News and Culture Five
What we’re reading today:
1. What happens when your 4-year-old celebrate are only celebrating their first real birthday? What are their other birthdays like?
2. It’s Pink Shirt Day! Appropriately, NYT’s Motherlode has a post on loving when your boys defy stereotypes and wear pink, but cringing when your daughter embraces the whole pink and princesses thing.
3. More Pink Shirts: A student-made video, with 1,500 kids sporting pink shirts and singing Lady Gaga, all in the name of anti-bullying, have some parents up in arms. The parents are offended. By the anti-bullying video. Facepalm.
4. Wow, helicopter parents be trippin’. A college professor gives advice on how to raise independent kids, but the real gem of the article is the college prof revealing all the crazy things parents do to their 18-22 year old kids. Calling to ask about a debit charge made at a pizza place at 3am? Read more...
News and Culture Five
What we’re reading today: 
1. Should home-schooled kids be able to play on school teams? On the one hand, it’d be nice for them to socialize with their peers and on the other, to quote Damian from Mean Girls, “She doesn’t even go here!” And you know, there are always house league sports teams and activities.
2. The Washington Post‘s parenting blogger sits down with the founder of STFU Parents, a blog that makes fun of parents who over-share on social media. How much sharing is too much sharing? Have you ever mommy-jacked someone else’s status? Does something like STFU Parents provide the new guide to what’s appropriate to share and what’s not? Or is it just just unnecessary?
3. We suppose this was to be expected, but helicopter parents, who call teachers too much and never let their kids out of their eyesight, are now getting involved with their kids’ jobs. Read more...
News and Culture Five
What we’re reading today:
1. Those pesky competitive moms! What’s one mom to do when her friend yells at her kid’s coach and other parents? Sister needs to take a time out!
2. The Onion published an article telling you you’re a bad parent and whatever you’re doing, you’re definitely screwing up your kids. It’s the Onion, but man did this story catch on.
3. Grownups get more exercise when they live in urban areas, walking to work and the grocery store and such, but it’s the opposite for kids. Do your kids have easy access to running around areas? We can think of at least a few downtown kids who manage to find a suitable road hockey zone on weeknights.
4. Is the work-life balance thing a myth?
5. Yeah, we’re loving basically any Jason Segel interview these days. If only Phineas and Ferb had let him talk about his Muppet purism. Read more...
