Technology. A generation ago moms had to hand wash their baby’s diapers, now we feel righteous if we toss cloth diapers into a machine and click “sanitize.”
Maybe in the future, a certain kind of parent will brag that they can take care of their crying baby without relying on app for that.
It was first developed in 2009 – and sold for $29.99 back then. These days, it’s dropped to $4.99. The app works by recording your baby’s cries for 10 seconds and then “translating” them, telling you what your baby needs.
And right now, according to some customer reviews (one of which is headlined “useless crap”) it’s possible a parent’s gut instincts work better than any technology.
The ad shows a young girl playing video games with her dog in a room full of all kinds of toys, ranging from baseball bats to musical instruments to dolls.
She isn’t covered in head to toe pink and purple, instead she wears a neutral outfit that just says ‘kid’. In other words, she appears to be a multi-dimensional human being. Welcome to 1982.
Photographer Jaime Moore says she loves Disney Princesses – but that doesn’t mean she thinks our daughters don’t need more than tiaras and happily ever after to aspire to. For her daughter’s fifth birthday, Moore took pictures of her posed as five different, real-life, women heroes – heroes who’ve made a difference in all of our lives.
[I] thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better.
My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters. I wanted her to know the value of these amazing women who had gone against everything so she can now have everything. …Read more...
I guess it started when I readMeri’s postabout the inherent “straightness” of Mother’s Day and her struggle to share in it when both she and her partner were each hoping to be the one to get pampered.
Here I was with a very willing husband who was eager to celebrate and thank me for my role in our family, and I was complaining.
I also started to feel guilty about my own mother. Despite her insistence that Mother’s Day was a bastardization of its original self and a greedy manipulation of human emotion, I was struggling to get through the day without reaching out to her. The fact is that since I became a mum I have a very different understanding of how she feels about me and about what she’s had to sacrifice in order to bring me up safe and healthy. Read more...
During a spontaneous but ill-planned spring outing my family and I ended up at Coronation Park, the green space near Toronto’s lakeshore, looking for a playground.
We had a vague memory of cycling past one the previous summer.
The map apps on my phone could only suggest an indoor climbing gym. We hauled toddler and discovered a patch of green between two buildings with a few benches and a collection of metal “gym” equipment — you know, the Participaction-inspired exercise installations that no-one in their right mind ever uses?
After 20 minutes of chasing our child away from a Border Collie’s chew toy, we realized there was a playground 100 metres away. Toddler heaven, in fact, with a fantastic slide coming out of a giant LION’s head. Why didn’t we know about it? Read more...
Last week we had a seminar on student mental health and to break the ice we were asked to write down something we do to protect our own mental health.
Immediately, I wrote RUN in huge letters. I run three days a week but it’s not just running. There’s a whole regimen in place to make sure that I don’t throw up on my shoes in the second kilometre. All of these activities have something in common: I do them for my kids, but I can’t do them with my kids.
I tried. I bought a second-hand running stroller and took it out with the baby. It made my run infinitely harder, and the front wheel fell off at least once. Read more...
Happy day-after-Mother’s-Day to all the moms out there. Now, back to real life.
According to a survey of U.S. mothers, three is the most stressful number of kids to have. After three, children are more able to amuse each other, giving their parents more of a (if you can call it that) break. Some other things that stress moms out:
Brave’s Merida, the Disney princess whose spunk is even wilder than the mass of red curls on her head, was declared Disney’s 11th princess on Saturday - but not before she got a makeover that’s trimmed her waist and tamed her curls to a ‘do that’s more appropriate for a Cosmo cover than a child’s heroine. (And what did they do to her eyes?)
Not amused? Join the crowd. A change.org petition to restore Merida to her original self was launched on Saturday, and already has over 100,000 signatures.
Brenda Chapman, the co-director of Brave is not happy either. She wrote to the Marin Independent Journal:
I think it’s atrocious what they have done to Merida. When little girls say they like it because it’s more sparkly, that’s all fine and good but, subconsciously, they are soaking in the sexy ‘come hither’ look and the skinny aspect of the new version. It’s horrible.Read more...
New Zealand-based photographer Parisa Taghizadeh’s portraits of mothers say more about the experience of motherhood than anything else I’ve ever seen or read. The women in her photographs are riveting.
Parisa Taghizadeh grew up in London, England and lived for a period of time in L.A. That’s where her son was born, and where she was inspired to begin this project.
She has a career in film and television as well as her own visual projects: she worked on the Michael Winterbottom filmIn This World,and did the publicity stills for Jane Campion’s current mini-series Top Of The Lake.
And this month, she released the brand-new short film that accompanies this photography series, MOTHER.
She continues to make her own photography and moving image projects, often on the subject of personal and cultural identity. She currently makes her home in Auckland, New Zealand. We spoke earlier this week. Read more...
