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• How Taxes Stack Up

  It's Tax Day, and you are either sweating out your tax forms at the last minute or you’ve  already spent your refund and are smugly awaiting your stimulus payment. Or you’re like me, bleary eyed and cranky because you wanted to make sure you had an extra day to deal with problems and thus stayed up incredibly late last night. Has I been snug in my bed right on time, though, I would still hate paying taxes to our current government and be extra pissy today because I had to. Especially after looking at this press release from the Council on Contemporary Families at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It lays out what family-friendly benefits US families get for their tax money versus what people in other industrialized nations get for their (admittedly higher) tax dollars. Check it out: Read More... Posted Apr 15 2008, 06:04 PM by AmyinMotown with | with no comments Filed under: child care, maternity leave, family-friendly policies, taxes, benefits

• Madeleine McCann: Are You Thinking Twice Now About Hotel Childcare?

  The story of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from her parent's hotel room is by now a familiar one. The latest word has it that her parents have been absolved of any role in what happened to Madeleine, but it now leaves parents everywhere wondering what did happen. And for families who travel, there's something else: how much can you trust hotel child care? Read More... Posted Feb 02 2008, 01:29 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: kids, families, child care, madeleine mccann, hotels, hotel child care

• Bad Babysitter: The Other Worst Nightmare

  As Karen pointed out in her post on the daycare that disciplined toddlers using tacks (pause to gag in horror), leaving your child in the care of someone else is a nerve-wracking proposition. Of course babysitters are included in that, and we've seen some wretched childcare stories. But when the babysitter is a relative, like say, the grandmother, it's ugh and more ugh. In this case, a grandma who thought the legal drinking age ought to be nine years old. Well, actually it's worse than that.   Read More... Posted Sep 14 2007, 04:02 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: grandparents, child abuse, child care, babysitters

• Experts Say Using College Fund For Preschool is Money Better Spent

  Here you've been squirreling away your nickels for your kid's eventual college tuition, and it turns out that early childhood development experts are suggesting that instead we focus on the first three years of life, saying that money spent then is money well spent indeed. The reason? An estimated 85% of brain development occurs during the first three years of a child's life, which are key to shaping the person that child eventually becomes. By pouring time, love, and energy into a child's first three years, we can greatly benefit and enhance that development, allowing our children the opportunity to truly live up to their potential. Many countries around the world are no stranger to this concept, knowing that a child's behavior, emotions, social and intellectual skills can all be traced back to the formative years first three years. In Sweden for instance, the government provides support for families with young children so that a parent can stay home. While I don't expect that to happen in the U.S., at least not anytime soon, it's something to aspire to. The biggest hurdle, however, is cultural attitudes about the relative worth of early childhood education and especially the educators themselves. Preschool teachers are paid a pittance and receive little respect especially when compared to post-secondary educators, although attitudes do seem to be improving. Still, it will take a huge shift in priorities and perception to overcome this and truly give early childhood education the attention it, and our children, deserve. So what's a concerned parent to do? I mean, something we all aren't doing already? Because already, those who can stay home and play pattycake and get shunned from playgroups are doing so. And those who need to work because the family needs the income are doing so as well, and are finding the best possible child-care situations possible. I think, though, that raising the bar on what's available as "best possible" is a must. Too many parents are forced into choosing the least-objectionable child-care, and to me, to those parents, and to the children concerned, that's not good enough.  Posted Apr 20 2007, 10:58 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: children, preschool, babies, child care, daycare, early childhood education, early childhood development

• Is Day Care Really Bad For Kids?

  This is one of those stories that spreads like wildfire: the latest in-depth study reveals that kids in daycare are more likely to be problem kids when they reach elementary school. I have a tendency to raise a Spock-like eyebrow at such studies; even a layman like me can look at the data and wonder if the report accounts for variables, or if the media is merely focusing on a juicy part of the story to catch the reader's eye. I know - crazy talk. Turns out I'm not the only one scratching his head at the validity of both the study and the media's take on it. I was all set to fire off a heated screed over what I think is a lazy effort by both the group conducting the study and the reporters who misrepresented the information, but Slate's Emily Bazelon beat me to it. Bazelon offers up an in-depth look at the real meaning behind the study, and asks some pointed questions of the study's author, Margaret Burchinal. I don't like spoilers (if someone had told me that Nikki and Paulo weren't really dead on last night's Lost, I'd have been pissed), but Burchinal drops a bomb of a quote. She says:   "I'm not sure we communicated this, but the kids who had one to two years of daycare by age 4½—which was typical for our sample—had exactly the level of problem behavior you'd expect for kids of their age. Most people use center care for one or two years, and for those kids we're not seeing anything problematic."  The rest of the article is eye-opening, and well worth your time.  Like a lot of you out there, my kid's in daycare. We got lucky - his teachers are great, the center's affordable, and Lucas really seems to enjoy it. Still, we deal with enough bullshit from people who look down on us for putting our kid in a child care center. Although I hope more folks take a skeptical look at the spin being put on that study, those attitudes that will no doubt be reinforced by this example of bad journalism aren't likely to change any time soon.   Posted Mar 30 2007, 08:35 AM by JasonAvant with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, kids, school preschool preparation, education, research study, school, educational, Slate, schools, child care, study, bad children, studies, child development, parenting experts, baby development

• 5 Best Cities to Have a Baby

  Say you're pregnant (or want to become pregnant), have unlimited funds and flexibility, and want to move to the U.S. city best suited for your and your baby's new lifestyle.  What city would you pick?  Fit Pregnancy spoke to The Today Show about their findings of a review of the 50 most populous cities in the country, and how they stacked up in terms of health care, safety, child care, affordability, birthing options, and fertility laws.  Who made the list? 1.  Boston.  Awesome healthcare, and definitely the place to be if you need specialized prenatal care (and I hope you don't).  Plus Boston has the best chowdah anywheah. 2.  San Francisco.  Well, duh.  A healthy lifestyle makes for a healthy baby, plus it has high breastfeeding rates and is chock-full of fertility specialists.  And the fried calamari?  Yum. Read More... Posted Jan 25 2007, 03:09 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: pregnancy, breastfeeding, health care, U.S. cities, Fit Pregnancy, child care, lifestyle, The Today Show