Seeking funny stories of the most bizarre/trivial reasons for a toddler tantrum...

Someday your friends will find this: Toddlers in Love

(It should be noted that I originally pitched this for their "bad parent" column and thought I was writing it for that, so my concerns are probably a bit overstated. Also, I wrote it several months ago and Babble decided to hold it for V-day. Those of you know know them will be able to tell it's a bit out of date.)

I just posted one side of a point-counterpoint debate over on Babble.com.

My "side" is I Don't Care If My Daughter Has Sex as a Teen.

I expected to be vilified and hung in effigy by my toenails. I wasn't. At least not yet. Maybe Morality in the Media will find it. But so far, in fact I've gotten an overwhelmingly positive response.

What's particularly interesting to me is that the commenters are not just saying they agree with me, but thanking me profusely for being willing to say it. Guess I hit a nerve. (It is worth noting that most of these are regular Babble commenters, not people who came to the post because they were searching on "sex" or something.)

I also think it's pretty neat that the opposing view is not a religious, pro-abstinence ed, anti-sex one, but rather a more moderate "I think it would be better for their self-esteem to wait" point of view. I still disagree with her, but I think it's pretty neat to be able to have an exchange like this one, where the center is shifted so far away from the anti-sex extreme that's usually assumed to be the starting point.

For a blog post, I'm collecting examples of funny/embarrassing/obscure ways verbal kids who nurse ask to do so. It will be lighthearted, but in a pro-extended-breastfeeding way. What have your kids (or others you've known) come up with?

Also, here's a round up of some of my recent Babble posts.

• 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms (Thanks to everyone who responded when I was gathering info on this long ago. Sadly it didn't make it into a full-fledged article.)
• Woman Induces to Beat Health Insurance Cancellation Date, Fails
• Pre-Term Elective C-Sections Are Dangerous: So Why Insure Them?
• The Problem with "Orgasmic Birth"
• Police Called on 10-Year-Old Riding Train Alone

One of my latest at Strollerderby is 10 Ways to Celebrate Christmas—Not Commerce:


Also fairly recently:

• Today Show Says: Doulas Get in the Way led to a surprisingly (to me) emotional comments section.
• I was interested, but not surprised, to get so many comments on Should Dads Cosleep? and They Say: Cosleeping Doesn't Cause SIDS.
• I gave a try at grabbing one of those sad and voyeuristic stories I kind of wish my fellow bloggers would lay off of before someone else claimed it and tried to put some kind of meaningful spin on it. It might have been a reach.

You make a blog post of course. Not that I'm complaining. I generally enjoy weddings and seeing people I care about be happy.

But hey, when you see that many of something in quick succession, you start to want to identify trends and patterns. So, building mostly off of the things my newly married friends and family did right, here's Six Steps to a Parent-Friendly Wedding.

It's been many months in coming, as I tried to juggle it in among other projects, but I finally finished my Metroland article on the state Office of Children and Family Services' creepy "Babies Sleep Safest Alone" campaign. The (very) short version, links for more info, and probably before too long, the conversation/debate, are all over at Strollerderby. Please weigh in.

Thanks much to Marshall for the voice mail message that started me looking into this, and to all the people who spoke with me, reviewed drafts, or put up with my ranting on the subject along the way.

Thanks to everyone who voted in and commented on my poll!

Now you can continue the conversation over at the post I made about it at Strollerderby.

Yell at me for my lukewarm feelings about "vagina" (and my argument that it's hardly "medically accurate" for this use). Debate the benefits of the gender neutrality of "private parts." Laugh at me for using phrases like "the c word." Tell me I'm either a cop out or too provocative for my final conclusion (depending on which part you decide is my final conclusion). Have fun.

Poll #1264913
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

Which of the following words would you consider using with your daughter to describe her genitalia?

What should be added to that list?

What are your favorites and least favorites and why?

Many things have kept me from posting here recently, including harvest season, getting around to some house-related projects, and work stress. Also, for better or worse, the fact that I've started blogging over at the parenting group blog Strollerderby. I don't think you can get an RSS feed of just one blogger, but if you're interested in just my posts (which I don't assume), you can always see the recent ones listed on my profile.

If you do find things I've written there you like, I humbly asked you to employ whatever social sorting sites you use (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.) to share/promote them. It'll make it much more viable for me to keep doing this.

On that note, today I actually have a post that is a little more than just the usual commentary—as far as I can tell it makes a new point about McCain's health insurance tax credits that hasn't been made before. It's a little one, but I like to think it's an good addition to the pile of examples of both the Republicans' lack of understanding of economic issues (and math) and the hypocrisy of their "pro-family" positioning. If you think so too, pass it around?

Other recent posts:

• What Does It Mean for Midwives, or Home Birth, to Be Illegal?
  With the recent conviction of two Florida women for practicing "illegal midwifery" in a case...
• Australia Looks to Midwives to Handle Baby Boom
  Apparently birth rates are booming down under, and to handle the demand, Australia's federal government...
• Are More Pregnant Women Suddenly Starving Themselves?
  A blogger over at self-improvement site PeopleJam is warning us about a new buzzword, "pregorexia...
• Step on a Crack, Updated
  If "step on a crack, break your mother's back" was feeling a little too simple for you...
• Tell Dr. Phil About Your Home Birth—If You Dare
  Dr. Phil is seeking home birth stories . But not just any home birth stories. He wants just the bad ones...

Since I posted his first letter and my response, I thought it only fair to post John's surprisingly friendly and accommodating, if somewhat missing the point on how term redefining tends to work, response to me.
----

Thanks Miriam,

I tend to be a bit conservative in my views. However the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance goes way, way too far, in my view. 

I mean no disrespect to loving couples, triples, etc. Words are redefined every day. So are laws. What used to mean happy (i.e. "gay"), now means homosexual. What used to be bigamy is now called "three way marriage." This is our life. 

Despite the fact that I've never been published, I'd like to redefine the term "Nobel-prize winning author" so that it applies to me. In this sense, I look forward to this sort of language engineering. Come to think of it, I could also be a "top-grossing CEO", a "billionaire philanthropist", etc. 

You are certainly a talented writer. Your forthright and open style is very refreshing. 

Best wishes on your personal and professional endeavors.

Regards,

John

The content won't be new to many of you, but as part of the publicity for the big ole report I was working on forever, I've posted something on EquityBlog about what I like about living in a small city...
I also forgot to post my last column, in which I came back to the topic of gender assumptions about children, which I hadn't really written about since I was pregnant.  Footnote: trying to walk our talk, this week we let Nadia choose the bike helmet festooned with pigs riding ATVs. Ah.

A little slice of my reading for the day...

From Steered Wrong [emphasis mine]

"People with weaker credit scores naturally pay more for mortgages than people with strong scores.
However, it is very difficult for borrowers with weaker credit or less experience in financial matters
to know precisely how much more is appropriate, especially since, unlike prime rates, subprime rates
are not generally publicly available. In addition, subprime loans tend to be much more complex
than the fixed-rate mortgages that have long dominated the prime market, making their costs more
difficult for borrowers to compare. . .

Not only do brokers have strong incentives to charge more per loan when this option is available
with subprime borrowers, but they also have specific mechanisms available in subprime loans that
facilitate overcharging: yield-spread premiums (YSPs) and prepayment penalties. A YSP is an
extra payment that brokers receive from lenders for delivering a mortgage with a higher interest
rate than that for which the borrower qualifies. In the subprime market, lenders usually will pay
the maximum YSP only if a loan contains a prepayment penalty. The penalty ensures that the
lender will recoup their YSP payment either through excess interest collected over time or from the
penalty fee, should a borrower refinance to avoid those interest costs.

Our findings are consistent with previous research indicating that brokers tend to steer subprime
borrowers towards higher-cost loans even if these borrowers qualify for lower-cost loans. Yet, people
who employ a mortgage broker often mistakenly assume that the broker is working for them to find
the most affordable loans that will support sustainable homeownership. The results in this report
demonstrate that, too often, this is not the case for subprime borrowers. The common misperception
by consumers is understandable given that, until the explosive growth of the subprime market,
lenders generally would not approve mortgages unless they had substantial evidence that the loan
was affordable and sustainable. Home buyers and homeowners therefore have trusted their brokers
as mortgage professionals to help them choose a suitable loan. This misplaced trust likely has been
a factor in the current foreclosure crisis, as people who were trying to achieve homeownership or
accrue savings through refinancing were given overpriced or unaffordable loans."

Among the many results of all this broker evilness: $202 billion worth of lost equity for the rest of us (or $356 billion depend who you ask). Unless someone wants to actually pony up enough upfront to stanch the bleeding. Joy. Can I go back to weeding my garden now?

At least North Carolina is poised to ban yield-spread premiums. Go them.

As Robin said, "Everyone should get an ego trip for their birthday." Along with a splendidly relaxing, tasty and fun day that involved foot rubs, pancakes, brownies, friends taking Nadia for most of the morning, a custom-made shirt with knotweed on it (awesome!), and fireworks without having to drive anywhere, a post of mine on Rooflines (the community development/housing/planning/urban issues group blog I joined a couple months ago) got picked up in a very complementary way by another blogger on nationally focused site. Since it was a potentially controversial topic already causing a lot of stir, it was nice to see someone thought I had something to add to the conversation.

I haven't been cross-posting my Rooflines stuff here, but if you're interested, I've been posting about once a week, usually on Thursdays.

When I was on staff at Metroland I used to get questions like that all the time. While there is worthy conversation to be had about our society's tendency to define news as negative things, it's also true that setting out to write something vague and "good" about a particular topic without having what we call a "hook" that will interest the reader and tell them something unexpected tends to result in a fluffy piece that no one but the subjects and PR directors care about. It also makes it seem like you're reaching to say something good about the schools, which can backfire.

But I do like writing "positive" stories when a good one presents itself. So when I took a whim to attend the second night of the Albany High Promising Playwrights festival back in February, and was blown away by the much much higher quality of the writing than I had expected (I'm being honest here), I figured there was an article in there. There was.

It's Metroland's cover today, and the second half of the Promising Playwrights festival (stage readings/readings of one-acts) is tonight and tomorrow, 7pm, $5. I'm going tonight at least. Anyone want to come along?

It's always the tossed in fact at the end that you neglect to thoroughly fact-check. So while I went back to my sources to check exactly what the abstinence failing 88% of the time statistic was referring to, I managed to miss that last year New York *did* join the list of states rejecting abstinence-only federal funds. I looked up several stories on those rejections, but apparently none had a complete list.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Anyhow, now you know. And, as the person writing to me pointed out, this means the Health Teens Act and its funding is even more important, because there's no federal funding coming in.

So, welcome to Rooflines, courtesy of the National Housing Institute.

My first post is entitled, grandiosely, Preparing for Peak Oil: Nutty Survivalism or Crucial Equity Issue?

I have committed to posting on Thursdays, and I might well post more often. (Though I probably shouldn't if I know what's good for my work life.)

If you're interested in affordable housing, community organizing, urban planning, social justice, etc., check it out. There are already some interesting conversations getting started. (RSS feed was up and running this morning.)

like, in December, I was writing this article on Columbia University's expansion plans for the Manhattanville neighborhood, and how eminent domain figured in the fight over the plans.

Being that it was for a quarterly, which was then redesigning its website (and you know that always takes longer than planned), the article's only recently gone online. It's probably somewhat out of date, but for those who might be interested, here it is.

I realize I'm not cutting edge here or anything, but I just participated in my first "webinar," on eminent domain reform. (platform: Elluminate) It worked quite a bit better than I expected, rather nicer than the interface for the one e-class I took. Submitting questions to a queue via chat, and being able to post your own answers individually to others while the presenters were talking was nice.

In terms of ease of joining a group and being able to hear everyone, it was soooooo much nicer than a conference call, and especially nicer than trying to sit in on a real-space meeting by speaker phone (which is only slightly this side of utterly pointless). I guess it would have been awkward for a real back-and-forth conversation, but it's something I would do again.

As many of you know, I'm not much of a hot weather person. I've gotten better in recent years at consciously making a transition to being OK with heat during normal activities. But working at home adds another layer: the laptop generates heat, right underneath my wrists. If I leave my desk, it also radiates heat into my lap. This is just miserable.

I want to keep our air conditioning use down to a minimum. I want to not be miserable.

Thinking about this, it occurred to me that as I work for myself, I'm at least somewhat in charge of my own schedule. What if I decided to get up really early, when it's cooler, and then take a siesta? It would be easiest to just nap with Nadia, which would have the added advantage of giving Rebecca some time when she could leave the house without baby in tow. It would be a little earlier than the peak heat of the day, but it would be something.

Has anyone done this? How hard do you think it would be to shift sleep patterns like this? Is it a stupid idea for someone with history of insomnia to try to fall asleep twice a day? Many questions...

I don't need to overprocess this, really. I mostly just think it's a cool idea and am curious if anyone does it seasonally. Maybe I'll try it.

There are other less interesting solutions, of course. I can plug a separate keyboard into my laptop and set it on a stand, or work on the desktop we got from Jake.