager pick up the slack with this fun Babble List on the Top 20 Worst Toy Makeovers. She mentions a lot of prime offenders. But here are the five that stick most uncomfortably in my toy-lovin' craw. Read More... Posted Aug 20 2008, 09:28 AM by Jen Chaney with | with no comments Filed under: toys, Monopoly, babble talk, RetroFitted, holly hobbie, my little pony, worst toy makeovers, Etch-A-Sketch, bad toys, Lincoln Logs

• Babble Talk: Would You Choose Your Child's Sex?

  These days, there are plenty of ways -- some scientific, others based on old wives' tales -- to allegedly guarantee the sex of your next baby. But should you take advantage of them? That's one of the questions raised in Jeanne Sager's essay, "Pick a Sex, Any Sex," which delves into such methods as voluntary IVF (cost: $14,000) and MicroSort, a sperm-spinning process with a more reasonable price tag of $3,000. Then there is my favorite approach, which supposedly guarantees a boy and involves using a baking soda douche, giving the male caffeine before sex and making sure the woman reaches orgasm first. (Um, pardon me for a sec, but if having a boy relied on a woman climaxing first, there would be a lot fewer males born every year. Just sayin'.) Read More... Posted Aug 14 2008, 04:45 PM by Jen Chaney with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: gender, IVF, babble talk, baby gender, Jeanne Sager, baby's sex, how to conceive a girl, how to conceive a boy, choosing baby's gender, MicroSort

• Babble Talk: Is My Kid Girly, or Boyish?

  If you've checked out Babble's special Sex & Gender Issue -- and you should, really -- you may have come across the Gender Spectrum Quiz, a series of questions that is supposed to tell you whether your child lands on the pink or blue portion of life's color wheel. Since I relish any opportunity to take a quiz, I decided to answer the questions for myself and for my son, then compare the results. Here's what I found out: Read More... Posted Aug 07 2008, 01:03 PM by Jen Chaney with | with no comments Filed under: babble talk, feminine, girls vs. boys, gender test, sex and gender issue, masculine, gender spectrum quiz

• Babble Talk: Kids Who Bite, and the Parents Who Fear Them

  Kate Tuttle has a son who bites. And throws things. And sometimes scratches. In this Babble essay, she writes about the occasional shame that comes from having a child in an aggressive phase. But she also talks about how it makes her even more aware of her love for her boy, and convinced that the intense feelings he can't control now may become strengths as he grows older. It's a good read. But as I reflected on the emotions Kate covers, I realized there was one she skipped: Fear. Read More... Posted Jul 19 2008, 11:02 AM by Jen Chaney with | with no comments Filed under: boys, babble talk, Bad Parent, Kate Tuttle, biting, Jen Chaney, throwing toys, afraid of kids, aggressive behavior

• Babble Talk: Why Do We Worry About Eating Disorders, But Only for Daughters?

  In this week's Bad Parent essay, Jeanne Sager confesses that she is a recovering bulimic and is petrified that she'll pass on her eating disorder to her daughter. "I worry constantly: Should she have another cookie?" Sager writes. "Should I buy the organic peanut butter or the Skippy that's on sale? Am I letting her get too fat? Am I making her too thin" Any woman living in our size-two-is-best society probably has some body image issues. I know I do. Even those of us who don't take those issues to the level of having an eating disorder worry that we'll pass on unhealthy behavior -- staring in mirrors for too long, obsessing over calories -- to our kids. But here's the thing: I say kids. But really I mean daughters. Read More... Posted Jul 12 2008, 12:25 PM by Jen Chaney with | with no comments Filed under: nutrition, fat kids, eating disorders, babble talk, body image, Jeanne Sager, girls and weight, bulimia, kids' weight, children and weight

• They say: Drinking with your kids makes them less drunk

  Now we've all gotten drunk. Fall down, sloppy, mess-making drunk. My first bad drinking experience involved vodka, straight up, in a garage during a thunderstorm. It ended badly. I had a couple of others, but not too many that included me puking my guts out. But it happens. According to this article from Time magazine, it might happen less if you drink with your kids. Read More... Posted Jun 24 2008, 09:30 AM by Brett Singer with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: kids, drinking, alcohol, behavior, college, Time Magazine, babble talk, alcoholism, Bad Parent, Brett Singer, drunk, they say, binge drinking, permissive, essay

• Babble Talk: When Pregnancy is Unwanted

  No mother wants to admit this, but it's undoubtedly been the case for many of us. We find out we're pregnant and wish we weren't. That's the situation Keri Fisher describes in her essay, "The Not-So-Happy Accident." Even though Keri was already a mother of two, happily married and living a relatively comfortable life -- the ideal circumstances for procreation -- she was distraught when she realized she was four months pregnant with her third child. Read More... Posted Jun 20 2008, 01:57 PM by Jen Chaney with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: babble talk, unwanted pregnancy, Keri Fisher, surprise pregnancy, Depo-Provera

• Babble Talk: Could Your Child Have Sensory Processing Disorder?

  I am still somewhat new to this whole motherhood thing. So I was not familiar with sensory processing disorder until I read this interesting essay in which writer Vivian Manning-Schaffel explains SPD  -- it's a condition that causes children to over- or under-respond to certain stimuli -- and notes that one in 20 people has this it. My initial reaction? This sounds like another case of overdiagnosing, or possibly placing a convenient label on behavior just because it strays ever-so-slightly outside the norm. But the deeper I read into Manning-Schaffel's piece, the more convinced I was that SPD is a legitimate disorder. Read More... Posted Jun 19 2008, 12:34 PM by Jen Chaney with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: health, autism, medical issues, babble talk, Vivian Manning-Schaffel, childhood conditions, sensory processing disorder, SPD, overstimulation

• Babble Talk: What Do You Hide From Your Kids?

  Kevin Keck has written a funny and poignant essay for Babble called "Daddy's Drawer," in which he recalls the objects he found stashed away in his father's nightstand and how they helped him get acquainted with a secret side of his dad that he never knew existed. Kevin also bravely reveals which of his possessions he'd prefer to keep hidden from his children. (Evidently those items include penis paperweights and pot paraphernalia. Good call, Kevin. Good call.) As contemporary, open-minded parents, all of us like to think we'd share virtually any part of ourselves with our kids. But the truth is, we moms and dads still need to keep certain segments of our personalities, and perhaps certain objects, tucked away from prying fingers and curious eyes. All of which leads up to this fun little question: What do you hide from your kids? Read More... Posted Jun 10 2008, 12:28 PM by Jen Chaney with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: babble talk, parental secrets, hiding things from the kids, Kevin Keck, mom and dad secrets

• Babble Talk: Not Wanting Sex, in Any City

  We've all heard the classic stories about how young parents don't have sex very often because they're too tired from chasing the kids, making dinner, getting baby ready for bed ... yadda, yadda, yadda. But in this essay, Jeanne Sager raises a new explanation for lower libidos: A desire to simply have one's body left alone. Read More... Posted Jun 03 2008, 12:32 PM by Jen Chaney with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Sex, babble talk, libido, Jeanne Sager, physical intimacy, sexual desire

• Babble Talk: The Truth About Percentiles

  Yay for Jeanne Sager, who has written a fascinating essay for Babble on a subject I have long wondered about: Those percentile charts that are constantly mentioned each time we take our kids to the pediatrician. Sager's piece notes the anxiety many parents feel when their babies rank on the low end of the spectrum for weight. She even mentions one case in which a mother was told her baby's lack of pounds represented a "failure to thrive." Read More... Posted May 28 2008, 01:32 PM by Jen Chaney with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: baby weight, babble talk, percentiles, Jeanne Sager, pediatrician, child obesity

• Babble Talk: Hard Drinking Superparent Speaks

  I've always been a big fan of Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, mostly because of the awesome way she uses her boobs, but still -- the writer and mom to three is just hi-freaking-larious. A treasure of the parenting literati. So I was excited to see her 5-minute timeout interview with the good folks here at Babble. Question: When you were writing Naptime, what experience did you find to be the most profound and surprising?  Answer: I think that most people like that I call moms out for being liars.   Read More... Posted May 27 2008, 12:55 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: babble talk, baby on bored, stefanie wilder-taylor, 5 minute time out

• Babble Talk: Judging Stay-at-Home Moms

  Author Meg Wolitzer, who recently wrote the novel "The Ten-Year Nap," makes a candid confession in this Babble essay. In the piece, entitled "Baby vs. Career," Wolitzer writes: "For a long time, I think I had been somewhat judgmental about women who stayed at home. I went by the easy assumption that someone who worked was by nature more interesting than someone who didn't." Read More... Posted May 21 2008, 09:02 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: mommy wars, working moms, babble talk, Meg Wolitzer, The Ten-Year Nap, baby vs. career

• Babble Talk: The Worst Food to Feed Your Kids

  Amy Kalafa and Dr. Susan Rubin recently spoke to Babble about their documentary, Two Angry Moms, in which the pair investigate cafeteria junkfood. Some of the offending school lunch offerings the two mentioned by name: Blue slushies, candy and the balanced meal of chicken nuggets and tater tots. Not exactly the nutritionally sound stuff we would hope our kids get every day. All of which got me to thinking about the food we serve our children at home: Do we do better than some of the schools Kalafa and Rubin describe? Read More... Posted May 12 2008, 10:03 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: health, nutrition, junk food, diet, babble talk, Amy Kalafa, Two Angry Moms, Dr. Susan Rubin

• Babble Talk: When Mom Moves Back in With Mom and Dad

  Nan Mooney is George Costanza. Okay, she's not really. She doesn't appear to be bald and I seriously doubt she wishes she were an architect named Art Vandelay. But due to unforeseen circumstances, the single mom was forced to move back in with her parents at age 37, with infant in tow. As she writes in this essay, sharing the same space with her parents is hard for many reasons, including those moments when they question her maternal response. Read More... Posted May 06 2008, 09:02 AM by Jen Chaney with | with no comments Filed under: grandparents, babble talk, moving in with parents, cohabiting

• Babble Talk: Boozin' With the Kids

  One essay earlier this week got people fired up about nursing in a moving vehicle. Now comes another hot-button topic: Giving alcohol to children. In an installment of Bad Parent, Gretchen Roberts confesses that she allows her daughters, one of whom is 5, to take the occasional tiny taste of wine. As someone who writes about food and wine, Gretchen sees her pinots and zinfandels as a vital part of life, something to share at the table with the whole family. Read More... Posted May 02 2008, 10:02 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: alcohol, babble talk, kids drinking, wine, Bad Parent

• Babble Talk: A Vehicle for Nursing

  We've all done some regrettable things in our cars: Putting on lipstick when we should be watching the road, speeding, voluntarily listening to Hootie and the Blowfish. But taking baby out of the carseat and breastfeeding in a moving vehicle takes things to a new level. Vicki Glembocki bravely confessed to doing just that in a Bad Parent essay that appeared on Babble earlier this week. Read More... Posted Apr 30 2008, 10:58 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: breastfeeding, nursing, babble talk, Bad Parent

• Babble Talk: Top 50 Sesame Street Vids ... Ever

  If you're looking to kill an entire afternoon with the best stroll down memory lane you could ever wish for, or maybe if you're just looking to impart a small slice of your childhood to your own children, do we have something for you today: The complete Babble list of the Top 50 Sesame Street videos. Ever. From the seminal rubber duckie song to Richard Pryer's beloved take on the alphabet to a sexually aggresive letter "U," our very own Gwynne has compiled the best of what? 40 years of children's programming. And to top it all off, she nailed the Top 10. Nailed it but good.   Read More... Posted Apr 25 2008, 06:28 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Babble, sesame street, babble talk, cookie monster, memory lane

• Babble Talk: One Might Not Be the Loneliest Number

  Jeanne Sager has written a lovely essay for Babble about the pleasure -- and relief -- that comes from deciding to have just one child. "Parents of multiple children always act like they know something I don't," she writes. "Their eyes take on a look of pity when I say, 'Jillian's my one and only.' Apparently women are supposed to want babies. When they're done popping out the first one, they're supposed to be working on the second. I guess I didn't get the memo." I suspect there are plenty of women and men who also failed to be cc'd (or bcc'd) on that same memo. Read More... Posted Apr 23 2008, 11:02 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: babble talk, one child, Jeanne Sager, personal essay, only child

• Babble Talk: Fey, Poehler on Having My Baby

  Although they discussed everything from the upcoming Baby Mama movie, their own preschool interviews, off-beat baby names and the joys of water birthing and pregnancy sex, Saturday Night Live's Amy Poehler and 30 Rock's Tina Fey apparently forgot to mention during a recent Babble interview they both already agreed -- and put it in writing! -- that they'd have my baby, together. Huh. (Sure, it was late when we had this talk outside their joint apartment and the cops later arrived and one of us -- I won't say who -- was arrested, but whatever, we had a deal!) Oh well, maybe they're just waiting to tell the world at the movie premiere.   Read More... Posted Apr 22 2008, 05:01 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with no comments Filed under: babble talk, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Baby Mama

• BabbleTalk: When Violence is a Good Thing

  In this week's Bad Parent essay, Heather Kuldell 'fesses up to watching mixed martial arts with her five-year-old son. To her credit, she has conflicting feelings about her child's Chuck Liddell obsession. But even more to her credit, she managed to turn a violent act on television into a teaching moment for her son. Read More... Posted Apr 18 2008, 12:32 PM by Jen Chaney with | with no comments Filed under: babble talk, Bad Parent, mixed martial arts, violence on television, Karate Kid