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Marriage has become a luxury rather than a necessity for many U.S. women, according to a new study which found that more than half of births under 30 are to single mothers. Liberals blame a lack of marriageable men while conservatives say it's the fault of the sexual revolution and government benefits that favor single parents, but both agree that marriage just ain't what it used to be. More »
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We talk a lot about the discrimination women face in science and engineering, but a new study says there may be a bigger reason why women don't rise higher in these fields: motherhood. Right now, science and engineering departments don't know how to deal with profs, postdocs, and grad students who might also want to be moms. But there are some simple changes they could make that would help a lot. More »
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One of the more horrifying things I read while extremely pregnant was not the description of the abdominal muscle wall separation that can happen at the end of your gestation, but rather a Facebook message from a high school friend describing a typical day in her life with a 6-month-old. More »
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A 46-year-old Staten Island mother has filed suit against the city of New York, claiming that the emotional and physical trauma of being forcibly separated for her children by the Administration for Children's Services entitles her to $900 trillion. If she wins, Newt Gingrich's Moon Colony Dreams will be all but shattered. More »
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Frances claims the cat died "after getting entangled in piles of [her mom's] Etsy fabrics, boxes of paperwork, trash and other possessions." The dog died after swallowing a pile of Courtney's pills. The restraining order that now keeps Courtney away from Frances also bars Courtney from any contact with Frances's dog, Uncle Fester. All this is in the new eBook, Courtney Comes Clean. Sigh, you know? If you ever claimed your mom was ruining your life when she really wasn't, call her and apologize. More »
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We hear a lot about ways moms can fuck up their kids for good, but here's some nice news for once: moms who support their kids can help them grow bigger brains. More »
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A New York comedienne had her videos removed and her account suspended from Funny or Die after posting a video of her breast feeding her infant twins to the site. After she complained that there are dicks and boobs all over the place on there, the powers that be apologized and is in the process of reinstating her account. More »
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Recently I was sitting on the toilet peeing while my nearly 2-year old daughter was sitting in my lap playing with her stuffed koala bear, and I thought to myself, how did we get here? It could be worse, I suppose — we could be doing this as a performance art piece at a pop-up gallery in downtown L.A. More »
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Advice abounds for new parents, and I got heaps of it like anyone, but in my experience, it was so vague and foreshadowy as to be kinda useless. Taken together, it sounded like some comically exasperated Greek chorus dying to be ignored: Behold thoust shall not sleep again/Thine dreams the stuff of air/To think thoust thoughts of yesteryear/Shall lead but to despair. Huh? You mean my life is, like, never going to be the same again?   More »
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The other morning after I finished nursing my 21-month-old baby, she sat up and smiled, looked me in the eye and said in a tiny little happy baby voice: "Tink you, mommy." Awww, your welcome, sweets — wait, what did you say?! Uh, is this weird? More »
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Jay-Z's new track, "Glory," is notable not just because it celebrates his newborn daughter with wife Beyoncé, but also because it makes reference to a previous miscarriage — and it's incredibly rare that a male celebrity does that. As music critic Ann Powers questioned yesterday on Twitter: "Has a rapper ever spoken about miscarriage before?" Good question. More »
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We haven't seen much of Katherine Heigl lately, but later this month One For The Money — her flick based on the Janet Evanovich bestseller — hits theaters. So she's doing some publicity, including being interviewed by Elle and writing a blog for iVillage. And she's being uncharacteristically (for Hollywood, anyway) honest. Blunt, even. More »
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I wouldn't say I was the most prepared sandwich in the deli when it comes to having a kid, but these raw vegetables did what it took to get the soup cookin'. Er, cringe-inducing analogies for parental readiness aside, I read like a mofo while I was pregnant, talked to people with kids, and generally put my reporting skills to work to get my shit together to have a baby. More »
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A judge in Iowa has ordered new birth documents be issued to the child of a lesbian couple who were initially told they couldn't list both of their names on their baby's birth certificate. The Iowa Department of Public Health contended that God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, but was roundly rebuked for trying to pass redneck bumper stickers off as sound public policy. More »
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Currently multiple births are still a novelty, but the number of twin births is on the rise and at this rate, in a few years red carpets could be overrun with Mary-Kate and Ashley wannabes delivering synchronized SexyFace. It's well-known that the development of fertility treatments has led to an increase in multiples, but new data shows just how drastic the shift has been. In the past three decades, the number of twins born in the U.S. has roughly doubled. More »
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Since we still regularly hear about stores asking breastfeeding moms to stop using their sexy nourishing breasts, we must conclude that a sizable portion of the populace agrees with NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne's assessment that breastfeeding is "nasty." Fortunately, the government has stepped up to protect a woman right to gross everyone out with her natural bodily functions. President Obama's health care legislation mandates that new mothers must be given adequate breaks and space to nurse on the job, and the Labor Department is starting to go after companies that don't comply. More »
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NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne has apologized for a Tweet wherein he called the sight of a woman breastfeeding her child "nasty," and a follow up Tweet wherein he called a woman who criticized his calling the woman nasty a "bitch." Someone who makes obscene amounts of money as a professional athlete/amusement has a sub-enlightened attitude about something? Hold me; we'll get through this together. More »
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Nary a day goes by when TMZ doesn't say something absurd and offensive, but today the site went too far even for its own commenters when it picked through the baby registry of Rachel Uchitel, who just announced she's pregnant. The teenage boys who run the site found the items she requested outrageously expensive, such as her "$300 Nipple Suckers." As many moms pointed out, though the $500 high chair is unnecessary, that's about what you'll pay for an electric double breast pump and accoutrement. But Uchitel really brought this taunting on herself by asking friends and family for a common product that's used on boobies. More »
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Here's another thing for pregnant ladies to worry about: the heat. According to a new study, getting too hot could increase the risk of premature delivery or stillbirth. And they define "too hot" pretty loosely. More »
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Did you know you're happier doing less work and spending more time with your family, but not all of your time, because you're still a person with a brain and probably need the satisfaction of using it away from those people in a culturally validated way? Congratulations, you just indicated that you already intuitively understand the results of a new study that says moms who work are happier than moms who don't work, and that moms who only work part-time are the happiest of them all. Meanwhile, fathers are sometimes very good at coming home around 5 p.m. but are tired and would like a driiiiink. More »
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A San Francisco man has been told by the FDA to cease and desist selling his sperm over the internet after helping 14 women become pregnant. The 36-year-old man claims he's simply providing a free service to women who want to become mothers without going through typical sperm donation process; authorities say he's a public health hazard. And no matter how you slice it, there are few things less appetizing than imagining receiving a big pack o' sperm in the mail. More »
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Good news, ladies! Thanks to the women's rights movement, over the course of the last century or so, American women have made great advances in income equality, education level, and overall ability to have it all-ness. Well, rich women have. Poor women are still getting about equally as hosed as they were in the 1970s. More »
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Planning your particular labor experience is a lot like communicating what kind of haircut you want to your stylist. You start out with this really great image of something fantastic and awesome (i.e., not "the Rachel"), and then you end up with something that, in the end, seems very much in the spirit of said awesomeness, but, you know, on your particular type of human head. More »
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A new study offers good news for those seeking to balance work and family: moms who work outside the home are healthier and less depressed than moms who don't. More »
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Crisis alert: America's experiencing a wave of mom-on-mom judgment. Moms can't walk down the street without getting eyeballed and evaluated by other mothers, and they can't resist doing the same in turn to other moms they encounter. It's gotten so bad that soon we may be able to replace the word "judge" with the word "mom," used in this case as a verb meaning "to judge." Who's going to put a stop to it? More »
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The U.S. Census Bureau recently released a report on employment and parental leave for first-time mothers, showing how little time women now take off when they have kids. The data also show that the least-educated women in America have the least access to paid leave. More »
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We've heard of women delivering their babies in all sorts of strange places, but a Maryland woman may have found one of the most awful ways to usher a new life into the world: In an airport, on the bathroom floor, during one of the busiest travel days of the year. The woman had just stepped off a flight at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, so she was actually lucky that she didn't have to give birth in the aisle of an airplane. The mom isn't releasing any personal details, but she and her son are healthy. More »
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Almost two years ago I gave birth to a nine-pound baby person. While pregnant, I read everything I could, not just about how babies grow and what stuff not to do to fuck them up, but also about what would happen to my body. Obvs, I knew I'd gain some weight and would need to eat "crazy combos" like bananas and Doritos, but I also wondered what my body would feel and look like after the baby, how much I would care, whether it would ever seem or be the same, and if I would ever enjoy bouncing again. More »
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It's Black Friday again, so I guess everyone, especially parents, will be running around like a bunch of assholes looking for the Hot Shit Holiday Toy of 2011/12. Normally I would have slept right through this day without so much as a raised smirk in its honor, so oblivious to the hassle I was. See, it's a multi-part hate. It sounds like it would be a really cool day, like, a low-key, turn inward, black on the outside ‘cause black is how I feel on the inside kinda thing. Only it's the opposite of that. More »
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Women have made great strides in the last century, but a global preference for male children has never been more dramatic. In spite of vigorous government programs to combat the practice, sex-selective abortion and female infanticide are still disturbingly common, especially in Asia. Among American couples, 54% would prefer a male child over a female one. Now, a new series of ads created for an article called "The Case for Girls" attempts to unstick the stubborn global anti-girl baby bias. More »
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A Michigan judge has come under fire for asking a woman to leave after she dared besot his precious courtroom with the horrific, abominable specter of breastfeeding her child. Fetch the special judicial smelling salts! More »
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During the last days of my pregnancy, I had some time to reflect on the life I've lived. For the most part, I was happy with what I've done, and even if I was wasted during much of my youth, I don't feel like I wasted that youth. I'm well-traveled, feel fairly accomplished, tried most of the drugs, had a very active "social" life, and in genera had a lot of irresponsible fun. Still, I've realized that there are a few things I wish I'd tried, and am slowly coming to terms with the fact that certain experiences are either must be put on hold indefinitely — or are completely out of the question — now that I'm a mother and need to put an end to any and all selfish impulses. More »
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On one hand, we're practically beaten over the heads with the idea that eventually our ladygrapes are going to run out of juice. On the other, a poll suggests that women seem to be in mass denial of — or improperly educated about — the fact that fertility, like all things, must come to an end. How can the medical community make facts about infertility stick? Incessant nagging sure isn't working. More »
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If you need a disturbing example of the world's screwed up attitudes toward rape and reproductive rights, look no further than the story of a 10-year-old Mexican girl who gave birth to a 3.3 pound baby boy after 31 weeks of pregnancy. Officials in the city of Puebla say they're investigating whether the girl could have been raped, though one might argue that a child can't give consent. She came to the hospital with life-threatening complications last month, but under state law abortion would have only been an option if she was able to prove that she'd been sexually assaulted. More »
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As the economy continues to run frantically around the house looking for its wallet, keys, and cell phone even though it's already half an hour late, employers are trying to cut corners in order to stay afloat. One of the easiest corners to cut, it turns out, has been in providing maternity benefits to female employees. It's gotten so bad that now, nearly half of women must take unpaid time off after giving birth. More »
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Decades after most mothers started working outside the home, the folks at Nickelodeon have home to a stunning realization: Many moms like to unwind by watching a little TV after the kids go to bed. Now Nickeloden is hoping to attract viewers between the hours of 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. who are free to watch at full volume without fear that dad will hear them in the den. The new programming block will be called "NickMom," because according to the network, these women don't want to forget for a minute that they're mothers, not just people. More »
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Sometimes it seems like moms cannot catch a break. They're already on duty 24 hours a day, but now it turns out that even when everyone else in the house is fast asleep, they're not getting much rest. Insomnia, the New York times reports, is causing women across the country, but especially moms, to turn to sleeping pills in pretty big numbers. More »
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If someone tries to tell you operating heavy machinery and birthin' babies don't mix, you tell them they're dead wrong. Emma French of Scotland passed her driving test on the morning of August 30, about four hours after her water broke. "Everyone was telling me to go to the hospital but I had waited so long for my driving test, I was determined to do it," said French. After completing the test, French drove herself to the hospital and delivered a healthy baby girl. She says, "I didn't dare tell the examiner I was in labor in case he made me cancel the test. The nurses in the hospital were very confused because I was getting congratulations cards for both my baby and my driving test." More »
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Janeane Garofalo had a great joke in a recent standup about a friend who'd become insufferable since becoming a parent. I'm paraphrasing here, but Garafalo's friend said something like, "You know what, now that I've had a baby, I finally get it — it's not all about ME anymore." Garafalo's response: "You're just now getting that? It's not all about YOU, now it's just all about something MADE OF YOU?" Funny, except the best thing about a baby in my opinion is that it is made of you, but it is, decidedly, not you. What a relief. More »
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