Stuff People Google 66

At first, I wast a huge fan of today's edition of Stuff People Google.

pregnant women are rude

In my experience, people are rude to pregnant women and not the other way around.  People are especially rude to pregnant women on the subway (more on that here).  But, there are two sides to every story, yes?  So, I racked my brain for an example of a particularly rude pregnant woman.  BAM - Gisele Bundchen.  If my memory serves me, Mrs. Tom Brady was full of misguided quotes during her first pregnancy, which included an assertion that it should be illegal not to breastfeed.

How else are pregnant women rude?  Do they swing their bellies around like weapons?  Steal snacks in the office place?  Cut ahead in long lines?  I thought line cutting was primarily occupied by a sector the senior population...yes, I've gone ahead and said something colorful about the senior population once again.  I wonder if there will be a backlash like last time.  For those who don't remember the last time I said something remotely unkind about the senior population (here), I suffered the wrath of one very angry commenter.

A Helping Hand From the Start

Mothers help their children.  They start helping from conception and keep helping...forever.  That's the ideal, of course.

This timeless and instinctive behavior, to nurture one's child, has taken intense (and arguably extreme) forms in modern times.  We all remember the recent TIME magazine article about attachment parenting.  And even if you don't remember the article, you most certainly remember the cover photo...

from May 21, 2012

And if that imagine doesn't jog anything, google the words "TIME magazine breastfeeding", then google the words "attachment parenting".  You'll be caught up in no time.

As I did in my response post to the TIME Magazine article, I'll again reiterate that I don't support or not support attachment parenting.  I do, however, think it exemplifies a hands on approach to parenting.  Say (or think) what you want about attachment parenting, you can't successfully argue that parents who subscribe to its tenets are laissez faire about child rearing.  Quite the opposite, it's an active, considered, and deliberate way of parenting.

Many women start parenting during pregnancy.  This is done with diet, exercise, meditation and other life style choices.  Eating certain foods allegedly prepares the unborn child's developing palate (more on that here).  There's labor preparation through prenatal yoga and labor preparation through childbirth classes.  Some mothers-to-be talk, read and sing to their unborn baby in a specific way so as to communicate in utero.

With all the parenting methods used before the baby arrives and after the baby arrives, it's no surprise that a way to parent during the baby's arrival has emerged.  In comes the mother assisted Cesarean section.  Who knows what I'm talking about?  I know at least one of you does (because one of you emailed me about this topic, thanks again!).  A mother assisted c-section is when the mother pulls the baby out of her uterus all by herself.  Why leave the delivery to the doctors when you can get your own mitts in there?  And by "in there" I mean inside your abdominal cavity.

When I first heard about mother assisted c-sections, my mind immediately went to that episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians when Kourtney Kardashian gave birth to Mason.  Kourtney K. didn't have a c-section, but she did pull Mason out of her own cookie (cookie = vagina).  If you have more respectable taste in television than I, watch this clip below to see it all unfold (the action is around minute 4):

I remember being slightly freaked out and slightly impressed when Kourtney grabbed Mason and literally yanked him out of her.  I also remember wondering whether it was planned or spontaneous.  I'd wager on the latter only because who could plan that and effectively execute it?  With a mother assisted c-section, there is a specific plan for the mother to yank her baby out.  Or so I've read (here).  In the context of being an active participant in your child's life, I sort of get it.  In the context of being an active participant in your own surgery, I'm not a huge fan...but maybe that's because I'm squeamish and not a doctor.

Thoughts?

Meathole of the Week: Amber Portwood

Who remembers the movie Ernest Goes to Jail?  I do.  Sort of.  I don't remember the plot or really anything about the movie other than the title and the lead actor.  For those who need a refresher, it came out in 1990 and was a sequel of sorts to Ernest Goes to Camp.  Jim Varney played Ernest in both. 

What's the segway?  Well, much like Ernest went to Jail in 1990, Teen Mom's Amber Portwood is heading to jail in 2012.  She will be the little darling of the Indiana Department of Corrections for the next five years.  And, as the title of this posts suggests, she will also be the Meathole of the Week on Next Stop Baby.  That's right, I'm bring back the Meathole of the Week because the original post (here) was so darn popular.  Speaking of, I almost made Ms. Hilary Duff a two time Meathole winner thanks to more annoying comments she recently made about how she's a genius at changing diapers and her son's a genius for rolling over.  Irkity Irk.

Back to Amber.  Whatever we think about shows like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom, we can begrudgingly concede that the cast members make bank.  Yes they earn that money by acting like the lowest common denominator, but I think it's safe to say that a portion of that grotesque behavior is choreographed (intentionally or subconsciously) for the cameras.  Crazy sells.  So, I don't fault Amber for viciously arguing with her child's father on camera or generally making us gasp at her lack of parenting skills.  She's paid to do that, sort of.  And Mama Amber's not bringing home the bacon in any other discernible way. 

Where the problem lies is in her need to repeatedly break the law.  Amber is to Teen Mom what Angelina is was to Jersey Shore.  Angelina couldn't suck up the fact that she hated all the other guido punks for just a few weeks out of the year to set herself up financially for life (or at least a couple decades).  Amber couldn't subdue her desire to abuse drugs and physically assault people for the sake of her daughter, much less for the sake of a pay check.

Weird

In second thought, maybe Angelina is the true Meathole because she's just a loud mouthed pain in the ass, where as Amber has a clinical drug addiction.  Either way, both girls have successfully dumped their cash cows in the garbage.  And, in Amber's case, she dumped her daughter in the hands whoever is legally able to care for her while she spends half a decade sporting an orange jumper and trying not to drop the soap.

But wait, some of you are thinking - forget Angelina, those soulless producers over at MTV are the true Meatholes.  On some level the old, wise adults at MTV knew exactly the type of teenage time bomb they cast as a Teen Mom.  You're thinking that the MTV staff has taken their formulaic television programming to a disgusting new level by supplying underage, drug addicted, anger unmanaged mothers with more than enough dough to feed all of their gnarly habits (and not their kids).  I hear ya, but I won't subscribe to this perspective until I'm given convincing evidence that, on top of all that cold hard cash, MTV also provides free access to drugs and weapons for all its teen mothers.  I don't think MTV can be blamed when there are plenty of young ladies on Teen Mom that did the opposite of Amber and got their shit together (relatively speaking).

Nothing like a good Meathole discussion to kick off your Tuesday.  What's your take?

It's Time to Talk About the TIME Cover

As my good friend WW would say, Get Serious.  It's time, once again, to talk about extended breastfeeding thanks to the latest edition of TIME magazine.  Last Thursday, the new TIME came out and all the media outlets were (and still are) buzzing about the cover photo.  Within hours of the cover's public release, I was receiving emails, text messages, Facebook wall posts and carrier pigeon mail suggesting that I discuss the cover on NSB.  It was hysterical and greatly appreciated.  Sometimes my creative juices simply don't flow, so I genuinely love post suggestions.  And, like in this case, when suggestions for a single topic come in droves, it also helps me understand what's hot.

And here's the close up...

While I don't particularly enjoy writing about extended breastfeeding (remember my twitter fight on the subject?), I'm willing to share my non-expert opinion when the moment strikes.  So, once again, let's get serious.

I first saw the above image on Morning Joe, my weekly a.m. ritual.  My first reaction was "woah" accompanied by a need to flip the channel (I'm being honest here, not intending to offend).  My first full thought, which was admittedly super cynical, is that the mom on the cover is in amazing shape and I wondered whether her motivation for extended breastfeeding is the weight loss benefits.  For those who don't know, breastfeeding burns calories.  I'm talking hundreds of calories.  There's a Sex in the City episode in which Miranda's co-worker breastfeeds her 5-year-old because she doesn't want to get back into a gym routine.

I haven't read the TIME article, but I have read a lot of the support and backlash that it has received.  And there's a lot on both ends.  First, I think that the majority (from both sides of the fence) found the cover image to be shocking, if not exploitive.  I also think most agree that was the point - get people talking.  So, well done TIME, mission accomplished.  I have no doubt that magazine sales sky rocketed for this month.

Next, do I have anything useful to say about the substance of the article?  Hmmm.  Not really because, again, I didn't read it.  But I'm going to attempt an opinion anyway.  The premise of the article is that extended breastfeeding is part of Attachment Parenting.  I had never heard the term "attachment parenting" so I'm going to assume that some of you haven't either and define it as best I can.  Attachment Parenting is a parenting style that aims to foster a relationship between a child and a primary caregiver so that normal social and emotional development can occur (thanks Wikipedia).  To me, this sounds like a run-of-the-mill parenting skill - bond with your child.  I dug deeper and learned that attachment parenting encourages a number of specific ways in which the parent/child relationship should be fostered, one of which includes extended breastfeeding.

I'm not sure how you feel after reading the above paragraph, but it didn't get me any closer to feeling comfortable with the TIME cover.  It did, however, help me to think of extended breastfeeding as a parenting style, just like forms of discipline and rules about picking your nose.  And when it comes to parenting styles, there are infinite theories and experts (many of which conflict).  So, in my non-expert and highly humble opinion, the lesson to be learned here is to each her own.  Each parent can (and should) choose a style that works best for the parent and for the child.  Maybe the style will be guided by the tenets of Attachment Parenting or maybe the style will be guided by something else (i.e. gut instinct, Oprah, etc.). 

It's like this: New Yorkers love to talk about how to get around.  There's a constant comparison of this highway to that thruway - she takes the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, he takes the FDR, I always avoid the Major Deegan.  Everyone thinks their route is the best, but who really knows.  At the end of the day, there are many ways to get from Brooklyn to the Bronx.  And there are many ways to raise a socially and emotionally normal child.