Tag Archives: Parenting

Mommie Dearest: Reality TV Producers Have Come Knocking At My Door

Avital Norman NathmanFebruary 19, 2013 //
"Girls" Reality Show
Reality TV producers want to film a real-life "Girls." Read More »
Reality's Evil Sidekicks
Meet the most evil sidekicks of reality TV. Read More »
UK's Reality TV
4 reasons why reality TV is better in the UK than the U.S. Read More »

I recently received an email from a talent agent who is working with a production company specializing in reality television. This particular company, which has produced a number of popular (and apparently award-winning) reality shows, is looking to turn their lens on families. They reached out to me as a potential subject.

The talent agent started his email by complimenting my writing and said he enjoys following my work. Flattery will get you nowhere everywhere. He suggested that this opportunity might be a way to share my “expertise and insight” with a larger audience. He provided a few more details, then invited my to set up a time to have an on camera interview with them to see if it was a good fit.

And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the slightest bit tempted. Keep reading »

The Soapbox: In Defense Of Older Mothers

Caren LissnerFebruary 15, 2013 //
Soapbox: Mommy Wars
Calling a ceasefire on the mommy wars, because it helps no one. Read More »
Mommie Dearest...
The year in motherhood headlines. Read More »
Soapbox: Having It All
This "having it all" crap needs to stop. Read More »

Magazines seem to love writing about women’s choices, particularly if they can inspire readers to conclude that we’re making the wrong ones. Just before the new year, a much-talked about New Republic cover story focused on women and men becoming parents at an older age. The piece was written by an author who is herself an older mother and was concerned about a steady increase in birth defects and autism in recent years, although it’s been difficult so far to prove a direct correlation. Meanwhile, one of Boston Magazine’s cover stories that same month was about a growing breed of women who believed that it’s okay to have an “occasional” drink while pregnant.  Yes, that was the language — “occasional” 00 yet the subject was so provocative that it warranted top billing. Let’s not forget the May Time cover of the woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son (she didn’t appear to be drinking wine at the time). Soon after came the story in The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter that blared: “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” (The Atlantic has published at least three stories since 1995 about women facing diminishing marriage and pregnancy prospects if they wait; one of the most famous such pieces, “Marry Him,” from 2008, urged women to settle for “Mr. Good Enough” rather than waiting to have babies.)

It isn’t these stories themselves that are frustrating as much as the fact that they appear to blame women for waiting to have children – as if it’s impossible to fathom that they didn’t find decent or willing men to date at the right time. Some of the stories blame the feminist movement, as if having more freedom is simply so confounding to women that they just can’t figure out what to do with themselves. There’s a wide swath of people in this country who appear to resent the idea of women having leeway in making life choices, and hope we’ll get our comeuppance if we don’t marry the first person who holds a door for us. Keep reading »

Australian Officials Take Germophobia Too Far, Try To Ban Kids From Blowing Out Birthday Candles

Ami AngelowiczFebruary 10, 2013 //
Pot Mom
This mom smokes pot. Read More »
We Want Grandkids!
egg freezing photo
Parents are paying to freeze their adult daughters' eggs. Read More »
Breaking Up: 30 Kids
That's just too many kids. Read More »
Those Scary Germs

Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is going to extreme measures to prevent the spread of germs amongst children. The council has set forth some stringent, new guidelines for birthday cake etiquette at daycare centers: “Children love to blow out their candles while their friends are singing ‘Happy birthday … To prevent the spread of germs when the child blows out the candles, parents should either provide a separate cupcake, with a candle if they wish, for the birthday child and enough cupcakes for all the other children,” states the NHMRC document. Keep reading »

Mayim Bialik’s Son Has Quit The Tit!

Amelia McDonell-ParryFebruary 9, 2013 //
Celeb Attachment Parents
These eight celeb moms practice AP and are proud of it! 8 Photos »
On Attachment Parenting
One woman's opinion about attachment parenting. Read More »
Breastfeeding Celebs
These famous moms know breast is best! 12 Photos »
QUOTABLE

“Well, nay-sayers, prepare to be proven wrong. All of you snarky mamas who glared at me nursing my 3 1/2-year-old on the NYC subway, prepare to be amazed. And to all of my family and friends who wanted to chastise me about nursing a walking, talking, thinking, laughing little man named Fred, thanks for holding your tongues. Because we did it. Fred isn’t going to nurse on his way down the wedding aisle or at his high school graduation. I didn’t need to break him of a ‘habit’ and teach him ‘who’s in charge.’ I didn’t need to set boundaries you thought I should have set when I didn’t want to set them. Because we did it: Fred weaned.”

– The actress formerly known as Blossom, Mayim Bialik had some big news to share with the readers of her blog on the Jewish parenting site Kveller – her nearly four-year-old son has finally quit the tit! Bialik is one of the more well-known “attachment parents” in Hollywood and refused to be shamed by those who thought it was strange that she was still breastfeeding a toddler. Though I don’t know that I would want to breastfeed my kid for that long (what about the teeth?!), I admire Mayim’s commitment to parenting the way she thinks is best for her family, regardless of what society thinks. I wonder if she’s a little relieved though. [Us Weekly]

Girl Talk: My Parents Are Threatening To Move Away If I Don’t Give Them A Grandchild

Amanda ChatelFebruary 7, 2013 //
Broken Biological Clock
Some biological clocks just don't tick. Read More »
Soapbox: No Kids
Women writers without kids understand human emotions, too. Read More »
Marriage Pressure
She feels pressured to either get married or break up. Read More »

My sister is the good daughter. My sister was kind enough to get married and procreate. She’s not only doing the species a favor, but my parents as well. My parents had always wanted to be grandparents to a couple of rascals. My sister gave them two: Jackson and Elliot. My parents are obsessed with them.

Just as it was when my sister and I were little, there’s nothing in the world my parents won’t do for Jackson and Elliot. My mother has completely re-centered her life around them and refuses to miss a holiday or birthday. I spent Christmas on the couch by myself, while my mom catered to my sister’s kids every whim in Colorado. “That was the choice you made,” my mother said. I’m not sure what choice she’s talking about — the one where I decided to move to New York City to pursue writing, or the one where I thought going to Colorado for Christmas would be the pits. We both hung up on each other before we could get into a lengthy discussion and ruin the holiday even more. Besides, being on the phone with me was tearing her away from the grandkids, and we can’t have that, can we?

Groan. Keep reading »

The Soapbox: I’m A Mom Who Smokes Pot

AnonymousFebruary 6, 2013 //
18 Celebrity Potheads
We know, Woody, we know. Read More »
Rihanna's A Stoner
A Photographic Review Of Rihanna's 777 Tour
Rihanna just loves to tweet about her affection for pot. Read More »
Frisky Parenting!
twins
All the posts The Frisky has ever done about parenting! Read More »

“So, this is kind of a random question…”

I nodded my head at the man across from me. I was in the kitchen of a fellow parent from my child’s school. I had come to pick my son up from a playdate, and found myself hanging around making small talk while the kids finished up playing. Between multiple playdates and a few shared meals, we had become friendly with this family and had reached the level of Facebook friends and random text exchanges. I was curious what his random question could entail.

“Do you … well … do you know where I could get some pot?” Keep reading »

The Soapbox: What Calorie-Obsessed Vogue Diet Mom Dara-Lynn Weiss Ignores In Her Memoir The Heavy

Rachel Kramer BusselJanuary 17, 2013 //
Weight Talk
One writer is sick of talking to women about weight. Read More »
Former Fat Kid Responds
...to the Vogue mom who put her 7yo daughter on a diet. Read More »
Open Letter To The Fat Girl
Winona pens an open letter to the fat girl. Read More »

Dara-Lynn Weiss, the woman who became infamous for writing in Vogue about putting her daughter on a diet, wants it both ways: she repeats over and over in her new memoir The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet, how much she loves every inch of her daughter, including her pesky belly, but then painstakingly details the lengths she went to in order to shrink it. That dichotomy surely wasn’t lost on her daughter, and there’s no telling how that will affect her in later years. Weiss’s attitude is that she had to take extreme measures to combat the extreme problem of childhood obesity, but it’s the very extremity that concerned me. I felt anxious reading it as Weiss panicked and seemed completely consumed by this project when her four foot four, 93-pound daughter was pronounced obese by her pediatrician. Keep reading »

“Diet Mom” Dara-Lynn Weiss Attempts To Justify Putting Her Dieting Daughter In The Pages Of Vogue

Julie GersteinJanuary 16, 2013 //
Open Letter To Diet Mom
A former fat kid responds to Vogue writer Dara-Lynn Weiss Read More »
Diets are depressing
That's what science says! And science is always right! Read More »
Ginnifer On Dieting
The actress says she has been dieting since she was nine. Read More »
QUOTABLE

“I understand the desire to make a child feel beautiful at any weight. I truly advocate for size acceptance. The culture of body image upsets me and has tortured me personally. I do think we should be able to be different sizes but I draw the line at when it starts affecting her health.”

– Dara-Lynn Weiss, who was ostracized after she published an article in Vogue all about putting her seven-year-old daughter Bea on a diet. Weiss has a new book out, titled The Heavy, which expands upon that article. Here, she attempts to explain why she put her child on a diet. Elsewhere in the NYMag.com interview, Weiss notes that she was afraid of giving her daughter a complex because of her own discomfort with food. But she also painstakingly explains that the Vogue photos were misleading, because they don’t show Bea’s midsection, and how fat she really is. UGH.

If nothing else, this interview — which focuses heavily on Weiss’s own body issues — sheds light on the vicious cycle of body image problems that mothers pass down to children.  Will you give The Heavy a read? [NYMag.com]

The Soapbox: On Steubenville High School & Teaching Boys Not To Rape

Avital Norman NathmanJanuary 3, 2013 //
Watch The Video
Steubenville High students laugh about recent rape. Read More »
steubenville rape case
hacktivist
Hacktivists threaten to release personal information of alleged rapists. Read More »
Wishes Of Rape
Why wishing rape upon rapists is not OK. Read More »

My son turns six next week, and among all the other wishes I have for him, I have a silent hope that won’t be shared at his birthday party. It’s one that swims in the depths of my mind, surfacing occasionally when awful things happen that force me to think about it: I wish and hope and pray that my son won’t grow up to be a rapist.

I know that sounds horrible and not a wish a mother of a six year old should even have in the back of her mind, let alone flashing loud and red and painful throughout it. But I can’t help it. We live in a society that is steeped in rape culture, no matter how many people refuse to acknowledge that reality. My worry was driven home more forcefully after watching a video that Anonymous posted online of Steubenville High School students talking about the rape of a 16-year-old fellow student. This case is heartbreaking enough — the victim was sexually assaulted while drunk and unconscious, only to have the photographic proof of her rape spread all over various social media outlets. Her attackers, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, two football players for the high school’s team The Big Red, were let off relatively lightly, subjected to being under house arrest. However, the victim was also punished, forbidden by the judge in the case from sharing any details of the case, essentially re-victimizing her. Keep reading »

Girl Talk: Motherhood & The Tragedy At Sandy Hook Elementary

Catherine ZuckermanDecember 21, 2012 //
On Motherhood
Why are we treating moms like second class citizens? Read More »
Fearing Guns
How a gun-loving West Texas girl learned to fear assault weapons. Read More »
On The Newtown Massacre
Thoughts from a woman who went through a violent attack at her school. Read More »

I am not a mother. This fact has kept me from expressing my heartbreak over the shootings in Sandy Hook. In the aftermath of this horrifying event, I’ve watched countless friends — mothers, all of them — post wrenching status updates on Facebook. I’ve read them, feeling oddly ashamed inside. These moms talked of compassion for those poor little children, of the need to step up to the plate as adults, of the fear they have for the future, of roiling anger toward the government, and of utter helplessness. They posted pictures of the beautiful young faces lost to this insane tragedy. They urged others to take a stand, and to hold their own children close.

The same thoughts streamed through my head. Tears welled in my eyes, too. I texted my siblings and begged them to hug and kiss their little ones for me.

But something was silencing the part of me that wanted to join these moms in their outrage. I felt it wasn’t my place. How could I know, after all, what kind of fear these parents were expressing? How could I possibly relate to their protective instincts? I am not a mother. Keep reading »

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