Item A: Confusing a trend with an authority figure, Babble.com’s Karen Bridson blogs about how the “bad mother” craze has cut her “a little slack” after seven years of pressure to “do everything perfectly.” She has never met a trend so thoughtful and lenient. Item B: Just when she’s feeling pretty good about her new […]

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While no few parents are perfect, most try their best, especially in areas such as birthday-cake baking where public failure is particularly awkward. Just ask Guinever, a mommy blogger who inadvertently created this object (right) for her son’s fourth birthday. Allegedly a dinosaur, it looks more like a piece of half-digested asparagus. As she explains, […]

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If taken literally, the name of my book, The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents, might suggest that I endorse the aggressive perfecting of infants. I don’t. PBH is a deadpan critique of over-parenting—gentle comic relief for those who are raising children in the the midst of madness. Surprisingly, its publication has […]

» Continue reading "Child (nearly) arrested for being a child"

In Amy Krause Rosenthal’s beautiful new picture book, Spoon, the title character is bummed out by his mere spoonness. As Booklist puts it, the eponymous scooper is “feeling down because his life is not as exciting as those of his friends Knife, Fork, and Chopsticks [an especially worldly couple]. He covets their thrilling jobs and […]

» Continue reading "The pros and cons of urging infants to identify with silverware"

Kids of America, beware! The New York Times has just given your parents the okay to ruin your lives. Op-ed writer/sadist David Brooks, summarizing recent research into the genesis of genius, dismisses Mozart’s innate talent and credits his dad, Mr. Mozart Sr., for whipping the lame young composer into a superhuman: What Mozart had, we […]

» Continue reading "Newsflash: Mozart was average, just practiced a lot!"