December 5, 2012
Why Don’t Parents Name Their Daughters Mary Anymore? So what does the Mary trend mean? First, it’s the growing cultural value of individuality, which leads to increasing diversity. People value names that are uncommon. When Mary last held the number-one spot, in 1961, there were 47,655 girls given that name. Now, out of about the same number of total births, the number-one name (Sophia) was given only 21,695 times. Conformity to tradition has been replaced by conformity to individuality. Being number one for so long ruined Mary for this era. Read more. [Image: 20th Century Fox]

Why Don’t Parents Name Their Daughters Mary Anymore?

So what does the Mary trend mean? First, it’s the growing cultural value of individuality, which leads to increasing diversity. People value names that are uncommon. When Mary last held the number-one spot, in 1961, there were 47,655 girls given that name. Now, out of about the same number of total births, the number-one name (Sophia) was given only 21,695 times. Conformity to tradition has been replaced by conformity to individuality. Being number one for so long ruined Mary for this era.

Read more. [Image: 20th Century Fox]

4:48pm
(Notes: 85)
  
Filed under: Name Children Parenting Women Names 
November 1, 2012
"I am more convinced than ever that the only way to make the kind of change we need to allow workers to build, provide, and care for strong families is to change conditions and cultural mores for men as well as women. But men have to join the conversation—publicly, candidly, and loudly."

— Anne-Marie Slaughter

10:28am
(Notes: 92)
  
Filed under: Parenting Family 
November 1, 2012
Introducing ‘The Sexes,’ The Atlantic’s Newest Channel Here, in TheAtlantic.com’s latest vertical, we plan to look at the way men and women interact in society today: in families, workplaces, schools, places of worship, romantic relationships, and popular culture. Some of our posts will have a personal focus, like Deborah Fallows’ reflections on how parenting has changed in the past 30 years. Others will have a wider lens, like Philip Cohen’s analysis of women’s share of the workforce. Some will be more serious, like a series by Karen Kornbluh on gender dynamics in the economies of nations around the world, while others will be more playful, like an upcoming story about the history of “mansplaining.” But they will all aim to answer the same question: How are the roles that men and women play changing? Read more. [Image: Tancha/Shutterstock]

Introducing ‘The Sexes,’ The Atlantic’s Newest Channel

Here, in TheAtlantic.com’s latest vertical, we plan to look at the way men and women interact in society today: in families, workplaces, schools, places of worship, romantic relationships, and popular culture.

Some of our posts will have a personal focus, like Deborah Fallows’ reflections on how parenting has changed in the past 30 years. Others will have a wider lens, like Philip Cohen’s analysis of women’s share of the workforce. Some will be more serious, like a series by Karen Kornbluh on gender dynamics in the economies of nations around the world, while others will be more playful, like an upcoming story about the history of “mansplaining.” But they will all aim to answer the same question: How are the roles that men and women play changing?

Read more. [Image: Tancha/Shutterstock]

10:09am
(Notes: 63)
  
Filed under: Sex Gender Women Parenting Equality Politics 
October 11, 2012
The Real Problem With Helicopter Parents: There Aren’t Enough of Them Mocking obsessive parents is fun. But their excesses are small compared to the parenting failures in so many homes. This “Parent Gap” is a real force behind America’s stark and unyielding income inequality. Read more. [Image: Reuters] 

The Real Problem With Helicopter Parents: There Aren’t Enough of Them

Mocking obsessive parents is fun. But their excesses are small compared to the parenting failures in so many homes. This “Parent Gap” is a real force behind America’s stark and unyielding income inequality.

Read more. [Image: Reuters] 

10:53am
(Notes: 61)
  
Filed under: Parenting Income inequality United States Children 
September 25, 2012
Airline Moves Babies to the Back of the Plane It’s baby apartheid, and it could be your best shot at getting some peace and quiet on an 8-hour red eye. Starting on Friday, AsiaAirlines is introducing seating that will keep passengers under the age of 12 away from older, baby-phobic passengers. It’s practically free, too. Read more. [Image: Shutterstock/Asia Air]

Airline Moves Babies to the Back of the Plane

It’s baby apartheid, and it could be your best shot at getting some peace and quiet on an 8-hour red eye. Starting on Friday, AsiaAirlines is introducing seating that will keep passengers under the age of 12 away from older, baby-phobic passengers. It’s practically free, too.

Read more. [Image: Shutterstock/Asia Air]

3:18pm
(Notes: 103)
  
Filed under: Baby Airline Travel Seating Children Parenting 
September 20, 2012
The Homeschool Diaries So we are making a different choice. Sure, we have philo­sophical reasons. Some of the parents in our circle are “unschoolers,” convinced that early education shouldfollowa child’s interests and initiatives rather than shapethem. Some of us aspire to offer something like a classical education: logic and rhetoric, mythology, Latin. Most of us are put off by the public schools’ emphasis on standardized tests and their scant attention to the visual arts, music, religion, and foreign languages. But the practical reasons for homeschooling are paramount. When you set the city’s gorgeous mosaic of intellectual and cultural offerings against its crazy quilt of formal education, you can’t help but want to supplement your children’s schooling with outings to museums, zoos, historic sites and neighborhoods, and the like. Even in a tight economy, just about every city cultural institution still has an educational division. Why “save” them for weekends or field trips? Read more. [Image: Roderick Mills]

The Homeschool Diaries

So we are making a different choice. Sure, we have philo­sophical reasons. Some of the parents in our circle are “unschoolers,” convinced that early education shouldfollowa child’s interests and initiatives rather than shapethem. Some of us aspire to offer something like a classical education: logic and rhetoric, mythology, Latin. Most of us are put off by the public schools’ emphasis on standardized tests and their scant attention to the visual arts, music, religion, and foreign languages.

But the practical reasons for homeschooling are paramount. When you set the city’s gorgeous mosaic of intellectual and cultural offerings against its crazy quilt of formal education, you can’t help but want to supplement your children’s schooling with outings to museums, zoos, historic sites and neighborhoods, and the like. Even in a tight economy, just about every city cultural institution still has an educational division. Why “save” them for weekends or field trips?

Read more. [Image: Roderick Mills]

12:23pm
(Notes: 72)
  
Filed under: Education Homeschool Children Parenting 
August 27, 2012
After Google Improved Maternity Leave, Post-Partum Attrition Dropped by 50% Amid all the handwringing about what technology companies can do to recruit and retain women in their ranks, we don’t hear a lot of solutions. But here’s an obvious thing that tech companies can do: increase the length of maternity leave and pay a full salary for its duration. Read more. [Image: Reuters]

After Google Improved Maternity Leave, Post-Partum Attrition Dropped by 50%

Amid all the handwringing about what technology companies can do to recruit and retain women in their ranks, we don’t hear a lot of solutions. But here’s an obvious thing that tech companies can do: increase the length of maternity leave and pay a full salary for its duration.

Read more. [Image: Reuters]

3:51pm
(Notes: 729)
  
Filed under: Women Feminism News Google Pregnancy Parenting 
August 27, 2012

theatlanticvideo:

How to Speak Toddler-ese

Dr. Harvey Karp, the subject of a profile in the September Atlantic, rose to fame as the author of The Happiest Baby on the Block. In his sequel, The Happiest Toddler on the Block, Karp shares techniques for defusing temper tantrums. One of the most unusual is a caveman-like dialect called “toddler-ese.” In these scenes from his Happiest Toddler DVD, Karp shows parents how to talk back to their enraged young children.

A request: Can somebody loop 1:25 to 1:28?

12:39pm
(Notes: 64)
  
Filed under: Babies Parenting Childhood Parents Toddlers 
August 22, 2012
Bye-Bye, Boomers: This Is the Age of the Baby Bust-ers In the last few years, young people have even many reasons to delay the costly trappings of adulthood. Pinned between rising student debt behind them and scant job opportunities before them, 34% moved back home for a period of time. With access to their parents’ garage, they needed (and could afford) fewer cars of their own. Young people now account for a smaller share of total auto purchases than they did just a few years ago. It all leads to babies. Or, more specifically, not babies. In February this year, a Pew survey found that more than one-in-five young adults between 18 and 34 have delayed having a kid because of the economy — roughly the same proportion that postponed marriage. “Americans have had fewer babies each year since 2008, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “Births [fell] to a 12-year low in 2011,” leading to the smallest population gain since World War II. For a couple, pushing the pause button on weddings, houses, cars, and children is utterly sensible. (Look at the economy, after all.) But for the economy, itself, it’s disastrous. Read more. [Image: Wikimedia Commons]

Bye-Bye, Boomers: This Is the Age of the Baby Bust-ers

In the last few years, young people have even many reasons to delay the costly trappings of adulthood. Pinned between rising student debt behind them and scant job opportunities before them, 34% moved back home for a period of time. With access to their parents’ garage, they needed (and could afford) fewer cars of their own. Young people now account for a smaller share of total auto purchases than they did just a few years ago.

It all leads to babies. Or, more specifically, not babies. In February this year, a Pew survey found that more than one-in-five young adults between 18 and 34 have delayed having a kid because of the economy — roughly the same proportion that postponed marriage. “Americans have had fewer babies each year since 2008, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “Births [fell] to a 12-year low in 2011,” leading to the smallest population gain since World War II.

For a couple, pushing the pause button on weddings, houses, cars, and children is utterly sensible. (Look at the economy, after all.) But for the economy, itself, it’s disastrous.

Read more. [Image: Wikimedia Commons]

12:13pm
(Notes: 82)
  
Filed under: Babies Economics Economy Parenting Baby Boomers Jobs Adulthood 
August 10, 2012
"The next morning, the first item on my agenda was a panel discussion about ‘Unschooling as a Life Philosophy.’ I entered the conference room just as the introductions were beginning. There were five women on the panel and between them they had 15 children, three of whom were named after continents."

— Quinn Cummings investigates the radical world of “Radical Unschooling” 

3:03pm
(Notes: 34)
  
Filed under: School Education Parenting Homeschooling 
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