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• Mom Words Have Gotten Out of Momtrol

  Maybe this is happening because millions of bloggers are coining new parenting terms every 35 seconds. But this notion of mommy-fying (crap, now I'm doing it) every single word in the English language needs to slow down ASAP. Not sure what I mean? Take mompreneur (please!). It's a term that's been around for several years, but has suddenly become 100 times more ubiquitous, as Adrienne recently pointed out. Now you can't just say, "Oh, I was a stay-at-home mom who switched gears and started her own business." No, you're a mompreneur. And if you're successful at it, I suppose you're a mompreneur who rakes in tons of mom-money and therefore can afford to go to the salon and get a momicure. Read More... Posted Jul 17 2008, 09:32 AM by Jen Chaney with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: words, terms, Tina Fey, mompreneur, puns, English language, Entourage, mom terms, momzheimers, momtourage

• Two Moms Brawl at Chuck E. Cheese

  You know how it goes: One minute you are hosting a birthday party for your kid, and the next thing you know, you are in a fistfight with another mom. Two mothers are going to court soon over a tussle at a party at Chuck E. Cheese. I'm pretty sure part of the defense strategy will be, "Your Honor, there are mitigating circumstances to consider. After all, my client was at Chuck E. Cheese, and I doubt anyone has spent time there and not wanted to strike someone." Of course, it all started over a video game... Read More... Posted Mar 03 2008, 06:02 PM by Kelly Mills with | with no comments Filed under: children, kids, video games, crime, moms, violence, parents behaving badly, birthdays, words, party, sharing, fight, court, brawl, chuck e cheese, fistfight

• Anatomically Correct: Do You Tell Your Kids the Right Words for their Private Parts?

  Whatever your opinion about what little girls and boys are made of, this is proof positive that many of our small people once armed with the proper (or improper) names for their boy or girl equipment, loooove to yell them out (especially if Grandma or a new friend is sitting nearby).  It's interesting to consider the variants on good parenting. Read More... Posted Jan 16 2008, 02:39 PM by Rachael Brownell (Redsy) with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: words, language, anatomically correct, vagina, learning about sexuality

• Could We Lose These Parenting Terms In 2008?

  When the terms first appear, they maybe seem funny or twisted or innocuous or entertaining or whatever. Then they appear more and more, until finally you start to think if one more person refers to, say, "MILFs" you might have to barf--especially if it's in the "MILPH" sense. (Note to mommys making lingerie calendars--don't try and reclaim these terms in a faux-empowerment way, please.) They get overused and nauseating and when MSNBC uses them in a headline, you know the whole thing has so jumped the shark. It's over. Done. Let's erase the term from the lexicon and move on.  My nominees for this year's overused parenting terms:  Read More... Posted Jan 02 2008, 09:33 AM by Kelly Mills with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: words, vocabulary, msnbc, jamie lynn spears, lexicon, yummy mummy, pop culture, language, terms, baby-daddy

• 100 Words That All High School Graduates — And Their Parents — Should Know

  One of my favorite Steve Martin lines: "Some people have a way with words. Other people, er ... I don't know, not have way, I guess."  From scholastic publisher Houghton Mifflin and the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries comes the list of 100 essential words that every high school graduate should know, and I am very pleased to see two of my old favorites, "feckless" and "ziggurat," have made the cut. They also snuck in "nanotechnology," which I'm not sure I would have put on the list.  After all, a few old high-school standards like "defenestration," "lachrymose," and "ephemeral" failed to make the cut.  "The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."  What do you guys think of the list?  Any words you would have added?  Or taken off?    (via my good friends at Deadspin)  Posted Jun 06 2007, 05:43 PM by MetroDad with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: words, spelling, Houghton Mifflin

• Kids Learn Better When They Do it Themselves, Study Says

  So my dad was right all these years (I sort of hate that).  He was a hands-off sort of dad, saying frequently that you couldn't learn anything by someone telling you about it, you had to figure it out for yourself.  This usually manifested in me, say, looking up words he used that I didn't know in the dictionary rather than him simply telling me what they meant.  It used to infuriate me, but it turns out?  He was right. You know how I know?  First, there's my own kids and my observations of them.  And then there's me.  I think clearly that if someone struggles with a concept and then masters it themselves, it will stick far better than if they simply had heard someone describe it.  But now?  A new study supports this idea.   Word-learning strategies of a hundred toddlers were studied, and they found that the kids learned best by building on what they already knew when presented with a new concept.  Which completely blows the whole teaching model we've been using of sitting through a boring lecture, being "instructed", totally out of the water.  But my dad could have told you that. Posted Mar 09 2007, 07:15 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: children, kids, toddlers, teaching, learning, words