"There's nothing ergonomic about being a parent." Writer Shawnee Barton talks about the non-Hallmark, less discussed aspects of being a mother: the physical changes that come from pregnancy and giving birth.
"Turns out, we are all mama soldiers returning from the battlefields of life-creation. And like most stories from the frontlines, the physical scars inevitably stir genuine emotions and sentimentality that those greeting cards fall far short of replicating."
posted by ichomp
on May 12, 2013 -
84 comments
My Foreign Mom. "Every morning when the bus would come to pick us up while it was still dark out, I could see her slight backlit frame outlined in our blinds as she watched us drive away. A senior on the bus once asked if my mom knew that we could all totally see her. I told that kid to go fuck himself and to quit looking at my mom. To this day, I still can’t watch her watch us leave."
posted by Phire
on Apr 25, 2013 -
25 comments
"Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about." McGinley discusses his roles in
42,
Platoon,
Wall Street,
Point Break,
Car 54, Where Are You?,
Office Space,
Seven,
Mother and
Scrubs.
posted by paleyellowwithorange
on Apr 22, 2013 -
33 comments
The Earthbound Journal is the
Mother of all fan projects; a labour of love that took journalist Armand Kossayan over 150 hours to complete. And it's amazing. Armand describes it as "a retelling of the game’s plot from the point of view of primarily Paula and Jeff, with some smaller parts from Ness and Poo." Did I mention it's free. Go get it!
posted by Effigy2000
on Feb 2, 2012 -
12 comments
"Normal" human pregnancies last 40 weeks, right? Well, no; they can vary quite a bit by the mother's
race,
age,
number of previous children,
family history of delivering early or late,
home state,
work habits, and even
the fetus' HLA type. So where does that "40 week" thing come from?
Oh, dear. So check out this
super-nerdy pregnancy statistics website, from an engineer mom who is
collecting data from the public (see the
raw data and
auto-generated graphs, and
read the FAQ about the survey, with more cool graphs). Looking for
day-by-day probabilities on when that baby's due? This would be
your stats table with daily prediction (adjust dates at top of page as needed). Of course, you could always shut up your constantly inquiring relatives and friends
another way.
posted by Asparagirl
on Dec 16, 2010 -
45 comments
Noah Kirkman was stopped by the police while riding a bicycle without his helmet... He then spent the next two years trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare... trying to go home.
The Kirkman family has been locked in Kafkaesque bureaucratic limbo since a misunderstanding ruined an idyllic summer vacation in small-town Oregon in 2008.
[more inside]
posted by infinite intimation
on Apr 16, 2010 -
23 comments
"To Whom it May Concern: If this letter has been opened and is being read, it is because I have been seriously injured or killed by my son, Sky Walker." [...snip...] "I do not want him to be punished for actions for which he is not responsible."
[more inside]
posted by FunkyHelix
on Dec 7, 2009 -
88 comments
"Their idea is, in broad outline, straightforward. Dr.
Crespi and Dr.
Badcock propose that an evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg can, in effect, tip brain development in one of two ways. A strong bias toward the father pushes a developing brain along the
autistic spectrum, toward a fascination with objects, patterns, mechanical systems, at the expense of social development. A bias toward the mother moves the growing brain along what the researchers call the psychotic spectrum, toward hypersensitivity to mood, their own and others’. This, according to the theory, increases a child’s risk of developing
schizophrenia later on, as well as mood problems like bipolar disorder and depression."
posted by grumblebee
on Nov 11, 2008 -
43 comments
The History of Mother 1 (NES) In honor of the new fan translation of Mother 3 (or Earthbound for the GBA), I've decided to post an article explaining what ever happened to the English port of the first game in the Earthbound/Mother trilogy.
posted by AZNsupermarket
on Oct 25, 2008 -
19 comments
Celebrity Baby Blog explains Babywearing, how to do it and what could be the best way to do it for you and your baby. "Wearing your baby is one of the best things you can do to promote healthy bonding and attachment between you and your little one. Did you know that babies that are worn cry less and are easier to soothe? There are four main types of soft baby carriers: wraps, mei tais, slings and pouches. All are excellent for different types of carries and or different aged children."
posted by k8t
on Oct 30, 2006 -
44 comments
My shit doesn't stink. I'm serious—
my mother told me so. So there.
Abstract of study published in the Journal of Evolution and Human Behavior, "My baby doesn't smell as bad as yours: The plasticity of disgust", found here.
posted by emelenjr
on Jul 12, 2006 -
28 comments
"Jody Has Two Daddies" -- The literal remix. Scientists are making egg cells now, raising the (eventual) possibility of one guy providing the genetic material to raise a crop of eggs, while the other guy provides the crop of sperm (no extra work necessary). Just add one surrogate mother and there you have it: Yet another fundamentalist nightmare, in cute infant "Adam and Steve" form.
posted by jscalzi
on May 2, 2003 -
27 comments
So that woman on video beating her child...
WAIT! Don't delete this yet.
Something I found interesting was that at least one
news article mentioned that she was an
Irish Traveller. Apparently there are ten thousand Irish Travellers in the USA but little is known about them
academically , as a result, they have developed a rather negative stereotype, primarily as
con artists and
scammers. Probably one of the only nomadic groups left in modern times, these
gypsies are a
discriminated race in native Ireland.
posted by dirtylittlemonkey
on Sep 23, 2002 -
91 comments
