http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_util_babybrainflash

Awesome

Reading this article in UK Daily Mail from 2006 pisses me off on many levels. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-397672/Sorry-children-bore-death.html

In this article, the mom argues that her children bore her, and she worked and hired nannies to avoid having to pay attention to them. Why have two children then? Why did you have kids if you are only going to ignore them or farm out the day-to-day work to someone of lower socioeconomic status who is paid to love them in your stead? I am not saying do not work, or that child-rearing is not at times boring, but this upper-middle-class mother seems to think the solution to boring children is to hire a nanny so that she can have her highlights done and shop. Over the years, she says, her children have learned not to expect her to show interests and attend any events or play with them, but that as long as she provides them shelter and tells them she loves them, they will be fine. Right.

My question to the author, Helen Kirwan-Taylor, is: Why did you have kids? Why not stop at one when you realize that motherhood is not your cup of tea? Why have another? Are your children merely an extension of your own ego? You'd rather be thinking about your highlights and which skirt to wear tomorrow than listening to your kids talk? How boring. Who cares what skirt a 42-year-old self-involved emotionally unavailable woman wears? Or how she is off to get highlights to cover her mousy hair? Paying more attention to what you have to give, rather than what you get, makes a person interesting. She claims to be smart and educated, but how enlightened can one really claim to be if their interests lie in the superficial? What is the point of all her education if she still does not get to look beyond the surface for something deeper?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/20/cervical.cancer.guidelines/index.html?eref=rss_us&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_us+(RSS%3A+U.S.)&utm_content=Google+Reader

First, they came for the mammograms, and I did not speak out, because I was not in need of a mammogram.
Then, they came for pap smears, and this royally pisses me off.

So, this really sends me off into a feminist rant. Viagra and Levitra get covered no problem, but many insurance companies DO NOT cover birth control taken to prevent pregnancy. Nope, we have to invent some other reason that would make it medically necessary, like severe cramps. So if women don't get pap smears annually, it's not only the pap they are missing out on. It's the chance to get their birth control refilled, for which one needs to be seen annually, or to check for STD's, anemia, or high blood pressure. GAH!

By JONATHAN V. LAST

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar made headlines recently when the Arkansas couple announced that they are expecting their 19th child. The news about the reality-show stars was met with quiet condescension by polite society and impolite mockery in the trendier parts of the Internet. The dirty jokes write themselves.

Yes, the Duggars are an easy target: They have taken the idea of a large family and given it an exponential boost. And their lives are not exactly filled with suburban glamour, fancy college degrees or evenings at home reading aloud from collections of symbolist verse. The family tends toward plain clothes, warehouse-club portions and the New Testament. And yet the discomfort with the Duggars is not merely an expression of class snobbery. It has partly to do with their hyperfertility. There is a creeping anti-natalism in America that has made having large families a radical act.


Even by historical standards, the Duggars' soon-to-be-19 kids are exceptional. In 1800 the American fertility rate—that is, the number of children born to an average woman in her lifetime—was 7.04 for whites and 7.90 for blacks. (The first census was taken in 1790, and the numbers for the races were tabulated separately.) Over the years, the fertility rate trended inexorably downward. Today the average American woman has only 2.09 children, just a hair beneath the replacement rate of 2.1. The rate for Michelle Duggar's demographic group, non-Hispanic whites, is just 1.85. In 1800, the Duggars would have been odd. By today's standards, they seem positively freakish.

There are scores of reasons for society's decreased fertility. Better medical care reduced infant mortality. In 1850 more than one in five children died in infancy; today that number is just a little over one in 166. With more babies surviving, families needed fewer births to achieve their desired family size. Effective birth control reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies. And, beginning in 1974, widespread access to abortion reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies that were brought to term. Forty-eight million abortions have been performed in America since Roe v. Wade; for perspective, the entire baby-boom generation comprises 75 million people.

There is a panoply of other pressures on fertility, ranging from delayed age of first marriage to car-seat laws (few vehicles can accommodate more than three child-safety seats). But a big part of the story is economics.

In agricultural societies, including that of early 19th-century America, children were of vital economic importance. They provided free labor in the family business and then, in adulthood, care for their elderly parents. They don't perform either of these functions today. Toward the end of the 19th century, industrialization pulled children out of the work force, limiting the contributions they could make to the family. Then Social Security, and later Medicare, began to give to the state the responsibilities that children once had for the financial care of aging parents.

Whatever its merits, the welfare state is a disincentive to childbearing. Each generation of workers pays for the retirement benefits of the generation ahead of it. The system is powered by babies, who grow up to become productive little FICA contributors. But even if you never have children, someone else's kid will eventually pay for your Social Security benefits.

Even as economic incentives for childbearing have diminished, costs have grown. The welfare state required an enormous new tax burden, for instance. When Social Security was first instituted, in 1937, only 1% of earnings up to $3,000 were taxed. Today Social Security and Medicare eat up 7.65% of earnings up to $106,800. According to a study by the Tax Foundation, the median American family in 1955 paid 17.3% of its income in taxes. By 1998, the median two-earner family paid 40.9%. All of which makes family formation much harder. As demographer Phillip Longman observes, young white men since the 1970s have seen a 40% decline in income relative to their fathers—for young black men the figure is 60%.

While the government started taking more of a family's money, the expense of raising a child shot to the moon. The Agriculture Department estimates that the costs of raising a child from birth to age 18—that is, clothes, food, health care—averaged $207,800 in 2007. In real dollars, that's a 15% increase since 1960. But the department's numbers leave out three big-ticket items: child care, college tuition and forgone salaries.

The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies reports that in 2008 the average cost of a full-time nanny was $9,630; the average cost of full-time day care was $14,591. That's as much as a year at college. The average cost of state-university tuition, along with room and board, is now $14,333. Private colleges average a good deal more— $34,132. But what's really striking is the rate of increase. During the past 35 years, the real-dollar cost of college has increased by 1,000%. That's not a misprint.

Finally, there is the opportunity cost of a parent not working. Every family's situation is different, but demographer Phillip Longman gives us an illustrative example: If a parent making $45,000 a year stays home with a child until the child begins school, and then returns to work part time until the child graduates from high school, she is forgoing more than $800,000 in lost wages (counting normal inflation and raises).

When you add it all up, it's not uncommon for a single child to cost a normal, middle-class family something like $1.1 million, from birth through the undergrad years. To get some perspective, the median price of a home in 2008 was $180,100. It is commonly said that buying a house is the biggest purchase most Americans will ever make. Having a baby is like buying six houses. Except that they don't increase in value, you can't sell them and after 16 years they'll probably say they hate you.

To be sure, the Duggars have experienced some economies of scale with their soon-to-be 19 bundles of joy. The marginal cost of each additional child is reduced but still nontrivial. Even if none of the Duggars require child care or have to pay for college and Mrs. Duggar never forgoes outside income, the total expenditures will probably be north of $1 million.

The Duggars have mortgaged their financial futures for their children. Yet we're the ones who will benefit. In 1940 there were 160 workers paying the tab for each person collecting Social Security. By 2006, there were just 3.3 workers supporting each pensioner. The Social Security Administration estimates that by 2034, there will be only 2.1 workers for each person collecting a government retirement check.

In an era when it is rare for a bourgeois couple to have even three children, the Duggars are helping subsidize our retirement at considerable costs to themselves. Instead of mocking them, we ought to thank them.
—Mr. Last is a Phillips Foundation Fellow working on a book called "America's One-Child Policy."Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W13

For awhile now, I have been making my own all-purpose glass and surface cleaner. Why? I hate the way that store bought stuff smells, and some of them give me hives because of the scent. I can make my own for cheap, and I know what goes in it, and using essential oil, can make it smell any way I want to. Excuse the run-on sentences. I am prone to them. I love peppermint essential oil, because it makes my house smell so clean. Also it works better than what you can buy at the store.
Here's the basic recipe for that. Just dump it all in a spray bottle and go.
- 1 part clear (non-sudsing) ammonia
- 1 part rubbing alcohol
- 1 part distilled water (you can use tap water, I just used distilled so that on glass it does not streak)
- A few drops of essential oil (depending on how strong you want it to smell use more or less)
This makes a strong cleaner, if you want you can use 2 parts rubbing alcohol and water instead of one, as this makes the ammonia element less strong. If you use Janitorial Strength Ammonia (10% Ammonium Hydroxide); use 1 part ammonia, 3 or 4 parts rubbing alcohol, and 3 or 4 parts water.

I use this on glass, metal, plastic, granite (although I am not sure if it is completely safe for granite)...pretty much anything but wood. Also, same combo works great for mopping tile floors, just add more water. The rubbing alcohol helps dry floors faster.

Bonus Tip: Janitorial Strength Ammonia will take soap scum off glass shower doors like nothing else. Just be careful of the fumes, they can do damage, so always use in well ventilated areas, and NEVER breathe in the fumes. NEVER use when small children are around, as it can irritate their lungs.

When will a daughter have as much value as a son?

Devaluing Daughters

* Posted: November 16, 2009 at 1:10 PM
* By Amanda Marcotte

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If you're interested in reading a refreshing burst of honesty today, you could do worse than Aaron Traister's piece about the different reactions he received from people when he told them he was expecting a son and when he told them, a couple years later, that he was expecting a daughter. Americans tend to think we're above the prejudices that drive people in China and India to use sex-selective abortion, but, as Traister's piece shows, we're far from the angels we'd like to pretend we are. In fact, it seems we start the process of giving little girls an inferiority complex before they even have a chance to be born.

Reading Traister's piece, I was never so glad that I never had a brother. I recall, as a small kid and even as a teenager, feeling like I benefited from not having a boy around to suck all the oxygen of adult attention out of the room. My father never seem resigned to having girls, but he did do stuff with us that I feel we wouldn't have had a chance to do if a boy had been there to do it instead. I was put to work in the woodshop, in the yard, on the car. The seeds of a budding feminist were planted in the boy vacuum. Being able to do son things because there is no son means learning that you can do all sorts of things our society generally discourages in women. It doesn't seem to me an accident that now I can find myself in my backyard with a female friend (also brotherless), building garden structures on a Saturday without feeling even the slightest need to call my boyfriend out to do the hard work.

Traister's article only confirmed some of my suspicions. He relates how, compared with the reactions when he announced his first-born's maleness, people reacted to the news about his soon-to-be-born baby girl on a range from muted enthusiasm to open contempt for girls. Nothing he relates will be foreign to most readers; we're all aware of stereotypes about how girls are harder, girls are more shallow, girls are just a disappointment. But I found it revelatory the way that Traister cheekily reminds us how these messages seep into the minds of girls, so that they know how much less wanted they really are. And how damaging that message really can be.

Growing up brotherless, I think I can see why people view girls as a disappointment. Having no boys to focus on, male father figures in my life went out of their way to put male expectations on me. I was told, by male adults, to delay marriage and childbearing until I had a career under way, and that I should bust my ass at school and not let anyone tell me that I was less than. In India and China, part of the hostility to daughters is the sense that you are raising someone else's family. In India, the dowry system even means you have to pay someone else to take the girl off your hands. But in a muted way, perhaps Americans still think having a girl means running the risk of raising someone else's wife. Perhaps with boys, we feel more assured that the child in front of us could grow up to be a doctor or a scientist or a famous athlete.

Or course, girls can grow up to be all those things, can't they? It's true, but also true that we're far from expressing equal enthusiasm, as Traister discovers when a friend of his who has gone through the hell of keeping a baby with a birth defect alive crows about how he at least doesn't have to put up with a girl. Everyone Traister spoke to talked about the other shoe dropping—oh, girls are good when they're young, but wait until they're teenagers. This sort of thinking reflects the ugly truth about diminishing returns for girls and women in our culture. Everyone knows about how girls make better grades on average than boys, and more women matriculate and graduate from college than men. But somehow, women still earn less coming out of college, and every year they work they fall behind their male colleagues doing the same jobs. Parents just get less return on their girl investment.

But disparaging female children is exactly the wrong way to fix the problem. The reason women work harder and get paid less is partially sexism, and partially women's lack of entitlement due to lower self-esteem. We put our noses to the grindstone, never try to draw attention to ourselves by asking for more, and suffer from imposter syndrome. Many of us are easily convinced that our jobs are less important than our husbands', so if someone has to cut back for family reasons, it's almost always a woman. And part of the reason probably goes back to what Traister observed—when you're told that you're less valuable than boys from the day you're born, you begin to believe it.

Last night I was a bridesmaid in my best friend's wedding. Bride and Bridesmaid spent the day getting hair and makeup done before slipping on fancy dresses and walking down the aisle. My husband, daughter, and family were in the audience. After the ceremony, and pictures, I finally got a chance to say hi to everyone, and hug my daughter. I picked her up, anticipating the hug I had been waiting all day for. Instead, she reacted as if I were a stranger, and flailed until I put her down. "Come give mommy a hug" was met with wails as my bewildered daughter looked to and fro trying to figure out where mommy's voice was coming from. In her mind, I was DEFINITELY not her mommy. I tried again "It's mommy, come get mommy." This time she looked me in the eye, and if she could have spoken in complete sentences she could not have articulated more clearly that I was not her mommy. I was an imposter. If she could have spoke in sentences she would have said: "You are NOT my mommy. My mommy wears sweat pants, shorts, and shirts she buys on clearance for $3.48 from Target. My mommy does not wear makeup. My mommy does not wear fabrics that are not machine-washeable. My mommy may sound like you, but she does not look you."

Gettingstarted Guide

Read the Full Text Version at http://www.archive.org/stream/whenyoumarry00duvarich/whenyoumarry00duvarich_djvu.txt if you prefer

http://delicious.com/BearMaximum/bundle:Love_and_Marriage_1950%27s_Style

Remember these PSA's? "It's 10 PM. Do you know where your children are?" I remember they had them when I was growing up. Maybe I'm really dating myself.
Wonder why they stopped...

Rock-a-Bye Baby: Does Sleep Training Work? - Page 3 - DivineCaroline

I resisted the 'cry it out' method for 6 months. Then I could not stick with it for more than a night, and resisted for another 2 months. It was hard, SO HARD letting her cry it out those first few nights. But then it started working like a charm. I'm not as disciplined as I should be, especially when she is teething, but I tried everything else I could think of, before finally deciding Dr. Sears was an idiot, and Dr. Ferber was in!

Local, vegetarian food comes to city schools -- baltimoresun.com

Posted using ShareThis

I was really impressed with the Baltimore City School District, and how they do "Meatless Mondays" and serve vegetarian meals - not vegan, vegetarian. What child turns down grilled cheese? Painless way to cut down on Greenhouse Gases and save the school district money.

What is MIT OpenCourseWare?
MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.

Women's and Gender Studies at MIT via Open CourseWare

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Women-s-and-Gender-Studies/index.htm

Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Special-Programs/SP-401Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
This course is designed as an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Women's and Gender Studies, an academic area of study focused on the ways that sex and gender manifest themselves in social, cultural, and political contexts. The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with key issues, questions, and debates in Women's Studies scholarship, both historical and contemporary. This semester you will become acquainted with many of the critical questions and concepts feminist scholars have developed as tools for thinking about gendered experience. In addition, we will study the interconnections among systems of oppression (such as sexism, racism, classism, ethnocentrism, homophobia/heterosexism, transphobia, ableism and others). In this course you will learn to "read" and analyze gender, exploring how it impacts our understanding of the world.

Gender and Media Studies: Women and the Media http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Special-Programs/SP-414Fall-2008/CourseHome/index.htm
This course examines representations of race, class, gender, and sexual identity in the media. We will be considering issues of authorship, spectatorship, (audience) and the ways in which various media content (film, television, print journalism, advertising) enables, facilitates, and challenges these social constructions in society. In addition, we will examine how gender and race affects the production of media, and discuss the impact of new media and digital media and how it has transformed access and participation, moving contemporary media users from a traditional position of "readers" to "writers" and/or commentators. Students will analyze gendered and racialized language and embodiment as it is produced online in blogs and vlogs, avatars, and in the construction of cyberidentities. The course provides an introduction to feminist approaches to media studies by drawing from work in feminist film theory, journalism, cultural studies, gender and politics, and cyberfeminism.


Identity and Difference: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-218JIdentity-and-DifferenceFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm
How can the individual be at once cause and consequence of society, a unique agent of social action and also a social product? Why are some people accepted and celebrated for their particular features while other people and behaviors are considered deviant and stigmatized? This course examines theoretical perspectives on human identity, focusing on processes of creating categories of acceptable and deviant identities. We will discuss how identities are formed, how they vary, the forms and possibilities of unique or aggregate identities, how behaviors are labeled deviant, how people enter deviant roles and worlds, responses to differences and strategies of coping with these responses on the individual and group level. Rather than focus on the differences among various forms of deviant identity and behavior, we will consider the usefulness of various theoretical perspectives that attempt to explain patterns across diverse identities and differences. As we explore the meaning and experience of deviance, we will be simultaneously analyzing conformity. Throughout the course, we will use gender and sexuality as an example of frequently stigmatized forms of identity.


Gender, Sexuality & Society: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-231JSpring-2006/CourseHome/index.htm
This course seeks to examine how people experience gender - what it means to be a man or a woman - and sexuality in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. We will explore how gender and sexuality relate to other categories of social identity and difference, such as race and ethnicity, economic and social standing, urban or rural life, etc. One goal of the class is to learn how to critically assess media and other popular representations of gender roles and stereotypes. Another is to gain a greater sense of the diversity of human social practices and beliefs in the United States and around the world.


The Contemporary American Family: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-230JSpring2004/CourseHome/index.htm
We begin by considering briefly the evolution of the family, its cross-cultural variability, and its history in the West. We next examine how the family is currently defined in the U.S., discussing different views about what families should look like. Class and ethnic variability and the effects of changing gender roles are discussed in this section. We next look at sexuality, traditional and non-traditional marriage, parenting, divorce, family violence, family economics, poverty, and family policy. Controversial issues dealt with include day care, welfare policy, and the "Family Values" debate.


American Authors: American Women Authors http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Literature/21L-512American-Authors--American-Women-AuthorsSpring2003/CourseHome/index.htm

This subject, cross-listed in Literature and Women's Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present. It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women's history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Harlem Renaissance, World War II, the 60s civil rights movements. A primary focus will be themes studied and understood through the lens of gender: war, violence, and sexual exploitation (Keller, Rowlandson, Rowson); the relationship between women and religion (Rowlandson, Rowson, Stowe); labor, poverty, and working conditions for women (Fern, Davis, Wharton); captivity and slavery (Rowlandson, Jacobs); class struggle (Fern, Davis, Wharton, Larsen); race and identity (Keller, Jacobs, Larsen, Morrison); feminist revisions of history (Stowe, Morrison, Keller); and the myth of the fallen woman (take your pick). Essays and in-class reports will focus more particularly on specific writers and themes and will stress the skills of close reading, annotation, research, and uses of multimedia where appropriate.

Gender and the Law in U.S. History: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-225JFall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm
This subject explores the legal history of the United States as a gendered system. It examines how women have shaped the meanings of American citizenship through pursuit of political rights such as suffrage, jury duty, and military service, how those political struggles have varied for across race, religion, and class, as well as how the legal system has shaped gender relations for both women and men through regulation of such issues as marriage, divorce, work, reproduction, and the family. The course readings will draw from primary and secondary materials in American history, as well as some court cases. However, the focus of the class is on the broader relationship between law and society, and no technical legal knowledge is required or assumed.

Economic History of Work and Family: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-927JSpring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
This course will explore the relation of women and men in both pre-industrial and modern societies to the changing map of public and private (household) work spaces, examining how that map affected their opportunities for both productive activity and the consumption of goods and leisure. The reproductive strategies of women, either in conjunction with or in opposition to their families, will be the third major theme of the course. We will consider how a place and an ideal of the "domestic" arose in the early modern west, to what extent it was effective in limiting the economic position of women, and how it has been challenged, and with what success, in the post-industrial period. Finally, we will consider some of the policy implications for contemporary societies as they respond to changes in the composition of the paid work force, as well as to radical changes in their national demographic profiles. Although most of the material for the course will focus on western Europe since the Middle Ages and on the United States, we will also consider how these issues have played themselves out in non-western cultures.


Violence, Human Rights, and Justice: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-225JFall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm
This course examines the contemporary problem of political violence and the way that human rights have been conceived as a means to protect and promote freedom, peace and justice for citizens against the abuses of the state.

Dilemmas in Bio-Medical Ethics: Playing God or Doing Good? http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-216JSpring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
This course is an introduction to the cross-cultural study of bio-medical ethics. It examines moral foundations of the science and practice of western bio-medicine through case studies of abortion, contraception, cloning, organ transplantation, and other issues. It also evaluates challenges that new medical technologies pose to the practice and availability of medical services around the globe, and to cross-cultural ideas of kinship and personhood. It discusses critiques of the bio-medical tradition from anthropological, feminist, legal, religious, and cross-cultural theorists.


Studies in Women's Life Narratives: Feminist Inquiry http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Special-Programs/SP-691Spring-2009/CourseHome/index.htm
Feminist Inquiry starts with questions: What is feminism? What is feminist scholarship? Is feminist scholarship inherently interdisciplinary? Must feminist work interrogate disciplinarity? Must feminists collaborate?

Our aim is to promote the development of feminist theory and methods by providing a forum for sharing, assessing, discussing and debating strategies used by feminist scholars to study topics such as gender and the body; sexualities; color and whiteness; migration, colonialism, and indigeneity.

Brains and Culture: Love, Lies & Neurotransmitters: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Science--Technology--and-Society/STS-066Brains-and-Culture--Love--Lies---NeurotransmittersFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm
Subject examines the brain as a cultural object in contemporary media, science, and society. Explores cultural assumptions about neuroscience by drawing on anthropology, history, semiotics, and the cognitive sciences. Topics include historical views of the brain; digital images of the brain; psychopharmacology; mental illness; neurotransmitters; and the culture of brain science. Class assignments include three brief analytical papers and one oral presentation.

Well, I know this will lead to recrimination, and some of you might not like me very much for writing this, but here it goes. I got my 14 month-old the swine flu vaccine. I know, I know. What was I thinking? I was thinking that I would rather feel guilty for having done to much, rather than feel guilty for not having done enough. I was trying to think of which form of guilt would eat me up less inside, and chose the lesser of two evils.

I do not believe that a definitive link exists between Autism and vaccinations, correlation does not equal causation. Research published in the journal Nature last month, indicates that a single-letter change in the genetic code associated with autism may be responsible for the disorder (Arking & Weiss, 2009). 90% of Autism is thought to be genetic in origin. While that 90% is the vast majority of all instances of Autism, I do not think it makes the other 10% feel any better. However, if such a link did exist, I would rather deal with Autism than Polio. While Autism might trap my child within her own mind, Polio will trap her in an iron lung. Yet, though no link between Autism and Vaccines can be linked to scientifically, in the court of public opinion, the issue is far from resolved. In order to end the debate “science must somehow prove a negative — that vaccines don’t cause autism — which is not how science typically works” (Wallace, 2009).

There are other, far more likely causes for the prevalence of Autism. One reason is that we have gotten better at identifying children who have Autism or an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Moreover, in the past 30 years, the average age of first time mothers has increased from 21.4 years to 25.0 years (Matthews & Hamilton, 2009, p. 1). While this might not seem like a sweeping difference, a 2008 study by Durkin, et al, found that “ASD risk increases with both maternal and paternal age and decreases with birth order” (p. 1274). Age is MORE than just another number when it comes to ASD as “each 10-year increase in maternal age was associated with a 20% increase in ASD risk, while each 10-year increase in paternal age was associated with a 30% increase in ASD risk” (p. 1271). Furthermore, Croughan, et al., (2006) found that: “Women who conceive following a history of infertility or after using infertility treatments are at increased risk for several pregnancy and L & D complications as compared to fertile women. Children conceived to these women appear to be at increased risk for adverse birth outcomes and neurodevelopmental disorders [cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism, seizure disorder, or cancer] by 6 years of age, however, the absolute risks are small” (p. s4-5). Clearly, pointing to vaccines as the cause oversimplifies a complicated issue.

Advocates for alternative vaccination schedules argue that children in the past received a lesser number of vaccinations, and that during that the prevalence of Autism was lower. Few would argue or call for a ban on all vaccines, but they question the need for so many given, some at the same time, as this vaccine schedule might overwhelm the child’s immune system. However, this argument does not hold up to scientific reasoning. Offit & Hackett (2002) found that, “each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time” (p. 126). Moreover, “parents who are worried about the increasing number of recommended vaccines may take comfort in knowing that children are exposed to fewer antigens (proteins and polysaccharides) in vaccines today than in the past” as “although we now give children more vaccines, the actual number of antigens they receive has declined. Whereas previously 1 vaccine, smallpox, contained about 200 proteins, now the 11 routinely recommended vaccines contain fewer than 130 proteins in total” (pp.126-127). Simply put, there goes that argument.

Can vaccines trigger autoimmune responses which lead to autoimmune diseases? Vaccine polemicists may have a valid point here. Offit et. al (2003) found “Theoretically, if infections can trigger autoimmune diseases, modified forms of infections (ie, immunizations) might also cause these diseases.The mechanism by which natural infections are likely to cause autoimmune disease is termed “molecular mimicry.” Because biological organisms share parts of many genes, some microbial proteins are similar to human proteins. In responding to proteins found on invading microbes, the immune system might also respond inadvertently to self-proteins (“molecular mimicry”) and cause damage” (p. 655). However, this theoretical risk is outweighed by real risks that result from autoimmune response to live, ‘wild’ viruses that one could encounter if not vaccinated “ because infections with wild-type bacteria or viruses are more likely to expose self-antigens and induce levels of cytokines greater than that found after immunization with attenuated or avirulent pathogens, some vaccines are probably more likely to prevent or modify than cause or exacerbate auto-immune diseases” (p. 657).

This finding is of particular interest to me given a family history of Type I Diabetes Mellitus, which has affected two of my siblings from ages 18 months and 24 months respectively. “The likelihood that natural viral infections cause type 1 diabetes is supported by several observations” (p. 656). In the case of my siblings, infection with enterovirus has been implicated. “the best available evidence does not support the hypothesis that vaccines cause type 1 diabetes” (p. 657). So, from an autoimmune standpoint, the real risks posed by infection from live viruses is much greater than the theoretical risk posed by immunization with inactive viruses or bacterium. Until a definitive causal link pointing to an increased risk of autoimmune disorders corresponding to immunization is proven through scientific (not pseudo-scientific) research, I am going to have to cast my lot with the pro-vaccination camp.

My views on vaccinations now are the opposite of those I held when I was pregnant with my daughter. I was going to avoid vaccinating my child, ‘just in case’ but I had a change of heart, or maybe it would be more accurate to say a change of head. I think my college roommate, who was working as an epidemiologist for the CDC, might have issued a severe beating, which I would have richly deserved had I not come around.

Those who do not vaccinate are relying on herd immunity to protect their children (Wallace, 2009). How convenient that one feels entitled to ride the coattails of other’s herd immunity, without contributing anything except hysteria to the collective. It’s probably going to be of small comfort when your child gets Bordetella pertussis. Why does this piss me off so much? “Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease often start among persons who refused vaccination, spread rapidly within unvaccinated populations, and also spread to other subpopulations” (Omer, et al., 2009, p. 1984). Vaccines do not always work for every individual, and every vaccine. Individual physiological and biological variants within individuals may not provide that individual with herd immunity. That is why it is so important that everyone ‘buy in’ and vaccinate (Wallace, A). To think that you could safely implement an individualized plan of immunization goes against the very concepts which underlie controlling and preventing infectious diseases. Immunization is not, and cannot be a democratic process if it is going to work. One cannot have it both ways, taking benefits, while eschewing the risks.

“Vaccine refusal not only increases the individual risk of disease but also increases the risk for the whole community. As a result of substantial gains in reducing vaccine-preventable diseases, the memory of several infectious diseases has faded from the public consciousness and the risk–benefit calculus seems to have shifted in favor of the perceived risks of vaccination in some parents’ minds. Major reasons for vaccine refusal in the United States are parental perceptions and concerns about vaccine safety and a low level of concern about the risk of many vaccine-preventable diseases. If the enormous benefits to society from vaccination are to be maintained, increased efforts will be needed to educate the public about those benefits and to increase public confidence in the systems we use to monitor and ensure vaccine safety” (Omer, et al, 2009, p. 1986-1987).

Ever larger numbers will opt out, until a critical threshold is reached, wherein one finds the reemergence of infectious diseases previously thought to be eradicated via vaccination. When large numbers of children start dying of preventable diseases, misguided but well-intentioned parents and their children will have to face dire consequences that will make Autism pale in comparison.

Why has pseudo-science become more important that science in the debate over vaccinations. Wallace (2009) concludes that: “There will always be more illogic and confusion than science can fend off.” Psuedoscientific claims need not carry the burden of proof, and thus can offer greater comfort and a more complete and definitive explanation than scientific reasoning would allow. So the misguided parents attack vaccines as if they were ferocious giants, but this amounts to little more than tilting at windmills.

How did this become a debate in the first place? It may be that vaccines are victims of their own success. “High immunization coverage has resulted in drastic declines in vaccine-preventable diseases, particularly in many high- and middle-income countries. A reduction in the incidence of a vaccine-preventable disease often leads to the public perception that the severity of the disease and susceptibility to it have decreased. At the same time, public concern about real or perceived adverse events associated with vaccines has increased. This heightened level of concern often results in an increase in the number of people refusing vaccines” (Omer, et al., 2009, p. 1981).

Vaccinations have a become a proxy for all our fears about our children. All the uncontrolled and uncontrollable x-factors that we might even be able to name, but still keep us up at night. We are uneasy about the risks that our children face, from melamine-tainted formula, lead in children’s toys, pedophiles, and chaos in general. What we are really scared of is human frailty, which affects all of us. Sadly, there is no vaccine for the human condition.

Arking, D., & Weiss, L. (2009, October). A genome-wide linkage and association scan reveals novel loci for autism. Nature, 461(7265): 802-808. doi: 10.1038/nature08490

Croughan, M., Schembri, M., Bernstein, D., Chamberlain, N., Purcell, N., & Camarano, L. (2006). O-9Maternal and childhood outcomes following infertility and infertility treatments. Fertility and Sterility, 86(3), S4-S5. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2006.07.012

Durkin, M. S., Maenner, M. J., Newschaffer, C. J., Lee, L., Cunniff, C. M., Daniels, J. L., et al. (2008). Advanced parental age and the risk of autism spectrum disorder. American Journal of Epidemiology, 168(11), 1268-1276. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwn250

Matthews, T., & Hamilton, B. (2009, August). Delayed Childbearing: More Women Are Having Their First Child Later in Life. NCHS Data Brief No. 21. US Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db21.pdf

Offit, P. A., Quarles, J., Gerber, M. A., Hackett, C. J., Marcuse, E. K., Kollman, T. R., et al. (2002). Addressing parents' concerns: do multiple vaccines overwhelm or weaken the infant's immune system? Pediatrics, 109(1), 124-129. doi: DOI: 10.1542/peds.109.1.124

Offit, P. A., & Hackett, C. J. (2003). Addressing parents' concerns: do vaccines cause allergic or autoimmune diseases? Pediatrics, 111(3), 653-659. doi: 10.1542/peds.109.1.124

Omer, S. B., Salmon, D. A., Orenstein, W. A., deHart, M. P., & Halsey, N. (2009). Vaccine refusal, mandatory immunization, and the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases. The New England Journal of Medicine, 360(19), 1981-1988. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa0806477

Wallace, A. (2009, October). An Epidemic of Fear: How Skipping Shots Endangers Us All. Wired, 17(11): 1-7. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/

A report published in September 2009 from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University The Importance of Family Dinners V Report finds that: "Compared to teens who have frequent family dinners (five or more per week), those who have infrequent family dinners (fewer than three per week) are twice as likely to use tobacco or marijuana; more than one and a half times likelier to use alcohol; and twice as likely to expect to try drugs in the future. Compared to teens who have frequent family dinners, those who have infrequent family dinners are more than twice as likely to be able to get marijuana in an hour and one and a half times likelier to be able to get prescription drugs to get high within an hour" (p. 5).

Furthermore, there is a correlation between the frequency of family dinners, grades and alochol and drug use as “teens who report typically receiving grades of C’s or below in school are likelier to smoke, drink and use drugs compared to teens who typically receive all A’s or A’s and B’s in school.Compared to teens who have five to seven family dinners per week, those who have fewer than three family dinners per week are one and a half times likelier to report getting mostly C’s or lower grades in school” (p. 7).

Even more frightening, the study found that: “The relationship between the frequency of family dinners and substance use is especially strong among the youngest teens in the survey.Compared to 12- and 13-year olds who have five to seven family dinners per week, those who have fewer than three family dinners per week are six times likelier to have used marijuana, four times likelier to have used tobacco, and three times likelier to have used alcohol” (p.8).

This research highlights just how important it is to be there for your children. No, I am not trying to give mothers one more thing to feel guilty about. However, the research says what it says, and from my personal perspective, I tend to agree with the findings. There is just no substitute for being there, however inconvenient. The research says what is says, and it is what it is. I know we have work, and things to do, but this study once again underscores how important work/life balance is. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. We can’t rule if we can’t rock.

Logically, it makes sense that kids would have a hard time getting high or drunk knowing that in a few hours time they were going to face their entire family around the dinner table. Furthermore, it is harder to disappoint someone that loves you and backs that love up by being there.

Moreover, the report concluded that: “Teens who have infrequent family dinners are likelier to say there are distractions at the table. Compared to teens who have five to seven family dinners per week, those who have fewer than three family dinners per week are one and a half times likelier to say someone is usually either talking or texting on a cell phone at the table or using a Blackberry, laptop or Game Boy.Compared to teens who have five to seven family dinners per week, those who have fewer than three family dinners per week are almost five times likelier to say both kinds of distractions are present” (p.9). The report shows that it isn’t just your physical presence that is needed. Nope, all the electronics and gadgets need to go away and get turned off. How important is your family going to feel if you keep getting up to take calls, texts, answer your email, etc. Bottom line is, if work expects you to be on 24/7, they either need to pay you for 24/7, or they need to realize that there are boundaries. Believe me, you are not doing any favors by martyring yourself for the sake of work. It just makes it harder for you to get paid what you are worth in the future.

“Compared to teens who have five to seven family dinners per week without distractions at the table, those who have fewer than three family dinners per week and say there are distractions at the table are three times likelier to have used marijuana (12 percent vs. 40 percent) and tobacco (nine percent vs. 31 percent), and two and a half times likelier to have used alcohol (25 percent vs. 63 percent)” (p.9). So, even if you can’t have dinner together all the time, at least make sure that when you do, all the electronics are put away, and that your children have your attention.

Finally, the report finds that: “Teens who have frequent family dinners (five to seven family dinners per week) are likelier to say they have excellent relationships with their parents, and teens who have infrequent family dinners (fewer than three per week) are likelier to say they have fair or poor relationships with their parents” (p. 13).

Personal experience and logic makes me agree with the reports findings. Growing up, I was one of four children. We rarely ate out at restaurants, and my mother did not believe in food that was frozen, came out of a can, processed, or hydrolyzed. Grains were whole grains, because growing up we knew no other kind. We did not drink soda then, and I do not drink it now. I never had white bread until I was a teenager and staying at a friend’s house. Maybe it is because two of my siblings were diabetic that she made such an effort to ensure that meals were healthy, but she was organic and home-made before it was hip to be so. My mom had that growing up, and so I do not think that in her mind, there was any other way to be. Although my grandma worked, dinners were always a family affair.

My dad, on the other hand, grew up differently. He was much younger than his older siblings, who were adults by the time that my dad was old enough to remember anything. In 1954, family planning was more of an art than a science. His mother did not cook. She and my grandfather had a growing business, and they put all their time and energy into it. My dad ate a lot of cereal and pasta with ketchup before he learned to cook for himself. Sure, all those extra hours they put in made for a successful business, but to a child, the bottom line is that his parents did not make it home for dinner. I think that coming from the family dynamic that he had growing up, he cherished the fact that we had dinner as a family.

We all came together for family dinners. Although, they were not the boring, proper, affairs wherein you heard sentences like “please pass the______” and “may I be excused?” There were no excuses. My parents had priorities, and dinner was one of them. Unless you were dead, or too ill to get out of bed, you came to the table. However, they were not strict in the sense that obedience came at the expense of independent thought. Dinner was not polite, and dinner was rarely about the food itself. If you did not like what was served, you either ate it anyway, or surreptitiously passed it on to one of the dogs who were waiting under the table just hoping their little hearts out for the chance to be of service. No, the dinner table was a forum for rousing, heated debate. Politics, world events, history, religion, books, sports, science, technology, sex, drugs, rock-n-roll...nothing was off limits. Perhaps that is why I never really hid things from my parents. There was not anything I really felt like I had to hide. Plus, around the dinner table, there is nowhere to hide. When I had sex, I told my parents that I was going to before I actually did. I figured if I was mature enough to have sex, I could at least be mature enough to tell my parents that I was going to and assure them that I would be safe and protected. I was 18, and I suppose I did not have to tell them anything, but why hide something when you are not doing anything wrong?

During the week, all dinners were at home, around the dinner table. Saturday night, mom and dad might go out for date night, and we would go to Grandma and Grandpa’s for dinner. My grandma is a fantastic cook, and could have probably made anything taste fantastic. She was a Southern Cook, and that usually meant gravy. Wonderful, tasty gravy. She was the perfect foil to my mom’s über-healthy cooking. Five days shalt thou eat healthy, but on the sixth or seventh day, though shalt have gravy and mashed potatoes made with butter and cream. Then we would spend the night, spend the next day running in the yard, climbing trees, and wearing lizards as earrings (they will clip on your ear), while my parents and grandparents prepared the heaven-on-Earth that we called Sunday Dinner. When we got old enough to help out in the kitchen, we joined in on the preparation of the feast.

The family that eats carbs together stays together. All those carbs stimulate the release of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that among other things, regulates mood. Is that why I have never felt the urge to try Ecstasy? I get my serotonin windfall from Parker-House rolls. Who needs ecstasy? Family dinners were not hurried or rushed. We might sit at the table for three hours for Sunday Dinner. It was not just about the food, it was about the conversation, and fellowship.

I also think that all the rushed eating-on-the-run and the decline of the family dinner has added to the growing obesity epidemic. I think when you don’t eat dinner as a family, it is also easier to get fat. Instead of ordering food out, or microwaving it, when you make it, it forces you to be mindful of what it is you are putting into what you are eating. If you have to make cookies from scratch instead of just opening a package, it is harder to eat cookies on impulse. Having to peel all the potatoes before you mash them, the same principle applies. Parents who eat dinner with their kids are going to notice if they are having third or fourth helpings of mac-and-cheese, while not eating any vegetables. Plus, having to share whatever is made, means that unless you are cooking enough for a small army, you aren’t going to gorge, because there just is not enough for everyone t eat until they are full. Plus, if you have conversations while you are eating, you aren’t just shoveling in food, and you feel fuller while eating less.

Family dinner makes one view the idea of a meal as a process, rather than a product. You cook it as a family, you eat it as a family, and then you clean it up as a family. Not your dish? Wash it anyway, it is not all about you! Want to play your game boy at the table? Nice try, but not in this family.

CASA’s Family Day is aimed at raising awareness of the importance of family dinners and parental engagement as a means of combatting substance abuse. Learn more at http://casafamilyday.org/familyday/ - It’ll give you something to talk about at dinner.

אֵֽשֶׁת־חַ֭יִל מִ֣י יִמְצָ֑א וְרָחֹ֖ק מִפְּנִינִ֣ים מִכְרָֽהּ׃
"A woman of worth who doth find? Yea, far above rubies is her price."
Proverbs 31:10

Well, our TRUE worth might be far above rubies, but our pay often is not!

http://swz.salary.com/momsalarywizard/htmls/mswl_momcenter.html

From Salary.Com Mom Calculator:
"What is Your Mom Worth?
Families Can Customize Mom's Job Description and Create a "Mom Paycheck"

Are you wondering what mom should be paid for her work as mom? Salary.com has valuated the "mom job" of both the Working and Stay-at-Home Moms! Based on a survey of more than 12,000 mothers, Salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing 10 typical job functions would equate to an annual salary of $122,732 for a stay-at-home mom. Working moms 'at-home' salary is $76,184 in 2009; this is in addition to the salary they earn in the workplace.

The job titles that best matched a mom's definition of her work are (in order of hours spent per week): housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, facilities manager, van driver, psychologist, laundry machine operator, janitor and chief executive officer. "

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http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDh3d1pOdktVWm5wVmRqQ0szOF9Ua3c6MA

Design Project Materials and Unit Plan

http://bearmaximum.wikispaces.com/Design+Report+3

http://bearmaximum.wikispaces.com/Design+Report+2

http://bearmaximum.wikispaces.com/Design+Report+1

http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/2089747/

ID Model Report:
http://bearmaximum.wikispaces.com/ID+Model+Report

ID Model Report in PDF:

http://bearmaximum.wikispaces.com/file/view/ESE6939+ID+Model+Report.pdf

ID Model Report in Word format ID Model Report in Pages format also available on ID Model Report Wiki Page.

More to come later! Keep checking back for more than the bear minimum.