As a parent, I don’t consider myself uptight. My kid owns lots of shiny plastic toys; she has a sip of my soda on occasion. She eats cookies and watches Thomas the Tank Engine on TV. We even bought her a portable DVD player to make long plane rides and car trips more bearable for everyone.

But the other day I saw something that left me completely baffled. Last week we had dinner at a local brewery/restaurant. It was our first time there and I was pleased to find a noisy, family-friendly atmosphere complete with crayons and a kid’s menu.

We settled in with our drinks and were about to dig into our beer bread when I happened to catch a glance of a family sitting two tables over. There was a mom, a dad, an elderly gentleman (Grandpa?) and a little girl who was about 4 years old. The adults were engaged in conversation, and the little girl was watching “Happy Feet” on a portable DVD player– complete with headphones.

I was so fascinated that I couldn’t stop glancing over there. I thought maybe the DVD player would be put away when the food arrived, but no...she munched on her fries while she ate in complete silence, engrossed by the antics of the CGI penguins. Her parents never once spoke to her, asked if she needed anything, or engaged her in any way.

On the one hand: sheer genius! That DVD player is like a portable babysitter and probably allowed the parents to have a very pleasant meal without any whining, spilling, or demands.

On the other hand: what the hell? Isn’t part of having children learning how to deal with them? Teaching them how to behave properly in public places? How to have a pleasant conversation over a family meal? Enjoying their company?

My daughter has had her share of meltdowns and tantrums in public places. It isn’t fun to have to swoop her into the restroom or take her outside for a time-out and feel people’s eyes on you as you make a hasty exit. But the end result is that she generally does great in public settings. She is cheerful and pleasant and says “thank you” to our servers. We enjoy eating out as a family, and that includes our 3-year-old daughter. It would never occur to me to slap a DVD player in front of her then proceed to ignore her while we’re out for a meal.

What do you think: do you feel sorry for this little girl, like I did, or will you be stealing the DVD-as-babysitter idea for your next meal out? Are we raising a generation of socially maladjusted children thanks to DVD players, texting and iPods? Or am I being too judgy? Weigh in!  

Remember those myths about how to prevent pregnancy that made the rounds in high school? And how some of our friends found out the hard way that pulling out or having sex in a pool would NOT stop those pesky little sperm from swimming?

Well, the myths are back...but they're new and even MORE stupid! Case in point: Florida, where most schools teach an abstinence only curriculum-- if they bother to offer any sex education at all. The result is the sixth highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, and myths like these:

Some Florida teens believe drinking Mountain Dew or smoking marijuana will prevent pregnancy and that swallowing a capful of bleach will prevent HIV/AIDS. One reason those dangerous myths have spread is the state's reliance on abstinence-only sex education, say advocates of a bill to require a more comprehensive approach in Florida's schools.

The measure narrowly won approval from a Senate committee Tuesday. Under the proposed legislation, schools would still be required to teach abstinence as the only sure way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseasese, but they would have to teach more about sex. It would require, for example, teaching about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.

Teaching about condoms and other methods of birth control? How radical. But it seems the bill has a miniscule chance of becoming law, as it has to clear several committees with less than 30 days left in the legislative session.

Opponents of the bill, including pro-life activists, claim the bill will result in MORE teen pregnancies. Because accurate information about how to practice safe sex? NATURALLY results in more pregnancy and disease! Right?  Hmmm. Guess I just don't follow their logic.

One of the many reasons I'm glad to live in California: it was one of just three states in the nation to refuse federal funding tied to abstinence-only education. But instruction still varies wildly from district to district, and I will make sure that my daughter has access to information that is accurate and comprehensive. I don't ever want her to consider Mountain Dew and bleach as birth control options.

What's the status of sex ed in your neck of the woods?

When I got pregnant, my only close friend who had already been through pregnancy and birth was Elisa. She gave me a trove of books, including "What to Expect When You're Expecting," which has been the ubiquitous pregnancy book for more than two decades.

With almost 15 million copies in print, I figured this would be my go-to guide. But soon after cracking it open, I decided I hated the book. I found it alarmist and tone-deaf; far from reassuring me, it made me worry about ridiculous things. And their dietary recommendations? Are you freaking kidding me?

This article explored the book's genesis and evolution, including some of the complaints:

Despite the huge success, mothers like to debate the book's advice on message boards, and mock titles have emerged such as "What to Freak Out About When You're Expecting." On urbanbaby.com one can still find references to the book's warnings, toned down in later editions, that common fetal hiccups could signal a severe umbilical cord problem and that oral sex on a woman could in rare cases cause a fatal embolism.

Turns out author Heidi Murkoff has heeded the criticism and revamped the book, inside and out. Check the new cover: gone is the mousy woman in the rocking chair. She's been replaced by a hip mama decked out in designer jeans, high-heeled boots and a form-fitting blouse:

This new edition, largely rewritten, is a chance to present a version that's "more reassuring, more positive, more empathetic than ever," its author says.

But the revamping raises a larger question: Can this iconic tome ever be as relevant as it once was? Can any book? When "What to Expect" was launched in 1984, it was the only thing of its kind out there — a guide written not by doctors but by women, for women.

Now there are lots of others. But there's also the big wide Web world out there, and it's not just all those sites offering medical information. This is the age of the message board, where a woman who has a strange ache or pain at 3 a.m. can fire off a cyber-question: "Late-night cramps at 5 months pg, dh asleep, what do i do?" Answers come within moments.

"It's this whole new community," says Susan Kane, editor in chief of Parenting magazine. "Women are starting to trust one another and not listen to the experts so much."

Murkoff has adjusted to this new reality as well, launching WhatToExpect.com three years ago. Apparently it's wildly popular, with 1.7 million page views per month, second only to BabyCenter.

What do you all think? Did you love or hate "What to Expect"? Would you give the revised version a second chance? Do you appreciate the hip new cover mom? And would you still turn to old-fashioned pregnancy books in this age of instant feedback on the Internet?

Here's a quick update on Freedom Airlines and the misguided flight attendant who kicked a nursing mom and her toddler off a plane for refusing to cover up. I first posted about this case back in October 2006:

The Vermont Human Rights Commission found grounds to believe that Freedom Airlines, a subsidiary of Mesa Air Group, Inc., "violated Vermont's prohibition against discrimination against women breast feeding in places of public accommodation," said Commission Executive Director Robert Appel... /snip

The commission is not a court and its ruling is an administrative decision, Appel said. The commission will now work with the mother, Emily Gillette, and Freedom to try to negotiate a settlement. If that fails, a lawsuit could be filed by the commission or Gillette.   --Source

I'm glad to see Vermont standing behind their laws and sticking up for women who choose to nurse in public. This case received public scrutiny because moms held nurse-ins at Delta Airlines counters across the country; Delta operates flights in conjunction with, but does not own, Freedom Airlines.

Another bonus: this brouhaha caused Delta to make clear where the company stands:

"Delta fully supports a mother's right to breast-feed her children on board our aircraft," said Delta Spokesman Anthony Black.

Even though I have long participated in MySpace and Facebook, I have to admit that I worry about the judgment of young teens and tweens as they carve out their own corners of the Interwebs.

As a reporter I have come across horror stories of bullying, abuse, and even child predators on MySpace. The suicide of Megan Meier after she was bullied via a faux MySpace account cast a harsh light on the darkest dangers of these social networks.

Now it appears that teens are filming fights and posting them on YouTube and MySpace. That was the apparent motivation in Lakeland, Fla., where six teen girls were recently arrested for luring a former friend into a home and beating her unconscious:

For 30 minutes, six girls ganged up on a classmate, slamming her head into a wall and taking turns pummeling her and videotaping it all to post on the Internet. And when they were arrested and were being booked into juvenile detention, they joked about not being able to go to the beach, a Florida sheriff said Tuesday on TODAY.

The vicious attack was supposedly in response to slurs and insults the victim had posted about them on MySpace...

Officials released three minutes of the 30-minute video that show two of the girls taking turns screaming obscenities at the victim between attacks with their fists, while the others watched and taped the attack. They also challenge the victim to fight back, which she does not do on the video.

The 16-year-old victim suffered a concussion, and has hearing loss in her left ear and some loss of vision in her left eye, Judd said.

Six girls under the age of 18 will be tried as adults on charges of battery, false imprisonment and kidnapping. Because kidnapping is a first-degree felony, they face a maximum sentence of life in prison. Their arraignment is scheduled for today.

The most disturbing aspect of this story is the lack of remorse displayed by the girls, who while in custody joked about not being able to go to the beach; one girl asked a guard if she would be out in time for cheerleading practice.

Here's my most important advice should you see this film: Bring Kleenex.

So I like a good tearjerker as much as the next gal, but I really thought my sobbing-at-the-movies days were far behind me. After all, I'm no longer a melodramatic teenager...I'm a grown-ass woman!

But when a movie revolves around the painful, wrenching separation of a mother from her son and his against-all-odds Dickensian quest to reunite with her, all bets are off.

The Mexican film La Misma Luna is the story of 9-year-old Carlitos, played by the astonishing Adrian Alonso. His mother Rosario (famed telenovela actress Kate del Castillo) is one of the estimated millions of Latinas who have left children behind in Latin American countries in order to come here, legally and illegally, and make enough money to feed said children.

Carlitos and his mother have been separated more than four years when tragedy spurs the boy's decision to cross the border, alone, armed with nothing more than an address to find his mother. The resulting journey is by turns dangerous and blessed, fearful and joyous. The lump in your throat remains long after the last, mesmerizing frame.

The narrative puts an achingly human spin on the hot-button topic of illegal immigration. While the melodramatic twists and turns verge on maudlin, it's refreshing to see a multi-faceted portrayal of illegal immigrants, and the compelling, desperate reasons why so many of them come here. It's a welcome break from the rhetoric spewed by the Lou Dobbs and Minutemen of the world. Their law-and-order argument is a perfectly contrasted black-and-white; movies like this fill in those crucial shades of gray by depicting the daily indignities immigrants face, and why they feel they have no choice.

Cross-posted at The Mom Blog.

There were so many things I swore I would never do when I became a parent.

Because I found the concept yucky, I did not plan to breastfeed past the first few weeks (reality check: I nursed Maya for 14 months).

I planned to get back to work ASAP (reality check: I took a 5-month leave and still wish I could afford to cut back my hours or be a SAHM).

My husband and I would continue to take long, exotic vacations, and leave the kid with her very accommodating abuelitos (reality check: our longest trip away from Maya has been 2 nights...and we didn't cross the state line).

And last but not least, I would NOT let my home become Romper Room, strewn with toys and plastic and other assorted kid clutter.

Take a wild guess as to how that turned out.

We staved it off OK in the beginning; a little baby doesn't need much, and we managed to find a baby swing, high chair and bouncer in neutral colors that blended nicely with our decor.

But now that Maya is older, her toys are bigger. And more garish. And just plain MORE.

So our formal dining room table has been relegated to a corner, sad and forgotten. We eat our meals in the kitchen, and Maya's beloved train table is now the focal point of the dining room.

We've got puzzles stacked under our coffee table and a couple of toy bins that are constantly overflowing. While it's too much for my personal liking, I've seen much worse. So I can live with the toys and the trains and the crayons for the time being...unlike this British mum, who wrote a column for The Independent about how her baby is cramping her style:

But as we cradled her blissfully in our arms, the midwife, doctor and nurses quietly going about their duties, there was one vital treatment they failed to administer. Somehow, someone, somewhere, forgot to give me the pill from the bottle whose label read: "You've just had a baby, from now on your aversion to all things cute, cuddly or smothered in teddy bear pattern will be forgotten. Go forth and spend a fortune on useless furnishings and ugly-coloured plastic items. Everything you thought you knew about how you wanted your home to look is wrong. Oh, and if it's a girl, prepare to like pink."

This then, is the diary of the design-freak-turned-new-mother, who was given a baby, but not the "right" pill, and whose life may never be the same again, but whose home sure as hell will be.

If you're a mother to a little girl, hang on to your hat: the beauty industry has set its sights on your 6 to 9-year-old, according to this New York Times article. The goal: to create ever-younger consumers:

Traditionally, young girls have played with unattended M.A.C. eye shadow or Chanel foundation, hoping to capture a whiff of sophistication. In the recent past, young girls have also tagged along on beauty expeditions by their mothers and teenage sisters.

But today, cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly aim their sophisticated products and service packages squarely at 6- to 9-year-olds, who are being transformed into savvy beauty consumers before they’re out of elementary school.

“The starter market has definitely grown, I think, due to a number of cultural influences,” said Samantha Skey, the senior vice president for strategic marketing of Alloy Media and Marketing.

The "starter market"? Shudder. How exploitive. How utterly shameless.

I first blogged about this issue back in 2006, when the notion of little girls tagging along to the spa to indulge in pampering rituals seemed, to me at least, misguided but relatively harmless. But it seems that the beauty industry has ramped up its efforts since then, responding to a growing demand for the luxe life:

In a study last year, 55 percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls said they used lip gloss or lipstick, and nearly two-thirds said they used nail polish, according to Experian, a market research company based in New York. In 2003, 49 percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls said they used lip gloss or lipstick.

Youth market analysts say this is part of a trend called KGOY, “kids getting older younger,” and cultural observers describe a tandem phenomenon, more-indulgent parents.

KGOY. Am I the only one who finds this "trend" desperately sad? I know my little girl won't stay little forever, but the thought of her feeling like she needs a "makeover" at the tender age of 5 makes me want to scream. Even event planner Tracy Bloom Schwartz, who makes a living planning parties like these, sees the absurdity. "Sometimes I want to ask, 'makeover what?'" she said.

Rosalind Wiseman, author of the Mean Girl survival manual "Queen Bees and Wannabes," perfectly captured my discomfort with this phenomenon:

“Mothers and fathers do really crazy things with the best of intentions,” she said. “I don’t care how it’s couched, if you’re permitting this with your daughter, you are hyper-sexualizing her. It’s one thing to have them play around with makeup at home within the bubble of the family. But once it shifts to another context, you are taking away the play and creating a consumer, and frankly, you run the risk of having one more person who feels she’s not good enough if she’s not buying the stuff.”

What say you, ladies? Is Wiseman right or is she making much ado about nothing? When did your daughters first show an interest in makeup or pampering? Is it too much too soon nowadays?

As for me, I was always fascinated with makeup, and loved to watch my mother fix herself up. But while she let me play with her makeup, she set strict limits. I wore lipstick at 11 and snuck a little eyeliner when I was 12, but made sure to scrub it off before coming home from school. Today, I wear lipstick and a little powder 90 percent of the time, and that's it. I love MAC cosmetics, but hardly ever take the time to actually wear them.

As for my own 3-year-old daughter? She is obsessed with trains and I have to wrestle her just to cut her toenails. I am hoping it stays that way for a while.

I slather my child in sunscreen. Strap a helmet onto her head when she rides her tricycle. Buy organic foods and avoid high fructose corn syrup like the plague.

But if I lived in Illinois, I could potentially be charged with child endangerment, like Treffly Coyne was.

Coyne is a suburban mother of three who buckled her kids into the car last Christmas for a quick jaunt to Wal-Mart. The goal: to give $8.29 in coins collected by her daughters to a Salvation Army bell ringer, take a couple of pictures, and leave.

Her 2-year-old daughter was sleeping and it was sleeting out; Coyne opted to park in a loading zone in front of the store, turn on her hazard lights, lock the car and run to the kettle with her other kids rather than wake the sleeping toddler.

Coyne was 10 yards away, she says, and her car was within sight at all times. But trouble was coming:

She snapped a few pictures of the girls donating money and headed back to the car. But a community service officer blocked her way.

"She was on a tirade, she was yelling at me," Coyne said. The officer, Coyne said, didn’t want to hear about how close Coyne was, how she never set foot inside the store and was just there to let the kids donate money, or how she could always see her car.

Coyne telephoned her husband, Tim Janecyk, who advised her not to say anything else to police until he arrived. So Coyne declined to talk further, refusing even to tell police her child’s name.

When Janecyk pulled up, his wife already was handcuffed, sitting in a patrol car.

I admit it: I love TV.

I love TV so much that I've stopped adding season passes to my TiVo-- there's no time to watch new shows! But the recently ended writer's strike has left a gap in my viewing schedule, and the commercials for The Secret Life Of A Soccer Mom on TLC were too intriguing to ignore.

The premise is simple: take a SAHM who gave up an outside career in order to take care of her family, and throw her right back into it. Is it all that she remembers? Will she sink or swim? And will she choose to go back to that career?

As an added twist, their unsuspecting husbands have no clue their wives are off trying a career on for size. They think mom's off at a spa, and struggle with the caretaking duties while she is away.

In the first episode, mom Adrian blossomed as a fashion designer and accepted a full-time job at a design house at the end of the show. In the next episode, Katie proved her mettle as a gourmet chef but turned down the subsequent job offer at a chic restaurant; she wasn't ready to leave her preschool-aged sons.

The show is bittersweet; these moms clearly long for their former careers and their husbands rejoice in their accomplishments. But real-life decisions are nuanced and delicate, and the show reflects that.

Of course, Adrian's decision to go back to work triggered ?a predictable backlash from the judgy judgers, who used TLC's message boards to spew anonymous venom:

The posts said the premise of the show is "sick" and Adrian is "selfish." One mom wrote, "Let's show the other side of the story ... how the kids' world is going to be turned upside down by having to go to day care." Another woman goes even further: "Unless you're about to starve there is no reason for you to be at work. If you didn't want to raise your children, you should not have had them. It's child abandonment."

So since 70 percent of women with children under 18 work outside the home...that's A LOT of abandoned children running around! Speaking of which, I should see what my little 3-year-old munchkin is up to...it just occurred to me that I haven't seen or fed her in a couple of days. What can I say, I'm a working mom! I hope she didn't wander down the highway again...

Anyhoo...would you ever consider appearing on a show like this? What career would you want to try on for size? What are some of your favorite reality shows? And do you find the term "soccer mom" as annoying as I do?

The first article I read about Baby Loves Disco was a skeptical look at the then-nascent phenomenon. The writer seemed to chide the parents who participated as incorrigible grupsters who refused to give up partying for parenthood.

But I was intrigued by the premise: take over a nightclub in the daytime, stock it with healthy snacks and kid-friendly activities, spin some tried-and-true dance songs and get some baby booties on the dance floor. The party spread like wildfire and Baby Loves Disco is now in 27 cities from Boston to San Diego, as well as the U.K. and Tel Aviv. It was all started by an entrepreneuring mommy named Heather Murphy, who has turned her idea into a full-time gig.

The party just rolled into Orange County so me and fellow MotherTalker sandrab decided to  take the kids and check it out. It started at 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon and it was quite the experience.

No detail was overlooked. There were bubble machines and maracas and scarves for the kids to dance with. The bar was laid out with a buffet of healthy snacks including fruit, Goldfish crackers, hummus and organic juice boxes. Balloons were free and plentiful. There was free face painting for the kids and neck massages for stressed out moms and dads. Maya cooled down with an organic strawberry-banana popsicle between spirited dancing and running around the darkened club.

She strutted across the stage, she bellied up to the bar and stared at the large fish tanks, she climbed into a tent and read a book in the "Chill-Out Zone." She was a dancing queen and a superfreak, and she had a ball.

I saw sleeping infants, jamming preteens and everything in between. Young parents, middle-aged parents, and grandparents chatted while keeping an eye on the dance floor; some even nursed a drink from the full-service bar.

It was a fun way to spend an afternoon, though I was a bit tired from chasing Maya around the club. She wanted to inspect every corner of the expansive venue, and she did.

I walked away impressed by the whole concept and execution-- and jealous of the brilliant mommy who came up with it and turned it into a stay-at-home career! And it was definitely a fun change after countless trips to the zoo, the neighborhood park and the science museum. Am I a grupster for introducing my daughter to a nightclub at the tender age of 3? Who cares? All that matters is that we got our groove on.

Have any of you been to Baby Loves Disco? What other alternative kid activities do you enjoy? Please share!

Crossposted at The Mom Blog.

As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, Spanish was my first language. Growing up, my father insisted that we speak Spanish exclusively at home; he reasoned that we could learn English in school, and that retaining Spanish would benefit us in the long run while allowing us to communicate with our elders.

I won't lie; like many children of immigrants, I chafed at my dad's rules from time to time, especially during those awkward teen years where all I wanted to do was fit in like a normal, American kid.

Now that I'm grown, I am so grateful to my father for forcing me to retain my Spanish. It has opened up a world of literature and culture that I treasure, and given me a valuable edge in my career. I can jump between the English and Spanish-speaking spheres with ease, and that's invaluable.

I always planned to teach my children Spanish, but life threw a wrench in those plans when I fell in love with a gringo of Polish-Italian descent. No matter; with my husband's unflagging support, I resolved to teach my daughter Spanish anyway. The plan was for me to speak Spanish to her exclusively so that she would be bilingual.

It started out great; I cooed, sang and read to Maya in Spanish. Her first words and sentences were all in Spanish, as were her favorite lullabies. Her Spanish vocabulary blossomed, even as my skeptical mother-in-law questioned whether or not Maya would ever learn English. I assured her that against all odds, I had managed to learn English, so I was pretty sure Maya wouldn't wander through life muttering "Que?".

I was right. Maya is now 3 years old, and she has learned English effortlessly. Too effortlessly.

She is stringing long, complex sentences together in English. She is spelling English words. She has even started to correct me when I speak Spanish! "No Mami, no es leon, es lion!" WTF?

I feel like I'm waging a losing battle. English is everywhere...when she hears me and my husband talk, it's in English. At preschool, it's all English. Her favorite cartoons and music are in English.

Sigh. What's a Mami to do? I am bloodied and bruised, but have resolved to keep fighting. I still speak Spanish to her. I still translate English words. I still sing to her. She will continue to spend time around my Spanish-speaking family.

I even signed her up for a Spanish for toddlers class offered here in my community, but it was too basic for her. I guess I am stumped as to how to take her Spanish to the next level, or just maintain all she knows now. My hope is that when she gets older we can spend time traveling in Mexico so she is immersed in the language, or that we can find a Spanish immersion charter school for her to attend.

In the meantime, I just want Spanish to feel familiar and comfortable to her. Which reminds me, I think it's time for a weekend with the Abuelitos...

What do you all think? Am I being unrealistic? Is English-only unavoidable in this country? What have you done to help your children learn and retain a second language?

Crossposted at
The Mom Blog.