It’s time for another awesome round of  ”Bad Moms Love Guest Posts” – a.k.a. Posts Submitted By Friends of Bad Moms Who Simply Can’t Restrain Themselves From Expressing Their Badness. Please enjoy this post from Corinne, aka @hvbabywilltrvl and founder of Have Baby Will Travel, , this week’s Bad Mom Guest.

The Globe & Mail added an anonymous column to their Life section for parents to share “parenting secrets.” Until last week, there’s only been one entry. That type of column suggests to me such egregious actions as preaching healthy eating to your kids and then finishing all the ice cream when they go to bed (guilty) or limiting TV time to educational shows and then devouring America’s Next Top Model All Stars (also guilty). So I was pretty surprised to read the confession from a dad who drugged his 3 ½ year old son on a flight. Not with the usual suspects like Gravol or Benadryl, but with the Schedule IV controlled pharmaceutical known as Lorazepam, better known as Ativan.

And it’s hard to tell what “Family Pharmacist” is more disappointed by, the fact that his son was not knocked out, or that his son threw up on him – clearly reacting appropriately by ridding his system of a tranquilizer not meant to be ingested by anyone under 18, unless especially prescribed.

As a traveling parent, I approach flying with babies and toddlers as surviving the flight, not about adhering to best parenting practices. I am not above bribes, and my drugs of choice to keep little ones quiet are junk food and TV. I’ve thought about Gravol or Benadryl, but having given them to my kids for their prescribed purpose, I know it makes them the opposite of sleepy — not what you want on a plane.

Last year I wrote an article for Canadian Family magazine on this very topic, and I was surprised that the doctor I interviewed offered advice, as opposed to condemning the practice outright. But then I realized doctors must recognize parents like “Family Pharmacist” (and I think actual pharmacists should take real exception to his choice of pseudonym) exist, and if they are going to tranquilize their kids they should at least do so responsibly, with appropriate dosages and medication meant for children.

Family Pharmacist’s second mistake was mixing the drug with apple juice. He laments it was as though he had given his son a sugar pill, and in fact, he had. Instead of a benzodiazepine drug mixed with sugar water, had he given his son a glass of milk and some cereal or a low-sugar oatmeal cookie, he may have found that the complex carbohydrates, protein, and calcium would have helped to relax his son and send him off to sleep, says Lianne Phillipson-Webb of Sprout Right. Following similar bedtime routines as at home, modified for the flight, may also have helped send his son the message that it was time to nod off, offers Tracey Ruiz, the Sleep Doula. And I can state that knowing his child reacts poorly on flights, FP could have chosen an alternative to the red eye, so being awake the whole time would be no big deal. And he also could have taken the Ativan himself, chilled out, and actually parented his son. For a long flight you need more than just a handful of DVDs in your carry-on, let’s hope FP packed a little more than some pharmaceuticals and Fireman Sam.

At the end of their journey, Family Pharmacist is lucky – lucky his son did not have an adverse reaction mid-flight to an adult anti-anxiety medication he administered to his preschooler on a whim, and lucky The Globe & Mail thought his story sensational enough to publish instead of irresponsible enough to call the authorities. Giving your child Ativan to knock them out on a flight is not a “dirty parenting secret”. It could be considered child endangerment. And it sullies what family travel is meant to foster – quality family time.

Corinne McDermott, aka @hvbabywilltrvl, is the founder of Have Baby Will Travel, and on a mission to inspire, motivate and help families traveling with babies, toddlers and young children. Her well-traveled kids don’t whine “Are We There Yet?” but “When Are We Going?” which at first was cute but now is quite possibly even more annoying. She enjoys travel (obviously), terrible reality television, and teasing her Albertan husband about marrying a Torontonian, and then fathering two little Torontonians.

OK, look. I know times, they change. I know that the style is no longer 90s grunge, where you wore everything three sizes too big. I know the style is short and sexy.

But on children? Who then do suggestive, provocative, emulating-sex-moves-ative dance moves? Why?

And yet, this is what they did on So You Think You Can Dance last night.

That’s always been the one thing with SYTYCD that bothered me… the clothes. Or lack thereof. The dancers, particularly the female ones, generally wear what appears to be underwear when they dance. Bras and panties. How…. enlightened. (Yes, I’m a cranky old Bad Mom fogey, but STILL.) Sure, maybe it’s comfortable. Maybe it gives them room to move. But in this age of lycra and spandex, surely there are other options. Except it’s obvious: The producers like it this way. The sexifying of the dancers seems to be just as important as the talent. Make sure they dress skanky. Make sure they look hot. It’s the only way to engage viewers, after all. It’s not like people can tell a good dancer from a bad one. It’s not like they are looking for talent or anything.

But last night they brought in the Rage Crew – a troupe of young dancers ranging in age from 8 to 18. Who are undeniably talented. Who will no doubt continue to grow and learn and dance at the top of their game. And whose impressive talent was overshadowed by their choices of wardrobe. 8 year olds were dancing in teeny sparkly bikini tops – despite having no breasts to fill them – and pleather pants, and were caked as heavily with makeup as the adults were – in fact, probably heavier. Check it – it gets creepy about a minute in:

Lots of tweeps loved the routine, for its complexity and the obvious display of talent. And lots of them were just as horrified as I was. Not to mention totally squicked by the fact that while they were watching a dance show, they all of a sudden had oversexualized 8 year olds dressed like hookers doing grinding club dance moves on their screen.

I am not a pedophile. Seeing sexualized children makes my skin crawl. I am a mother. Seeing sexualized children horrifies me. Most other people who are not pedophiles feel the same way. How on earth could an international television show not *get* this? Bombing regular people with a routine equivalent to an introduction to Pedobear’s wet dream in the middle of mainstream evening viewing? It just plain sucked. And boo to the producers of So You Think You Can Dance, who obviously have immersed themselves too far up their own ratings-motivated asses to realize how creepy – seriously, creepy – the whole thing really was.

A story broke this week about a Toronto Daycare Caterer who allegedly lied about food sources, preparation standards, and generally pretty much everything involving the food she provided to 75 different childcare facilities around the Greater Toronto Area. After my initial horror from reading the story, I immediately called my child’s daycare — who provide her two of her key meals on weekdays — to confirm their food source. Relief was felt when they put me at ease by telling me that they had never worked with this caterer. I’ve always been impressed by the menu at our daycare and my 5yo loves everything — except for the fish cakes but at least she gave them a try. The food is healthy, the variety is impressive, and while it’s not organic, neither is the stuff I serve at home.

Anyway. I count my family very lucky but what about the parents who had children in one of these daycares? It’s one thing to find out the ‘organic food’ your child was served was no where near organic — that fact alone is enough to make my head explode but what about the parents who discovered their children were eating:

• Halal meat that was just regular ol’ meat from the local discount grocers
• Kosher meals that have never seen a rabbi and kosher meat that was slaughtered contrary to tradition
• Undercooked meat and food transported without any cooling/warming systems
• Peanut-free snacks and food that actually contained or came in contact with nuts

Those accusations are all horrific and dangerous, and enough to make me rethink daycare (not that I can but I’d be lying if my mind didn’t try to figure out an alternative.) And to think: those are just some of the accusations made against the woman who runs this business. There are also claims of unskilled workers, prep facilities that violate regulations in too many ways to list, and re-labeling of food to cover up the lack of promised items.

These things — especially that nut one — could have killed a child. Killed a child.

I’m floored. I’m horrified. And I think this probably happens more than we’d like to think.

So why do people who run businesses do things like this? In my opinion it’s the bottom line: to save money. It almost always comes down to the almighty dollar. What a wonderful society we live in, eh?

The woman in the centre of the accusations is Susan Blouin, owner Whole Green Kids. She lives in a rented McMansion in Thornhill (a nice area north of Toronto for those outside the GTA), she drives a Porche Cayenne SUV, and apparently declared bankruptcy 4 years ago because she owed over $400,000. What does she have to say about the whole thing? In a nutshell: it’s disgruntled workers who are out to ruin her. Well Ms. Blouin, you will get your day in court (I hope) and I know you are innocent until proven guilty but even if one of these accusations is true, you should be ashamed of yourself and punished for letting your business operate this way. Everything on this list of accusations leads back to the operations of this business, and this is how I feel about anything she has to say about blaming this all one someone else:

• Untrained workers? Management’s fault
• Poor worker moral? Management’s fault
• Unsanitary conditions? Management’s fault
• Poor quality product? Management’s fault
• Poor Management? Owner’s fault
• Unchecked conditions as per The Board of Health? Okay, I’ll give her that one. Someone in that department needs to answer for that.

Please let this be an anomaly in the childcare system and please do not let this go unpunished if proven true. Families that need daycares put a lot of trust in those who provide that safe environment for the children, we don’t need this kind of worry with everything else that’s going on.

So what sayeth you fellow Bad Moms/Parents? Have you heard of similar stories? How do you handle a situation like this? How do you keep from running away from society and homeschooling the little ones? This Bad Mom wants to know.

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So first, Kerry Campbell claimed she injected her 8 year old regularly with Botox and gave her bikini waxes so that she would win beauty pageants and be “famous” when she grew up. We were appropriately outraged.

Then someone finally called children’s aid and the child was removed from Campbell’s custody. And Campbell swore up and down that she’d learned her lesson, she’d changed!  We were appropriately smug.

Then she said the whole thing was made up, that she was paid off by The Sun to make the outrageous claims and the whole thing was hogwash.  We were appropriately righteously indignant at having been had.

Then the reporter Campbell said put her up to it said Campbell’s lying about lying. Now we’re just confused.

My head. It hurts.

Every new revelation in this story brought a new wave of fury. The first one was well placed. A mum, a non-medical person, is injecting her daughter with toxins in order to prevent wrinkles? Wrinkles? In an 8 year old? What 8 year old has wrinkles? She’s giving a prepubescent child bikini waxes?  To wax what, exactly? What is she doing to this child’s body, never mind the lifelong damage she’s inflicting on her psyche? This woman is UNFIT!

Then the story collapsed, and that collapse is just as telling. It says just as much about us as a society as it does about her as a mum. While her judgment is seriously under question no matter what she did – is it worse to inject your child with botox, or to just pretend you did for fame and profit? – what does it say about us that we believed it, that it was newsworthy in the first place? What does it say that we were completely willing to accept that someone could be that crazy as to do this kind of crap to a child for the sake of the publicized, Hollywood image of “beauty”?

Here, I’ll answer that: It says we are so obsessed with youth and youthfulness and sexuality that we’ve gone completely insane. Think about this: it’s OK and totally mainstream for you and me to inject ourselves with deadly toxins so that we won’t show a wrinkle. It is accepted and expected that women will maintain an attractive weight, an attractive style, and women of a certain age who look younger than that age are praised for “keeping themselves well” despite their years. We worship youthfulness and tautness and reject age in all its forms.  But we draw a line at botox on a child, because – well, because why? Why draw the line at all? It’s not like we don’t parade girls in beauty pageants. It’s not like girls’ clothing isn’t sexualized. It’s not like a 13 year old girl didn’t stand up on stage in front of millions during the taping of the last Oprah show and brag about losing 20 pounds.

So why were we so outraged by the thought of a Mum injecting her kid with botox?  Because yes, it IS an outrage, but let’s not pretend that in 10 years our society won’t be shilling that same product to that girl in the pages of Cosmo or Marie Claire.  If we want to figure out why this was even news in the first place, we need look no further than the copy of Star or Us Weekly in our grocery carts. Our society buys in to it, and we do too.

Subject: Oh , sigh…

Karen,

I’m sick of mothers who think that their voice is the only one that should be heard or that matters.

I chose not to have children and resent that I have to pay for the health, education and care of the kids of mothers who willingly chose to bring them into the world.

I work hard for my money and will never support a party that makes me have to fork out more than I already do to support families.

Childless people should not have to pick up your tab. In fact, I think we should get a tax credit.

Sincerely, TT [name withheld by author, though why I should use such discretion, I’m not sure]

And my reply:

Thanks for your email, TT

I think I’ll respond in a blog post, but meanwhile, feel free to start #childlessbychoicethevote.

Warmly, Karen

So here it is – my response, I mean:

I won’t even bother addressing the ‘Why should I pay for you’ issue;  I’ll just continue to pay for the retired, the Aboriginal, those on disability, those on welfare, those who need more medical care than I do, those in assisted living facilities, those on EI, those in jails, hospitals, nursing homes, foster homes or Others Who Are Not Me.

And I won’t complain about it because one day, That Could Be Me.  That is part of the social contract we agree to by being Canadian citizens, TT.

I also won’t bother to refute the ridiculous notion that mothers think their voice is the only one that should be heard. Mom The Vote started with one tweet that ended with three little words.  That’s it. I put it out on Twitter, hardly an exclusive club in this country. It was catchy. It caught on. Clearly, TT, you have access to the internet, therefore you have access to Twitter, therefore, you could have done what I did. And hey, I gave you the hashtag, didn’t I? Go nuts.

I’m not interested in trying to convince you that a mother’s voice is simply an extension of a woman’s voice, and that a woman’s voice must be heard this election for many reasons, including, but not limited to the following:

-          The recent funding cuts to International Planned Parenthood Foundation

-          30+ other women’s health and advocacy groups have had their funding cut by the Harper Government

-          The current limits to the Caregiver’s benefit, which is six weeks leave (TT, you don’t have kids – but do you have parents you might one day need to take care of?)

-          The education tax credit is currently only $4800 per year (I know this does not apply to you, but you might be around when these people are in charge. Their education will perhaps do you good.)

-          There is currently no adult fitness tax credit

-          Our rural communities are under-served by doctors and nurses, and health care accessibility varies greatly by province

-          Women are greatly under-represented in Parliament (only 22% of elected MPs in the 40^th Parliament), but there are a hell of a lot of us on the internet.

So, TT – I’m not going to defend my right to use my voice or try to convince you to use yours. But what I will say that if you are only going to use your voice to try to quell mine, I’m simply going to have to shout a little louder.  Oh, sigh…

If there is one thing that this Bad Mom can say with absolutely confidence and without the aid of any special research or degree is: painting a young boys toenails pink is not going to give him the ‘gay’ or turn him transgendered.

Yet some social conservatives south of the border though that this J.Crew ad was going to do just that. And yes, Fox News was involved.

Fox News (I really should put air quotes around ‘news’ but I’m trying to remain unbiased) ran an opinion piece on the J.Crew ad where the actual president and creative director of the company is shown painting her son’s toenails pink. Dr. Keith Ablow talks about ‘physiological penalties’ for ‘planting seeds of gender identity’ and honestly I couldn’t read much further. Erin Brown from the Media Research Centre, a right-leaning research group, called the ad ‘blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children’.

So what say you? Do you think that an ad showing a mom painting her son’s toenails pink could influence children into becoming homosexual or trans-gendered? Wait, scratch that question. There is no question. DUH.

The only response to this crap is ‘NO — and stop being such ninnies’.

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When friends of ours from London, ON took a recent trip to Toronto, their boys, ages six and three, were ecstatic at the idea of playing in the hotel’s pool. But when their mom, Elaine brought the boys into to the women’s change room to get into their swim trunks, a sign she saw on the wall shocked her:

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT BOYS 5 AND UNDER MAY USE THE WOMEN’S CHANGE ROOM.

BOYS 6 AND OVER MUST USE THE MEN’S CHANGE ROOM.

Signed, The Hotel Management.

Elaine read it twice to be sure that she understood the message, but there was no mistaking the orders. The hotel would not allow opposite-gendered children to accompany their parent into the change room if they were older than age five.

“It seemed irresponsible and dangerous,” Elaine said of the thought of sending her six-year-old  into the men’s change room alone. She continued, “Even if I felt he were able to get himself ready, I don’t think I want to send my child into a situation where he’d be totally vulnerable – not to mention naked – in front of strange men.” Elaine kept her son in the women’s change room with her.

On the other hand, Elaine admitted that she often wondered what the right age was to send her boys into the men’s washroom instead of bringing them into the women’s washroom, and had on occasion felt uncomfortable when older male children were brought into the women’s washroom with their mothers.

“The need for more family facilities is huge,” says Elaine, but even if she’s not sure about what the right age for separation is, she is quite sure that it should be left to the parent – and not the management – to decide.

Is there a right age to send children into the washroom or changing rooms alone? Should dads bring daughters into the men’s room?

So a school in Virginia suspended a 6 year old last month.

Did he act out? Shove his classmates? Bite someone? Steal lunches unashamedly?

No. It was worse. So much worse.

Grounds For Suspension. Feel Shame.

This degenerate child, obviously the product of horrible, neglectful, borderline abusive parents, parents who probably watch reality TV so you know they’re horrible, had the nerve to – god, I can’t write it, I’m so horrified by it – this child *deep breath*…

He cried. The child cried. In class.

Can you believe the audacity?! That, that… juvenile delinquent, that dreadful example of…..

Wait. What?

Yes, you read that right. An elementary school, where I can only assume they’ve taught six year olds before, took such issue with a child crying that they suspended him from attending class for “disrupting the educational process”.

The world has gone completely mad. Have we really gotten to a point where it’s not OK for a six year old to cry?  I mean, sure:  Crying kids can be annoying.  It’s entirely possible – probable, even – that he was being ridiculous and obstinate and just plain intentionally difficult. Hey, newsflash: That’s what six year olds DO. But surely there was a better way, a more productive way, to deal with a crying child than to kick him out of class?

I get that dealing with a room full of six year olds must be really hard. This is one reason why I never became a teacher. I had no desire to spend my days herding little exploding minihumans with limited ability to reason, act independently, or wipe their own noses. People who can deal with that sort of thing day in or day out are made of stronger stuff than me. But to suspend a kid for crying? Christ, what do they do with a kid who actually does steal lunches? Lop off fingers?

What do you think? Is crying a valid reason to suspend a child from school?

Stories like this make my heart hurt. A gang of parents lobbying to remove a special needs child from her public school because her needs are interfering with their childrens’ right to… enjoy peanut butter sandwiches?

Yes, it’s a child with a peanut allergy – a severe, deadly peanut allergy – which might not sound like a special need, but is absolutely a special need inasmuch as it is A SPECIAL NEED. You know, to keep her from dying. And keeping her from dying at school requires that certain restrictions be put in place, like a total ban on peanut products, obviously, but also guidelines requiring that hands get washed and mouths get rinsed (even particles of peanut dust on someone’s breath can kill this child), etc, etc. But some parents don’t like this, because it requires effort, and, you know, restricts their childrens’ snack freedoms. So they’re asking that the child be removed from the school.

What hurts my heart about this is the extent to which it demonstrates just how intolerant our society has become of anyone or anything that does not accord with what we perceive to be normal, and how blind we are to the obstacles and challenges that our ‘normal’-centric world can present to anyone who does not fit neatly within the parameters of ‘normal’, and how unwilling we are to let those parameters go and be truly inclusive. Why is the impulse of these parents to fight to exclude this girl – and to teach their children that it is okay to exclude this girl – rather than to support the school’s efforts to accommodate her needs, and teach their children that that’s what people do? Accommodate. Include. Welcome. Support. Care.

They need to do better. We need to do better. That is all.

So Justin Beiber is against abortion. Can I ask a rhetorical or maybe not-so-very-rhetorical question about that? SO WHAT?

Seriously. People are allowed to have opinions about abortion, even sixteen year old pop stars who know nothing about anything. So I can’t really get agitated about him saying – after being asked specifically about his opinion on the matter – that he’s against it. Well, what he actually said was, he doesn’t “believe in it.” But really, who does believe in it? Who out there is going to stand up and say, proudly, I BELIEVE IN ABORTION. Nobody is actually PRO-abortion. They’re pro-CHOICE. There’s a difference. So.

Here’s the problem that I do have with this whole story: that someone asked Justin Beiber, a mop-haired 16 year old who isn’t even sure where Korea is, what his position is on abortion. Why? So that they could generate headlines about WHAT JUSTIN BEIBER THINKS ABOUT ABORTION. It’s stupid ass shit-stirring and I, for one, am flummoxed as to why everyone is rolling their eyes at poor sad-haired Justin, who was just minding his own promotional business when some douchehat reporter demanded that he explain his position on women’s reproductive rights, and not at the douchehat reporter or the publication that employed him?

Seriously, you guys. Did I miss something here?