Pioneering feminist author and one of the founders of NOW, Betty Friedan, died yesterday at the age of 85. I was a feminist before I (knew I) was a lesbian. I cannot claim, however, that Friedan’s seminal work, The Feminine Mystique influenced me directly. By the time I was old enough to read it, it […]
There’s been a lot in the media recently about how boys are struggling in the U. S. educational system. Newsweek ran a cover story in its January 30 issue titled “The Trouble With Boys,” and PBS this month aired the documentary “Raising Cain: Boys in Focus,” based on the book of the same name. Some
Xena and Gabrielle long lived in an aura of mystery, often baffling those who dealt with them. (Not least the legions of fans wondering if the two of them were more than just friends.) The same is true of two distant objects in the solar system, nicknamed—you guessed it—Xena and Gabrielle. Scientists recently confirmed that
My partner and I just booked ourselves on Olivia’s Grand Caribbean Cruise. This is our second trip with them, even though we’ve never considered ourselves “cruise people.” We typically prefer a do-it-ourselves vacation where we can either mingle with the natives or brave the wilds of nature. Since having a child, though, our time to
One of the latest trends in geekdom is creating “mashups,” combinations of data from multiple Web sites that result in a new service for users. The best-known of these are combinations of Google Maps and something else: movie showtimes or house listings, for example. My two-and-a-half-year-old son, showing his attunement to such innovations, has been
I’ve never been a fan of education that “teaches to the test.” Now, a new study from the UK supports the view that the relentless focus on preparing children for national exams has lessened their cognitive and conceptual development and ability to handle new ideas. In fact, they claim, 11- and 12-year-olds are “now on
A new study from the National Institutes of Health, reported in the Economist, claims that the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids a woman eats while pregnant can determine her child’s intelligence, fine motor skills, and sociability. (Omega-3’s are oils found primarily in seafood.) The results are not conclusive, however, although some strong correlations were made
Fit Pregnancy magazine has published its ranking of the best U. S. cities in which to have a baby. (Thanks to Blogging Baby for the sighting.) They looked at the quality of doctors, doulas, midwives, hospitals, breastfeeding success rates, birth and health risk, stroller-friendly trails and parks, affordability, and more. The top cities were Portland (OR),
As a mom, I’m always looking for ways to make all the detail tasks of motherhood more efficient. One trick I’ve learned is to create a bookmarks folder in Firefox (or other tabbed browser of your choice) full of the sites that help me lead my daily life. I’m not talking about the sites I
One of my readers has asked about resources for non-bio moms who have lost custody or had their children taken by bio moms. The National Center for Lesbian Rights has published a list of cases involving custody rights, not all of which ruled favorably towards the non-bio mom. They also report on a decision by
