If you haven’t quite decided what your favorite parenting trends of 2009 are quite yet, please keep an open mind. Surfnetparents.com would like to suggest this one, “Nature Vacations”: Note the caption: Apparently, the crazy fad that’s leading American families to conduct public orgies on dude ranch holidays while wearing “innocent” white clothing never dies. […]

» Continue reading "Family togetherness is a trend that makes you wear all-white and behave inappropriately"

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"

Why has this dad paid to have his child’s unremarkable drawings inked on his forearm? According to an insufficiently incredulous report over at Strollerderby, he is participating in a new trend: Defacing your body to show how committed you are to parenting: Charming, sweet and whimsical, a tattoo of your kid’s self portraits is an […]

» Continue reading "The new status symbol for doormat parents: Embarrassing tattoos"

Tensions are running high at Perfect Baby Handbook Worldwide Headquarters on Montague Street. It seems our services are no longer needed! At least according to this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, in which Lisa Belkin proclaims that the days of “helicoptering, smothering mothering…overly enmeshed parenting” or “get-them-into-Harvard-or-bust parenting” are numbered. It seems as though the […]

» Continue reading "How the New York Times envisions the “end of over-parenting”"

You’d think that here at Perfect Baby Handbook HQ on Montague Street, we’d know everything about baby-shower culture by now. We don’t (though we’re quite versed on the new Star Trek movie and can attest that the design of Old Spock’s parka is cool). Take the “baby poem” tradition. Apparently, a short piece of verse—in […]

» Continue reading "By the way, your fetus has to be a competent poet"