Cross-posted at MotherTalkers.
Hello fellow moms, dads and caregivers!
As I mentioned in our premiere diary last week, I am the mother of two and moderator of an online parenting community called MotherTalkers. We are also a DKos community and occasionally try to cross-post diaries here.
But as you can imagine, a random parenting topic here or there can easily get lost in all the discussion of electoral politics. Don't get me wrong, we love and discuss politics, too! But we are hoping to dedicate a diary at least one morning a week here to all things parenting whether it be education, "life balance," childhood development, caregiving and other resources we can share with one another.
Here are some topics we recently discussed at MotherTalkers:
In case you missed it, our fearless Kos is contributing stories from a father's perspective. This week he wrote about the now debunked connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. Of course, there are still parents out there nervous about vaccinating their children for a variety of reasons. Check out this yahoo group, in which parents are intentionally seeking to expose their children to chicken pox for natural immunization.
Kos also wrote about a baby's sixth sense. The ghost stories shared by the community were beautiful -- and spooky.
Also, we talked about the commercialization of the Scholastic Book Fair. A third of the items for sale are either not books or books packaged with toys, according to Katy Farber over at the Non-Toxic Kids blog. Exurban Mom, another one of our moms, had a hard-hitting diary on it. I, too, have been astounded at the number of "junk books" at my son's school's Scholastic Book Fair. Last year, I walked away with my fair share of Spider Man and Star Wars cartoon books. But I also made sure to mix them up with more educationally sound books like those by Eric Carle.
For some celebrity gossip -- yes, this is what it has become -- we discussed the train wreck that is Nadya Suleman, the Angelina Jolie-look-alike mom of six who conceived octuplets via IVF, giving her a total of 14 children. The consensus, at least on our site, seems to be that this woman is not well and is now WAY over her head trying to provide for these children. Like everyone else, I vow to stop reading any more Suleman/octuplet stories, yet, when she is on TV or there is yet another online story, I can't. help. myself. Ugh! Why can't we stay away from this story?
What else is on your mind?