I know I'm always saying that these books aren't made for women, but for extraterrestrials who want to understand humans. That was confirmed when I looked at the table of contents for this volume.

The book starts off with an introduction called "The Unchanging Child," and it features a bunch of images of children through the ages. This one of Madonna and child makes me very uncomfortable.

I guess I just didn't know that Jesus was born with genitalia so similar to Chyna Doll's.

Then there's this terrifying portrait of an argument for sterilization.

Clearly, his direct descendant is Seth Green.

This photo was part of a collage about children developing personalities. If you ask me, the dog is totally upstaging this kid and his boring toy.

He's got LOL material written all over him!

This photo was in the chapter about how precious and beautiful babies are. The caption reads: "Does anything renew your faith and hope in life as much as the endearing, appealing, heart-warming smile of your beloved baby?" I dunno. I wouldn't let that kid kiss me, what with that herpes sore chillin' by her lip.

I know that I say that herpes is whatevs and all, but up top is the only place where I don't have herpes, and I'm certainly not about to contract an STD unless the "S" is involved. Know what I'm sayin'?

And now it's time for our "Future Serial Killers of America" segment. Let's hurt animals!

And build dirty bombs!

And demonstrate an acquired taste for human brains!

And now it's time for our "Future Homosexuals of America" segment.

He's all, "You want me to wear that? Where's the wow factor here?"

This was perhaps the most helpful thing in the entire book. This is a proposed craft project to teach your children where babies come from.

So, apparently the origin of babies has something to do with a donkey with balls that poops out sperm tails. Hmm...An ass with balls that poops out sperm? Hey little boy, I have a decal with a "wow factor" for ya!

Earlier: Woman Alive: How To Decorate Without Going Broke
Woman Alive: The American Family In Trouble
Woman Alive: Food For Life, Love, And Looks
Woman Alive: Discover A Lovelier You

Matching Outfits: Parents putting siblings in coordinating ensembles is "creating an identity for the family - and managing its public image." Not to mention undermining a child's sense of individuality! There's a reason school uniforms are good for discipline.
Translation:The Control Freak.
Offender: FLDS families, Captain Von Trapp, Joe Jackson, Four Cohans, The Shaggs

Dressing a Child Like Yourself: "The motivation behind such a move comes down to possession and identity..'It's like you are saying they are a chip off the old block. The child is a blank canvas and you are projecting yourself on to them.'"
Translation: Total narcissist.
Offender: Christmas card families, Katie Holmes, Four Cohans

Bygone Fashions: Dressing your children in the clothing of another era "is often about taking a stance against what is perceived to be declining social standards." It can also denote a wish to keep them from growing up too fast.
Translation: Delusionals who need to get some Madame Alexander dolls, stat.
Offenders: Tasha Tudor, whoever Baby Jane's mother was.

Dressing Kids Like Grownups:Putting your kid in designer duds "is often down to a parent's own unfulfilled hopes and dreams." And, 'They are turning the child into what they wanted to be, but usually didn't become.'"
Translation: Narcissists with misplaced values, but who want the best (shallow) things for their kids.
Offenders:Amanda Wingfield, Mrs. Bennett, most of Hollywood.

Gender Extremes:Putting tots only in pink or blue "can come down to trying to control who your child will become when they grow up....'Gender is a big part of this and dressing their child according to gender stereotypes sends out a message about they see them and how they want people to react to them. '"
Translation: Latent sexism and homophobia? Or just an excess of Disney movies.
Offenders: Larry Birkhead, Cathy Hilton, Barbie and Skipper's mom.

What Were Your Parents Thinking? [BBC]

Kazdin writes that corporal punishment usually does stop bad behavior temporarily. Even though it's not an effective deterrent in the long term — kids will misbehave just as much as before — what parents remember is that brief moment when a child quit screaming or cursing or peeling the wallpaper off the wall. And if they don't perceive hitting as a problem, they're unlikely to pay attention to studies that say otherwise.

Repeated corporal punishment is bad for kids' development — they have worse impulse control and poorer health as adults. So should we ban hitting kids (note: the man pictured above is testifying in favor of such a ban)? Kazdin points out that these bans can be effective, both in reducing corporal punishment and in actually improving children's behavior. He also writes that the US is in some ways way behind the rest of the world in children's rights — only the United States and Somalia have yet to ratify the U.N.'s Convention on the Rights of the Child. One reason for this is that Americans want to preserve parental authority, including the decision to spank or not to spank. Should this decision be a parent's to make? Or, given the evidence, should we let the U.N. make it for us?

Spare the Rod [Slate]

Earlier: America: Land Of The Free, Home Of The Spank
Researchers: Spanking Can Lead To Sexual Deviancy

Sure, there was the tooth fairy nonsense (which I tested by losing a tooth and not telling anyone, then informing my mom and miraculously earning a JFK half-dollar overnight). But also: When I was young and had a nightmare, my dad told me to flip the pillow over before going back to sleep so I'd have nice dreams the rest of the night. A total lie that had psychological benefits; after that, I always flipped my pillow over after a bad dream instead of running to my parents. I wish I could say I dropped this habit: I still flip my pillow in the night to "change" dreams.

Other lies: Santa was going to land on our Manhattan terrace since we didn't have a fireplace. The phrase "This hurts me more than it hurts you." Oh, and my mom said my godmother's shiny cigarette case had a mouse living in it.

I polled the other editors. Says one: "They lied about EVERYTHING. How long the car trip will take, eating my Halloween candy and then telling me it was donated to sick children at the hospital, sandwich crust makes your hair shiny, every child has to get a perm…" Another wrote: "I learned at 11 they'd been lying about never smoking weed. I was irate, but at the same time impressed they'd managed to keep it a secret. My mom reasoned that she had indeed smoked a lot, but never actually *liked* it all that much, so it didn't count."

Of course, it took forever for me to find out that my parents were not married when I was born, making the tooth fairy stuff seem like no big deal. There are lies, and there are lies. Got any good ones?

14 Lies Parents Need to Stop Telling Their Kids (Part 1) [Strollerderby]

Remember that eating disorders are inherently an existential struggle over the very notion of free will.
You can worsen them, and you can encourage them, but you cannot singlehandedly instill them in your kids, nor can you prevent them. The coolest thing about my mom is that she kind of got this. Her reaction to my adolescent 800-calorie-a-day diet was one of concern but also, exasperation; she had specifically taken such great care to rear me on healthy food and ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION OF MY WEIGHT; I was not even at all overweight, and now, as my big display of free will and rebellion I'd chosen anorexia? She made it clear she thought it was fundamentally shallow, and intellectually, I agreed, but by that point I had almost given up on free will when it came to eating; food issues were just my DESTINY, my curse and fate and blah blah blah. Anyway, that was probably mostly depression. I didn't medicate it, but eventually I suppose it subsided, and my intellect took the wheel again, which was lucky.

With that in mind, ask yourself, are you shallow?
What do you most want for your kid? Happiness and some sort of fulfillment, right? People of all sizes achieve that! The negative correlation between happiness and excess pounds, such that it exists, is totally all in your head, as the field of duh studies has recently confirmed. So if your kids think they're fat, you need to chew on this question: does that have anything to do with you? (Chewing on said question, btw, is a good way to stop yourself from nagging your poor kid!) Like I said, are you shallow? If so, is that the trait you'd most like to pass onto our progeny? (Please, for the good of the country, answer "No.") Conversely, are you so dogmatically un-shallow that they think you just don't have any idea what sort of world world they're living in? That was sort of my problem. In the end it was a good one to have. It was like, hey, the one genetic advantage I have here is that my parents are bright people with strong moral values who don't give a shit how fat I get, except inasmuch as they know I don't exactly have health insurance.

Be honest and remember it's not a big deal.
Acting like a kid's chubbing out is a grave issue that must be discussed in hushed tones is probably not the best idea, especially if they have the sort of grandfather (mine) who will go up to them and play the "Pinch an inch" game. While the Pinch an Inch game is annoying, I never really doubted that my grandfather loved me. I think he just thought kids today spent too much time watching the idiot box and not enough playing elaborate war games in the woods. And he had a point! I asked my friend Don, a former fat kid, whether his mom (a personal idol of mine) had ever said anything to him about his weight, and he recalled a time one summer at the age of 13 when he was eating a piece of pizza while wearing a swimsuit and somehow the topic of his blubber came up. Laughing, she agreed, "Yeah, you really have to do something about that." A few years later, when he stopped eating meat, she worried she'd scarred him; but seriously, Don was picked on his entire childhood for being a fat kid, and she basically played it perfectly, choosing to encourage his positive traits (such as he is fucking hilarious) and accept that he was never going to be as physically attractive as she is. (She is, to be fair here, really pretty.)

Don recommends this movie.
It is, he says, his "Exile in Guyville."

Earlier: Sometimes A Parent's Words Can Bear The Weight Of The World

Image via Skip To My Lou

Both Bradley and Jonah are under the care of psychiatric professionals — Dr. Ken Zucker and Dr. Diane Ehrensaft, respectively. Zucker and Ehrensaft have conflicting theories on how best to deal with a transgender child. Zucker, based in Toronto, believes that boys like Bradley should be socialized as boys, even if they see themselves as girls. He reasons, "Suppose you were a clinician and a 4-year-old black kid came into your office and said he wanted to be white. Would you go with that? ... I don't think we would." Eherensaft, who works out of the Bay Area, sees Jonah's condition as clear cut case of transgender identity. "If we allow people to unfold and give them the freedom to be who they really are, we engender health. And if we try and constrict it, or bend the twig, we engender poor mental health," she tells NPR.

I know both sets of parents are just trying to do right by their children, but it's incredibly difficult to defend Zucker's point of view when you hear how unhappy Bradley is. Since his parents took away all his "girly" stuff, his mom says, Bradley "really struggles with the color pink. He really struggles with the color pink. He can't even really look at pink...He's like an addict. He's like, 'Mommy, don't take me there! Close my eyes! Cover my eyes! I can't see that stuff; it's all pink!'" Meanwhile, Jonah — now Jona — is thriving. According to her teacher, "Jonah is one of the most popular kids. Kids love her, they want to play with her, she's fun, and it's because she's so comfortable with herself that she makes other people comfortable."

Two Families Grapple with Sons' Gender Preferences [NPR]
Q&A Therapists On Gender Identity Issues In Kids [NPR]

"What I could find on this specific conversation is basically nothing," reported Jennifer Manlove, a senior research associate at Child Trends, a reliable source of data on children and adolescents.

"I was a friggin' dealer in ninth grade!" this woman remembered incredulously. That year, she recalled, she and a friend would buy a nickel bag of marijuana and smuggle it to her friend's bedroom. Under the bed was a shoebox of candy — also forbidden in her friend's household — and beside that was a second shoebox in which they would store the contraband. "We would roll joints and put them in Sucrets boxes and bring them to school and sell them for a dollar," she said. The point wasn't getting high — she doesn't remember doing that much — or even making money, but the crafts project aspect. "What was really fun was that we got really good at rolling them." She also remembered stealing. She and her friends took some costume jewelry from a department store and sorted through it at a table at Friendly's.

And she would be horrified — horrified! — if her kids did any of these things. She regrets any high school experimentation and doesn't want her children following in her footsteps. This surprised her sister, who doesn't have kids and so doesn't understand the radical change of perspective that comes with parenthood. "She thought I was going to be, like, this really cool parent: When you're ready to try [marijuana], I'll get it for you." Not hardly. It is your children who fully reform you.

The Secret Lives Of Moms [Washington Post]
Maternal Truths: The Online Transcript [Washington Post]

• The Perfectionist Mother — whose family must look perfect in every way
• The Unpredictable Mother- whose ups and downs can create lifelong anxiety and depression in her son or daughter
• The "Me First" Mother — whose children come second or last
• The "Best Friend" Mother — who's now in vogue but can wreak havoc
• The Complete Mother- who provides guidance and shows compassion to her child

• The Clueless Mom — who really believes you were "studying" when you come home with grass on your back and doesn't know what that pretty glass vase in your room is really for
• The Alarmist Mom — who thinks the desks at school might be made with carcinogenic materials and wonders if your moles are "growing" and assumes you're dead if you don't call exactly at 11p.m.
• The Mean Mom — who grounds you first, asks questions later. Hates your boyfriends, tells you you're going nowhere fast. New friends come over once and never again. Capable of withering plants with a single gaze.
• The Old-Country Mom — who was born elsewhere and uses you as an interpreter, ambassador and errand-runner. Understands more English than she lets on but pretends not to. Just wants you to marry a nice boy.
• The Stage Mom — who pushes you into fame but hates being left behind; wants to share (or steal) the spotlight. See: Lohan, Dina; Rocky.

How Your Mother's Emotional Legacy Impacts Your Life [EurekAlert]

Earlier: Being A "Cool" Mom Isn't Very Good For The Kids

Dodai: I just wanted to point out that their slogan is not a joke. It's very very real.

Dodai: The Editor's letter begins, "I am what I've coined a 'serial miserablist.'" I stopped reading after that.
Pamela: "Miserabilist," "nitpicking about my body," people with "an ugly core," "an attack of gastritis." Um, isn't this supposed to be a fun magazine about kiddie clothes?

Dodai: This swingset looks great, huh? It's all natural, made from white cedar. And it rings up at an affordable $21,850.
Pamela: Just what you need when the local playground is crawling with untold numbers of germs and the unwashed masses of neighborhood toddlers.

Dodai: $648 worth of furniture for kids never looked so depressing. To hell with the planet: Bring on the bright plastic chairs! Kidding. Sort of.
Pamela: The designer baby furniture world is still mired in mid-century modern, which seems so 2005 now. My favorite is the abstract, minimalist rocking horse, oddly not featured here. It looks more like an abdominizer than a toy.

Dodai: The stroller on the left is $400; the stroller on the right is $759. As far as I can tell, neither are guaranteed to keep a kid from screaming his head off in the grocery store.
Pamela: The one on the right has its own catalog, filled with photos of hipster parents and nary a child in sight. It's all about us.

Dodai: Really? Parents want their infants dressed like Rod Stewart's baby? Really?
Pamela: Is this child from Rod's third or fourth batch? Fifth?!

Dodai: Ah, child models. One can almost smell the ennui from here.
Pamela: I am fairly certain I spot eye shadow. To think I waited until 8th grade before breaking into Ultima II.

Dodai: The feature story, "A Perfect World," is an interview and photo shoot with covermommy Christine Costner and son Cayden. It is TEN PAGES LONG. If I'd had the patience to read it I'm sure I would have found it fascinating.
Pamela: Cayden, Aiden, Braydon, Jayden. Will and Jada, look what you started! Please make this whole trend go away.

Dodai: Then again, maybe not.
Pamela: In this hard-hitting feature, Costner is described as "not just any actor," but "one of the world's most respected thespians." (Insert Native American whooping sounds here)

Dodai: Wow, Asian kids!
Pamela: Oh, parenting magazines love Asian babies. It's only when they get older that editors seem to decide they're "not cute" any more.

Dodai: Black kid! Redhead kid! Baby Couture is officially more diverse than Vogue.
Pamela: Working our collective nostalgia for 1986 Benetton.

Dodai: Saucy minx. She's totally going to tell all the kids in the sandbox she's a model.
Pamela: They'll rip off that bunny necklace in a flash. It's probably laced with lead anyway.

Dodai: Okay, enough already. I've officially reached baby overload. No. More. Thanks.
Pamela: Please tell me why this baby is wearing a shower cap. Oh, it's a bonnet. Doesn't make it any better.

Baby Couture Magazine [Baby Couture]

Related: Parenting, Inc.: How We Are Sold on $800 Strollers, Fetal Education, Baby Sign Language, Sleeping Coaches, Toddler Couture, and Diaper Wipe Warmers — and What It Means for Our Children [Amazon]
Pamela Paul's Website [PamelaPaul.com]

"In its mild form, men often take to their bed in the week following the birth, complaining of everything from a stomach ache or migraine," claims Dr. Odent. "And in the most graphic example, one perfectly healthy man had his first experience of schizophrenia two days after watching his wife give birth. Was this his way of escaping reality?" Normally, such a statement would have us laughing so hard we'd be curled up into the fetal position but another article — this from the much-respected Guardian — is reporting that male postnatal depression is not only a reality, but a harbinger of future child behavioral problems. Certainly, the story — which comes out of a study at the University of Bristol — makes absolutely no correlation between paternal depression and childbirth, but we have a feeling that Dr. Odent will be taking this latest news and running with it all the way to the NHS maternity wards.

A Top Obstetrician On Why Men Should NEVER Be At The Birth Of Their Child [Daily Mail]
Male Postnatal Depression Affects Child Behaviour, Study Shows [Guardian]

Related: A Perilous Journey From Delivery Room To Bedroom [NY Times]

According to the Financial Times, there's a charity in the UK, Oxpip, devoted to helping parents in their relationship with their babies. Researchers believe that early relationships shape an infant's brain and nervous system; babies born to parents with attachment disorders often have emotional and mental health problems later in life. It's enough to make you wonder if you should just skip the mommy thing, especially if you're not naturally a "baby person."

I'm one of those people who doesn't just automatically like babies. I can recognize a cute baby when I see one (Zahara!), but I'm not "into" infants. (My sister, who is in veterinary school, is the same way, and has been known to declare: "I don't like baby humans.") I'm neither married nor at the point in my life where I'm seriously considering having kids, and the lukewarm (at best) feelings I have about babies make me wonder if I even want to have any. Ever. But saying so makes me feel vaguely guilty. Should a woman who is reluctant about motherhood have a baby anyway? And if you have a child and feel a sense of regret, are you a bad mother?

Women Who Aren't Cut Out For Motherhood [Times of London]
Welcome To The Nuthouse [Salon]
When The Magic Of Motherhood Is Missing [Financial Times]
Related: Oxford Parent Infant Project

I overreact to, well, everything. I have a direct line to the pediatrician, and he in turn has direct orders to his staff to field all my calls. He does not understand, either. Or perhaps he understands too well and simply cannot help or comfort me. Every cold my child catches is a potentially life-threatening situation. Every cut becomes blood poisoning; a stomachache, a burst appendix. My sample population of offspring is so small, my firsthand experience with childhood diseases so limited, it can be hard to know what is "normal."

One Is Not A Negative Number [Washington Post]

Anyway, this is one of those stories that purports to expose all the good-intentioned parents of the world for the clueless not-so-greatness of their intentions, but as it was written by a New York parent, it misses an important point, which is to say, the reason little kids feel guilty about lying to their parents is because they have no grasp of how much other little kids lie to their parents. So around eleven years old, once they discover how shitty other kids are — their first taste of moral relativism — they go on a little lying rampage, until around fourteen or fifteen, when they realize how shitty all their friends' parents are — their second taste of moral relativism. After that kids pretty much lie in accordance with some constantly changing perception of how relatively shitty their friends are, how shitty their friends' parents are, how shitty they think you are, and whether the differential in their friends' parents' real estate holdings and yours might suggest one set of parents is bigger suckers. In other words: don't raise your kids in New York. But if you're reading New York, you probably knew that already.

Are Kids Copying Parents When They Lie? [NY Mag]

Meanwhile, in the US, women who are the daughters of immigrants also make choices their parents just can't understand, according to an article in Newsweek. Katherine Chon's family arrived in New Hampshire from South Korea when Ms. Chon was 2 months old. Ms. Chon was premed at Brown when she decided to form the Polaris Project, now one of the largest anti-human-trafficking organizations in the country. "It was really hard for my parents," says Katherine, now 27. "They gave up a life in Korea; they were working 80 to 90 hours a week, and had so many life stresses so their children could get a great education and have a comfortable life."

Do children have a responsibility to fulfill the dreams of their parents? What if the parents risked their lives or made huge sacrifices to make sure the child had opportunities not afforded to the older generation? Or is your life yours, to do with as you please, no matter what your parents expect or had to go through?

Consider Irshad Manji, who was raised in Canada after her parents emigrated from Uganda during Idi Amin's crackdown on South Asians. Her mother is a devout, mosque-going Muslim. Ms. Manji is an openly gay broadcast journalist who wrote a book called The Trouble With Islam. "There are so many people who don't talk to me [because of the book]," Ms. Manji's mother, Mumtaz says. "But who cares? My daughter comes first."

Pursuing Happiness Behind The Veil [LA Times]
The New Generation Gap [Newsweek]

Adrienne and Matt Grayson named their son Luke Beckett Grayson and regretted it almost immediately. "I couldn't shut up about how we should call him Beckett instead of Luke, and I also started mourning my maiden name, Shaw," Adrienne says. "I thought I should've made that his middle name because we weren't going to have more kids." She wanted to change his name to Beckett Shaw Grayson, so she spent hours on the phone with the Social Security office. But when her son's new Social Security card arrived, it read "Shaw Luke Grayson." Whoops!

Experts say that for parents who want to change their children's names, it's best to get the child's input if he or she is older than 2. "By 2 or 3 they have a sense of identity, and it could send mixed messages," says Dr. Karla Umpierre. "The child might ask himself, 'Do you want to change me?'" On one hand, your name is a very important part of who you are; those involved in the naming process should be happy, and free to change or amend their choice at will. Hell, if they brought you into this world, they can call you whatever they damn please! But what kind of lesson does a kid whose name has been changed learn? That it's okay to waffle? That second-guessing yourself is normal? That picking something and sticking to it is overrated? Also, since we're not talking Apple and Audio here, aren't there bigger fish to fry? Isn't the difference between Emma and Caroline almost negligible when you consider that names like Banjo, Ryder and Rumer abound? (P.S. I was almost Nicole.)

Baby-Name Remorse — What Do You Do? [CNN]
Earlier: Anns Get As, Barbaras Get Bs, & Christinas Get Crap
What Makes A Name "Sexy"?
The Most Popular Baby Names Of 2007...
Jessicas Are All Pretty Bitches

While...simultaneously...trying to get hits for their blogs? Okay, something, whatever. Here's what we know about Steve Almond: he has spent a lot of time bemoaning the merciless, nuance-less unrelenting meanness of the blogosphere. He has spent a lot of time doing that because his editor alerted him to the fact that Gawker had posted a bizarre collection of emails he had written to Oprah. He wrote a book called Candyfreak. Full disclosure: I read Candyfreak because my old literary agent suggested I model my own book proposal on that book. Candyfreak was about candy. My book proposal was about capitalism. It's all the same shit, right? Packaging and cool fonts and satisfactillicious content? Cause we're all just tryin to get the hits? But wait, it can't just be about the hits? I mean, as you yourself wrote, Steve:

By appealing to our most childish impulses — and with the cowardly consent of the left — the right-wing of this country has managed to Gawk the political discourse. This is why matters of policy go uncovered, while gossip and gaffes and cleavage and haircuts and (most of all) emotionally convincing ad hominems determine the outcome of elections. If this country ever hopes to rouse itself from the moral torpor marked by the Bush years, we are going to have to end our addiction to Gawking, and face up to the common crises of state.

Boring Squared [Babble]
Why I'm No Longer A Fan Of Baby Daddy [Babble]

Q. My 6-year-old daughter is thriving in school, highly artistic and has lots of friends, as well as a strange idea. She stubbornly believes that blue-eyed blondes are the most beautiful people in the world.

I don't understand it. We don't talk much about physical beauty at home but we openly appreciate the differences in others; we give her inclusive books and nonwhite dolls; we avoid Barbie and Disney princess toys and we regularly tell her that she's beautiful (which she is). And still she tells me, "Before I was born, I was an angel, but of course in heaven I had blue eyes and yellow hair."

She not only wishes that she were blond, she frequently draws herself with blond hair and blue eyes and she prefers blond-haired dolls. She even describes people as having clear blue eyes, "solid" dark eyes or eyes that are surrounded by brown rings.

This has been going on since last summer and is increasingly painful to us. I am Caucasian with dark hair and eyes; my husband is Asian and our friends and family span the ethnic-racial spectrum, but we do live in an almost all-white suburb and she has many blondes in her class.

When we ask her why she thinks that blondes are best, she says, "They're the prettiest." When we ask her about her friends with dark hair and dark eyes, she says she likes her Asian friend because of all the things they do together, but she likes her blond friend "because we like to do things, and also because she has blue eyes and blond hair." I try not to show how much this upsets me, but I'm sure she's picked up on it.

I want my daughter to form her own beliefs, but I don't want her to think less of herself or of her own unique beauty.

A: Oh for god sakes, woman, this is a six-year-old you're talking about. Let me tell you a true story: I knew a little girl once who, on her sixth birthday, wished while blowing out the candles that there was no gravity. And breaking the solemn birthday wish vow of secrecy, she told her parents about it, which may be why they never took it particularly seriously when she refused to wear pants or shirts that buttoned in the front, eschewed her mother when she dyed her hair blonde, and drew princesses exclusively with black hair and blue eyes, the combination boasted by her idol Wonder Woman's Linda Carter. This little girl's two best friends were a Japanese girl and a Caucasian girl with blue eyes, but unbeknownst to anyone her secret wish was to somehow combine the two of them together through some feet of genetic engineering to create an Asian blue-eyed Wonder Woman. Ooooooh, genetic engineering — good idea for the seventh birthday wish...

Anyhow, before you die from all the suspense, that little girl was me. And maybe you're wondering if, possessing none of those traits — Asian skin, blue eyes, black hair — I suffered from poor self-esteem. I sure did! And thank the deities; as Roseanne Barr once said of self-esteem, it's the "goddamn root of all evil." Do you have any idea how fucked you'd be if your little Eurasian child knew how fucking drop-dead gorgeous she is? With values like the ones I had a six-year-old, it was a fucking great thing that I personally looked nothing like Betty Rubble or Nancy Kwan or any of my retarded six-year-old beauty ideals. I would have thought I was totally the shit.

Instead I would just stare off into space and imagine what it would be like to have thick black hair and smooth tan skin. Sometimes I would look like Jaclyn Smith, or this pretty Asian shopgirl I'd seen, my mom before the bitch dyed her hair, whatever...

The thing is, around six and a half or seven, the same mechanism starts to go haywire. Suddenly, the same imagination that concocted your daughter's past life as a spokesmodel for Hitler Youth will dare her to wonder what it would be like to be the panhandler or the amputee. If you really want to speed up this process, take her to a Third -World country, maybe even someplace where there are a lot of blue-eyed blondes, like the Ukraine. That can be her Christmas present! She'll never look at her emaciated Barbie dolls the same way!

Lynne Spears, what were you thinking? Or not thinking and not doing? Did you never sit down with either of your daughters—Britney, now just turned 26, and the divorced mother of two toddlers or Jamie Lynn, 16 and now three months pregnant—and give them The Talk?

And what kind of mother upon hearing the news that her 16-year-old daughter is knocked up, reacts by picking up the phone and negotiating to get her daughter's photo plastered on the cover of a magazine with a tell-all interview by the daughter and herself inside?

Is Lynne Spears An Even Worse Mother Than Britney? [Huffington Post]
Related: Dad "Devastated" By Jamie Lynn's Pregnancy [US]
Lynne Spears' Parenting Book [US]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Smaller babies more prone to depression, anxiety later on [EurekAlert!]

But even the wrong color can bring put-downs, Miss Gilker notes. When she wears pink, she says, "I get the snarky 'Nice clothes!' when people walk by in the halls."

2. Wait, Jesus Christ, Lourdes has her own stylist? Is this because Madonna looks back on all those pictures of everyone dressing the way she did in the Desperately Seeking Susan era and just shakes her head thinking, "Personal style. Now that was a dangerous idea."
3. Does anyone over the age of 20 seriously think school uniforms are a bad idea? Because I sometimes think they should make it a constitutional amendment. But then I think of how creepy and Hitler youth that would look in the history books fifty years later. But then I think, isn't that the idea behind the Abercrombie catalogs anyway?

Fashion Bullies Attack — In Middle School [WSJ]

Furthermore, the study reports that women, more than men, understand that having a baby isn't all fun and games: "Other studies have documented that men tend to experience pretty strong economic and social rewards from being a dad, whereas women experience more of the pressures and more of the demands of the immediate day-to-day reality of parenting and juggling work." Or as Dr. Irene Goldenberg, a psychologist at UCLA, puts it: "People [used to] say that women care more [about children]" whereas the reality is just that women know the costs more. [T]he smarter you are, the more you know about the costs."
Adds psychologist Barry Ginsberg: "For a man, the loss of having a family and carrying on the gene pool makes men helpless, because they can't give birth. [From an] evolutionary standpoint, men would go around impregnating all the women they could find." Conclusion? Women: Smart. Men: Horny.

Childlessness Bothers Men More Than Women [HealthScout]

Dominic Martinez, 33, has two sons, and was at both of their births. He says he wanted to be there for his wife, Fi. "There wasn't a time during her pregnancy when she asked whether I wanted to be at her side. Rightly, Fi just assumed that if she was going to go through it, so was I," he says. "I'll admit the nine hours Fi was in labor with Lawrence were hard to watch, but let's face it, it was tougher for her than me." The story also includes a quote from chef Gordon Ramsay, who missed the births of all four of his kids. Ramsey says attending a childbirth is like being "stuck in a room with a thousand skinned rabbits." (Uh, how would he know if he's never been?) But seriously, if a guy gets you knocked up, shouldn't he be there to witness what he's done?

Should You Be There When She Gives Birth? [Mirror]

It got worse as the girl costumes got older, as if every year in a girl's life means another inch of skirt above the knee. And it had me wondering. "Would anyone ever sell a Chippendale outfit for young boys? Would a parent ever buy one?"

Milk Magazine

Of course, that doesn't stop women from wanting their pre-pregnancy bodies back. And the number of women opting for "mommy makeovers" was up 11% last year. Additionally, some critics point out that packaging multiple procedures under a cutesy nickname could convince new moms to have additional operations (none of which they actually need), increasing risk of infection, and, of course, death. Some of the women — like Sharlotte Birkland, pictured above, aren't new mothers. Ms. Birkland, who recently remarried, has a son who is 20 years old. She got a breast implants, a tummy tuck and lipo. Regarding body image, she says, "I don't think it was an issue for my mother; your husband loved you no matter what." But, according to the article, Karen Murphy, a mother of four, bashed mommy surgery on the blog StrollerDerby:

"Those badges of motherhood have turned into badges of shame and, if you're the one caught without a tummy tuck, then you won't get invited to the party," she wrote. "It peeves me no end that something as drastic as surgery, as this blatant nonacceptance of one's own body in whatever shape it happens to be in, has become so pervasive."

Is The 'Mom Job' Really Necessary? [NY Times]

'I close my eyes and start to drift off and that's when they appear. Sometimes I hear them giggling from my cupboard or playing with Barbie at the end of my bed.' In the dream Jacqueline is happy, until she rushes to hug her children and finds them covered in blood. 'I tell them again and again, "I'm sorry Mummy wasn't brave enough to have you."'

Ok, the rest of this story is hard to read. It's all about women who have traumatic childhoods that are exacerbated by traumatic and painful childbirths and people equating childbirth with rape and violence and pretty much only serves to remind us why, despite our relentless hateration of our health care system, that drugs and C-sections exist. Also: suppressed memories. Which this story is very shortly about to become!

Hard Labor [Telegraph]

"We have a lot of long weeks in Washington and short days, not using the time well at all," said Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), who commutes home every weekend to Albuquerque.

One boasted that her daughter, when she was 11, could rattle off an explanation of the Medicare "doughnut hole."

When we were a kid, our parents gave us a dollar for memorizing the names of Supreme Court justices and that sort of shit, and look what's become of us. We had to Google "Medicare Dougnut Hole." And when we did we understood why. Our generation is going to have suuuuuuch worse problems than this. But take heart! Some congresslady's precocious eleven-year-old is going to be even worse off!!

Moms In The House, With Kids At Home [Washington Post]

Yet another reason for parents to feel guilty: Children who spend time in day care are more likely to be disruptive in school. [NY Times]

Parents' excessive worrying may be screwing up their kids as well. [WSJ]

Your Diet Coke addiction is screwing up your diet. [USA Today]

Bill Maher rants against purity balls during Friday's Real Time With Bill Maher. Plus, an adorable and mildly-horrified John Legend. [Feministing]

Two women in today's NY Times obituary section: Journalist Catherine Seipp, 49; dancer (and sister of Buddy) Vilma Ebsen, 96. [NY Times]

So, because we live in New York, where stroller antipathy is sort of, you know, compulsory, we always sort of assumed that parenting was for losers, because everyone we know who parents seems to have done it as a last resort after running out of self-generated ideas and experiences to blog about — basically, for material, at which point they've generally toked up/jerked off/gotten shitfaced so many times they even suck at fucking effectively, thus compounding their loserdom with a gross and mind-numbing amount of testicle-warming and cervical fluid checking. Luckily for you readers, we don't let a single item past our rigorous editing process that isn't stamped fair and balanced, so we found a parentless blogger — a childless parenting blogger, at that! — to IM-terview for his thoughts on porn, Neal Pollack, Princess Coldstare Leigh Lezark and whether hipsters like her have any business Procreating. And also, does it really cost a million dollars to raise a child? After the jump.

me: In the process of blogging to parents have you formed any conclusions about it?
for instance, city or suburb?
CHILDLESSPARENT: It's amazing to me how much appetite people have to both write and read about parenting
CHILDLESSPARENT: Someoene should do something with all the myspace profiles where people answer whether they plan to have kids or not
that's a good idea
me: In New York, who do you feel is outnumbered, the strollers or the haters?
CHILDLESSPARENT: not mutually exclusive!
me: Ah!
CHILDLESSPARENT: the city fortunately is ghettoized enough to keep the sides at bay
me: So just like women often hate other women
parents hate other parents? It makes sense
CHILDLESSPARENT: parents are the biggest haters of each other, read UrbanBaby boards
me: Right, I've HEARD of those.
Ok. What is the single nastiest thinkg you've experienced, as a parenting blogger? Surely, you've seen a few bloodbaths
Heard a lot of blood curdling screams
CHILDLESSPARENT: not here! in our world,e verything is civil.
we are peacemakers
me: who do you think are worse parents, hipsters? Politicians? David Brooks? or Madonna?
CHILDLESSPARENT: Well, politicians are freaks of nature and so is Madonna
me: and hipsters? they're kind of freaks too
CHILDLESSPARENT: well, the hipster thing is interesting
it's more benign
3:43 PM me: I mean, sometimes they tattoo entire limbs
CHILDLESSPARENT: the hipsters are doing the same thing that the rich do, that religious people do: they make their children vehicles for their own narcissism, but it's harmless
me: My question is, if you have 544 MySpace friends and a deejay night, do you have any business bringing a child into the world?
CHILDLESSPARENT: I think that's exaggerated
me: Right, so you agree with Brooks.
CHILDLESSPARENT: not exactly
see, Brooks is responding to a media-manufactured phenomenon
the "grups"
me: Do you really think they're media manufactured?
I mean, the media did not invent park slope.
CHILDLESSPARENT: the extreme version a la Pollack is invented: what's more common is that these new parents think they can hold onto a little of their former life and cred
park slope is not about dj nights and 544 myspace friends
me: That's true.
me: But those are tomorrow's procreators!
CHILDLESSPARENT: it's about cladding your kids in the hipster trappings
CHILDLESSPARENT: making them listen to trendy music
it's like ex-hippies who gave their kid a weird name and then settled into yuppie-dom
me: What I want to know is, is all this going to beget a generation that is MORE NARCISSISTIC THAN THE CURRENT GENERATION? Is that even possible?
CHILDLESSPARENT: no usually these things bounce back
anarchists breed bankers
kids are reasonably self-correcting
me: So we should encourage the Madonnas and Rudys andJohn Timoneys and Princess Coldstares to go out there and make sweet unprotected love?
CHILDLESSPARENT: not them, they're freaks. it's not generational though
Princess Coldstare shouldn't breed
me: hahaah you just don't want her to stretch out
CHILDLESSPARENT: you have to be able to bond with your kid and if you're too much of a narcissist, it's all about you
me: I only said that because we're not live, btw
CHILDLESSPARENT: watch the annoying names they give their kids
3:49 PM me: How do you feel about our favorite greatest american writer?
think he's a narcissist, at all?
CHILDLESSPARENT:pollack? yeah he's obvs a narcissist. parenting brings out everyone's narcissism but most people discharge it through harmless means
a funny name
a trendy outfit
the right school
the right stroller
me: Have you ever seen any of these hipster parenting bloggers IN ACTION?
CHILDLESSPARENT: I met Laid Off Dad, he's cool
a teacher in real life
not laid off strictly speaking
me: oooooh, he's a "complete geek for march madness"!
CHILDLESSPARENT: Here's the deal: New York Magazine created this character (not too different from Pollack) of the uber-hipster parent who picks their kids' playlists off Pitchfork, still go to the clubs, etc.
it's a fiction except for a few public examples, that's why it was funny when Brooks went postal on them
me: so you are saying that brooks was feeding into a stereotype that is not even based on reality?
CHILDLESSPARENT: there's some reality but it's very exaggerated
me: He was probably just sick of the stories
like, the way I am sick of stories about chick lit authors who can't stand the color pink
CHILDLESSPARENT: the whole look-at-me parenting movement is narcissistic, you don't have to be a hipster from Brooklyn
you can be a momblogger from Houston
me: I think there are a lot of people like that on the UES i think
CHILDLESSPARENT: exactly
look, the yuppie parents of yore were just as annoying and just as narcissistic
they need their kids to validate how cool they are
parents aren't intrinsically losers, but there are a lot of losers and many become parents
what happens is: many people get overwhelmed by the stresses of being a parent, they try to one-up each other by being cooler-than-thou
they can't maintain their old life with DJ nights or whatever, so the