Whitney Houston, My Mother and Addiction | NYTimes.com
Because society turns a blind eye to the very ugly truth: there are more than 79,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol consumption alone in the United States every year — about the number of fans who packed Tampa Stadium for Ms. Houston’s heralded rendition of the national anthem at Super Bowl XXV. Fifteen years ago, my mother was one of them.
Sex After Marriage and Parenting | Dadding
He Said: . . . If we happen to be making sweet magic out in the night, just like the old days, and if the roof damn collapses and we fall down into the bathroom in a full embrace… …don’t worry, BabyFine. I’ma still love you. Forever. (music soars and then fades slow) She Said: Roof? We never did it on the roof. Are you drunk? I’m tired. I’m going to bed.
To Cade and the Eight Percent by Gabe Lyons
It’s no secret. People with Down syndrome have been targeted for extinction. In November, the New York Post heralded The End of Down Syndrome and profiled a new, safer test for pre-natal detection. Before this test was available, 92% of Down syndrome diagnoses (and many times false diagnoses) resulted in the mothers choosing to terminate their pregnancies. With these new tests, some experts foretell the end of Downs. Why the rush to rid the world of people like Cade?
Research, experts say racial identity important after adoption | SHFWire
Although Holt may make racial challenges clear, Kim said most agencies do not and will not. “At the end of the day, they don’t want to scare away parents from adopting,” she said. “That’s why there’s not as strong of an effort to push that as there could be and needs to be, at times.” Nevertheless, Groza said the opportunities adoption offers to children who would otherwise be institutionalized or shuffled through the foster system can outweigh the possible risks. “The clinical issues for adoptees placed racially are not as profound as kids raised in foster care or kids who had to be raised in an institution,” he said. “A family is really, really important, and it doesn’t matter what country we’re talking about.”
Maybe Formula Should Be Called SnuggleMilk | Pop Discourse
Health and bonding arguments aside, I wonder whether part of the formula stigma relates to semantics — if incorporating formula would be easier if formula was simply called milk. Formula sounds so sterile and chemical, so cold and calculating and unsnuggly. But really, if Vi is drinking from a bottle, she will in fact be snuggled while she’s being fed, whether it is breastmilk or formula.
10 ways to reduce stress right this very minute | chookooloonks
Music, music, music. For me, music is everything. A while back, I was having a pretty lengthy procedure done at the dentist, and to get ready, Marcus put together a special playlist to take with me, filled with songs that either made me happy or made me calm while I was in the chair. I call it my "Keep Calm & Carry On" playlist. Put together a special one for yourself for listening when you need to take a break.
5 children’s books to celebrate Black History Month | BabyCenter
Here are 5 books that are perfect to read to children to help them learn more and celebrate this month as well.
Love Lifts Us Up, To Where We Probably Belong | Her Bad Mother
if I write the words Kyle does not like being a stay-at-home dad, Kyle does not like being dependent upon me, Kyle is not comfortable being the ‘wife,’ it just sounds wrong, it seems open to misinterpretation, to misunderstanding on the part of anyone who would read those words and not get that he loves his kids, and that he loves being with his kids, and that he loves me and is proud of me, and that he wouldn’t want me to be anyone other than who I am, that all of these things are true and important, more important than the ‘and yet…’ that follows them. And yet he doesn’t like being at home. And yet he feels challenged, you know, as a guy, to be entirely reliant upon his wife, to have no other identity, here, beyond that conferred by his status – noted, even on the visa in his passport! – as the ‘dependent spouse.’ I cannot do justice to the complicatedness of his reality.
Are you a sad fish too? | Flux Capacitor:
Find something small that is beautiful and carry it with you, like a rainbow keychain, a necklace of gold, your nails in chevron stripes. Glance at it all day. When The Sadness becomes a fish flapping nastily on the riverbank, reach back deeply into your throat, pull it out, flog it repeatedly while cursing in a loud and vigorous manner until breaking a sweat and becoming red of face and neck. When properly flogged, sternly yet quickly lecture The Sadness on it’s proper place in your life, being a good example for the children, remembering how much you actually have, that you are not special, Sad Fish, just another Sad Fish- actually a lot LESS sad than many in the river, and shove the flat and emasculated fish back into your gut, where it will hopefully remain meek and subdued for quite some time . . .
Rolling Stone, The Anoka-Hennepin Suicide Cluster & "No Homo Promo" | BlogHer
More than anything, kids need to know they are lovable and that they can trust the adults in charge of their lives to look out for their best interests. They are deserving of respect and the protection of adults just by existing. They don’t have to do anything to earn it. It is their right as children to be protected until they are old enough to protect themselves. We as a society agree on that — we have a different court system for kids, we have laws about sex and abuse and child labor. We as a society agree children are different than adults.
