Daycare Issue is Your Issue, Too, Toronto Moms and Dads - Part III of III

The parents who showed up at councillor Bill Saundercook’s office on two separate occasions this week to protest the one-year moratorium on day nurseries on High Park Avenue have a message for parents across the city.

This is your issue, too.

“This City decision sets a dangerous precedent for all of Toronto and anyone who needs daycare, or might need daycare in the future, should be angry about the decision,” says High Park constituent and parent Lindsay Viets.

“[What] makes this more than a neighbourhood issue is that council will be unifying all the varying by-laws from when Toronto was five different municipalities and applying them to the entire city,” adds Rebecca Keenan, another High Park resident and parent.

“The old, downtown city has always been more open to a blend of residential and commercial developments. Day nurseries, for example, did not need to go through the same hoops as other businesses, and could open on residential streets. The suburban municipalities, though, enforced by-laws that maintained a greater divide between residential and commercial properties and there is a push to have those suburban by-laws govern the entire city.”

Both Viets and Keenan were shocked by the ease with which City Councillor Bill Saundercook was able to carry forth a complaint from a handful of disgrunted High Park Avenue residents -- and that he chose to do so without consulting other area constituents.

Viets explains: “Saundercook was approached by a handful of homeowners complaining about a new daycare going in on High Park Ave. Saundercook took their complaints to City Hall and pushed through (at the end of the council meeting, on a day when 22 councillors were absent, no less) a decision to impose a one year ban on new [day nurseries] in the High Park area. He did not consult with any of his constituents beyond the original few complainers. I am astounded that a councillor can be so out of touch with his constituency. Ward 13 has one of the highest birthrates in Canada, and accessing daycares spaces is a huge issue for the many many young families in the ward.

Keenan is equally frustrated. In a post published to her blog, PlaygroundConfidential, she reported that she "could barely believe it" when she learned about the moratorium:

A vocal minority of extremely affluent home owners on High Park Avenue...were able to persuade Saundercook that their right to a quiet neighbourhood should come before the vast majority of constituents’ access to child care.

Viets feels that the homeowners complaints of daycare-related traffic and noise were overblown.

“The street in question is a grand, wide avenue, the widest and busiest in the neighbourhood. It has a parking lane on either side of the street (an unheard of luxury around here) and nearly every house on the street has a driveway, so residents are not even using the street parking. Additionally, many parents will be dropping their kids off en route to the nearby subway station, and will be walking, biking or taking the bus to the daycare. The noise issue is even more irrelevant. This is a busy street with a bus going by every 20 minutes, and the daycare would only be open during business hours. I doubt that the noise would interfere with anyone's enjoyment of their property.”

Now that the moratorium has passed, Viets, Keenan, and other junction parents are urging parents across the city to take up the issue before they find themselves faced with similar bans in their own backyards.

“Families do not have the time, typically, to keep abreast of these political details, but it is important that our representatives know our need and wishes,” Keenan stresses. “If parents want to affect political change they need to speak up. Write to your councillor to complain about a need for daycare, for example, or stroller access, or better playgrounds.”

Viets agrees. In fact, she has drafted a letter that parents can send as is to Councillor Bill Saundercook, Mayor David Miller, and their own Councillor -- or that they can adapt as they see fit).

One last thing. Don’t underestimate the power of blogs and Facebook and Twitter in coordinating your local political actions. You want to get maximum impact from the time you have to invest in creating a better world for your kids. Perhaps this snippet from PlaygroundConfidential will convince you that the hand that pushes the publish button and the stroller can change the world, starting in your own backyard.

I read the article and thought, alright, let me twitter that. At 3pm I noticed that neighbourhood blogger and organizer extradonaire, Irina Yu of Junction Parents, was teaming up with Alison of the High Park & Roncesvalles Mom’s meetup group to stage an impromptu stroller march protest outside Saundercook’s office at 4pm. Well, you know I twittered that. More than once. I then set about scrambling to get my children ready to go while spreading the word on Facebook, too, and learning that the Toronto Star would be reporting on and sending a photographer to our protest.

You Can’t Call Yourself a Family-Friendly City if You Treat Childcare as a Non-Issue - Part II of III

It’s one of those dirty little secrets that comes out in conversations between parents: how a society that pretends to be child-friendly is often anything but.

Shadow a family with young children for a day and you’ll get an inkling of what I’m talking about.

Someone rolls their eyes (or groans audibly) as they take their seats on a bus or (heaven help them) a plane with a baby or toddler in tow.

A nursing mother is subtly (or not so subtly) redirected to a less conspicuous spot in a restaurant or other public space so the sight of her feeding her baby won’t offend other patrons. You know, the kind of patrons who hate to see a baby eat.

All too often, society treats children as inconveniences (as opposed to members of the next generation that we have a collective interest in nurturing along) and their parents as the perpetrators of some crime against society, for bringing these unpredictable, noisy, uncivilized beings out into public.

And yet, when it’s time to feel pride in our country or our city, we're awfully quick to highlight its family-friendly characteristics. Never mind the fact that the data generated by objective third parties paints a very different picture than the one we may be carrying around in our heads. It’s much easier to feel a misplaced sense of pride than to accept the fact that Canada today isn’t the Canada it once was.

What happened this week in Toronto made it painfully clear how far out of touch some politicians have allowed themselves to become with the needs of real families in this city - and how willing they are to put the needs of a vocal few ahead of the rest of their constituents. That's a lesson parents in this city can choose to heed - or ignore at their peril.

But back to the politicians - and the lack of political vision they exhibited this week.

Being a child-friendly society, circa 2009, means making access to quality, affordable daycare a priority. As any employed parent who has faced a childcare crisis can tell you, childcare is the foundation upon which everything else is built.

When your childcare arrangement falls apart, your family and work lives cease to function until your childcare crisis is resolved. The crisis doesn’t just affect the family (in terms of massive stress, work-life conflict, and potentially lost wages). If affects the employer (who has to deal with reduced productivity, because an employee is off the job), results in unhappy customers (if that reduced productivity leads to unmet promises or reduced levels of service), and stressed out coworkers (who have to pick up the slack for the coworker whose childcare arrangement has fallen apart).

To put it simply, childcare isn’t a family problem. It’s everybody’s problem. That attitude should be reflected when childcare policy is being set at the national, provincial, and local level, don't you think?

And the Stroller Moms Marched Again - Part I of III

All parents have their limits. And when they’re pushed past your limits, they’re compelled to take action, whether the person who requires a reality check is a kid or a politician.

The folks at Toronto City Hall lost sight of that simple fact this week (and it really is a very simple fact, once you’ve committed it to memory: you can only push a parent so far).

You don’t have to be a genius to figure our that messing with daycare means that your going to end up with a lot of highly-energized stroller-pushing moms (and one dad) in your face (parents who organized their meet-ups via blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, by the way: this generation of parents knows how to put technology to good use).

With a chronic shortage of quality, affordable daycare in this city (and across the country) parents have no choice but to take to the streets to protest City Hall’s decision to declare a one-year moratorium on the creation day nurseries on a three-block stretch of High Park Avenue.

Toronto parent Lindsay Viets feels that parents across the city need to send a clear message to City Hall: this kind of action won’t be tolerated by the parents anywhere within the City of Toronto: that an attack on daycare anywhere in the city will be considered an attack on daycare everywhere in this city.

“This City decision sets a dangerous precedent for all of Toronto; and anyone who needs daycare, or might need daycare in the future, should be angry about the decision.”

Until it finds itself dealing with a surplus of childcare spaces, The City of Toronto doesn’t have the luxury of calling a moratorium on day nurseries. To do otherwise is to put NIMBY-ism before sound social policy. And what politician wants that kind of decision on his or her voting record, come election day?

Earth to out-of-touch politicians: Babies and toddlers might not be old enough to vote, but their moms and dads certainly are. You might want to make a note of that in bright red crayon.

A Beacon in the Dark Night of Grief: Glow in the Woods

Glow in the Woods is a warm and welcoming haven for parents who find themselves lost and wandering in the dark and lonely night of baby loss, craving the company of others who truly understand the depth and breadth of what has been lost.

The site was created to provide babylost parents with a place to read the stories of other parents who have walked this path and to tell their own babies’ stories so that other heartbroken mothers and fathers who follow in their footsteps will experience the reassurance and validation that comes from knowing that someone else thought those thoughts and felt those same emotions.

The site also features helpful advice for friends and family members who want to support grieving parents, but who don’t know what to do or what to say. The advice is bang on, as you would expect. After all, it is being provided by the true experts in surviving the unthinkable, the death of a baby: those parents themselves.

Particularly valuable is the advice on dealing with a breastmilk supply that is no longer needed. (My milk came in at my stillborn daughter’s funeral -- one of Mother Nature's cruelest possible jokes.)

The writing on the site is incredible. The blog postings remind me of the essays in Jessica Berger Gross’ book About What Was Lost: 20 Stories on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope (a book I reviewed for Literary Mama).

If you are a parent who has experienced the death of a baby or your heart is breaking on behalf of a friend who has, you will want to know about the online beacon of light that is A Glow in the Woods.

Related:

Still Unanswered, Always Remembered: The Powerful Legacy of Stillbirth by Ann Douglas (article published in The International Doula based on this presentation I gave at the 2005 conference of the Canadian Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths)

Perinatal Bereavement Services Ontario: Helpful information about the sometimes confusing and worrying symptoms of grief after the death of a baby.

Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss (a book I co-authored with John R. Sussman, MD). Reviewed by @JuliaRosien

Article about Trying Again After a Loss, for parents of multiples (co-written with Lynda P. Haddon).

Pay to Play: On Profit and Priorities

My 11-year-old son and I visited an indoor play centre with my sister and her two preschoolers yesterday. It was the first time I’d ever been to one of these places.

I guess I was hoping for something more than what was on offer -- a more enriched version of what I'd experienced with my kids at Ontario Early Years Centres (which, being publicly funded, are free). What I encountered was the opposite: a highly commercialized pay-to-play enterprise. And I had to pay $8 for my child to get in.

Instead of puppet theatres and dress-up centres; water tables and sandboxes; ride-on toys and construction sets; paint easels and craft tables; and other activities geared to kids of various ages (the images I carry with me from many happy days spent at Ontario Early Years Centres), the pay-to-play place featured toys and climbing equipment plus pay-more-as-you go extras: pay-to-play carnival games; a snack bar; a birthday party room and birthday cakes, and other amenities, tucked away behind closed doors, ready to be unlocked for the right price.

In the for-profit world, the bottom line has a way of trumping service and common sense. The single staff member working the customer service desk had to juggle phone calls (birthday party and cake bookings) with meeting the needs of parents-and-kids. She did her best, but it isn't easy trying to be the receptionist, order desk clerk, cashier, and customer service rep all at the same time. What got lost, as a result, were the elements that make for a truly child- and parent-centred experience. What was on offer was a spacious room with toys. That’s all.

Parents tell me that they frequently seek out privately-operated play facilities because their local Ontario Early Years Centre is too crowded or it only operates part-time hours or its not as convenient to their home. And, of course, Ontario Early Years Centres only address the 0-6 age range. There aren't publicly funded drop-in centres for kids ages 6-12. That means that what’s available at any given time is very much determined by where you live, the time of year (summer camp and March Break camp season vs. after-school or weekend programming), and your ability to pay. (These types of programs are typically offered on a user-pay system.)

This makes me wonder why we parents have been so willing to reach into our own pockets to pay for access to indoor play spaces? Why aren’t we asking governments to create neighborhood playgrounds (both indoor and outdoor) and parenting centres (perhaps in unneeded schools or schools with excess space) staffed by early childhood education professionals (the people who know how to create the best environments for children to learn and grow)?

So here's what I'm thinking.

Given what we’ve learned about the key determinants of health and what leads to lifetime success and well-being, it doesn’t make sense for governments to default to the private sector when it comes to meeting the needs of children. Issues of universal access vs. ability to pay inevitability arise. If it’s in the public’s interest for children to have safe places to play, shouldn’t the public invest in those spaces and ensure that the programs that they deliver incorporate the best evidence about children and learning (to say nothing of parent support)?

Besides, at a time when taxpayer dollars are being reinvested in all kinds of different projects, don’t you think it’s time we asked ourselves and our governments what brick or mortar project could possibly warrant greater investment than the next generation of citizens? If we fail to invest in our human infrastructure, all the other infrastructure investment won’t matter at all.

Related:

• UNICEF: The Childcare Transition
• Martin Prosperity Institute: Ontario in the Creative Age

* * *

RESEARCH NEWS: The Public Health Agency of Canada has just released new findings about Canadian women's experiences of pregnancy, labour, birth, and postpartum. “What Mothers Say: The Canadian Maternity Experiences Survey” and “Mothers' Voices —What women say about pregnancy, childbirth and early motherhood" are available at www.publichealth.gc.ca/mes.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Rule Number 1 - Put the Kids First

One of my best friends married Mr. Freeze.

I knew before they got married that he was wrong for her. (She’s as warm and bubbly as he is emotionally cold and distant.)

I knew, even as I watched them take their vows, that this wouldn’t end well.

Things didn’t improve when baby one or baby two came along, so I was happy and relieved when she announced she was exiting the refrigerator marriage and starting over as a single mom.

I may never think much of her ex, but her kids don’t need to know this. He will always be their dad. Besides, if my friend can treat him civilly in front of the kids, the least I can do is follow her lead. It is a million times more difficult for her than it is for me. I don't ever have to talk to him or see him ever again. She has to have regular contact with him for the rest of her life because he will always be her kids' dad.

I admire my friend for taking the high road. She wants to minimize the fallout of the marriage breakup on her kids, and she’s heard horror stories about angry couples using their kids as weapons to get back at one another, forgetting that it’s the kids who end up getting hurt. They call it parental alienation and the techniques that some parents use are nothing short of Machiavellian. Susan Pigg has an article about the phenomenon that documents the techniques in today's Toronto Star (posted here @ ParentCentral.ca as well). Here are a few of the examples she uncovered:

"There are no pictures that include you in your ex-spouses' house, which is meant to give the child the message that you no longer exist and they shouldn't be thinking about you.

"Interfering with communication: You get hung up on and your letters and gifts aren't passed on to your child. This is especially damaging for parents who live too far away for frequent face-t-face outings, making that contact especially important.

"Your child is being told highly personal information about you, aimed at diminishing you in their eyes: 'Mommy did drugs in high school.' 'Your dad is too small.'"

The breakup of a marriage is always a painful thing, and its even more painful when kids are involved. But it doesn’t have to be the stuff of which celebrity tabloid stories are made. If both parents put their shared love of their children at the forefront and commit to a few basic ground rules, the kids don’t have to become casualties in a battle between the most important people in their lives.

• Not bashing one another. Each parent should treat the other parent with respect, no matter what.
• Not competing with one another to be the most popular parent. A competition to out-spend or to be the good-guy parent will result in a lose-lose-lose situation. Everybody loses.
• Continuing to co-parent. Do what you’ve always done about big-picture parenting decisions: consult one another and work together cooperatively for the good of the kids. 
• Not asking the kids to make impossible choices. Studies have shown that, in most cases, children wish to maintain relationships with both parents. Being asked to choose between parents is to ask kids to make an impossible and painful choice.

Related:

How to Divorce and Not Wreck the Kids

Because Life Goes On...Helping Children and Youth Live With Separation and Divorce

Children and Divorce

Great Sexpectations - Parents as Lovers - Part II of II

In the follow-up to Part I, Ann Douglas asks sex educator Trina Read, author of the recently published Till Sex Do Us Part, for the lowdown on scheduled sex, sex and body image, and how flirtations can impact on a couple's relationship. Here are the highlights of our interview.

AD: We're back -- and I thought we'd start out by talking about something really practical: scheduled sex. What's your take on that whole issue: couples making dates to have sex? Act of desperation or smart solution?

TR: Scheduling sex is the easiest way for a couple to keep their sex life on the radar. It may not seem romantic and a couple usually feels like failures because they can no longer have spontaneous sex; however, chances are if they don't schedule it, it's not going to happen.

AD: One of my friends (who shall remain nameless, so that she will still be my friend after today) insists that scheduled sex saved her marriage.

TR: Scheduling sex takes away any negative feelings about who is going to initiate sex; or walking around on egg shells wondering if tonight is the night when I'll have to have sex. Research proves that couples that schedule sex have more sex that is mutually satisfying.

AD: Let's move on to another hot topic. What can couples do to get past the body image trap? She may be struggling with her body image after baby or maybe her partner has made some comment about her post-baby body that she has taken to mean that she's no longer attractive. Once that comment, however slight or unintended, is out there, it can be hard to erase it from her brain. And, of course, there are all kinds of comments that she might make that could be equally devastating to his sexual self-esteem. Sometimes we women have been known to joke about things that men would sometimes rather we not. And as for what we speak heart-to-heart to our girlfriends about.... [Zipping lips.]

TR: Body image is such a tough topic to cover because it is an intellect versus emotion issue. When I lecture about body image, intellectually women nod their head and agree with what I'm saying. Emotionally though, when she looks in the mirror and zooms in with what is wrong with her body, it's game over. Emotion will win every time. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle.

It's been my experience that when men don't find their female partner attractive anymore due to weight gain, the men are usually just as overweight. Women tend to be a lot more forgiving about his weight gain. Of course, men are a lot more visual [when it comes to sexuality].

Partners need to look at their current lifestyle choices and as a team with the team part being the key to this equation. Start doing things to become healthier like going for walks together. Doing a shared activity will create an alliance and deepen intimacy.

AD: A lot of parents go through a lonely time at some point during their relationship as a couple and as parents. It might be right after the baby is born. It could be when they aren't seeing eye-to-eye on parenting issues and other things are going wrong in the marriage (maybe fights about money, arguments about sex, work-life balance struggles: you name it). At times like this, it's easy for someone other than your partner to look like Ms./Mr. Wonderful. So here's my question: what kind of effect are flirtations (both online and in real life) having on couple relationships? What advice do you offer to couples who want to have fun connecting with others, but who don't want to torpedo their own relationships?

TR: I would suggest never do anything outside of your relationship in secrecy. It's only going to blow up in your face, even if what you are doing is perfectly innocent. Secrecy is seen, justifiably, as lying. My best advice is this: if you can't tell your partner what you're up to, then don't do it. If you can chat easily about the flirtation then it should be okay.

Every [couple] has its own value system around what constitutes an acceptable flirtation. You need to have a conversation with your partner with what is acceptable and not acceptable. If you can chat easily about the flirtation then it should be okay.

AD: We've covered a lot of ground here. Thanks for speaking with me so frankly and openly. (Then again, I guess this is all in a day's work for you.)

Related reads:

• FamilyMan.com: Sleep is the New Sex: The Not-So-Secret Sex Lives of New Moms and Dads
  
• BabyCenter Sex Survey

Great Sexpectations - Parents as Lovers - Part I of II

Ann Douglas asks sex educator Dr. Trina Read, DHS, to tackle sleep deprivation, kid interruptions, and other obstacles to a sizzling – or at least satisfying – parental sex life.

A two-part series. Part I of II.

By Ann Douglas

Looking to emerge from your self-imposed (or baby-imposed) state of parental celibacy to something at least approaching sex kitten status again? Trina Read, author of the recently published Till Sex Do Us Part (Key Porter Books, 2009), took time out from her book tour schedule to give ParentCentral the lowdown on sex and the sleep-deprived (or chronically stressed out) parent. Here are the highlights of our interview.

 AD: Most parents go through times when they are too tired to even think about having sex. (Or, to be more precise, they think about it, but they're too exhausted to do much more than give one another soulful eyes while they take care of their newborn or clean up after a child with the stomach flu.) You make the point, however, that "too tired for sex" can easily become an excuse for avoiding sex. Could you please elaborate on that point?

TR: Although certain development stages in a child's life impact the parent's exhaustion, it is not the cause of them wanting or not wanting to have sex.

One of my clients has four children under the age of six and runs a store-front retail business. Since she learned to ask for what she needed in her relationship, she has been having more sex than she had before she had children. Why? Because it is the only time in her extremely busy life when she feels nurtured and it's all about her. Her husband is more than happy to oblige because he has a wife who is totally into the sexual experience.

AD: What should parents do if a crying baby interrupts sex? If you have the opportunity to pick up where you left off, sometimes one partner is still ready to go but the other person has shifted into parental mode and the moment has been lost. This can lead to much unhappiness by the partner who is still in the love zone.

TR: If one partner doesn't feel like having sex afterwards, then so be it. However, it is important for the couple to talk about picking up where they left off: "Let's take this back up again, tomorrow, next week, sometime this month." Turn it from a negative, awkward time to an opportunity to create positive anticipation.

Hopefully the parents can find a way to laugh about this instead of getting uptight about it.

AD: And as for those worries that you have just traumatized your child and you're going to spend the rest of your life paying for therapy to help erase the images?

TR: Sigmund Freud is the culprit for creating this fallacy. Freud theorized that children who witnessed the primal scene (seeing parents making love) would become neurotic because of their unfulfilled desire to marry the opposite-sex parent. It is interesting that Freud's theory stuck, considering the majority of the world today and in history has had families living in one-room dwellings. Privacy for parents is a relatively new phenomenon.

AD: How is a child likely to react – and how should you, the parents, react in response?

A younger child is unlikely to understand what is happening and may simply be frightened by the sounds of lovemaking. Address your child's fear. Matter-of-factly reassure them that no one was hurt and this way of touching is something grown-ups do.

A primary school-aged child may simply be curious. Say only what is necessary to move to the next subject without shaming or inadvertently stirring up even more interest. Say, I can see you are inquisitive. Sometimes adults do things kids don't understand. Then switch the topic.

An older child may know exactly what is happening and may be disgusted or embarrassed. If an older child bursts in, do not lie or get defensive about what is going on. Instead get dressed and talk about what just happened, acknowledging that this as awkward for everyone. Then, set your boundaries with the child to ensure your privacy.

Go immediately to the hardware store and buy a set of good locks for your bedroom. If you are worried about being too noisy, buy something to create white noise, like a loud humidifier, fan, radio or stereo that can be moved close to the door.

* * *

In Part II: The conversation continues with frank talk about scheduled sex, body image after baby, and more.

Dummy Mummies, Baby Crazies, and Reasons Not to Have Children: It’s Open Season on Mom....Again

The Guardian slams all things parental (and blames all things maternal) in its weekend magazine

A British parent looking for a relaxing read over a cup of tea this past Sunday morning was in for a bit of a jolt. What was being served up in the Life & Style section of The Guardian was a triple-header of parental condemnation, with the bulk of the blame being pinned on mom.

ONE.
In The dummy mummy decade: boring, selfish smug: how a generation of women because obsessed with motherhood, Rachel Cooke makes the case that the child-obsessed “baby crazies” (a.k.a. the dummy mummies) have  “reverted, 50s-style, to identifying themselves primarily, vociferously, and sometimes exclusively, as mothers.” She argues that a “loony excess of maternal feeling” is the result of women having their babies later in life. “[When they have children. they] feel grateful, a gratefulness that gives them the zeal of the convert. And it is this zeal, I am assuming, that prevents boredom from setting in as they ponder the pros and cons of the Bugaboo Bee.”

TWO.
In Why I don’t want children, Polly Vernon argues that parenthood turns adults -- particularly women -- into self-absorbed, selfish bores (much the same point Cooke makes in her piece, which makes you wonder why The Guardian saw the need to run two we-hate-mothers diatribes on the same day). Anyway, here's Vernon:

“I really don't like what parenthood does to grown-ups....Spare me the one-track conversations. Spare me the self-righteousness, the sense of entitlement (you, with the toddler-on-wheels: astonishing news just in! You don't have pavement priority over the rest of the world!). Spare me the pretensions of martyrdom and selflessness....And please spare me the pitying glances (I promise I don't want what you have. Honestly, I find it mind-boggling that you don't want what I have. Are you quite sure you're not poleaxed with jealousy?). While I always offer pregnant women my seat on the Tube, on my darkest days I also find myself thinking: let's get something straight here. Your condition is self-inflicted, you made the choice to get knocked up, and you presumably knew it'd leave you incapacitated in this way. I don't know if you deserve my seat any more than you would if you were incapacitated by a banging hangover, say, or a great deal of shopping.”

THREE.
And in 20 other reasons not to have a baby, John Hind offers a catch-all list of reasons for abstaining from parenthood, with those reasons ranging from the gynecological (“96% of women say they are "less pleased" with their vaginas a year after giving birth than before”) to the environmental (“British parents wishing to offset the C02 emissions resulting from bringing one child into the world would need to plant 1,073 trees”) to the financial (“The Optimum Population Forum judges the price of a condom to have had a nine million per cent "return on investment" when set against the cost to the planet of having a child.”) Go ahead and check out the other 17 reasons, if you dare.

Here’s a footnote which you may find interesting if, like me, you are interested in the way that the media influences the ideas we form about parenting. The Guardian’s down-with-parenthood triple-header ran just a few days after columnist Kira Cochrane accused the British press of pinning the blame for all of societies ills on moms. (She was referring to a barrage of media coverage in response to an important UK report about childhood: A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age. You can read The Star’s coverage of that same report here at ParentCentral.ca.) Here's what Cochrane had to say:

“A quick scan of the newspapers would have led to the assumption that the report is about one thing alone: how armies of working women are laying waste to family life.

"Working women 'fuel family splits'" said the Daily Telegraph's front page headline.

"Kids 'damaged' by mums who work" blared the Sun.

"Mum's cash 'leading to split home'" frothed the Mirror.

"Children 'suffering from lack of two-parent family'" pronounced the Mail.

“The people who really seem to be implying that women should get back to the kitchen are the newspapers themselves.”

It's not unusual for societies to adopt increasingly conservative attitudes when things go from bad to worse -- and the UK is being particularly hard-hit by the current economic hard times. But declaring it open season on mothers (at least via the newspaper headline or Sunday feature) isn't the way to deal with the need for change.

That's an important point to bear in mind, just in case the next British import happens to be a wave of just-blame-mom mania. We've got enough of our own bizarro attitudes about motherhood to sort through here in North America.

Update:

I just noticed tonight (Thurs. Feb. 12th) that Her Bad Mother -- a popular Toronto-area blogger -- has written a passionate response to Rachel Cooke's piece (mentioned above). The debate is raging in the comments section over Her Bad Mother's blog. Was Cooke serious when she put forth such outrageous arguments? Should women ever question other women's choices? Those are just a few of the issues that are being debated over at Her Bad Mother.

True Twitter Confessions: At First I Couldn't Figure Out What The Big Deal Was About

At first I couldn't figure out why everyone was making such a big deal about Twitter. I mean, wasn't it just glorified IM-ing for grownups?

It took me about 100 tweets (messages sent to other Twitter users) to go from questioning the benefits of Twitter to getting totally hooked. (Don't say you weren't warned.) And once I was hooked, I started thinking about all the ways Twitter was becoming essential in my life -- and how it could be used to make life better for other parents.

I compared notes with other parents on Twitter in order to produce this list (very much a work-in-progress) of ways parents are using Twitter in their everyday lives.

Note: The strange-looking comments that are pasted in below are tweets – the messages Twitter users send to communicate with one another. Because tweets are limited to 140 characters, Twitter users resort to diy acronyms in order to squeeze as much message as possible into the limited number of characters.

You can use Twitter to stay connected to the outside world when you're at home caring for young children.

@NicolleWahl "If you aren't into the whole gymboree/"mom's group" lifestyle, twitter's a great way to fight the isolation/occas. boredom."
@DaniGirl "I've found twitter perfectly suited to the 5 minute bursts of free time that defines the day when mothering a wee baby in a family of five!"

You can Tweet pregnancy updates.

@DaniGirl "tweetd regular updates on the end of my prgcy when I couldn't bother to blog. Worked great!"

You can tap into the endless flow of news, parenting and otherwise.

Whether you want to keep on top of news headlnes, health news, product safety recalls, find out which celebrity is pregnant (@ParentDish: "Molly Ringwald Pregnant!") and which products are and aren't worth buying (earlier today, @frozenfoods described a particular brand of ready-to-eat family-size Salisbury Steak "dog food in a cesspool of gravy").

You can pick up new ideas.

Earlier today, I was reading a @shacker's page and I found a post that read "On the hunt for used/recycled lumber – back to building a fort with Miles." Then, a few lines up on the page, he reported on his success in scoring free lumber: "HUGE thanks to Ashby Lumber for donation of imperfect wood for our fort. Even loaded it onto car with forklift!" Clearly @shacker is a genius.

You get to hang out with people who are just like you or who share the same interests as you.

When you have dozens, hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of people pooling their collective wisdom, you can imagine how inspiring the conversations can be.

You can meet other people who aren't just like you.

That's part of the fun of twitter, too: broadening your horizons:

@Doulamama Wide network of diverse folk with resources, ideas and tips. My tip: broaden your followers beyond parenting and mama people.

You'll find out about cool widgets that have just been invented – and you'll dream up fabulous ways to use them.

How about mapping out your next mommy group argument over sleep training methods using this tool, for example? (Found via @TechCrunch.)

One final tip: It's a good idea to read up on Twitter basics, including Twitter etiquette, before you start firing off spam-o-grams or nasty rants. One of the best things about Twitter is that its culture generally favors nice over nasty, but not in an over-the-top or fake way. Here are some quick guides to Twitter that will help you to sidestep the faux pas while making the most of this incredibly powerful and versatile communications tool. Have fun -- and I hope you'll take a moment to swing back and report on the many uses you find for Twitter -- things I haven't even dreamed of yet.