NOTHING can sink a friendship like differences over parenting. Sometimes the areas of disagreement are stark and dramatic, leading to blowups and out-and-out breaks. Most of the time they’re subtle and unstated, a matter of dark looks and long-simmering resentments, that erode, rather than rupture, formerly close relationships. Often they arise from a vague sense of betrayal, a friend’s having changed once he or she has had children, breaking unspoken assumptions about shared values and goals, how to live and who to be.

It’s the sort of relationship-fraying challenge portrayed with much humor in the film “Friends With Kids.” And it’s one that a Washington mother of three found herself forced to confront when a close friend became pregnant, revealing an entirely new side of her personality. “She immediately stopped her temp work because the Xerox machine might be bad for the baby,” said the mother, who, like several others interviewed for this article, requested anonymity so as to not compromise her relationship with the friend. “She changed all her shampoos. We pretty much had to detox the environment whenever we saw her from then on.”

The tensions deepened, she recalled, once the baby was born: “She practiced total attachment parenting. She never let anyone watch her baby. To go to a movie, she and her husband would go one after the other. If it was cold out, she’d bring the car seat into the house and warm it with a blow dryer” before bringing it back to the car. When the child was older, she said, “you weren’t allowed to say no to him. You weren’t allowed to set boundaries. We were at our wits’ end.”

No matter the cause, no matter how well-managed the reaction, the disagreements arising over parenting practices can hit hard and cut deep. Because what’s at stake is much more than different ideas about Ferber versus Sears, or organic versus conventional, or the use of timeouts, or the limits to be put on TV time. What is often triggered, in the divide between what mothers and fathers do or don’t do — whether or not those differences escalate into out-and-out confrontations — are convictions that push all the most basic parent-buttons.

“It’s the judgment: ‘You want to be popular with your kids, you don’t want to say no to your kids,’ ” said Rosalind Wiseman, author of the parenting advice book “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” who described herself as a less stringent parent than many of her peers. “The tone of voice conveys: ‘I am a better mother than you. I have control, you don’t.’ We all to a certain extent respond to it.”

In 1975, the psychoanalyst Selma Fraiberg proposed a theory as to why certain areas of parenting — “feeding, sleep, toilet training or discipline,” she wrote in a greatly influential article for The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry — were such emotional flashpoints for parents. There were “ghosts in the nursery,” she argued, residues of the “vulnerabilities of the parental past.”

For the current generation of parents, who tend to ascribe quasi-magical properties to the choices they make in their children’s early years, Dr. Fraiberg’s formulation couldn’t be more resonant.

Breast versus bottle, whole-grain versus white, cloth versus paper diapers — for many mothers now in particular, these decisions take on the weight of “political, moral and ethical stances,” as Claire Dederer put it, describing her cohort of right-thinking, left-leaning, semi-working, highly educated and deeply angst-filled mothers in her 2011 book, “Poser.”

Ms. Dederer believed that many of her generation’s parenting practices stemmed from the fact that they were nursing psychic wounds from the family disruption and disengagement that had swept through their own homes in the 1970s. [Read the rest of this article...]

Have you been following the Bald Barbie movement?

Here’s the short version:

Two moms started a Facebook campaign called Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Let’s see if we can get it made, to basically give young girls undergoing chemotherapy (or with Alopecia or Trichotillomania) a sense of normalcy and acceptance. Also for young girls coping with a newly bald family member or friend. They chose Barbie because she’s one of the most iconic dolls of all time, and even included a petition for GI Joe as well through Change.org.

And people listened.

The group (which has evolved into a loving cancer support page) quickly caught the attention of national media outlets, garnering over 150,000 Facebook fans. Yet Mattel wouldn’t budge.

A few weeks after Mattel’s fiercest competitor, MGA (of Bratz and Moxie Girlz fame), announced that they are coming out with a line of bald dolls, Mattel made the highly anticipated announcement yesterday on their Facebook page:

Play is vital for children, especially during difficult times. We are pleased to share with our community that next year we will be producing a fashion doll, that will be a friend of Barbie, which will include wigs, hats, scarves and other fashion accessories to provide girls with a traditional fashion play experience. For those girls who choose, the wigs and head coverings can be interchanged or completely removed. We will work with our longstanding partner, the Children’s Hospital Association, to donate and distribute the dolls exclusively to children’s hospitals directly reaching girls who are most affected by hair loss. A limited number of dolls and monetary donations will also be made to CureSearch for Children’s Cancer and the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.

Through a thoughtful approach, we made the decision not to sell these dolls at retail stores, but rather get the dolls directly into the hands of children who can most benefit from the unique play experience, demonstrating Mattel’s ongoing commitment to encourage play as a respite for children in the hospital and to bring joy to children who need it most. We appreciate the conversation around this issue, and are interested to hear what you think!

Although these bald Barbie dolls won’t be sold on the shelves, they’ll be given to the little girls who need them most. And that’s a victory — not only for children with cancer, and not just to counteract the associated stigma, but for the power of moms in social media. They set out to get a Barbie made, and Mattel heard them.

[via babble]

I feel like a contestant in The Dating Game television show… only I’m participating on behalf of my father. And, it’s not for a love match, but rather a live-in aide… two to be exact.

My mom passed away over ten years ago, and five years after that, we brought in a live-in aide for my father, though she’d really been largely more of a companion. It worked fine for some time, but in recent years, their chemistry has become challenging. Of late, I’ve grown certain that she and my father aren’t compatible long-term. He recently suffered two strokes and now that his needs are more acute, I’m working on bringing in two live-in aides to take shifts who I have greater confidence in in terms of managing my dad’s daily care.

It’s not easy witnessing the deterioration of a beloved parent. My dad was always so vibrant and social, and now, due to aphasia from the stroke, his communication ability is severely compromised and he has weakness on his right side. For the first time in many years, he looks like an old man. G-d bless him… he’s 93… and though he doesn’t look his age, he does look like he has aged. A stroke would knock the socks off anyone, and his recovery is a challenging one. Though he can be stubborn, for the most part he’s a trooper, plodding along with the OT, Speech and Physical Therapy. It’s not easy. There has been improvement, but he’s got a long way to go, and we don’t know how far he’ll get.

His situation brings to mind an endeavor I’m immensely proud to be a part of. I am Associate Producer of Motherhood Out Loud, a play by some of America’s most celebrated writers that had a successful Off-Broadway run recently at Primary Stages in NYC and is now poised to tour worldwide. Motherhood Out Loud shatters traditional notions about parenthood, unveils its inherent comedy and celebrates the deeply personal truths that span and unite generations. One of the pieces by David Cale entitled “Elizabeth,” touched me to the core from the first time I read the script… and even more so when it came to life on stage so poignantly by actor James Lecesne, who speaks the words of both the mother and son in the piece. I’d like to take the opportunity to share a portion of it with you, with the hope that if you find yourself parenting an elderly parent, you will know you’re not alone…

Read the rest of the article on The Huffington Post

By Rebecca Odes

It is no big secret that I am a big fan of both boobs and crafts.  Behold the boob beanie, the perfect intersection of the two.

The boob beanie is a hat meant to look like a breast, which is meant to be worn by a baby while breastfeeding. The result is a kind of wooly trompe d’oeil, a cartoon boob where the real one would be.  My first exposure to the yarn breast was via Jordana Munk Martin and the creative and charitable Knit-a-Boob project at Oak Knit Studio.  These were actually wearable prostheses for breast cancer survivors. But the boob-as baby hat idea has since spread through the hooks and needles of the crafting community, populating the channels of Etsy and Pinterest and the like, bringing joy to some and outrage to others.

There is a seemingly never-ending stream of controversy about the idea- and the reality- of seeing women breastfeed. The boob beanie, um, brings it to a head.

Squeamishness about public breastfeeding is one of my biggest pet peeves about the way the world looks at mothers of babies. It really bums me out that breast exposure is considered totally acceptable for fashion, but not for function.  I hate that we are expected to bury our babies under layers of fabric to accomodate the fact that people can’t deal with seeing a baby being fed with a body instead of a bottle.  And I love how the beanie bucks this trend, poking fun at the idea of women “whipping their boobs out” in a cute, non-threatening way.

I’m guessing there are a lot of people who think this item is in poor taste, or perhaps even offensive. But to me, it’s a way of being honest and raising awareness about the importance of cultural tolerance for public breastfeeding.

What do you say?  Would you put your baby in a boobie beanie?

[via babble]

The best gift a father can give his children is to love their mother.

By MomCenter Phillipines

See all the answers on Circle of Moms…

1. Gadhafi Nanny Tortured – Shweyga Mullah, the nanny for the family of Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s son, Hannibal, is reported to have been tortured by the family. She had been doused with boiling water by Hannibal Gadhafi’s wife, Aline.
2. The Babysitter Bill – The California state assembly introduced a bill, A.B. 889, AKA “The Babysitter Bill”, which included provisions regarding such issues as overtime pay, rest breaks and the right for household employees (nannies, housekeepers, babysitters, etc) to sue employers for failure to meet the provisions. Though not officially dead, backlash from its introduction led to its suspension before it made it to the governor’s office.
3. Carjacked Nanny Hangs On – A Denver nanny, caring for a 3-year old boy was carjacked after helping an elderly man who had fallen. The carjacker drove off with the boy still in the vehicle, and the nanny hanging on.
4. Nanny Takes It To The Bank – Next time you check your Bank of America debit card statement, say a little thank you for part-time nanny Molly Katchpole. Thanks to her efforts in getting more than 300,000 signatures on a petition at Change.org , the financial Goliath rescinded their plan to assess debit card users with a $5 monthly fee.
5. Zanny the Nanny – Throughout her notorious trial for the murder of her 2-year old daughter Caylee, Casey Anthony claimed that a woman named Zenaida Gonzalez, whom she nicknamed “Zanny”, was Caylee’s babysitter for a number of years, and had abducted the child. No such person was ever identified. Then, bizarrely, a woman by that name who had no prior knowledge of Casey Anthony, came forward to sue her for defamation of character.
6. Woman Answers Ad for Nanny, Then Raped – In Scotland, Indulus Lukstins posted an ad for a nanny on a Latvian jobs site. An unidentified 21-year old woman answered the ad, was hired and picked up at the airport by Lukstins, and subsequently raped.
7. Nanny Charged With First Degree Manslaughter – In Washington, Kelli Jacobsen was arrested and charged with first degree manslaughter of the 12-month old child she was nannying. Her trial is still pending.
8. Nannies Try to Cash In – Herbert Simon, owner of the Indiana Pacers, was apparently the target of several former household employees, including two nannies, who made false claims against Mr. Simon and his wife Bui.
9. DeNiro’s Nanny Does Cash In – Former nanny for actor Robert DeNiro and wife Grace Hightower, Alexis Barry, is awarded $30,000 by the Manhattan Supreme Court for unpaid overtime.
10. Focus on Nanny in Multimillionaire Divorce – When metric tons of case and divorce are involved, nothing is sacred and one is safe. Not even the nanny. In other news across the pond, hedge fund co-founder and multimillionaire Elena Ambrosiadou claims that her estranged husband hired a private security firm to spy on her nanny. The information that was gathered would then be used to coerce the nanny, Carmen Michalska, into testifying against Miss Ambrosiadou.

By Alison Hart

“Do you think your nanny is too affectionate with your daughter?” my friend asked me at work the other day.

I understood exactly what she was asking. We had had our babies within a month of each other. We were both back in the office, and our children were at home with their nannies. We missed our babies terribly. We both wanted to know whether it was normal to feel the way we did. The answer was — is — complicated.

My husband and I hired a wonderful woman to care for our daughter Mia. I still don’t know how we lucked out. We found Tess* [not her real name] online, through one of those websites that’s like an OK Cupid for parents and sitters. By the time we met her, we had interviewed so many candidates that I wondered how I would keep them all straight in my mind, but Tess stood out. She was warm, funny, and took copious notes. We went with our gut. It could have been a disaster, like a bad first date. But Tess is marvelous, both deeply kind and careful.

On her first day, there were rough patches. Mia cried in the morning. It didn’t help that I’d overfed her before I left for work, because I was worried about my milk supply going down. She cried in the late afternoon, too, and her eyelashes were still wet with tears when I got home, but she was happier. She was lying on her back in her activity gym, and Tess was alongside her, bringing the dangly duckie into reach. Mia was laughing, and I could tell that she would be okay without me.

After that, she and Tess got along like peaches and cream.

As time went on, my coworkers would ask how my daughter was doing, and I would gush with relief. She’s great! She’s happy! One day after I’d been back at work a couple weeks, my father asked whether I was jealous of Tess, but how could I be jealous? I was too overwhelmed with gratitude. And I was so busy getting caught up at work that there wasn’t time to miss Mia. Next thing I knew, I was home again for bathtime, the best part of my day.

So when the jealousy came, it threw me for a loop… (click here to read the rest of the article)

I have a friend who just had a baby. Like 99 percent of the population, she left the hospital looking like a semi-deflated version of the pregnant woman who checked in a couple days before. She had the signature pouch, the bloated feet, and the glazed look on her face. Like the rest of us. A few days later, at the baby’s well-visit, an elderly woman began cooing over the infant. “She’s gorgeous,” the woman announced. “And, you’re pregnant again, already?!”

How my friend didn’t attack this stupid woman, I’ll never understand. But, for her and all the other clueless people out there, here are 10 other things not to say to a new mother …

1. OMG! He/she looks just like your husband! We know. Zip it.

2. I lost all my baby weight in the hospital. There is simply no civil response to a statement like this.

3. Breast is best, you know. Yes, we’re aware of that. Mind your own damn business.

4. You look exhausted. No shit.

5. Awwww, did you really want a boy/girl (whichever one you didn’t end up with)? Yes! And fortunately babies come with an exchange policy, so we’re expecting to trade her in any day!

6. You sure have your hands full! Why, yes, yes we do. Want to lend one of yours?

7. She needs a hat. So do you. On your mouth.

8. He’s/She’s so small/big/long/short/thin/fat. In what world are these observations welcome?!

9. My baby was sleeping all night every night from birth. Well, then how about you come and sleep-train mine?

10. When are you having the next one?

[via The Stir]