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	<title>IdeasCategory: Family &#124; Ideas &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>IdeasCategory: Family &#124; Ideas &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: The Breast-Feeding Police Are Wrong About Formula</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/13/viewpoint-the-breastfeeding-police-are-wrong-about-formula/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/13/viewpoint-the-breastfeeding-police-are-wrong-about-formula/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 18:50:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amy Tuteur, M.D.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health & Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Public Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[breastfeeding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[formula]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[supplement]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=32396</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pediatric researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have just discovered something that anthropologists (and moms around the world) have known for years. You do not have to go all or nothing on breast-feeding in the very beginning in order to breast-feed successfully long term. (MORE: How Formula Could Increase Breast-Feeding Rates) In fact, a new paper in the journal Pediatrics has found that early limited formula feeding actually increases the rate of long-term exclusive breast-feeding. The difference was quite dramatic. A total of 79% of 3-month-old infants who received early supplementation were being breast-fed exclusively, while only 42% of babies who received no supplements were still being exclusively breast-fed at 3 months old. The study involved only a small number of infants, all of whom were losing weight at a rapid rate as newborns, but the findings may have implications for all breast-feeding mothers. Breast-feeding activists have long argued that supplementation is detrimental to breast-feeding. It is a position that has been codified in the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (“Give infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated&#8221;) and programs like New York City’s Latch on NYC, which goes so far as to lock up formula as if it were a dangerous drug. (MORE: Breast-Feeding Wars: Why Locking Up Baby Formula Is a Bad Idea) What&#8217;s interesting to note is the fact that many other cultures — some with much higher breast-feeding rates than ours — infants are given other liquids until a mother&#8217;s milk comes in. According to a review of 25 previously published studies of tens of thousands of mother-infants pairs in such countries as India, China, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, a significant portion of women (from 25% to 50%) delayed breast-feeding for an average of 66 hours. Many of these infants received supplemental fluids, some of which are even imputed to have ritual significance. One of the greatest barriers to breast-feeding in this country is the unreasonable expectations set by breast-feeding advocates. They are loathe to admit that many babies may benefit from<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=32396&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Public Health</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/health-science/public-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/109029469.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Women breastfeed their babies at the Hir</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Is Mother&#8217;s Day Sexist?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/09/viewpoint-is-mothers-day-sexist/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/09/viewpoint-is-mothers-day-sexist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 09:45:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Stone Lombardi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[family values]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Father's Day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gender roles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gender stereotypes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hallmark]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mother's Day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parenting]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=31733</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s the time of year when we celebrate mothers and — about a month later — fathers. But the way we view each holiday reveals a lot about the growing gap between cultural gender stereotypes and the reality of most families’ day-to-day lives. How do we celebrate Mother’s Day? Well, it’s Mom’s day off. This is the day she does no cooking, no cleaning and, of course, no childcare. She is brought breakfast in bed and taken out to a restaurant. Cards abound that show women soaking in bubble baths, sipping wine, reading books with their feet up. Mother’s Day is the one day she doesn’t have to be a mother, a job for which she is on duty the other 364 days. The other half of this image is the hapless father, trying to take her place for that one day. You know — breakfast in bed is served, but the mother is already imagining the disaster in the kitchen, with pancake batter all over the floor and dishes mounted in the sink. Dad is clueless, and dresses the kids in striped shirts and plaid shorts. (To take just one example: “For my Wife, on Mother’s Day. You just relax. I’ll take care of everything,” one card reads. The cover shows a guy in sports jersey holding out a flower. Open it up and it says, “By the way, where is everything? Happy Mother’s Day!”) Father’s Day, by contrast, is thought of as the day that Dad does spend with his children. It’s a day for a family barbecue, or to take Dad fishing or on some other activity he enjoys. Dad doesn’t need a break from all the caretaking he does all year — rather this is a day to engage him in family life. (MORE: Smother Mother: Why Intensive Child-Rearing Hurts Parents and Kids) Other messages in Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards also reinforce sex stereotypes. Moms are thanked for the hugs, for drying the tears, for “always being there.” Dads, though, tend to be thanked as role models and<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=31733&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Society</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/society/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/mothersday.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mother&#039;s Day card</media:title>
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		<title>When &#8216;Flex Time&#8217; Means Ripping Off Workers</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/03/when-flex-time-means-ripping-off-workers/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/03/when-flex-time-means-ripping-off-workers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2013 09:45:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Judith Warner</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carolyn Maloney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flex time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[overtime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paid time off]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[work-life balance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Working Families Flexibility Act]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=32020</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Flexibility is a slippery word. To advocates of family-friendly work policy, it means having the ability to have some choice in how you work, where you work and when you work — without putting your job or your career prospects in jeopardy. For the fortunate, generally white collar and well-educated workers who have access to this sort of flexibility, it means being able to work from home, take time off for parent-teacher conferences or perhaps temporarily cut back to a reduced workweek. For low-wage workers, however, flexibility all too often means being at the beck and call of employers. These workers can be — and often are — sent home on a moment’s notice (and without pay) when business is slow. They are told to cancel long-scheduled personal days if business picks up, and are sometimes threatened with immediate firing if they can’t stay late at work for last-minute overtime because they need to get home to their families. (MORE: Will Family Issues Finally Get Addressed?) This confusion of meaning was clearly what House Republicans were counting on when they chose the Working Families Flexibility Act as the name of legislation that aims to free businesses from the necessity of providing workers with overtime pay when they labor extra hours. The treacherously named bill, which was introduced early last month by Alabama Republican Congresswoman Martha Roby, with the enthusiastic support of House majority leader Eric Cantor, would allow private-sector employers to compensate workers with time off when they put in more than 40 hours a week instead of paying them the time-and-a-half overtime wages now required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Cantor, eager to woo female voters who abandoned the party last fall, has hailed this new deal as a boon for American families — a way to allow mothers and fathers to “participate in the lives of their children,” as he put it, in a memorandum to House Republicans, early last month. “All too often working parents find there just isn’t enough time at home with their kids,” he wrote. “Too many parents<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=32020&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Labor</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/business-tech/labor/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/flextime.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Flex time</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: The Boy Scouts Stoop to a New Low</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/21/viewpoint-the-boys-scouts-stoop-to-a-new-low/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/21/viewpoint-the-boys-scouts-stoop-to-a-new-low/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 21 Apr 2013 10:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Howard Bragman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing & Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boy Scouts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boy Scouts of America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[burying the news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gay ban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public relations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=31535</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[While the entire U.S., and indeed much of the world, was glued to television sets watching a massive manhunt for one of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, the Boy Scouts of America thought it would be the perfect time to announce that they will finally be taking a long-delayed vote at a national meeting on May 20 about whether to overturn their controversial policy banning homosexuals from scouting. (MORE: Boy Scouts Consider Ending Policy Banning Gay Members and Troop Leaders) In p.r. parlance, this is called &#8220;burying the news.&#8221; It works like this: when an organization doesn&#8217;t want an announcement to get attention then they release the information on a busy news day, or a Friday, or in this case, both. The thinking is that more pressing news will overshadow the story; that the shift between weekday and weekend staffs at news organizations will help it &#8220;get lost in the shuffle&#8221;; and that by the time Monday rolls around, more current events will have overshadowed the announcement, essentially making it &#8220;old news.&#8221; As a veteran media-relations counselor, I have executed this strategy myself. And depending on what is being announced, it can work. But in this case, it not only has no chance for success, it&#8217;s almost guaranteed to anger both the media and the interested parties and cast the Boy Scouts in a more negative lights. The end result is that not only is the issue not buried, it gets even more attention. (PHOTOS: LIFE with the Boy Scouts, 1971: Photos from an Era of Change) It&#8217;s not surprising that the Boy Scouts used such a misguided tactic. They have handled the public aspects of this issue badly ever since it first became a topic of discussion in the early 1980s. As recently as January, they announced that they would be voting on a resolution at a national executive meeting, only to contradict themselves by later announcing that the issue &#8220;needed more study.&#8221; Not only that, but the compromise that will be voted on in May is sure to appease<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=31535&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Society</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/society/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/1432205061.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Boy Scout uniform</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor</media:title>
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		<title>Stop Telling Me I&#8217;ll &#8220;Change My Mind&#8221; About Wanting Kids</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/17/stop-telling-me-ill-change-my-mind-about-wanting-kids/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/17/stop-telling-me-ill-change-my-mind-about-wanting-kids/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:45:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jen Kirkman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[birthrate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[childless by choice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kids]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parenting]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=31318</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As a woman of a certain age — and really ever since I hit puberty and my baby-making parts were suddenly subject to public debate — I’ve been told over and over again that I will “change my mind” about not wanting kids. I have been told this by friends (who also once insisted I would change my mind about being a vegetarian and loving Morrissey — they’ve gotten over that) and by random strangers at comedy clubs after they just paid good money to laugh at my stand-up routine where I say, “I can’t have another person running around the house who is more helpless than me.” Once, at a friend’s wedding, I was cornered by another guest and forced to answer the question, “Well, what would happen if you accidentally got pregnant?” She was implying that under that circumstance, I would have to change my mind. A passing acquaintance, at a wedding, was basically confronting me about whether I would choose abortion over my silly little lifelong commitment to not raising children, you know, if push came to shove. (MORE: Caitlin Flanagan: What About the Children?) I was livid. More than livid, I was embarrassed. I understand the pressure from parents who want to become grandparents, but from another woman, it&#8217;s bullying, plain and simple. Asking questions about why I don’t want kids is really none of your business, but at least it’s a dialogue. Telling me straight up that I will “change my mind” because you are so sure that I will suddenly realize one day that my decision is the wrong one — that’s not only rude, it’s an attack. And think about how painful that kind of statement might be to a woman who can’t have kids, and who has thus far been politely humoring you so she can get another glass of white wine before they shut down the open bar? You can see this bullying in the media coverage of those who are “childfree by choice” (which sounds like a dull and defensive name<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=31318&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Family</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/family/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/1500_id_kids_toys_0417.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Toy horses</media:title>
		</media:content>

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		<title>Should Parents Ask Other Parents About Guns in the Home?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/12/should-parents-ask-other-parents-about-guns-in-the-home/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/12/should-parents-ask-other-parents-about-guns-in-the-home/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:45:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bonnie Rochman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[American Cities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[children and guns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gun control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shootings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30699</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The other day, the father of a classmate of my son&#8217;s called to ask if he could join a group of fourth-grade boys practicing a comedy sketch for their school’s talent show. Like any parent coordinating a child’s schedule, I asked the basics: What time? Where do you live? When should I pick him up? Then I stammered out a final question, apologizing in advance for its personal nature: Do you keep guns in your home? Long pause. “No,” he replied, “but it’s a valid question.” The events of the past few days only reinforce the need to ask these questions. Last week, a 4-year-old picked up a loaded gun at a cook-out and accidentally killed the wife of a sheriff’s deputy in Tennessee. And on Monday, another 4-year-old shot and killed a 6-year-old friend as they played outside in a New Jersey neighborhood. “I’m sad for the children involved and their families, but I’m angry with whoever owns that gun and allowed a little child to get hold of it,” neighbor Debbie Coto told the Associated Press. (MORE: Kids and Guns: Why Doctors Have a Right to Know) I’m angry too. But I’m also proactive, which is why I never fail to ask the question of any parent who invites one of my kids over. I got the idea from a gun-safety rally I covered years ago, long before I even had kids. The advice sounded sage, if a bit discomfiting. It never fails to elicit a moment of stunned silence, but I’ve long since made peace with the awkwardness of asking. After all, when sending our kids over to someone else’s house, we make sure that the host parents have the appropriate car seats or boosters so that our children are safe on the road. If our kids have allergies, we let the host parents know. Recently, when my daughter invited a pal who has a peanut allergy to spend the night, her friend’s father dropped the girl off with a sleeping bag, a toothbrush and an EpiPen — just<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30699&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Society</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/society/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/kidwithgun.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<title>Do Men Really Have a Biological Clock?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/11/do-men-really-have-a-biological-clock/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/11/do-men-really-have-a-biological-clock/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:20:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Amy Tuteur, M.D.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health & Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[autism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[biological clock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paternal age]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[schizophrenia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=22070</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The news that autism and schizophrenia may be related to paternal age has brought mixed feeling to the legions of women who have long been warned about the dangers of trying to have children too late. Finally, it seems that the imperative to reproduce sooner rather than later will fall on prospective fathers as well as mothers. But calling this new awareness of the health risks of paternal age a &#8216;biological clock&#8217; is somewhat misleading as the issues men and women face have profoundly different implications (for more, read Jeffrey Kluger&#8217;s story in the new issue of TIME, available to subscribers here). The term originally had nothing to do with fertility. In the medical literature, it referred to the mysterious mechanism behind recurrent biological changes—daily shifts in body temperature, for example—and applied to men, women and amoebas alike. But during the 1970s, as women began flooding the work force, it began to be used—often by men—as the temporal waning of a woman&#8217;s ability to conceive, the force that ends ovulation and brings on menopause.  &#8221;The clock is ticking for the career woman,&#8221; warned Richard Cohen in the Washington Post in 1978. (MORE: Can You Afford to Start Parenting at Middle Age?) Today the biological clock refers to the drop off in female fertility after the age of 35, a decline that can begin even earlier. According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), “age is a significant factor influencing women’s ability to conceive.” A classic study of artificial insemination showed that after 12 cycles, 74% of women younger than 31 became pregnant, compared to 54% of women more than 35 years old. Moreover, when older women do get pregnant, the chance of having a miscarriage rises dramatically. Although a woman&#8217;s risk of bearing a child with a disorder like Trisomy 21 (Down&#8217;s Syndrome) also rises after the age of 35, the biological clock really refers to whether she can conceive at all. (The fact that the cut-off point varies from woman to woman only brings more uncertainty and anxiety.) For men,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=22070&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<title>Viewpoint: ADHD Isn&#8217;t A Metaphor</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/09/viewpoint-adhd-isnt-a-metaphor/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/09/viewpoint-adhd-isnt-a-metaphor/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Apr 2013 09:45:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Judith Warner</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Health & Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medical Insider]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Psychology]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CDC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicated Child]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30570</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Let’s say that rates of ADHD diagnoses among kids in America are continually rising. Let’s say that stimulant medication use — both prescribed by doctors, and as the result of illegal trade with friends —  is on the rise, too. What do we make of that information? What do we do with it? In particular, how do we use it to improve children’s and teenagers’ lives? The answers speak volumes about where we are as a society and where we ought to be headed. The default response, every time we get news about any sort of uptick in the diagnosis and treatment of children’s mental disorders, is to issue condemnations of bad parents, bad doctors, bad teachers, and bad schools. (Not to mention big bad pharma, of course, which, it seems, will never rise from the bed of nails it has built for itself  over the years.) A more thoughtful response would be to ask what the rise means. Are more children with the disorder who previously went unnoticed — girls, African Americans, Latinos, notably — now being identified and counted? We know that’s true, and it accounts for some of the rise. Does the increased social acceptability of the ADHD diagnosis mean that it’s the “label” doctors are most likely to stick on kids who, in addition to distractibility, have a whole host of more scary-sounding problems, in the hope of getting reluctant parents to sign on for some sort of treatment? Does the decreased stigma surrounding ADHD (the commonly-heard, “everyone has it, so it’s no big deal” view) mean that parents who’ve been told their kids have “attention issues” in addition to, say, a learning disability or a mood disorder, will cling to — and report to survey-wielding researchers — just the banal-sounding ADHD label? (MORE: The Myth of the Overmedicated American Teen) And, much more troublingly, are children who don’t have the disorder now being diagnosed and treated for it? And, if so, where is this happening, how is it happening, and why? The raw, unanalyzed, not-yet-peer-reviewed numbers that the New York Times, bizarrely, led<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30570&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Public Health</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/health-science/public-health/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ca33551.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<title>Viewpoint: We Need to Rethink Rehab</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/03/we-need-to-rethink-rehab/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/03/we-need-to-rethink-rehab/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:45:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>David Sheff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health & Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Psychology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[addiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American Society of Addiction Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Beautiful Boy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evidence-based treatment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nic Sheff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rehab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rehab programs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twelve-step]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30243</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When my son Nic became addicted to methamphetamine and other drugs, I was panicked, overwhelmed and desperate to save his life but had no idea what to do. I’d heard about rehab, where you send people with drug problems, but I soon learned that there’s no standard definition of it; instead it’s a generic word for a wide variety of treatments, including some that are outrageous. Past-life therapy? Exorcism? Tough-love programs in which patients are made to scrub bathroom tiles with a toothbrush or cut grass with scissors? Even in more-typical rehabilitation programs, patients are not seen by licensed practitioners — no doctors or psychologists — only self-anointed “experts” with no training or credentials, unless you count their own recoveries from addiction to heroin, alcohol or other drugs. (MORE: Q&#38;A with Anne Fletcher: What Really Goes On in Drug Rehab) I chose a rehab center for Nic that was recommended by a friend who had sent her son there. The program lasted 28 days, after which he relapsed. Over the next six years, he was admitted to six residential treatment programs and four outpatient programs. He would do better for a while, but then relapse. Each relapse was crushing. I thought he might die. Every year in the U.S., 120,000 people die of addiction. That&#8217;s 350 a day. I&#8217;ve already written about my experience with Nic, but for my new book, Clean, I wanted to understand why so many suffer and die. So I undertook an investigation of the treatment system that so often fails. I learned that no one actually knows how often treatment works, but an oft-quoted number of those who abstain from using for a year after rehab is 30%. Even that figure is probably high. “The therapeutic community claims a 30% success rate, but they only count people who complete the program,” according to Joseph A. Califano Jr., founder of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse and a former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. “Seventy to eighty percent drop out in three to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30243&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Psychology</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/health-science/psychology/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/pills.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Prescription pills</media:title>
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		<title>Why the Supreme Court Is Likely to Rule for Gay Marriage</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/25/why-the-supreme-court-is-likely-to-rule-for-gay-marriage/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/25/why-the-supreme-court-is-likely-to-rule-for-gay-marriage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:45:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Cohen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Case Study]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anthony Kennedy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense of Marriage Act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DOMA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gay marriage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[supreme court]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=30074</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Supreme Court hears arguments tomorrow in two historic cases about whether same-sex couples have the right to marry. It is always difficult to predict Supreme Court rulings, but there is good reason to expect some kind of victory for marriage equality. The main reason: Justice Anthony Kennedy, the man who is likely to cast the deciding vote. The court is considering challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, and Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that bans same-sex marriage in that state. These challenges are historic: though state and federal courts from Alaska to New Jersey have considered same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court has never heard a case about it. (MORE: Why Republicans Are Saying &#8220;I Do&#8221; to Gay Marriage) The Supreme Court is known for its sharp partisan divide. The four-Justice liberal bloc is likely to be sympathetic to gay marriage, while the four-Justice conservative camp is likely to be hostile — though how Chief Justice John Roberts will come out is far from certain. In the middle is the court’s usual swing Justice, Justice Kennedy, who has — surprisingly — been the court’s most steadfast supporter of gay rights. A Reagan appointee, Justice Kennedy is no liberal, as he has shown on issues from affirmative action to corporate campaign spending. But he has repeatedly sided with gay litigants before the court. In 1996, early in the gay-rights legal revolution, he wrote the majority opinion in Romer v. Evans, striking down a Colorado constitutional amendment that prevented localities from passing laws protecting gay people from discrimination. In 2003, he wrote the landmark ruling Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down Texas’ law against gay sex. (MORE: What Will Justice Kennedy Do?) It is not clear why Justice Kennedy — who has not been a particular friend of racial minorities in civil rights cases — has been so sympathetic to gay rights. One factor could be that, as a law professor told the Los Angeles Times, he is a “California Establishment Republican” who has traveled “in circles where<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=30074&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<title>More Ways Women Sabotage Themselves</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/more-ways-women-sabotage-themselves/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/more-ways-women-sabotage-themselves/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:02:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dominique Browning</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[career women]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[having it all]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lean In]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resilience]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sheryl Sandberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women in the workplace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[work-life balance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=28783</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m tired of listening to women who have it all tell a new generation of daughters that it was all a mistake. That they shouldn’t set the bar so high. That they cannot have it all. They’re wrong. And they’re not remotely helpful. What makes me qualified to talk about this? I’ve managed a successful career in sexist workplaces and have broken my share of glass ceilings. I’ve raised two wonderful feminist and otherwise morally good sons. I’ve successfully managed personal relationships, some to their natural conclusions. I have never let a setback keep me down. (I disagree with Sandberg&#8217;s &#8220;no failures&#8221; rule, as I believe we have much to learn from heartbreak and healing.) And I’m reinventing success with the best of them. (MORE: TIME&#8217;s Cover Story, &#8220;Confidence Woman&#8221;) So I’m with Sheryl Sandberg. Let’s first dispense with her critics&#8217; favorite tropes: 1. She’s rich, white and privileged, so what does she know? Note that when rich, privileged, white (or black or Hispanic) men write books about how you too can attain success, no one says that their achievements disqualify them as authorities. How do we think Sandberg got rich? She worked hard. She put herself in the right place at the right time. She didn’t let anyone get in her face. She found a mate who supported her ambitions. Her journey provides a terrific role model — for some of us. There are never going to be one-size-fits-all solutions to the problems women face in our sexist world — or any problem, for that matter. So let’s stop using that as an excuse not to do some hard listening. 2. She’s blaming the victims. Why isn’t she talking about government-subsidized day-care programs and the enforcement of laws that equalize pay — two hugely important issues? Because life is full of conversation, and Sandberg has something else to add: it is time for women to look at how they might be sabotaging themselves. (MORE: Sandberg Exclusive Excerpt: &#8216;Why I Want Women to Lean In&#8217;) First, what do we mean by “having<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=28783&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<title>What About the Children?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/what-about-the-children/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/what-about-the-children/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Caitlin Flanagan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sheryl Sandburg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women at work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[work-life balance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=28866</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, with its bracingly Nietzschean title — Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead — and its stupendously accomplished young author, represents the leading edge of contemporary American feminism. It’s a school of thought that devolves from a simple and stark truth: while women have made enormous gains over the past generation, when it comes to the top jobs in the most powerful institutions, they are all but absent. (MORE: TIME&#8217;s Cover Story, &#8220;Confidence Woman&#8221;) Sandberg, a businesswoman, is most concerned with women’s vanishing act in the top realm of corporate America: Only 20 Fortune 500 companies are run by women, she reports; in those companies, women account for only 14% of executive officer positions and only 16% of board seats. The world would be a much better place, she argues, if half its institutions — including these money-printing top corporations — were run by women. It&#8217;s in all of our best interests, she argues, to support policies that would help more women land top jobs. All this sounds like a worthy cause until you pause to consider some of the firms she lionizes. Goldman Sachs, for example, gets star treatment, featured in four separate, glowing examples. Clearly, Sandberg would love to see the outfit eventually helmed by a woman. But the firm’s current CEO earned over $20 million last year, and many of us are disinclined to view Goldman Sachs as an outfit dedicated to the commonweal, so it’s hard to imagine a grassroots movement taking up the cause of the highly educated, hugely paid businesswomen who might seek the position. (MORE: Dominique Browning: More Ways Women Sabotage Themselves) Moreover, Sandberg reports that one of the main reasons women undermine their chances of executive positions is that before they have children they begin to craft career plans that would provide them with more flexibility and reduced responsibilities. This, says Sandberg, can result in the “tragedy” of women leaving the workforce altogether because their jobs become less satisfying than raising their children. In her view, staying home<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=28866&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<title>What the Pygmies Can Teach Us About Child Rearing</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/30/what-the-pygmies-can-teach-us-about-childrearing/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/30/what-the-pygmies-can-teach-us-about-childrearing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:45:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Erika Christakis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Arts & Entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jared Diamond]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peter Gray]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pygmies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resilience]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=27851</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With narcissism levels on the rise among college students, and kids everywhere growing up with inflated egos and deflated life prospects, it’s hard to make the case for giving kids yet more pats on the back. But a growing body of research suggests we still have much to learn from traditional societies where babies grow into resilient and caring adults through a steady diet of nurturing. Jared Diamond’s new book, The World Until Yesterday, describes some of the lessons we can learn from today&#8217;s hunter-gatherer societies that most closely approximate the way people lived in our ancestral past. While they vary in important ways, most of these societies share a leisurely childhood where infants are constantly held by their mothers or other caretakers and where young children have enormous freedom to play. (MORE: Judith Warner: Why American Kids Are Brats) These traditional practices are important to understand because many indices of poor health in children — such as obesity, depression, ADHD and teen suicide — have increased dramatically in the U.S. over the past 50 years. At the same time, play, which has wide-ranging cognitive, physical, emotional and social benefits, is under siege from shortsighted school policies, changes in family structure and technology use, and other 21st century pressures. Although it’s tricky to make causal leaps, evolutionary psychologist Peter Gray links the decline in play to a rise in children’s psychopathology via lost opportunities to make friends, learn self control, develop intrinsic motivation and other basic developmental functions. According to Diamond, babies are nursed on demand in the hunter-gatherer world, are never left to cry (88% of !Kung baby cries are responded to within three seconds), and children exhibit few of the psychological scars of contemporary life. Loneliness and depression are virtually unheard of and children learn empathy through noncompetitive games and the care of younger siblings. Kids in traditional societies have few rules or expectations; in some hunter-gatherer societies, such as the !Kung and Aka Pygmy, young children are even indulged when they slap and insult their parents. (MORE: TIME&#8217;s Complete Coverage of Attachment Parenting) The nuclear family is<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=27851&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Family</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/family/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/babycrying.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Baby Crying</media:title>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Pro-Life and Feminism Aren&#8217;t Mutually Exclusive</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/03/viewpoint-pro-life-and-feminism-arent-mutually-exclusive/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/03/viewpoint-pro-life-and-feminism-arent-mutually-exclusive/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:42:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Emily Buchanan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abortion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[feminism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Margaret Carlson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Martin Luther King Jr]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pro-life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Susan B. Anthony]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26151</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From its early beginnings, feminism was a young women’s movement. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Charlotte Lozier and so many others began their suffragist work in their 20s. These women — the original feminists — understood that the rights of women cannot be built on the broken backs of unborn children. Anthony called abortion “child murder.” Paul, author of the original 1923 Equal Rights Amendment, said that “abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” So the pro-life movement hasn’t changed the meaning of feminism, as has been suggested. It was the neo-feminists of the 1960s and ’70s who asked women to prize abortion as the pathway to equality. (MORE: Has the Fight For Abortion Rights Been Lost?) Marjorie Dannenfelser, along with a group of mostly Democratic women, started the Susan B. Anthony List in 1992, the so-called Year of the Woman, when numerous pro-choice women were elected to Congress. Dannenfelser, then in her mid-20s, saw a need to support more pro-life women running for elected office. Twenty years since the organization&#8217;s founding, we now have two pro-life women in the Senate, 17 in the House, four in governorships and hundreds more in state legislatures. Pro-life feminism has captivated a new generation of young women who reject the illusion that to be pro-woman is to be pro-choice. Gallup polling showed that among 18-to-29-year-olds, there was a 5% increase in those labeling themselves &#8220;pro-life&#8221; between 2007–08 and 2009–10. The past few years have seen the emergence of young leaders like Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, who is responsible for organizing more than 675 pro-life groups on college campuses across the nation, and Lila Rose of Live Action, whose undercover video work has forced the abortion industry to confront and amend practices it cannot defend, as well as dozens of other future leaders who have assisted our organization as staff members and interns. During the past two summers we&#8217;ve had young female leaders join the SBA List from Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of California, Berkeley. These passionate defenders<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26151&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Society</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/society/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/aaei001255.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Signs For and Against Abortion Rights</media:title>
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		<title>The Lesson of the Boy in the Pink Ballet Flats</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/14/the-lesson-of-the-boy-in-the-pink-ballet-flats/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/14/the-lesson-of-the-boy-in-the-pink-ballet-flats/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:48:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Judith Warner</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[have a gay day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mary fischer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pink shoes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sam]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26464</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Amazingly enough, the big parenting story this week concerns a pair of pink zebra-patterned shoes. Pink zebra-patterned ballet flats, I should add — because the details matter — which a five-year-old boy named Sam reportedly fell in love with at the shoe store, and then wore to his first day of preschool several months ago. Last week, his sister posted a photo of Sam’s shoes on Facebook’s “Have a Gay Day” page, noting that when her mom had pasted his picture on her own Facebook page, a number of relatives had come forward to lovingly warn that the shoes were “wrong,” would “affect him socially” and might “turn him gay.” This infectious concern then went viral, with mom-blogger Mary Fischer wondering if the mother in question, however well-meaning, was perhaps setting her son up for a lifetime-scarring dose of “insults and ridicule” that a more reasoned choice of footwear could have prevented. All of which led me to a couple of reflections: 1)  That my mother would have dismissed the pink zig-zagged confections as “not school shoes” — “school shoes” being sturdily-constructed cloddy things with laces and arch support, in dirt-defying shades of dark brown or navy blue. If the mom in question had simply reacted to the light-colored, impractical ballet flats with the kind of lip-tightened rejection that my own mother would have sent their way, the whole story would have been over. (And because we are all doomed to reject our parents before becoming just like them, I sent my own older daughter to preschool in her chosen shoes — black patent leather Mary Janes with leather soles — earning myself a talking-to from her teachers, who said she needed more sturdy shoes in order to run and climb with the other kids.) And 2) That the reaction to the mom, the boy and the shoes reflects just how much magical thinking has seeped into our national parenting conversations. The notion that a preschooler’s shoe choice — or a parent veto-ing that choice — will have a lasting effect on his life’s<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26464&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Family</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/family/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/pinkshoes.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Image: Boy wears pink shoes</media:title>
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		<title>Why I’ve Stopped Sending Holiday Photo Cards</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/06/why-ive-stopped-sending-holiday-photo-cards/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/06/why-ive-stopped-sending-holiday-photo-cards/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:15:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nina Burleigh</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pop Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christmas card]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[holiday cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[You Tube]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=26179</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Because I married a photographer, once we had children, our holiday cards of course became vehicles for their cuteness and his creativity. In 2000, baby number one’s chubby smiling face in a Santa hat was the cover image. In 2004, our now-four faces were ornaments on a tree. By 2006, we donned stocking caps and lay down in bed together with a thought bubble over our sleeping heads filled with cherries and the headline “While Visions of Sugar Plums Danced in Their Heads.” Our best card was our last, in 2010. We dressed in extravagant holiday finery, gowns, jackets and bow-ties, except that my husband couldn’t find any tuxedo pants, so he wore the cummerbund over tartan boxers. We arranged ourselves tableau-style before a bookcase, holding what we hoped looked like hymnals and making Os of our mouths singing. We titled it:  “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel.” That was two years ago. We mailed it out in envelopes, signed, sealed and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service and its analogues in distant lands. Good cheer and laughs in mailboxes all around! It’s been downhill ever since. By last year, we&#8217;d let our mailing list go to seed. We communicated with most of our friends online and no longer had street addresses for them. So on December 23rd or thereabouts, I sent out a paltry five or six store-bought cards with a photo tucked inside and called it a day. Erik Freeland The author&#8217;s holiday card from 2010. This year she will not be sending one. (MORE: Working on Holidays: The New Class Divide?) I didn&#8217;t know it then but my world, my social world, was changing. Today, my 1,500 Facebook friends — 1,300 of whom I have never actually met—have already seen the best of the year’s haul of pictures of my kids. They also know where I&#8217;ve gone on vacation and sometimes, what I cooked for dinner or what I thought of a movie on a Saturday night in May. There’s little point to writing a Christmas update now,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=26179&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Family</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/life-style/family/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/xmascards.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">xmascards</media:title>
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		<title>Autism&#8217;s Invisible Victims: The Siblings</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/30/autisms-invisible-victims-the-siblings/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/30/autisms-invisible-victims-the-siblings/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:00:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Barbara Cain</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health & Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[autism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[developmental disorders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[siblings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=25875</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It is a virtual epidemic. One in 88 American children is diagnosed with autism-spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Earlier this week, Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held a hearing on how the federal government can better respond to the dramatic rise in autism rates. Yet for all this concern, one large affected group is being routinely overlooked: the siblings. Of the 839 studies reported within the past four years in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, only four were devoted to siblings, and their primary focus was on genetic risk rather than life experience. (MORE: What to Make of the New Autism Numbers) Over the past five years, I conducted in-depth interviews with a nonclinical population of 35 siblings of children with autism, and their pain, grit and silent endurance was akin to children who grow up with a parent or sibling with a chronic, debilitating disease. As they told their stories, often for the first time, they spoke of brothers who lurch from a gentle touch, stare fixedly at a moving fan and avert their gaze from a smiling face. They described sisters who scream when a chair is moved an inch out of place or repeatedly recite the names of flowers that begin with p. Perhaps the most striking motif across interviews was the fierce devotion they showed to their affected brother or sister. One youngster relived a catastrophic event when her brother quietly drifted away while in her charge. The image of his wandering the streets, unable to speak his name, was forever etched in her mind, her carefree lollipop days forever gone. Gripped by the specter of losing him again, she became as vigilant as a tiger mom and created an invisible tether connecting each to the other. In another family, Marion, the older sister of a spectrum child, applied to Harvard and was promptly accepted. But she seriously considered refusing the offer because &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t abandon Elena when I was literally my<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=25875&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">Image: Siblings of Autism</media:title>
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		<title>The Invisible World of Nannies, Housekeepers and Caregivers</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/27/why-domestic-workers-need-a-bill-of-rights/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/27/why-domestic-workers-need-a-bill-of-rights/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:45:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ai-jen Poo</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[caregivers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[domestic workers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[housecleaners]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nanny]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=25601</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;She&#8217;s like a member of our family.&#8221; Behind the well-intentioned sentiment, so often said of nannies and caregivers, lurks a sad truth. To be &#8220;like a member&#8221; of the family is a far cry from being a family member. (VIDEO: Ai-jen Poo Discusses the Domestic Worker) This week, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the DataCenter are releasing the first ever national survey of domestic workers, Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work, which reveals how vulnerable these workers are to abuse. Take Anna&#8217;s story from the report: “Having honed her child development skills as a teacher in the Philippines, Anna was hired as a live-in nanny for a family of four in Midtown Manhattan &#8230; At night, she sleeps between her charges on a small mattress placed on the floor between their beds. She has not been given a single day off in 15 months. Like many domestic workers, Anna’s pay is low &#8230; On average, then, she is paid just $1.27 per hour.” (MORE: The Tiger Nanny: The Missing Link in the Parenting Debate) While not every domestic worker — nanny, housecleaner or caregiver for the elderly — faces conditions as bad as Anna&#8217;s, the survey found that 23% of all domestic workers and 67% of live-in workers are paid below the minimum wage. Without formal contracts, tasks expand and workdays lengthen, often without any additional pay. Employers lack guidelines or standards, and domestic workers are left to toil alone in private homes unseen by co-workers with whom they could compare. Researchers interviewed 2,086 workers and a third reported that they worked five or more hours without breaks, and few workers report receiving overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week. Many workers are paid late, which, combined with their low wages, leads to financial hardship: 40% of workers reported having to pay rent or other essential bills late, while 20% of workers reported that there were times when they went without food because they could not afford it. Then<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=25601&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Labor</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/business-tech/labor/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/aijenpoo.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Ai-jen Poo</media:title>
		</media:content>

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		<title>Viewpoint: Adults Read Too Much Into &#8220;Sesame Street&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/27/viewpoint-adults-read-too-much-into-sesame-street/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/27/viewpoint-adults-read-too-much-into-sesame-street/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:45:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Erika Christakis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Arts & Entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abby Cadabby]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elmo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Katy Perry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kevin Clash]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sesame street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sesame Workshop]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=25697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many adults who have been tracking the story about Elmo-creator Kevin Clash&#8217;s departure from Sesame Street might be surprised to learn that they&#8217;re part of the show&#8217;s target audience. As the Sesame Workshop explained last year, in response to parental outcry over an apparently risqué Katy Perry segment recorded with Elmo (but not aired), “Sesame Street has always been written on two levels…We use parodies and celebrity segments to interest adults in the show because we know that a child learns best when co-viewing with a parent or caregiver.” It’s hard to argue against parent-child bonding, even in TV-watching. And it’s understandable that parents feel protective of the show and want to track every real or imagined controversy. The nostalgia factor is high, for one thing, with more than 77 million American adults having watched the series as children. Sesame Street’s unique content – a blend of pre-academic skills, social advocacy, and multicultural harmony – also reinforces parents’ sense that they are raising good kids and doing their best for them. (MORE: Katy Perry Weirds Out Sesame Street) But parental concern about the puppeteer&#8217;s sex life obscures a different set of issues. First, it’s problematic when adults over-identify with children’s entertainment. When the launch of a new character is a major news event (as when ABC News selected Abby Cadabby as Person of the Week) and puppet characters have their own publicity machines, it’s easy to forget about the real target audience: preschoolers, most of whom are watching the show not on two levels, as the Workshop suggests, but on one level, and often alone. Anxious speculation about the Elmo brand’s post-scandal prospects reflects an adult’s perspective on the puppet character, not a young child’s, as one Wall Street Journal blogger sheepishly admitted when she confessed to confiscating an Elmo toy from the diaper bag to avoid intrusive thoughts while playing with her son. But parents who are suddenly finding it awkward to make good on Santa’s Christmas promise of an Elmo doll are really missing the point. The simple truth is that most three year-olds<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=25697&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Pop Culture</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://ideas.time.com/category/arts-entertainment/pop-culture/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeopinions.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sesamestreet.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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		<title>Viewpoint: Will Family Issues Finally Get Addressed?</title>
		<link>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/09/viewpoint-will-family-issues-finally-get-addressed/</link>
		<comments>http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/09/viewpoint-will-family-issues-finally-get-addressed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:30:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Judith Warner</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life & Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[barack obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paid maternity leave]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sick days]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ideas.time.com/?p=25141</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Women did a great deal for Democrats in this election. Their support cemented President Obama’s return to the White House, and their disgust with Republican extremism maintained and strengthened the party’s Senate majority. (MORE: 4 Ways Women Won the Election) Now it’s time for the party to return the favor. Having successfully held the line on reproductive rights, staking out a strong position of support for women’s dignity and sexual self-determination, Democratic leaders now need to go further and start a new campaign to complete the most serious unfinished business of the modern women’s movement: bringing our institutions in line with the changed realities of contemporary family life. Fewer than one-fourth of American families with children under age 15 now have a wage-earning dad and a stay-at-home mom. Yet most of our workplaces are still structured as though every employee had a wife at home to perform the full-time job of homemaking and caregiving. Our schools are open for ridiculously few hours each week and for a grossly inadequate number of days each year. High-quality, accessible and affordable care for young children is out of reach for all but the luckiest, and wealthiest, families. And after four decades of women’s steady progress into the workforce, virtually nothing has been done politically to address this situation, which imposes damaging  levels of stress on parents and children alike, at all levels of the income scale. (MORE: Valium Invalidation: What If Mother and Father Really Did Need a Little Help?) Knowing all this, in 2008 candidate Obama (indeed, all the Democratic presidential candidates) ran for office with a well thought-out and specifically spelled-out platform of family-friendly policies. This year, despite the Democrats’ assiduous courting of women and the family-friendly language in the Democratic platform, such policies were all but absent from the political discussion. It would seem that our devastated economy — and our devastatingly fractious political environment — has made it impossible, even laughable to talk about new programs or initiatives that could cost serious money (in the case of early childhood<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=ideas.time.com&#038;blog=27622548&#038;post=25141&#038;subd=timeopinions&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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			<media:title type="html">image: Supporters of Elizabeth Warren cheer for her outside the Graham &#38; Parks School in Cambridge, Mass., Nov 6, 2012.</media:title>
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