Golden Boobies, Guilt, and a Dose of Reality in Mom Achievements

Ever seen a “super mom” badge for those women who exclusively breastfed for 12 months ? If you’ve had a kid in the past 5 years, you would be living under a rock if you haven’t seen one of these badges on social media. My personal favorite type of these awards comes from the “Boobie […]

Down with Clickbait: An Empirical Look at Co-sleeping

Benjamin Reiss wrote an interesting op-ed earlier this year for the LA Times that was everywhere on my social media. As the “non-crunchy” friend in a sea of Tula-loving, bedsharing families, I am often bombarded with articles which seem to affirm I am defective to my friends. I don’t think they actually believe that, it’s […]

How NOT to write about the science in sleep training literature.

As someone who has devoted her life to empirical research, it is really, really hard to read journalistic accounts of “studies” which totally miss the mark. In my younger years as a hungry PhD student, I taught methods labs to aspiring political scientists and double-majors in journalism at a university with a top J-School. My job […]

Implied Judgement is Still Mom Judgement

There will always be judgey moms who call you a “bad mom” – oftentimes even in your own social circle. I have been judged harshly by some for “choosing” not to breastfeed for medical reasons. I had friends think it was cruel for me to put my child in her own room to sleep in […]

Breastfeeding, Shaming and Solutions that Help

I’m sick of the shaming. Many years ago when our mothers were first becoming moms, they were shamed for breastfeeding. If we had been moms in the 90s, most of my friend group would have been so confused as to HOW to breastfeed. Now, it seems like the only way is breast. The problem is […]

Birth is not a contest I need to “win”

For as long as I can basically remember, I’ve had a health problem that caused stress or pain. As a child, I was in and out of doctor’s offices and hospitals due to life-threatening asthma. And by the time I hit puberty around age 10, I was dealing with the very real and clear pain […]

The Romanticism of Third World Motherhood

The recent Cry-it-Out arguments and “Breast is Best” competitions on my facebook have devolved into commentary about how “90% of the world doesn’t see it this way”. Possibly true. But I especially love these comments from people who have never been to the developing world for more than a luxe holiday. I get that many […]