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Annie Samples is a 36-year-old content creator, copywriter, and mother who lives in Denmark with her husband and four kids. Annie is American, but she and her family moved to Denmark a little over three years ago when the design company her husband works for opened an office there. I found out about Annie through a video she made that went viral on TikTok. In the video — which now has over 13 million views on the platform — Annie discusses the Danish practice of letting babies sleep alone outside in their strollers. https://www.tiktok.com/@annieineventyrland/video/7147957022116318470I decided to reach out to Annie...

Today, the RealCare Baby 3 infant simulator is a fantastically sophisticated, computer-programmed doll that costs up to $1,000 to replace if you lose it. (I know because I had to sign a waiver; Anna’s school has six of them, provided through a grant from a local education foundation.) The student wears a corresponding wristband that logs his or her responses to the baby through a radio frequency identification tag. Then she — and most of the caregivers are female — has to determine what the baby needs, based on distinctly different cries. “Just like a real baby, you eventually kind of can tell — that’s a...

Is your child ready for first grade? Earlier this month, Chicago Now blogger Christine Whitley reprinted a checklist from a 1979 child-rearing series designed to help a parent figure that one out. Ten out of 12 meant readiness.... "Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend's home?" It's amazing what a difference 30 years have made.

A message for new parents: get ready for sticker shock. A child born in 2013 will cost a middle-income American family an average of $245,340 until he or she reaches the age of 18, with families living in the Northeast taking on a greater burden, according to a report out Monday. And that doesn’t include college—or expenses if a child lives at home after age 17. Those costs that are included—food, housing, childcare and education—rose 1.8 percent over the previous year, the Agriculture Department’s new “Expenditures on Children and Families” report said. …

".......... Lily, just like better-off men and women, believes that marriage means an unqualified commitment to the other spouse. When you marry someone, you support him in hard times. You stick with him when he disappoints you. You visit him if he ends up in jail. And you encourage him to become an important part of your children’s lives. It’s just that Lily doesn’t believe that Carl is worth that commitment. Nor does she believe that she will meet someone who will meet her standards anytime soon, and the statistics back her up.The economy has changed. A higher percentage of...

Women in the workplace isn't just about feminism, it's economic necessity with the GOP-shredded safety net During a HuffPost Live segment last week titled “Masculinity Now,” Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes aired a series of expletive-laden perspectives on modern femininity, none of them positive. While McInnes’ host and co-panelists maintained their calm, the blogger and publisher ranted that “feminism has made women less happy,” citing cultural pressure to “feign” toughness and inappropriate presence in the workforce as culprits. In short, McInnes’ claim is that the majority of women are naturally predisposed to derive satisfaction from “being domestic and shaping lives” rather...

<p>From day care to the monthly grocery bill, the cost of raising a child is climbing at a rate that many families can't keep up with.</p> <p>It will cost an estimated $241,080 for a middle-income couple to raise a child born last year for 18 years, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released Wednesday. That's up almost 3% from 2011 and doesn't even include the cost of college.</p>

FULL TITLE: Company president, 60, 'slaps 19-month-old toddler in the face on a plane and tells his mother to ''shut that n****r baby up''' A man has been accused of racially abusing then physically assaulting a 19-month-old child on a flight to Atlanta last Friday. Joe Rickey Hundley, 60, allegedly demanded that the mother of the crying toddler 'shut that n****r baby up' before slapping the infant in the face on the Delta flight on February 8. According to The Smoking Gun, Hundley has been charged with simple assault after the incident with Jessica Bennett, 33, and her son Jonah....

Ouch. Monday night was the first time I heard my daughter apply that label to herself, and the word didn't please me. She and six friends/coworkers were about to watch the final Obama-Romney debate on the large-screen TV in our suburban basement. These twenty-something kiddies were enjoying our hospitality because it was free. They're a company (founder, partners, contractors, trainee), part of the start-up trend whereby young persons hang out at coffee shops, staring into laptops, trying to start the next Foursquare or Fab and make a billion dollars. Until that happens, they can't afford things like airfare or hotels....

A Texas mother says a local school district is covering its own rear end by considering a policy change regarding corporal punishment after a male vice principal paddled her daughter so hard it left a nasty mark. The district in Springtown, just outside of Fort Worth, allows corporal punishment, but only when doled out by a teacher or administrator of the same sex as the student. But when Taylor Santos, 15, allegedly let a classmate copy her homework, Vice Principal Kirt Shaw disciplined the girl with a large wooden paddle, which he swung with a violent, upward motion, according to...

Hi Folks!  This is perhaps the most absurd story ever reported here — and that’s saying a lot! A reader named Rachel writes:A Deaf child named Hunter is not allowed to use his name sign because the sign for “Hunter” (a dictionary word) uses the thumb and first two fingers in a gun shape and suggests a shooting motion. Here’s the story.These school officials have lost their ability to reason if they believe stripping a child of his name is necessary for safety under a weapons policy. Educators who are unable to use logic and critical thinking have no business...

Hi Folks! Just read about this warning regarding Bumbo Seats — little seats that look even safer than normal seats because there’s a big, hmmm, I guess “bumbo” in front of the crotch, wedging the child in. (See below.) About 4 million — that’s 4,000,000 — have been sold. And now they are being recalled for retooling — basically adding a safety belt — after reports of 2 baby skull fractures. (Two, that is, while the seat was on the ground. Another 19 occurred when the seat was on a raised surface and presumably the child fell out or off.)Now,...

Yes, readers, it’s another case of child protective craziness. According to the Manchester, Conn. Patch, a local  mom was charged with “risk of injury to a minor and failure to appear after police say she allowed her seven-year and 11-year old children to walk down to Spruce Street to buy pizza unsupervised.” And according to reader Bob who sent this to us, Google Maps shows that we are talking about a half-mile walk! In addition to the solidarity of outrage, please post your ideas for how to protest the idea that kids are in danger every time they do something...

aybe it's the culture in Los Angeles, but every time I go to a different grocery store, there are so many options for children in the grocery cart, I wonder what's next: A teenager cart equipped with an Xbox? I've seen infant seats, booster seats, plastic cars that fit two toddlers or big kids attached to the front of the cart, and carts that have a traditional seat that fits two kids instead of one. But even with all of these options, we can never be too safe when it comes to putting our children on top of a shopping...

Los Angeles Anthropologist Elinor Ochs and her colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles have studied family life as far away as Samoa and the Peruvian Amazon region, but for the last decade they have focused on a society closer to home: the American middle class. ... In 22 of 30 families, children frequently ignored or resisted appeals to help, according to a study published in the journal Ethos in 2009. In the remaining eight families, the children weren't asked to do much. In some cases, the children routinely asked the parents to do tasks, like getting them silverware....

Muslims are just like Christians, except they are trendily exotic, and of course infinitely more politically correct. Christians have Christmas; Muslims have quaint rituals like Ashura, during which they please the demon Allah by slicing open children.

In "The Wizard of Oz," the Scarecrow has no brains - but at "Wicked," certain parents suffer the same shortcoming. The wildly popular musical, pulling them in at the Civic Center through Oct. 30, is the prequel to the Dorothy-led shenanigans through Oz. Crowds are wowed by the theatrics and singing, and I was also blown away - by the irritating children behind me. I think it was a trio of kids, but - for all the racket they made - it might've been three dozen. They were young and small; one seemed preschool age. And they whined and kicked...

Amelia Gentleman asks Tottenham residents and community leaders if bad parenting is at the root of the lawlessness "Parents are fearful about how they chastise their children," Clasford Stirling, a veteran youth worker, who runs the football club at Broadwater Farm community centre in Tottenham, said. "There's been an erosion of authority for a long time. Parents move very gingerly not to upset their own kids – that's the reality." Broadwater Farm estate is again at the centre of the unrest in London. Mark Duggan, whose death last week sparked London's riots, was brought up here, and sent one of...

What's the matter with kids today and why doesn't anyone want them around? In June, Malaysia Airlines banned babies from many of their first class cabins, prompting other major airlines to consider similar policies. -snip- Earlier this month, McDain's, a Pittsburgh area restaurant that banned kids under 6 became a mascot for the no-kids-zone movement. According to a Pittsburgh local news poll, more than half of area residents were in favor of the ban. And now big business is paying attention. "Brat bans could well be the next frontier in destination and leisure-product marketing," writes Robert Klara in an article...

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) -- If you're the kind of parent who allows your 5-year-old to run rampant in public places like restaurants, I have what could be some rather disturbing news for you. I do not love your child. The rest of the country does not love your child either. And the reason why we're staring at you every other bite is not because we're acknowledging some sort of mutual understanding that kids will be kids but rather we want to kill you for letting your brat ruin our dinner. Or our plane ride. Or trip to the grocery...