Did you know May is Pregnancy Awareness Month? It’s true, here is the press release to prove it.

May is a busy month, Pregnancy has to compete for awareness with National Pet Month and National Masturbation Month.  Did you know that each and every month of the year has multiple themes attached to it? Check out the Wikipedia list. It’s hard to keep up with all the marketers, do-gooders and calendar-makers who want to raise our monthly awareness of pancakes, Geeks and low thyroid (all three of which I have a personal acquaintance with).

But Pregnancy Awareness Month? Who is not aware of pregnancy? Is it some kind of disease that we need to know more about because it is hidden in the shadows? Pregnant women are certainly aware of it (except those on the “I didn’t know I was pregnant” show, but my guess is they didn’t receive the press release). Every time a pregnant woman walks by me and I get that little lump of envy in my throat, I’m aware of it.  The retailers and marketers are aware. In fact according to the New York Times story, Target may be aware of your pregnancy before you even tell anyone — including your parents.

I’m sure the planners of PAM (yes, really) have the best intentions in mind when they came up with the idea. Their goals of nurture, educate, exercise and nutrition are certainly lofty. Their corporate sponsors are real, and the event sounds kind of fun.  But do we need to be more aware of pregnancy?

There are definitely women who need better access to information about pregnancy and how to stay healthy. But that isn’t the discussion in the media (or in American politics), the discussion tends to be about the more consumer or celebrity-driven aspects of pregnancy.

There are so many websites, magazines, blogs devoted to publicizing pregnancy and celebrity bump watch these days, that I actually feel like I want to be less aware of it. I don’t really want to know about all the things I could have done to make my fetuses healthier, smarter and better looking. I don’t want to know about celebs and their pregnancy diets or wardrobe, I don’t care about their weight gain. I have pregnancy awareness overload, in fact.

And now that Snooki is reportedly pregnant — I think we will all be sick of any talk of pregnancy very, very soon.

What about you? Do you think pregnancy needs more awareness?

Gordon Murray/AP

In a disturbing twist on the traditional Santa pics, an Arizona gun club is offering family pictures with Santa – and a few automatic weapons. Apparently seen as fun for the whole family, the club lets you pose with such Peace On Earth harbingers as a grenade launcher, a machine gun, a rifle on a tripod and something called an AR-15, which I’m sure many 8 year olds must have on their Christmas list this year. This just makes me think that Santa is a pussy. I want whatever Jesus was packing.

But wait, I’m wrong, maybe that’s not the worst Christmas card you could send out this holiday season. Here are a few other contenders:

Funnyordie.com

I think Dad would have looked better as Jasmine.

Listoftheday.blogspot.com

How many No Fly lists do you think Dadcat is on?

Killmydaynow.com

She looks … effective.

Pophangover.com

I see the resemblance.

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.

Brings A Whole New Dimension To Peek-a-Boo

How many times have you been trolling the racks at Baby Gap and said under your breath “Screw all these cute little pink dresses, I wish Lady Gaga would design baby clothing. She’d create the kind of baby clothing my daughter needs. Gaga would make baby clothing that screams ‘Outta my way establishment, I WAS BORN THIS WAY!’“?

Every single day, I know. Well if only the following was true.

“Lady Gaga brings her celebrated gift of fashion to the littlest of monsters, Gaga GooGoo Lady Gaga BabyWear.”

Actually I’m glad this isn’t true because if I had a little monster to put in these creations this Bad Mom right here? This Bad Mom would be the sucker who would dress her daughter in a salami hat. Okay, I’d probably say no to the meat dress but that’s only because our apartment fridge is already packed as it is, adding wardrobe storage would be a little too insane.

I’d have no excuse NOT to buy this one. I mean, come on now, it’s KERMIT!

We ARE All Born Superstars

If only this was true…

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When I was a kid my mother threatened more times than I could count to stuff me in a mailbox and send me to my grandmother’s house when I was misbehaving. My grandmother was not a woman one would want to tangle with and the thought of going via Canada Post sounded like a nightmare so (in general) it shut me up.

Turns out there may have been at least 2 parents out there who actually tried — and succeeded — at doing just what my mother had wanted to do. Two babies were sent via the US postal service to undisclosed locations before the Postmaster General declared it a no-no.

Mind you before the Postmaster decided that the US postal service would not deliver babies, literally, two babies were hand delivered and carried in the mail pouch to their destination just like this:

“With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.”

Wonder how much it cost to mail a baby back then?

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Did you know that as soon as that scalpel cut in to my abdomen to birth my daughter two years ago, her IQ dropped a total of 46 points? It’s true. She was also going to be born with a natural talent for the piano and a deft hand at sculpting, rivaling that of Michelangelo and other greats.  But because my daughter did not descend through the birth canal, all of those things were presumably left behind in my uterus and not only left her less intelligent and less talented, it may have also left her with Conservative Party of Canada leanings.  SAY IT AIN’T SO.

At least, this is the only reason I can think of that Dry Creek School District in Roseville, California might ask about the method of a child’s birth on their Application for Enrollment to their elementary school. Not only do they ask whether your child was born vaginally or via c-section, if you choose c-section you have to answer “Why?” Since the story came out, many people have asked the school why they are collecting the information; the school has as of yet refused to answer. So I am left to my own devices to decide for what purpose they might possibly want this information, and the only reason I can think of is that they somehow believe c-section children are inferior.

I mean, never mind that I had been contracting for five days and was going out of my mind, or that even with 12 hours of pitocin I wasn’t dilating, or that my daughter’s heart was decelerating precipitously with every contraction. Never mind any of that. That decision to have a section (which, by the way, I resisted to the end, in case that scores me any “points”) has somehow branded my daughter and will now follow her the rest of her life, if judgmental overly nosy crunchbag twatwaffles like these ones have their way.

Before you jump down my throat, I am very aware that too many c-sections are performed these days. The WHO says the rate of c-sections should be around 5-10% of births; in North America we’re around 30%, and it’s a guarantee that it’s not because we have a whole lot of high risk births around here. Both mothers and physicians need to be educated about what a “normal” birth really is, and when the scalpel just needs to be put down, already.

However, to imply that the way your child was born will matter whatsoever by the time they enter school is utter lunacy. There is only one reason this information would be needed by a school or any non-health-type-organization, and that is to Judge. Judge you as a parent – “oh, dear, didn’t you know to just say no to your pushy OB? Were the midwives full? Were you too posh to push? Was your body too inadequate to perform the natural childbirth process? Well. (Hushed tones) We’re wondering if you’re really going to fit in here“. Or to judge your child. “Little Johnny is having trouble paying attention in class. It’s to be expected, though.  He was a c-section baby.”

As if we don’t have to put up with enough, what with people giving us sympathetic looks and telling us they’re “sorry” we had to have a section and that our “birth experience” wasn’t everything it could be. Way to make us feel like failures right off the bat, when really, the point is we both walked away alive and healthy. Taking your c-section stick and beating us over the head with it years later does nothing but make you look like an overly self-righteous jackass.

Don’t bother feeling sorry for me because I had a section. And don’t bother judging my child on it, either.

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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If you thought you had to take your kids to political rallies and demonstrations to turn them into good socialists, you’re dead wrong. All you have to do is park them in front of the television.

“I like Jack Layton,” he said pointing at the big orange signs we passed on the way to school each day. “Is Jack Layton going to be the next Prime Minister?”

“Oh, Stephen Harper won? Is he going to have to go into one of the big jails that he is building?”

Those are the words of a child who started watching Sesame Street at around six months. Mesmerized by Elmo, he soaked up his every word. Children of his generation are living by the word of Big Bird in the same way that millions of women live by the word of Oprah. If you thought Sesame Street was just teaching your children manners and ABCs, you were dead wrong. Turns out they are being brainwashed by left-wing producers and writers.

In his book, Primetime Propoganda, Ben Shapiro wrote about how television is being used to push a left-wing agenda.

Primetime Propaganda is the story—told in their own words—of how television has been used over the past sixty years by Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and executives to promote their liberal ideals, to push the envelope on social and political issues, and to shape America in their own leftist image.

One of the shows highlighted in the book is apparently Sesame Street.  According to the Daily Mail’s article on the book:

Shapiro, 27, also spoke to one of Sesame Street’s founders, who told him that he used the programme, in the wake of 9/11, to highlight how there were peaceful alternatives to war.

This revelation may surprise some, but the show – which has featured guest stars such as Katy Perry, Ricky Gervais and Michelle Obama – was criticised for having an anti-right agenda in 2009 when it mockingly referred to America’s Fox News channel as ‘Pox News’.

If you thought Sesame Street was teaching sharing and cooperation, Shapiro would say you are wrong. Apparently, it is teaching ethnic groups civil disobedience.

If Shapiro is right, this could have serious consequences for American politics. In 2008, around 77 million Americans (around 25% of the population) had watched Sesame Street as children. But in 1996, a survey found that 95% of American preschoolers had watched Sesame Street by the time they were three years old.  Do you know what happens this year to children who were three years old in 1996? They become eligible to vote and there will be more and more of them joining the ranks of voters each year. So watch out!

Oh and don’t forget…the Martians are coming and they are socialists too!

So tell me, if Sesame Street is teaching children left-wing values, which kids TV shoes are teaching them right-wing values? Do I really want to know?

Image credit: phdinparenting

I’ve been thinking a lot about adultery — not in the ‘that would be fun’ way — but in the ‘how would I handle it?’ way. Of course the Sperminator got the ball rolling but a salacious affair at my daughter’s school got me and my husband talking.

This particular affair is surprising for it’s mundane qualities — a married dad and a married mom had an affair for a couple of years. It finished up one doomed relationship and the others have chosen to work it out — in full view of the other parents in the schoolyard. Our schoolyard isn’t different than yours, the same thing is probably happening right now at your schoolyard and throughout the hallways across the country. In my neighbourhood the ones I know of include a father having an affair with his son’s Kindergarten teacher, a friend getting “her ducts cleaned” by her contractor  and two moms getting it on before lunch pick-up.

We can’t really know what goes on in a marriage and the secret arrangements and deals that spouses make with each other. Marriage is a compromise and we all make those compromises in our own way. I don’t know how I would handle the knowledge that my husband had an affair and I’m not sure how he would handle it if I did. I think marriages can go on after affairs but there are lines that should not be crossed.

The thing I find particularly galling  when it comes to both Schwarzenegger and the less famous dad in my schoolyard is that they chose people to fool around with that their wives see everyday. (Understanding that the Guv may have had many others littered around town). And that is the part that seems so awful to me. Assuming that you have secretaries and interns and some other willing participants, why do you choose someone that your partner has to interact with? That seems to be the most humiliating part, the knowledge that one party thinks they are talking bake sales and childcare and the other person is thinking: “If you only knew what he did to me last night”. Isn’t the “Ha!” just assumed there?

When I brought this angle up with my husband (how do I know he doesn’t cheat? the man is very germ-phobic that alone will stop him), he didn’t get it. He just said all cheating is bad, how can you rank one as worse than another?

Well of course there is a ranking! From the forgivable night with Angelina Jolie to the unforgivable carrying on with a best friend. That is a continuum that women understand to be true. But did men miss the memo?

Is there a scale onto which you would graft a transgression? Do you think that you could forgive your spouse for stepping out? Could you make it work after an affair? I’m not sure the answers are knowable. I’m hopeful I won’t have to find out, you?

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.