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The 26 Most Disturbing Kid Movies Ever

Posted Jun 29th 2008 9:10PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Bizarre, Children, Entertainment

Babble.com has up a list of the 26 most disturbing kid movies ever. Wow, did it bring back some terrifying memories. There are a few Disney movies on there, but one notable omission: The Fox and the Hound.

For my money, this is the hands-down most horrible children's film of all time. Themes: the death of parents and the inevitability that your best friend will one day try to kill you.

Autistic Toddler Kicked Off Plane

Posted Jun 25th 2008 12:17PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Children

ABC reports that an autistic toddler (with his mother) was kicked off an American Airlines plane for pitching a fit while the plane taxied to the runway.

The boy's mother says the flight attendant exacerbated the situation: "She kept coming over and tugging his seatbelt to make it tighter, 'This has to stay tight'. And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seatbelt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him."

Of course, this is about the worst thing to do with a special-needs kid who's on the verge of a meltdown.

'Goddess' Born With Eight Limbs Now Has Four

Posted Jun 17th 2008 8:50AM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Bizarre, Children

Did anyone else see Friday's 20/20 segment on the Indian girl born with eight limbs? If not, you should check out the National Geographic special scheduled for Sunday the 22nd.

The girl was born with an incredibly rare birth defect: a parasitic twin was attached to her by the pelvis, making her resemble the multi-armed goddess Lakshmi.

The family sought medical help for her, and doctors performed a very long surgery that succeeded in removing the extra limbs.

Stay-at-Home Parents Worth $117K/Year

Posted Jun 9th 2008 5:28PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Children, Parenting, Money

Feministing quotes a Salary.com study that claims - based on the tasks and hours involved - a stay-at-home mom's work is worth $116,805 a year. (They don't talk about stay-at-home dads, of course, but I guess we can assume they'd make 25% more?)

Feministing's editor says: I used to think these studies (that usually come out around Mother's Day) were cool - they showed that women's work in the informal economy was worth something. But more recently, it almost seems insulting. As if women who contribute at home get a once-a-year chance to brag about how much they're worth - and then it's back to cleaning up socks with no compensation.

That's a good point. Also, doesn't such a study seem at once to put too low a price on a parent's role in a child's life (which is invaluable) and too high a price on full-time childcare (which even at a living wage wouldn't approach six figures)?

Teacher Lets Students Vote Autistic Kid Out of Class

Posted May 29th 2008 11:08AM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Bizarre, Children, Education

Well, looks like Port St. Lucie kindergarten teacher Wendy Portillo won't be named Teacher of the Year. According to the Treasure Coast Palm, she handled a difficult child, five-year-old Alex Barton (pictured at right), in what she probably thought was a creative manner:

She encouraged the other children in the class to tell him why they didn't like him (e.g.: he's "disgusting" and "annoying") and then to vote on whether or not he should stay in class (they voted to kick him out, 14-2). And so he was forced to leave!

Why in the world would a teacher hand over control to a classroom of five-year-olds? If she thought he needed to leave the room, why didn't she just take the authority upon herself to send him to the principal rather than handing the decision over to an army of PlayDoh-eaters?

Pediatricians Are Abandoning Percentiles

Posted May 29th 2008 10:34AM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Children, Controversy, Health Care

Jeanne Sager has written an interesting Babble article called "Off the Charts: Why some pediatricians are abandoning percentiles" about how American growth charts overseen by the CDC have been thrown out of whack by the obesity epidemic, and how they weren't all that hot to begin with because they weren't based on the best standards of care, like the World Health Organizations were.

So, it turns out that a baby's being in the seventh percentile for weight or height doesn't always indicate a "failure to thrive," as some parents have been told.

Slate Proclaims Normalization of Oral Sex

Posted May 28th 2008 6:48PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Sex, Children, Parenting

William Saletan has an odd, fuddy-duddyish article on Slate today about how oral sex has become normalized. He seems rather horrified by this news, and couches the article as a wake-up call to parents who may be unaware that their teenage children know about such outlandish things. He repeatedly refers to oral sex as "advanced" and to intercourse as "basic." Here's an excerpt:

The raw numbers indicate that 50 percent of teenagers aged 15 to 19 have had vaginal sex. Fifty-five percent have had heterosexual oral sex. Are kids substituting oral for vaginal?

Parents Put Baby Up for Sale on eBay

Posted May 27th 2008 3:40PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Bizarre, Children, Parenting

A German couple put their baby up for sale on eBay - and not one of those scary Reborn babies you usually see on the auction site, but a real seven-month-old boy. The starting price: one Euro (less than $2).

The ad read: "Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller."

Breastfeeding an Eight-Year-Old?

Posted May 22nd 2008 4:14PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Bizarre, Children, Parenting


This is a clip from a 2006 British documentary called Extraordinary Breastfeeding that we just spotted on Jezebel. Watch and be amazed: a woman decided to let her children wean when they were ready and they . . . just . . . never . . . . did. Or rather, they didn't until well into elementary school. And the nine-year-old says she misses it!

Here's marathon breastfeeder Veronika's defense of what she calls "full-term breastfeeding." An excerpt:

45 Reasons To Have a Baby Right Now

Posted May 21st 2008 1:32PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Children, Pregnancy, Parenting

There's a list up on Babble called "45 Reasons to Have a Baby. Right. Now." Here are the first couple of the forty-five arguments in favor of immediate procreation:

1. Splitting It 50-50

Maybe your dad never changed a diaper, but when you become a parent, you'll be expected to share the load equally. Which, in the end, works out best for everyone.

Lori Drew Is Indicted!

Posted May 19th 2008 12:03PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Crime, Social Media, Children

Remember how back in December, we were all talking about how sad the Megan Meier case was, and how it was awful that there was no way to prosecute her middle-aged harasser, Lori Drew?

[If you need a refresher here's the AP summary. Basically, this insecure girl Megan Meier, 13, met a 16-year-old "boy" on MySpace who turned cruel and pelted her with vicious messages, including one that said the world would be better off without her. Distraught, Megan hanged herself in her closet while her mother was downstairs. It was later revealed that this boy Megan had a crush on was in fact a fiction created online by a classmate's vindictive mother, Lori Drew.]

Well, it looks like there is justice after all.

Top 10 Baby Names Announced

Posted May 12th 2008 3:07PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Children

The totally addictive Social Security baby names website has just announced the top names of 2007. Here they are:

GIRLS
1. Emily
2. Isabella
3. Emma
4. Ava
5. Madison
6. Sophia
7. Olivia
8. Abigail
9. Hannnah
10. Elizabeth

Jenna Bush's Wedding Officiant Supports Obama

Posted May 12th 2008 11:52AM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: George Bush, Barack Obama, Children

Jenna Bush married her longtime boyfriend this weekend on her family's Crawford ranch. By all accounts it was a lovely ceremony and a great party. Check out the photo gallery here. But one thing caught our eye in the description of the event:

"The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston officiated. The influential Houston minister, who is backing Barack Obama in his run for the White House, is a longtime spiritual adviser to the president."

Wow, President Bush is friends with an Obama endorser -- so much so that he's let him marry his own daughter. That seems so open-minded and bipartisan of him. So, what exactly brought Bush and Caldwell together?

Thirty-Somethings Moving Back Home

Posted May 9th 2008 3:10PM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Children, Parenting, Economy

Nan Mooney wrote a piece for Babble this week about moving back home with her parents when she got pregnant. Only she's not a member of the Spears family. She's in her late thirties and a published author.

But she didn't have a partner or a child-friendly job, so she decided to give herself time to not have to worry about rent and her parents time with their new grandson.

The only problem: she started to feel like a teenager again, and not in the good way.

Teen Gives Birth, Then Jogs to Hospital

Posted May 5th 2008 11:00AM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Bizarre, Children, Pregnancy

This may just be the most incredible birth story of the year. A California teenager named Xochitl Parra concealed her pregnancy from everyone for nine months, gave birth alone in her parents' bathroom, then took the baby (still attached by the umbilical cord!) and jogged over to the hospital to get post-natal care.

According to the Press-Telegram, the director of the hospital's NICU said: "This is a heartwarming story, especially when a teenager does the right thing. We hear so much negative with teenagers throwing their babies in the dumpsters. This baby is fine and hopefully there will be a happy ending with the extended family."

The article claims that the story does indeed have a happy ending: mother and baby are fine, and the girl's parents didn't kick them out of the house. In fact, grandma's going to help take care of the baby so Xochitl can finish high school.

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