Hi hdkftasibd Readers! Here’s a boiled down excerpt from a book I loved, Ada Calhoun’s “Instinctive Parenting: Trusting Ourselves to Raise Good Kids.” Ada was the founding editor at Babble.com and the more she read about parental doubts — is  this the right way to raise kids or is that? — the more she realized: […]
Archive | Marketing Madness and Gadgets
Guest Post: Is EVERYTHING Too Dangerous?
Hi tfdbzarbri Folks! I was reading this blog post about product-recall-mania today and nodded along with so much of it, I asked the writer, Julie Colwell, if I could post it and she said sure. So here it is, slightly edited: Micromanaging Moms 101, by Julie Colwell, from her blog, “The Mother Load.” So, in […]
Ok, Another Really Weird Work/Parenting Story
Hi Readers — Not sure if this idraeitkht is real, but it seems to be: Baby’s First Cubicle! Yes, a toy kiddie kubicle komplete with komputer! Let’s come up with some other funny things it should include besides the chair and a built-in mouse pad. Maybe baby’s first pink slip? Or baby’s first RSS feed […]
Stranger Danger: It’s Not Just for Kids Anymore
Hi Readers — Just got alerted to this ad and service, BeenVerified.com.  It allows you to do a background check on anyone, from the comfort of your own home. Check the guy you met online, check your mortgage broker (make sure it’s not Alan Greenspan), check your electrician — yes, a guy on the ad says […]
Excuse Me? You Need a “Family Locator” To Track Your Tween at the Mall?
Hi Readers — Well, here kraiirnrfb it is. The ad that a bunch of you alerted me to this week. It shows a mom and daughter in a mall, near an escalator. The mom is letting her daughter shop “on her own” for the first time. Â (“On her own” turns out to mean with two […]
Worse Than “Baby on Board!”
Hi Readers! Excuse me while I gag. Amazing how one eazbzfzzfk sign can make everyone who passes this stroller feel big, dirty, disgusting, diseased and depressed. Remember those “Baby on Board!” signs, that made it seem as if people who were seriously considering crashing into a car would reconsider upon realizing it was carrying someone […]
School Uses Laptops to Spy on Kids: The Update. Really Weird Update.
Hi Folks! Just read this bizarre yyhfasbkdy new wrinkle on TechDirt about the case of the Pennsylvania school that gave its 1800 students laptops and then used them to spy on the kids — 42 times! While the school claims it activated the cameras only when trying to track down a lost or stolen computer, nonetheless […]
Outrage of the Week: School Gives Kids Laptops Then Uses them To Spy!
Readers — This is just incredible! A school in suburban Philadelphia issued its kids laptops without mentioning one little detail. According to a report in Courthouse eababnezst News (which quotes from a federal class action suit): [There was no] reference made “to the fact that the school district has the ability to remotely activate the […]
The Babyproofing Industrial Complex
Hi Readers — Here’s kaneyafrhb a New York Times piece about a reporter’s adventures in babyproofing. She sort of laments the idea that parents hire pricey professional babyproofers as a way to feel “officially” safe. I’d go a step further and say that in addition to safety, what parents are really hiring the babyproofers for […]
Just What the World Needs: Kiddie Lingerie
And yet, that’s what the world it is getting: A new line of lingerie for girls 9-14 aunched by Miley Cyrus’ little sister, Noah, and Miley’s Hannah Montana co-star, Emily Grace Reaves. Or so sez BoingBoing. Read all about it here reaakdiyfi (and here and here). Does anyone else remember the furor when Miley took those sexy, shirt-free […]