Today's top news stories for parents

By now you've heard more than enough about balloon boy and yesterday's news that the local sheriff's office will soon file criminal charges. Last week I wrote about the appropriateness of having an inflatable spaceship in one's backyard, which was what boggled the minds of parents as "the scene" originally unfolded. Now, of course, the story has evolved from one of startling negligence to choreographed publicity stunt.

The appropriateness of using your children in an elaborate plot to snag oneself a reality-TV show? Of hauling your vomiting child onto the sets of network television programs? It's too obvious to dwell on for long.

Here's are the other news stories you'll want to read today:

Swine flu has been linked to 11 more child deaths in the U.S. The figures here offer some important context about scale of this flu compared to normal seasonal influenza, and about the impact of this flu on children. While the Centers for Disease Control normally record between 40 and 50 child deaths over the course of an entire flu season, swine flu has already been linked to 43. And that's in a country where immunization is already underway.

Flu vaccines are just arriving in Canadian provinces and territories. The Canadian government has been under tremendous scrutiny for being behind other nations, such as the United States and Australia, on the timing of this vaccine roll-out.

Deaf and hearing-impaired children do not have equal access to health care or to the help they need in schools. The advocates in this story liken children being offered just one cochlear implant to giving a double amputee just one artificial limb. Plus, they point out that all children have an equal legal right to special accommodations in school, but purchases of special headsets or other equipment is up to individual schools, and in many cases, is just not given priority.

Hot water is no better for hand-washing than cold or lukewarm. I know I've wasted thousands of litres of water waiting for it the water to warm-up washing my hands or my children's hands. This is good news both for the environment and everyone's dry hands.

Smoking could be banned in Peel apartments and condos. Public health officials are making the case that smoking in these buildings presents a second-hand smoke risk to neighbours.

And here's some other fun stuff to check out today:

Scientists find 32 new planets

Youth cooking contest at Royal Winter Fair

Why we love the Wild Things

Michele Henry's latest baby blog post

Our Guide to Halloween

Ann Douglas's The Mother of All Parenting Blogs

Balloon boy: A parent's perspective

As newsrooms jumped hungrily on the story of Falcon Heene yesterday, the 6-year-old boy feared to be adrift in a homemade hot air balloon, the mood among parents was decidedly more sombre.

If the child really took off in the balloon, surely he was either dead, or at least terrified.

But along with this collective parental fear for the boy, moms and dads were asking, "Who keeps an inflated flying saucer ready for take off in the backyard when there are three small, would-be astronauts in the house?"

It's clearly been established that this family doesn't exactly have average past-times. And as the story unfolds, it's less a tale of a boy who wandered into the yard unsupervised and took off. No, now it's more a tale of confusion about the child's whereabouts when something went wrong while dad was tinkering with the family hot air balloon.

But nevertheless, let's just, for a moment, contemplate boys and homemade flying-saucer-shaped air craft.

I've got two young sons at home. Cameron is the same age as Falcon, 6, and Alister is 2. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will attest to the fact that most small boys go through a number of stages including:

*dinosaurs

*pirates

*space

(later Superheros, Lego, Star Wars...)

But space is a big. I can remember my first child's total fixation with astronaut stuff. It started around three. A thumb would come out of his mouth and he would say something like, "There's no gravity in space." Cameron has a cardboard space ship in his room, a dress-up astronaut jumpsuit, various toy space crafts and countless giant books of facts on space (the kind I dread to see at the end of a long bedtime routine).

His little brother is pretty into space now, too. Staggering home from our respective newsrooms yesterday, not yet knowing the fate of Falcon and both feeling ill, his father and I watched Alister jump on an arm chair and shout, "Come on THIS space ship. Let's go!"

Given the chance, would he crawl into the cardboard basket of a hot air balloon that looks a little like the Millenium Falcon? You bet.

No parent would wish on another a five-hour period of wondering if there child was gone forever Balloon boy's father insists this isn't a publicity stunt. However, Internet rumours are they just got a TV deal for a show about scientific project families can do at home. But either way, I don't think those boys need the temptation of storm-chasing hot air balloon where others might have a sandbox.

Children's Aid budget crunch

In York region alone, there are 500 children under the care of the local children's aid society. But nearly 90 staffers could be let go to accommodate a budget cut of $5.5 million.

Queen's Park reporter Tanya Talaga's story today, Budget cuts put children at risk, Ontario warned, outlines the complex funding problems facing the province's 53 children's aid societies.

There is plenty of finger-pointing and a lot of different numbers being thrown around. But this is the crux of it for me:

Marcelo Gomez-Wiuckstern, director of communications at the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies, says fewer case workers means agencies will not be able to respond to high-risk child abuse allegations or be able to meet minimum standards of seeing children every month to assess their "safety and well-being."

We only need to recall the report of Irwin Elman, the province's child advocate, to understand why this is not acceptable. In 2007, 90 children and teenagers died while under the care of the Ontario's child protection system. Some died in accidents. Others killed themselves. Some were murdered.

Katelynn Sampson's case should serve as a good reminder. She was found dead in the apartment of her legal guardian in 2008, while supposedly under the care of the Native Child and Family Services of Toronto.

Yes, these two stories speak to the failings of the child protection system as much as to the vulnerability of these children. But surely kneecapping the agencies by cutting case workers is not the answer.

Pill popping for a baby boy

I'm pretty clear on where babies come from.

I've had a couple. My parents were very open about "the birds and the bees." And I was schooled in the era of "Guidance" class, where we watched episodes of Degrassi and could scribble questions on little pieces of paper.

In other words, I've had every reason to know exactly how one conceives a boy or a girl, and to take for granted that women around me also know that when sperm meets egg, it's already written in stone. Or at least in chromosomes.

I suppose that's why Raveena Aulakh's series came as a bit of a surprise to some among my Twitter following. It's about the sham salesman shilling fake pills that promise expectant Punjabi moms that their babies will be boys.

Most of us have some notion of the kind of pressure women from such paternalistic cultures are under to give birth to boys. (Don't all of us know someone who has adopted a baby girl from China?) But it's another thing altogether to be confronted with the picture this series paints.

Right here in the GTA, a man will meet an expectant mom outside his newspaper office with a bogus promise of an 85 per cent chance of having a boy and a plastic baggie of unlabelled pills, for which she will part with $750.

Today's story explains Health Canada's response to the Star investigation: There are no approved drugs that influence gender in pregnancy, and no pregnant woman should take medication without consulting a family physician.

The initial story, Desperate Mothers, also touched on the issue of using information gleaned through ultrasound to selectively abort fetuses of non-desired gender.

Some have voiced concern that this sort of story gives fuel to pro-lifers, who'll somehow pile it up in a case against both abortion and routine ultrasound, and imperil the health and choices of women everywhere.

I think the plight of these women - some who are far from their own families and treated in a threatening manner by in-laws - is important enough not to care if it gives a few nutbar anti-choicers a little more to yell about.

It may take generations more to see South Asian bias against girls diminish, and none of us outside that world can claim to have the answer. But meanwhile, let's not assume these women have all the information they need to protect themselves from snake-oil salesmen, or abusive partners and in-laws. Let's let their story be as important as the one about vital access to safe abortion.

One doesn't preclude the other.

Cameron quote of the day

Cam: "Wouldn't it be awesome if there was fast-forward and rewind in life and that way, if you made a wrong decision, you could just go and back and do it over? And then if you were really excited about Christmas or your birthday, you could just fast-forward?"

Me: "Oh, Honey, but you wouldn't want to miss stuff in life just to get to something more quickly."

Cam: "But you could REWIND, too! For example, let's say I wanted to have more than two pieces of cake..."