Since we are a bunch of geeks in this house, we had our tickets for the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire lined up well in advance. I bought four tix, intending to go with my husband (Jay Allen, whom you know from these pages), my oldest daughter, Meg, who is 20, and my second oldest, Neve, who at 8 1/2 is a HUGE Harry Potter fan.

We did have some misgivings about the PG-13 rating, but we know what Neve can handle pretty well so felt comfortable bringing her. Jax, who is six, and Veda, who is four, wanted to go as well, but we vetoed that until I could see the film and judge the scary factor for myself. I was actually surprised at how many people came out to the opening night with sleepy little ones in tow.

Continue reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Too scary for kids?

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wants to keep religion and ideology out of your kids' sex education classes. The ACLU announced on Wednesday the launch of a nationwide call-to-action, Not in My State. ACLU affiliates in 18 states are sending letters to local officials asking that federally-funded sex education curricula with abstinence-only curricula be pulled from classrooms. Officials are being asked to select only materials that teach medically-accurate information unbiased by religious views or ideologies.

Continue reading Sex ed classes should be religion-free, says ACLU

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Down in Australia, the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) blames social isolation, along with other factors including poverty, inadequate services and substance abuse, for the increase in child abuse rates, which have doubled there over the past five years.  NAPCANs state president, Pat Jewell, also blamed the increase in working parents on the disintegration of community.

I can see NAPCANs point - after all, these are no longer the days when you can trust the village to help keep your child safe. When my mom was growing up, all the women in the neighborhood kept an eye out, and you couldn't spit on the sidewalk without your mother hearing about it two minutes later. These days, in many communities, people don't even know their neighbors. But is that a result of "working parents", or something else? People have always worked, even back when we all lived in villages. So what is it about today's society that's so much more isolating?

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A teenage mom from Louisiana who was evacuated to San Diego will be reunited with her one-year-old son, who had been taken to Arkansas with his grandmother before Hurricane Katrina hit.

I can't even imagine how hard it's been for this young mother to be away from her baby while also dealing with the trauma of surviving one of the worst national disasters in our history. Thankfully, Brandy Johnson had the good sense to send her baby out of Louisiana as a precaution, or this might have been a tragic tale instead of a story of a happy reunion.

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When I took Neve to see Bad News Bears the other day, there was a huge display at the theater advertising the Firefly Mobile Phone for kids (pictured, right). My gut reaction was a cacophony of mixed emotions.

Remember that scene from Animal House when the guy had the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, arguing back and forth? Picture that, but with animated cell phones - one white with angel wings and halo, one red with little devil horns and pitchfork. I'll leave it to you to determine which was which: 

Continue reading Nader group attacks kiddie cell phones

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A couple of days ago, I posted a news item about a woman who sold her baby. I made an aside at the end of the post, that was intended not as a flippant remark about legal adoption, but as a "discussion starter". We do that a lot around here - at Blogging Baby we aren't trying to just be a news clipping service, but to provide you with interesting, original content, and to engage you, our readers in discussion.

Some readers were offended by that remark, and lambasted me in the comments for it. I reacted defensively, and posted an economic analogy in the comments that really set things on fire. I was trying to raise a point about another user's comments, and compared the exchange of money for value in an adoption to the exchange of money for value in any other economic transaction.

Continue reading An apology to the adoption community

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Boy oh boy, did I open a can of worms with my post the other day about the mom who sold her baby for $5,000.  I already said this in the comments, but I'll preface this post with it too: I am sorry if some members of the adoption community were offended by the economic analogy I used (and I wasn't comparing babies to hunks of beef, by the way - I'm a parent of five, folks - I was comparing the economic model of adoption to the economic model of trading money for any other thing of value).

However, the mere fact that some people disagree with me does not mean they are right and I am wrong, or that I am right and they are wrong - just that we have different points of view on a subject about which we feel passionately. And that's okay, folks. Difference of opinion is a good thing, we don't all have to think alike, and as a writer, I am not going to soft-pitch everything I write to avoid all possibility of offending any person who might read it. 

Continue reading Confessions of an almost-birth-mother

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Every summer, there are news stories about babies accidentally left in cars, who die before someone remembers the baby was there. The most recent story, out of Florida, is yet another tragic tale of a parent who just forgot the baby was in the car. Five-month-old Kayli Saavedra died Thursday. Her father arrived to pick her up from daycare after work, only to be told she had never been dropped off. He rushed out to the car and found his daughter, still strapped in carseat, dead after being left in the hot car all day.

I cannot imagine anything more tragic than knowing your child died because of something so preventable. I cannot judge this father - by all accounts this was nothing more than a horrible, tragic, mistake - one that could happen to any of us, as we bustle through our hectic lives, minds always busy and "multitasking". There was another case similar to this in 2003, when Mark Warschauer accidentally left his 10-month-old son in the car all morning. Warschauer has a website dedicated to his son, in the hopes that other parents will learn from his tale and prevent tragedies like this from happening.

Continue reading Keeping babies safe: babies left in cars

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I believe that teaching kids about money is as important to their adult life as teaching them about how to tie their own shoes, or how to communicate respectfully with other people.  If you read Money Magazine or lots of finanicial books, they'll tell you to start by giving kids an allowance and teaching them how to save part of it and spend part. As our younger four kids are getting older, this is a topic more and more on our minds.

One website devoted to helping you teach your kids about money is Moonjar. In addition to advice about teaching kids about money, you can purchase moneyboxes (pictured above) divided into three sections: spend, save and share.  The idea is to help your child create a budget, and to help him decide how to divide his allowance among the three boxes. Kiplingers has a section of great articles on kids and money.

So tell us, dear readers: what do you do in your house to help your kids learn to be smart about money? Do they have to do chores to earn money? Do you just give an allowance? Are they free to spend their allowance as they want, or do you insist they save some of it? Tell us what works for you!

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Stephanie Williams had planned to give birth to her baby at Nash General Hospital. When she went to the hospital on Wednesday, having labor pains, she was sent home dilated to two centimeters, and told it would be a couple days before the baby would come. Gabrielle Victoria Williams didn't want to wait, and later that day Williams gave birth at her church, with her pastor, Gabriele DeBrow, playing midwife.

Continue reading Woman delivers baby in church

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Quick show of hands - who's opened up a jar of baby food peas and thought, "Yum, yum! I gotta eat me some of those!" That's what I thought. Cheryl Tallman thought that jarred baby peas smelled disgusting too - she thought they had gone bad. So she decided to do something about it. She invented a system to make it easier for parents to make their own baby food.

Now, I made most of my kids' own baby food, because I just thought the jarred stuff looked nasty. But I never had a system - a SYSTEM! - to make it easier. Tallman's company, Fresh Baby, makes a product called the Easy Baby Food Kit.  The kit costs $34.95. But wait - what do you get for that $34.95? You get a recipe card and video for how to make the food, a nutrition information card two ice-cube trays with snap-on lids. You'll need a blender or food processor to make the food.

Kids, I'm gonna help you out here. I'm going to give you - for the amazing price of "FREE", the official Blogging Baby Guide to Making Your Own Baby Food. Here it is:

Get food.

Mash it or blend it in a blender or food processor.

Feed it to your baby.

There you go. Your very own Blogging Baby Guide to Making Your Own Baby Food. From us to you. No, seriously. Okay. Maybe you want a little more information than that.

Continue reading Blogging Baby Guide to Making Your Own Baby Food

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Hey, has anyone checked out the chats over on Mothering.com? Since last October, they've been running a series of live chats with parenting experts on various topics. You can join a live chat, or peruse the archives of past chats. Tomorrow at 1PM EDT, there is a chat with Katie Allison Granju (pictured, right) on the topic "Attachment Parenting".

The archive of past chats includes Peggy O'Mara, editor-in-chief of Mothering Magazine; David Kirby, author of "Evidence of Harm"; autism activist Sarah Bridges; and Joe Kelly, president of "Dads and Daughters".  So go forth, dear Blogging Baby readers, and chat away! And then come back here and let us know - was it great?!? Boring?

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(Note: Make sure to read Kim's follow-up to this piece, and her subsequent Apology to the Adoption Community- Ed.)

A Kentucky woman pled guilty to trying to sell her 10-month-old baby to a Michigan woman. The mother, 18-year-old Jessica Cornett, apparently reached an agreement to sell her baby to 30-year-old Kimberly Chase for $5,000. In Kentucky, it is illegal to to pay for or receive pay for the adoption of a child. The baby's father was also charged in the case, and pled not guilty.

I'm not sure how I feel about this story, to be perfectly honest. If the mom was young, and feeling overwhelmed by her responsibilities, there are worse things she could have done than try to find a better home for her. On the other hand, we don't know all the details here - was Cornett genuinely trying to find a better home for her child? Had she researched her options? Interviewed several prospective parents? Or were they just trying to unload the kid for quick cash? Either way, assuming Chase's interest in the child was legitimate, wouldn't the baby be better off with someone who wants him or her?  Angelina Jolie reportedly paid around $13,000 for her new baby - what's the diff?

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There's nothing sexier than a man who changes diapers and gets the baby to sleep. These days, a lot more men expect to have a heavier hand in the child-rearing than previous generations, and employers are being forced to take notice. Increasingly, companies are offering more reasonable work hours, flex time, and benefits like paternity leave. But are men who take advantage of these benefits likely to find, as many women do, that their attempt to balance work and family life - what women have been doing for a generation now on the mommy track - will take a toll on their career paths?

Let's hear from our readers - the mommies and the daddies out their with their noses to the grindstone. Does your company offer "family friendly" benefits like flextime and paternity leave? Do you get dinged at bonus time for using your leave to take sick kids to the doctor or for other family emergencies? Do you think you're perceived as less serious about your career than colleagues who put their job ahead of their families? Tell us what you think!

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The story we linked to the other day about Angelina Jolie, and the question raised by an article in Star magazine as to whether the baby she recently adopted in Ethiopia has a grandmother who gave her up only because she was too destitute to keep her, has stirred a bit of controversy on Blogging Baby, especially as to whether the story in the source publication was true.

Blogging Baby has been working diligently to confirm or refute this story. We contacted Wide Horizons for Children, asking them to confirm the statement they reportedly made to People Magazine, to the effect that the woman shown and quoted in the Star Magazine article as Baby Zahara's grandmother is not related to the child. Here is Wide Horizon's response to our request:

Continue reading Wide Horizons on Angelina's new baby

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Chocolate giant Nestle and two other US companies have been sued in a California court by a human rights group to force them to step up efforts to end forced child labor on African cocoa farms that supply cocoa beans used to make their products.

The suit alleges the companies are involved in the traffic, torture and forced labor of children enslaved on cocoa farms; the three plaintiffs in the case allege they were aged 12 to 14 when they were forcibly taken from their homes, beaten, and forced to work 12-14 hour days for no pay with little food or sleep.

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Blogging Baby has had a few posts on stay-at-home parents of late, but I want to follow up on Jen Creer's excellent post on being a working mom and, in particular, on two commenters: one who wrote about how people seem to think intelligent women devolve into drooling idiots once they stay home with a baby all day, and one who subtly attacked women who choose to work.

I am a woman who, six years ago, gave up a professional career to stay home with my kids full-time, and it was both the best and worst decision I ever made. It was the best decision in that I truly think it was better for my kids for me to be home with them while they were small. It was good for me, too, to spend those years devoting myself to their needs; there are lessons to be learned from learning to let go of yourself to care for someone else.

Continue reading Does being a mom mean losing your identity?

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Angelina Jolie is facing criticism over reports that the Ethiopian baby she just adopted has a loving grandmother who wanted desperately to keep her, but couldn't afford to raise her. The grandmother, 45-year-old Almaz Blfnhe, reportedly raised her granddaughter for four months after her daughter died in childbirth, and said, "No woman wants to give away her own flesh and blood, but the adoption office said they could give her a better life."

Let's open up the discussion here on Blogging Baby. What should Angelina do? Keep the baby she just adopted, and perhaps maintain contact with the grandmother? Or return the baby to her grandmother, help the family out financially, and adopt another baby who doesn't have a family member willing to care for her? And how will little Zahara feel, years from now, if she learns that her adoptive mother took her from a grandmother who wanted to keep her?

More Angelina Jolie baby news:
Whatever happened to the Russian infant Angelina Jolie tried to adopt?
Angelina Jolie adopts African baby
Angelina Jolie would like to adopt tsunami orphan
Angelina Jolie puts adoption of Russian baby on hold
Angelina Jolie adopts Russian baby

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As Sarah reported yesterday, an Oklahoma woman has been charged with child neglect after giving birth to a baby while drunk. Thanks to The Smoking Gun, we now have a picture of Melissa Irene Tanner, 37, who already has six other children, and an update on the facts, including that the baby - the baby! - was born with a blood alcohol level (BAC) of .21 - nearly three times the legal limit!

There have been a growing number of cases lately of pregnant women who use drugs or alcohol being charged with crimes. When I was in Oklahoma last October, the big news story was about a meth addict charged with murder when her baby was stillborn. On the other side of the coin, a couple years ago there was a big controversy in Seattle over a woman who was paying drug addicted women $200 to get on Norplant.  A group of liberal feminists here was up in arms about that. What do you think, dear readers, about this issue? Should a pregnant woman who uses drugs or alcohol be charged criminally for injuring her fetus? Or do her rights to control her own body supercede the right of her unborn child? And should women who have been proven to use drugs or alcohol while pregnant be required to be on birth control until and unless they clean up their act?

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The mother of a 12-week-old infant killed in a car crash could be charged with manslaughter and child endangerment. Priscilla Vargas of Oceano, CA, was allegedly breastfeeding her daughter, Jazmyne Castillo, in the back seat of a car when the driver lost control of the vehicle. Vargas was not wearing a seatbelt; the baby was thrown from her mother's arms. The driver, Johnny Gonazales, who was driving on a suspended license, told police he lost control of the car when his six-year-old son dropped a football that rolled near the gas pedal and he attempted to retrieve it. Gonzales was driving about 70MPH at the time of the accident. Gonzales also faces manslaughter and child endangerment charges.

I remember getting into an argument on a breastfeeding discussion list a few years ago about the issue of breastfeeding in a car. I was shocked at how many women in the discussion admitted to taking young babies out of car seats to nurse them in moving vehicles. A few women said they thought it was crueler and more traumatic to let a baby scream in a carseat rather than nursing it, and pointed out that when we were kids, there weren't carseats. Babies were always held in laps. What do you think, readers? Should the breastfeeding mom be charged with manslaughter in this case, or has she already been punished enough by losing her daughter?

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