26 June 2009

Bad mother, good book


Ayelet Waldman’s memoir about her various ‘maternal crimes’ is sometimes eye-wateringly detailed, solipsistic and infuriating – but it is also far more enlightening than the reams of mummy lit written over the past 10 years. By Jennie Bristow.
Read on...

Parenting news

Fifth of women choose career over babies
The Times (London), 26 June 2009
Trend marked among 'women of higher social class, with better qualifications and who were brought up as only children'.

Woman can hold models of their unborn babies
The Times (London), 26 June 2009
Designer develops a method of using data from expectant mothers’ ultrasound scans to create life-size plaster impressions.

Featured articles

Jodi Picoult and the Anxious Parent
New York Times, 17 June 2009
In the novels of Jodi Picoult, terrible things happen to children of middle-class parentage: they become terminally ill, or are maimed, gunned down, killed in accidents, molested, abducted, bullied, traumatized, stirred to violence. The assault on any individual family is typically mounted from angles multiple and unforeseen. By Ginia Bellafante.

Join the movement for ‘Free Range Kids’
spiked, 29 May 2009
Lenore Skenazy, branded ‘America’s Worst Mom’ after she let her nine-year-old son ride the New York subway alone, has now written a manifesto for less panicked parenting and more childhood freedom. By Nancy McDermott.

Jewish school broke race laws by refusing boy
The Times (London), 26 June 2009
JFS, in Kingsbury, North London, said pupil was not Jewish because his mother had converted at a progressive synagogue.

Woman arrested for drunk breast-feeding
The Times Alphamummy, 25 June 2009
A woman in America pleaded guilty to child neglect for breast-feeding while intoxicated. Neighbours called the police when they say the 26-year-old slurring her speech and feeding her six-week-old baby.

Featured book

Licensed to Hug
Civitas (2008)
Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow argue that the dramatic escalation of child protection measures has succeeded in poisoning the relationship between the generations, creating an atmosphere of suspicion that increases the risks to children.

Ofsted report reveals data on very young children excluded from school
The Times (London), 24 June 2009
Very young children are being excluded from primary school because of their aggressive and sexual behaviour, an Ofsted report says.

Number of stillbirths has fallen sharply
The Times (London), 24 June 2009
The incidence of stillbirth has decreased over the past seven years, although the risk remains highest for older mothers.

The idea of a ‘best time’ to have a baby is a joke
The Times Alphamummy, 23 June 2009
By Jennifer Howze.

Worst schools to be forced into mergers
The Times (London), 23 June 2009
Top performing state schools will form academies to raise standards and cut costs at weaker schools, Ed Balls says.

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