Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Survey STILL says...kill your TV!

I grew up without one and am raising my kids without one, so you'll find no fan of television here. And the data is still pouring in favor of strictly limiting screen time for babies and toddlers. Here's the latest from Time magazine.

Yet, we live in a society that insists that television is a necessity, not a luxury - hence the government's appropriation of $1.34 billion for TV converter box coupons for the switch from analog to digital TV. What if this money had been spent on early childhood learning? Or education? Or health care? Or [insert your child-friendly cause here]?

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Study says swimming lessons lower drowning risk in toddlers

A long-awaited study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine concludes that swimming lessons for children ages 1 to 4 lowers the risk of drowning.

Makes me relieved to know the two years I spent being clawed by a wet, screaming toddler weekly at the Mommy and Me lessons may pay off.

Here's the chatter from TwitterMoms about this post

Thursday, February 05, 2009

A working mom in *this* economy?

I've just returned from the 4th meeting in as many weeks regarding my employer's budget and possible job losses over the next 6 months. As a professional, the prospect of losing my job is devastating, but the impact it may have my family will be on the scale of nothing we, as a family, have ever had to deal with. I'm wondering about other working moms out there: Are you thinking about it? Have you revised the family budget to accommodate a possible layoff? Will you try to find work right away or recoup your childcare costs and stay home? How will you communicate with your partner and kids about it? Have you considered playing the "mommy card" (i.e. lots of cute photos of your kids around the office, dropping hints that losing benefits would be awful for your family) to try and avoid the "short list"? Are you a veteran and can offer tips or advice? Or, are you taking the we'll-cross-that-bridge-when-we-get-to-it approach?

Here's the chatter from this post on TwitterMoms.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

TV - digital or analog or...who cares!

I just have to rant about all of the press about the switch from analog to digital TV. Politicians and the industry come at it from the angle that we NEED TV - that people who only have analog and won't be able to receive the digital signal are in dire straits. Here's a thought: what if we hadn't created a society that relies on TV? TV is NOT a necessity. Food is a necessity. Shelter, health care, education, medicine...those are necessities. My family hasn't had a TV for 6 years and seem to keep up with the news and (gasp) find perfectly suitable ways to entertain ourselves (my husband would pipe up here and point out that this is all well and good until you talk about live sporting events, but this isn't his blog, is it? :-) What if we spent taxpayer money on new models of communicating with the poor, those in rural communities, or the disadvantaged? Just a thought.