Mommywood: A baby girl for Buffy

Sarah Michelle (Gellar) Prinze and husband Freddie Prinze Jr. are now first-time parents to baby girl Charlotte Grace. The I Know What You Did Last Summer stars welcomed the newest member of the Prinze clan on Sept. 19.

After much time out of the spotlight, Freddie is slated to star in the upcoming 24 season and Sarah recently filmed the pilot for a new HBO show, The Wonderful Maladays.

Congratulations to them both!

mothers re-entering the workforce

The New York Times recently reported that more stay-at-home mothers are ditching their sweats for suits. In our current recession, many educated women that "opted out" of working to be stay-at-home moms are now dusting off their resumes, due to laid off spouses or tighter financial constraints.

The article is pretty upbeat, showing the resilience and success many women have found in the job market. But it raises an interesting question: Is abandoning a professional path too risky? Always?

This is the argument that Katie Allison Granju makes on her Home/Work blog for Babble. With the divorce rate as staggering as it is, with our economic prosperity obviously uncertain, it's important to consider the long-term ramifications of leaving a stable job behind. Granju uses her own personal experience and anecdotal stories to show the danger in being financially dependent.

I don't think anyone will deny the immeasurable benefits to being able to raise a child. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't fantasize about that opportunity. But in today's world, is it realistic?

Rather than condemning women for following their hearts and staying at home, Granju makes an important argument:

"What would be truly revolutionary would be a real Mother's Movement in this country, in which meaningful grassroots organizing would actually be taken to the voting floor by the women who represent us in Congress and to the boardroom by the female executives in the companies that employ us. Together, as mothers, we should be building support for the family leave, affordable health care, and child care options that would make this entire 'opt out' conversation moot. We need universal, paid family leave that allows one parent sufficient time at home to care for an infant, and we need more career-track, part-time jobs with real benefits, so that women with babies and young children don't have to make a potentially life-altering choice between immediate family needs and longterm financial security. Further, we need a well-coordinated system of public and private childcare that allows the many women who 'opt out' of paying work altogether following the birth of their children - simply because they can't find or pay for acceptable care - to make their choices based on the bigger picture."

Amen sister.

There is nothing more important to the future of our society than quality parenting. We're raising the next generation of doctors, teachers, activists. We're directly shaping the minds that will create innovative inventions and inspirational art. We're recognizing and nurturing their talents, their ambitions. What job is more important?

So why do we struggle? Why do we regularly feel heartbreak and guilt?

The idea of a Mom movement is inspiring, but what Mom has the free time to organize it? What, with our need to make an INCOME and all.

How do you handle the work/home dilemma?

Teen pregnancy and religion

A new report in Reproductive Health found that the most religious states have the highest teen pregnancy rates, even after considering other factors, such as income and abortion rates.

Joseph Strayhorn, a professor at Drexel University and the University of Pittsburgh, and Jillian Strayhorn sifted through religious data from the Pew Forum’s US Religious Landscapes Survey, income data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and birth and abortion rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The states labeled as "religious" have high percentages of people that attend service at least once a week, pray at least once a day, claim to receive a definite answer to a prayer request at least once a month, and believe Scripture should be taken literally, word for word. These are states that have large amounts of people that believe there is only one way to interpret religion and that religion leads to eternal life.

The study suggests a possible explanation: Religious communities are less likely to teach and support contraception, perhaps due to abstinence-only education.

According to a National Public Radio poll, "the historical impetus for abstinence education has come from evangelical or born-again Christians." More than twice as many evangelicals as non-evangelicals believe the government should invest in abstinence-only programs rather than sex education.

It should be noted that this data only applies to the state level, not the individual level. The study does not assume that religious teens get pregnant more often than non-religious teens. It does, however, find an astonishing state-level correlation.

Do you agree with the assumption that abstinence-only programs are to blame? Does religion discourage the use of contraceptives? Are religious women choosing to start families younger than non-religious women?

What do you think?

Race against racism

A new article published in Newsweek found that kids naturally judge others based on their skin color as young as six months, and avoiding the subject doesn't avoid the issue. When it comes to race, colorblindness doesn't exist. More than that, the new book Nurture Shock argues that changing the way we talk about race to our young children could cause long-term change in the character of our society.

So what should parents do?

Studies at the Children's Research Lab at the University of Texas and at the University of Colorado have found that children as young as 3 should be talked to about race. Children's brains at this age are programmed for categorization and in-group favoritism. They assess their surroundings and group things according to what's visible -- skin color being an obvious category. It's in this developmental period when children are forming their first conclusions about race, whether or not a parent discusses it.

In fact, children as young as 6 months will stare significantly longer at photographs of faces that are of a different race from their parents. They obviously notice the difference. How could they not? In one study, a group of 3 year olds were given a deck of cards with drawings of people on them. When asked to split the deck in two piles, 68 percent divided the cards according to race, while only 16 percent used gender.

Beyond finding that children are not, in fact, colorblind, the article cites that many parents are uncomfortable talking openly about race. A 2007 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that out of 17,000 families with kindergartners, 75 percent of white parents never, or almost never, talked about race. Vague terms like "Everybody's equal" and "Under the skin, we're all the same," does not qualify as an explicit discussion on race. It's common to think that pointing out racial differences will encourage children to see divisions in society, but it's apparent that brown skin looks different from white skin. It's right there. Out in the open. Pretending like the difference doesn't exist, or making the topic forbidden, forces children to become intimidated by the mystery of race.

According to the article, talking about race should be just as easy as talking about gender.

"What jumped out at Phyllis Katz [then a professor at the University of Colorado], in her study of 200 black and white children, was that parents are very comfortable talking to their children about gender, and they work very hard to counterprogram against boy-girl stereotypes. That ought to be our model for talking about race. The same way we remind our daughters, 'Mommies can be doctors just like daddies,' we ought to be telling all children that doctors can be any skin color. It's not complicated what to say. It's only a matter of how often we reinforce it."

Are you comfortable talking to your children about race? How do you approach it?

For more about what I think, read this.

I get by with a little help from my phone

My husband and I have been toying around with the idea of scrapping our Verizon wireless service and following the masses over to AT&T for the iPhone. We're both massive Apple fans, yet I've been reluctant to switch over. Despite the nagging and nagging and NAGGING from Justin, with all of the other changes in my life -- is this necessary? Now?

But, Justin, you'll be happy to know -- I've been nudged a little further in your direction. Enter the iPhone apps for new moms, thanks to lilsugar.

No more keeping a pen and paper by your side to record nursing lengths and dirty diapers. No more keeping a safety pin on your bra to remember which side you nursed last. No more adding in your head to keep track of naps and diaper changes, which, let's be honest, is challenging on three hours of sleep.

Most promising, in my opinion:

• Baby Tracker: Diapers ($1)
  
• Track wet and dirty diapers, including a short description of the color and consistency and a clock to determine an approximate next change. The history can even be downloaded and printed for the doctor. For future parents: Yes, color and consistency are major deals. I know.
• Total Baby App ($8)
• Juggling information for multiples? Track diapers, feedings, naps, baths, doctor visits, vaccinations, growth carts and more for children of the same and different ages.
• Baby Tracker: Nursing ($5)
• Log the length and side you last nursed on, as well as the amount consumed for both breast and formula-fed babies.
• Baby Brain ($5)
• Control freaks and schedule-aholics, try to contain your excitement. Record all bodily activities (nursing, eating, changing, napping...) into Baby Brain and your phone will analyze the information daily, weekly or monthly to help form a set schedule. The information can even be sent over to your doctor in one click. I think my heart just skipped a beat.
  

For pregnant mamas-to-be, find helpful iPhone apps here.

Seeing that I don't have an iPhone -- yet -- I can't vouch for its usefulness. Anyone use these apps? Are there other apps you can't live without?

Kids taken away for nude vaca photos

You know those cute photos you have of your little one splashing around in the bath? Did it ever cross your mind that they could be incriminating?

An Arizona family had their three children -- ages 5, 4 and 18 months -- snatched away and put into foster care after a Wal-Mart employee developed some nude bath-time photos and alerted the authorities.

But it wasn't a child-porno shoot -- it was a family vacation in San Diego. A few of the 150 vaca. photos brought to Wal-Mart contained snaps of the children in "various stages of nudity" en route to the bathtub.

After a state investigation for sexual assault evidence, the parents were cleared of any wrongdoing. Naturally. The family is now suing Wal-Mart, the city, the state, and the Arizona attorney general for punitive damages for defamation and outrage.

Do you censor your photos for the person developing them? For the Internet? More shocking: Do people still develop pictures?

National Grandparents Day

This Sunday, Sept. 13, is National Grandparents Day -- a day to spoil the biggest spoilers of all, and to show your appreciation for their pure, unconditional love.

The holiday was originally created by Marian McQuade to comfort the lonely elderly in nursing homes and to strengthen the heritage bond between grandchildren and grandparents. In 1978, Jimmy Carter proclaimed the first Sunday after Labor Day as Grandparents Day.

My mother, a proud first-time Grandma.

If you have the time and resources, on-line photo sites like Snapfish (now offering free shipping until Sept. 13) have high-quality, affordable and fast photo gift ideas. And really, what grandparent has enough pictures of their little ones?

You can make customized photo books, mugs, magnets, calendars, or mousepads for under $20. If you want to splurge for a little more, try making a shirt, tie, apron, or even a blanket.

For those crafty mamas with toddlers, check out ideas here and here. And if all else fails, I'm sure a day with the grandchildren is enough to say "thank you."