Strollerderby : siblings

Sisters Better than Brothers? We Have Proof

JeanneSager — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:22:00 GMT

Finally, a study proves what sisters everywhere have always known - our brothers are so lucky to have us!

It turns out people who grew up with sisters are more likely to be happy and emotionally settled than anyone else. Those of us stuck with, er, who grew up with, brothers, received a "less positive affect."

Psychologists at the University of Ulster and De Monfort University studied five hundred seventy-one people, ages seventeen to twenty-five to develop their theory. The subjects included people who had only brothers or only sister, people who had both and only children.

The people who had a sister - whether it was just one or many, and regardless of whether they had brothers too - were happier and more ambitious than their counterparts. Overall, those who received the lowest scores on the British psychologists' tests were men who grew up with only brothers!

So why should parents of little girls be thanking their lucky stars?

Researcher Tony Cassidy, of the University of Ulster, told the Daily Mail, "Our explanation for it is that the presence of girls opens up channels of communication and it becomes a much more expressive situation and that's positive. Emotional expression is fundamental to good psychological health and having sisters promotes this in families."

As a big sister who always begged for a little sister, and ended up with a brother instead, I can tell you brothers aren't all that bad. But then again, I don't know what it's like to have a sister, and my daughter is a one and only - so I won't see it happening in my household.

But if you're planning on having more kids, maybe you should be shooting for a girl? Better yet - have two girls, so both get the benefits! And if you throw a boy in there, well, the more the merrier.

Via Jezebel

Image: Amazon

Blended Family Works With Therapy

Brett Singer — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:30:00 GMT

Here's the story / of a lovely lady / who was living with three very lovely girls…

And so on. You know it, don't you? If not, here's a refresher:

And here's Jamie Foxx singing it, just because it's funny.

For the Bradys, it looked so easy. Real life is rarely that simple. So Claudia Gryvatz Copquin and her boyfriend Glen Ames decided to move in together, they sought help from a therapist.

In general, I'm a believer in therapy. I find that it helps me, and I've known many people who benefited from talking things over with a professional. But when someone says, "I wish the therapist could move in with us," my eyebrows go up like Mr. Spock when Doctor McCoy says something particularly illogical. (Except that I can't raise just the one brow the way Spock does. Must be a Vulcan thing.)

But things like who sleeps in which bed? That's too much. Seriously, what happened to, "This is what we're doing, deal with it"? If that seems harsh, or unrealistic, OK, maybe. Still, where do you draw the line? Do you call the therapist every time?

Apparently this couple does. In fact /They didn’t commit to living together until receiving a go-ahead from the therapist. “It gave us confidence,” Mr. Ames said./ And Ms. Copquin told the therapist "I wish you could move in with us."

I'm sure the therapist is thrilled. Mo' money! But I think that's too much dependance on outside help. If each person had their own shrink, I might feel differently. I'm not sure why but that seems more productive. If you trek the whole family over to the office whenever there's a fight over the remote control, what kind of life is that?

Source: NY Times

Image: Wikipedia

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Foster Parents TOO Special for More Kids

JeanneSager — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:27:00 GMT

Note to parents up for interviews with the foster care system in Australia: don't mention your stellar parenting.

Although experts on how to be a good interviewee have long said you have to sell yourself, a set of Australian foster parents who were trying to bring home their foster son's biological siblings were denied. The problem? A psychologist said the couple thought they were too special.

The parents description of themselves as "excellent foster parents" denoted "perceptions of omnipotence and specialness," according to Toni Single, a psychologist for the department of community services. Single also considered the couple rude for saying no to a plate of sandwiches. Perhaps they weren't hungry?

There are myriad reasons to deny potential foster parents children, and it is important that social workers take seriously the role of handing kids off to foster parents (in general, I would say they do!). But doesn't this strike you as splitting hairs? This couple has already been deemed good enough to care for their foster son, who has lived in their home since 2002, and his sister, who lived with the family from age eleven until eighteen when she aged out of the system.

So they called themselves "excellent foster parents." Would it have been better if they described themselves as good-for-nothing shitheels? Would that make you hand over two more children?

The sad thing here is that a set of siblings will be housed in separate foster homes rather than kept together. The couple's foster son, in particular, is distraught - he asked that his parents gain custody of his two little brothers. And this isn't the first time Single has taken it upon herself to come up with a wacked out reason for denying foster parents' kids - check out this story my colleague Shannon wrote about her earlier this year.

Would you describe yourself as an "excellent" parent? Do you think that means you've inflated your opinion of yourself?

Image: Center for Family Studies

Best of FameCrawler: Week of March 13th

Whit Honea — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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Whit Honea — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Whit Honea — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Best of FameCrawler: Week of February 13th

Whit Honea — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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They Say: Girls Made of Sugar and Grit

JeanneSager — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:34:00 GMT

In case you needed another bit of ammunition to send the "girls are more delicate than boys" notion blasting into outer space, I'm happy to oblige.

It turns out girls are significantly more resilient then their male counterparts when growing up in a troubled family.

The small study (just one hundred twenty-five kids) published in this month's Journal of Adolescent Health acknowledges the odds are stacked against kids who grow up in dysfunctional homes. The girls, however, seem to have slightly better odds of triumphing - about four times that of the boys.

The conclusion of the study is one of those "duh" findings that come from a lot of social studies: "early intervention with families with opiate-dependent parents to prevent and reduce internalizing and externalizing problems in their children holds the most promise of supporting resilient adaptation in early adulthood."

In other words, help the kids when they're younger, and you'll make more of a difference. Obvious, I'd say, but then a lot of these social studies seem to be geared toward convincing those of us with a lack of common sense of the right path.

I was disappointed not to find more information that would explain why the girls fared better. As a woman, and the mother of a girl, I'd love to say that is a "no duh," conclusion too - but I'm not writing off the boys out there! So I can only posit a few conclusions from my own experience:

1. Sisters are often called on to be the "responsible" sibling in a family. Not every sister, of course, and there are often brothers who end up shouldering a much heftier burden. But in almost every case I know of adult siblings splitting familial responsibilities, the brunt of the work falls to the sister. Sisters are often expected to take up the bulk of caregiving for older parents, even if that means moving across the country while a brother lives in the same town as the parents. Perhaps this relates to the traditional role of mother (female) as caregiver?

2. Sisters tend to "mother" their brothers. Again this isn't true for every family, but in an overwhelming number of families when the going gets rough, the females tend to turn outward rather than inward. That focus on the well-being of the other family members can be a huge source of stress, and not particularly healthy for her emotionally. But it's a form of strength that powers them through - and isn't that just another way of saying they're resilient?

Of course, none of this means boys aren't "as good" or "as responsible." But then again, they're not necessarily all that strong!

Via: Los Angeles Times

Image:NC Medical Insurance

Only Child Syndrome Doesn't Explain Octo-Mom

JeanneSager — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:55:00 GMT

I thought I'd heard all the reasons I was doing something wrong by keeping my child an only . . . until Nadya Suleman popped up with her octuplets and her big-mouthed Mom.

Angela Suleman says her daughter decided to have fourteen kids via sperm donation and IVF with no viable means of supporting them because she wasn't happy with being an only child.

So being an only child makes you an irresponsible adult with a mothering complex? If that's true, it would stand to reason that every kid denied the sibling they wanted would be out making familes of Suleman proportions. How many of them do you know? Yeah, me neither.

What about the little girls who always wanted a sister and ended up with a brother instead? Shouldn't we be hell-bent on populating the world with little girls to right the injustice our little pea brains have never released?

I'm not buying it, and not just because I don't see anything wrong with my choice to be "one and done." Because the adult only children I know are well-adjusted and have yet to show any frenzied desire to replace the holes of their childhood with more children. My own husband is an only child . . . and perfectly content with parenting an only child. Contrary to myth, not every only child was unhappily an only - no more so than every child with siblings grew up basking in their glory.

Among those only children I know who always craved a sibling, most have grown up to have two or three kids. They say they didn't like being an only child, and stopping at one wasn't an option for them. They wanted to give their kids something they didn't have. Still, they've stopped at two or three or maybe even four. Ask them why they had kids, and they'll tell you - because they wanted them. Which is supposed to be the real impetus for procreation or adoption, to have kids for their own sakes.

The issue here isn't the number of children Nadya Suleman grew up with. It's her lack of understanding of the role of parent and child. Children are not replacements. They're not here to make up for what you missed as a kid. That applies to the Dad who didn't get his football scholarship and the Mom who didn't get her tiara. For that matter, it applies to the Mom who wished she could have played football and the Dad who wished he was allowed to join the cheerleading squad.

So you had a crappy childhood Ms Suleman? No amount of kids can make up for that, nor should they. Now let's hope you have figured out a way to give fourteen non-only children a chance at decent childhoods.

Image: Daily Mirror

Also on Babble:

One is the Awesomest Number

Siblings Born Two Months Apart Aren't Twins

JeanneSager — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:31:00 GMT

Jeffrey and Delaney Ellis have the same mom and the same dad, but birthdays just two months apart. No years separate them - just two months.

The kicker? This isn't a case of one twin delivered early.

Jeffrey Ellis was delivered by his aunt, standing is a surrogate for the kids' parents, in November 2007. His sister came in January 2008, delivered by mom Kris.

Both kids are Tim and Kris Ellis's little miracles. After suffering through the stillbirth of a baby girl in 2006 and the death of her twin shortly after birth, the Ellises went through repeated bouts of in vitro that were unable to produce a pregnancy. There seemed one last option - Kris's sister-in-law, Susan Foth, had offered to act as a surrogate for the family. It was someone they could trust, and it was - they thought - their only hope of becoming pregnant.

In March 2007, two of the Ellis's embryos were transferred into Foth's uterus. One took. The Ellises were going to become parents. Two months later, Kris had a surprise for Tim. She was pregnant - via "normal" methods. They were going to become parents again.

Infertility issues are very real and very complex, but a lot of women have reported finally getting pregnant when the stress is off - when they least expected to become pregnant. It sounds like that's what happened to the Ellises. No longer worried about whether or not things would work this time, Kris's body was finally able to do what it needed to do. Not an easy road, but if only it could work like this for more couples who've been down the infertility route!

The result are two little miracles - two months apart. Jeffrey turned one in November, and Delaney will be one this week.

Image/Source: Bedford Times Register

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Whit Honea — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Whit Honea — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Whit Honea — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Whit Honea — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

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Family Adopts Eight Siblings Separated by Foster Care

JeanneSager — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:02:00 GMT

It's like Jon and Kate Plus Eight without Mother Nature pulling the punches. Or maybe 17 KIds and Counting without all the baby-making.

An Ohio family has added eight children to its brood completely by choice - they've adopted a set of eight siblings, who were previously split between three separate foster homes.

Oh yeah, and they already have seven kids of their own living at home.

The presiding Judge, Allan Davis, says this is the most unusual adoption he's seen in all his years on the bench in Hancock County, Ohio. But it's no less heartwarming.

The kids - whose ages range from five to seventeen - were removed from their biological parents in 2006 when social services found they were living in a deplorable conditions. There was just one bathroom in the house - and the plumbing didn't even work (imagine, no potty, and eight kids?). Dubbed mildly mentally retarded in court papers, the parents reportedly failed to complete a case plan and were unable to obtain appropriate housing for their kids - resulting in a complete loss of parental rights.

The eight kids have spent the last six months living with their new family as a sort of "trial run," to ensure it was more than a hunch that that this group must somehow form a family. (hum along with me folks. . . ). Monday, they were all in court to give the judge their own OK on officially becoming the kids of their new parents.

I'd be terrified to have that many kids, but good for these folks - for realizing siblings need to be able to stick together. I know the foster system tries as often as possible not to break up families, but in a family so large, this was likely the only chance these kids would have at a normal life.

The new, big, happy family jumped in a van to go home after the court appearance - any guesses on whether they stopped off for jerseys? They've got just enough for a rugby team.

Image: University of Nebraska

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Whit Honea — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

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Whit Honea — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

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Moms From Two Countries Bond Over Shared Sperm Donor

JeanneSager — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:02:00 GMT

They've never met. But they're parenting brothers.

Sally is a British citizen who gave birth to son Alex in 2004. Riikka Turunen gave birth to son Kasper in six weeks later in her home country - Finland. Their sons' father? A sperm donor identified only as "Jens," sperm sample 3001, a Dane who likes football and plays jazz piano. Since finding each other online via the Donor Sibling Registry, they've been e-mailing back and forth over the thousands of miles that separate their lives. They plan to meet - along with Turunen's partner, Satu Sorjonen - in 2012.

I was fascinated when I read up on the Donor Sibling Registry here on the 'Derby in May. But I was looking at it from the angle of sibilings meeting siblings, from the perspective of a number of adopted friends who've confided in me over the years about the curiosity they say has been simmering since they first learned they were adopted.

But a mom, looking for a sibling who isn't really a sibling? I understand - sort of. That same curiousity is there. They're seeking someone who shares their child's blood, who may share their ski slope nose or their oddly long pinky toe. They're looking for confirmation that traits they can't place in their own families have roots somewhere out there.

Still, I can't help wondering if they'd care about these kids if that information was there, in front of them. If a woman bears a child through the traditional insemination process, she (usually) knows something about the guy. If he goes on to father more children with someone else, she usually isn't jumping up and down to meet the kids. Even stepmothers often tell me their love for their stepchildren developed because this is the child of the man they love - the fact that their own biological children share the same genes is secondary.

So why bother?

Adopted kids who go searching for birth parents or siblings, children born thanks to sperm donation who are seeking their "father" and any other kids he may have helped produce, are usually raised in an environment where a shared blood line is limited to just one person or none at all. There are dozens of reasons why they might begin their search, but it comes back to one thing - finding someone with that common link.

What these moms are finding isn't a link common to themselves but to their kids. Where no other answers are available for those kids' burning questions, it's a toe in the door. And for the moms, it's pretty incredible to open their hearts to another kid for the sake of their own.

Image: Science A Go Go

Source: Times Online

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