Have you ever seen a nanny you didn't know ignoring a wailing baby or worse? Now you can report the bad behavior. The blog, isawyournanny.blogspot.com, is devoted to sightings of nanny misdeeds-or at least what other adults perceive as misdeeds.

While there are reports of nannies who, for instance, completely fabricated their resumes, hate children, or blab about all the intimate details of their employers' lives, there are also postings about nannies who used a cool tone with a child (The Horror!) or, in those 30 seconds they were observed, seemed to be bored, or more interested in drinking their coffee than engaging with the toddler...whom they've probably spent seven consecutive hours with.

How about if we start reporting parental misdeeds?
On Monday, I saw a mother on the NJ Transit train from Penn Station slap her two adorable kids across their arms and harshly reprimand them for just making a little noise. She also grabbed one of the kids' cheeks and squeezed hard.
On Tuesday, I saw a mother in my New Jersey town scream at a little girl who wasn't hers, just because the girl cut a line at the playground.
I could go on and on.

Okay, I completely understand why this blog is perfect for our times. It is scary to leave your child with a stranger, especially when your kids are pre-verbal and you're at work all day. And I've certainly seen my share of bad nannies and sitters. I've also been as paranoid as the best of them (though I never used nannycams).

But while this blog is a great read and undoubtedly helpful to some moms--and I'm sure I would have been obsessed with it when I hired my first nanny 10 years ago--I think it also is a sad reflection of the big divide--the miscommunication and distrust--that exists between nannies and mothers. If you're hoping for a little insight, check out a new anthology, Searching for Mary Poppins: Women Write about the Intense Relationship between Mothers and Nannies, published this month. I have the honor of being a contributor to this book, but I just finished reading it--it has some thought-provoking, eye-opening, and really moving stories about this fraught relationship.


Stumble It!

The conventional wisdom that kids today are overscheduled, and it's stressing them out is wrong, according to new research published in the Social Policy Report, a respected journal of the Society for Research in Child Development.

In fact, a nationwide random survey of 2,125 children aged 5 to 18, found that the more time children spend in organized activities, the better their grades, self-esteem, and relationship with parents. Even those who spend more than 20 hours a week--a small minority, just 6%--didn't experience the stress and anxiety that experts have previously posited to the "overscheduled child." And this study also echoed the findings of another study of 314 affluent, suburban 8th grade students.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom about overscheduled kids, the researchers found:
* Kids usually participate in organized activities not because they are under pressure from their parents, but mostly because they want to participate themselves.
* Very few kids have such hectic schedules. On average, kids spend about 5 hours a week in organized activities, whereas roughly 40% of children don't participate in any extracurricular activities at all.
*Those who don't have any organized activities tend to be less academically successful and have poorer relationships, leading the researchers to conclude that the problem isn't so much too many overscheduled kids but large numbers of kids who don't have the benefits of scheduled activities.
*The benefits of participation does NOT decline as participation goes up; by and large, even those who spent 20 or more hours per week in organized activities show better adjustment compared to those who don't participate.

So why is it that so many of us feel as if kids are buckling under from the stress of overscheduled lives?

The researchers have an interesting theory: It might be that it's actually the parents who are having difficulty managing their kids' schedules. "Perhaps more so than the children, it is the parents who are overextended, with ongoing conflicts regarding their life roles," Suniya Luthar, Ph.D., of Columbia University, writes.

No doubt the proponents of the overscheduled child will counter soon, perhaps poking holes in their methodology. I also wonder if this new research is failing to take into account the benefits of boredom. Kids can get very inventive when they aren't in adult-led activities. But still, this new research does have a certain resonance: the truth is, my kids love taking soccer and swim lessons; it's me who finds it stressful to ferry them around and keep track of schedules, while also keeping my own career and life going.


Stumble It!

According to USA Today, a number of studies have looked at this question, and the resounding answer is, Yes. I doubt that is a surprise to most women raising kids today.
When I was 14 years old, I vividly remember pouring over the pages of Seventeen magazine with a friend, asking each other, "Do you want to look like this? Or that?" This was before the era of Kate Moss, but certainly models were very skinny. Practically every girl I knew was dieting by the time we hit ninth grade.
But today kids are barraged with images of rail thin models and celebrities. My daughters haven't told me that they need to go on diets--yet. But of course, they're going to be affected by these images.
If advertising didn't have power, companies wouldn't pour millions and millions of dollars into their ad campaigns.

Stumble It!

A news story from Australia about how Target is selling "bralettes," padded bras for the six year-old set, along with the latest looks on those vampy dolls, The Bratz collection, set the blogosophere on fire. This is a pretty typical posting from a mom upset about how girls are being sexualized.

Apparently some experts say that this kind of dressing could make girls targets of pedophiles. News flash: Pedophiles can find toddlers in diapers flirty. Lots of us--myself included--ran around in hot pants, miniskirts, and tight jeans when we were little. Remember the outcry about Brooke Shields and her Calvins?

While I 'm not going to be buying my daughters bralettes any time soon, I think the problem is not this product but a culture in which women, and girls, are told they're valued according to some very narrow notion of beauty.

Is a Barbie doll, outfitted in this ridiculous glam outfit, wearing high heels, even when she supposedly is a doctor, so much better than a Bratz? Doesn't letting your five year old have a "make over birthday party" or professional manicures sending a similar message to outfitting her in a bralette? And when we spend half our time botoxing and obsessing about our own appearances, is it realistic to think our daughters will do something different?

If we don't want our daughters to covet these kinds of products, we have to do more than just say no when they ask--we have to counter and challenge the messages that we, as well as our kids, are getting about what it means to be beautiful. That isn't easy.


Stumble It!

When HBO's Da Ali G show first started gaining cult status a few years ago, a friend of mine, who adopted abroad, wondered how I felt about his comically clueless Kazak character, Borat. Was I offended, given that my husband and I adopted an infant from Kazakhstan in 2001?

Not at all, I said. I think he's hilarious.

But the government of Kazakhstan did not appreciate the popularity that Borat was gaining--or the exposure that Kazakhstan was getting in this program. Most people barely heard of the country, but now they were hearing jokes about Kazaks having sex with animals and singing songs celebrating killing the Jews. The government didn't get the joke, and it is fighting Borat's soon-to-be released movie.

My first reaction was, Why doesn't Kazakhstan just use this opportunity to explain what Kazakhstan is really about? (Here's a good article on this.)

But now that the movie is coming out and I'm sure I'll be hearing jokes about Kazakhstan from lots of people, I'm wondering if I'll feel the same way...or if I'll feel the same way I felt when, upon learning my last name was Kruger, people--usually strangers---used to ask, "Any relation to Freddy?" (A little funny the first time...annoying the 100th time I was asked.)

The truth is, if Annie were 16, and not 5, she might feel uncomfortable having her ethnic heritage mocked by assorted relatives and acquaintances, who probably aren't getting the deeper message that Borat creator, Sacha Cohen, is trying to send.

Still....I will probably be first on line to see the movie, as I think the guy is really funny--and his jokes about Kazakhstan really aren't at Kazakhstan's expense so much as the racism and ignorance of Americans.

I just hope that those of us laughing at Borat will be laughing at the same jokes.

Stumble It!

Schools have been opened for only a week or so, and already many kids are coming home with piles of homework. My fifth grader reports that her teacher--an educator I like and respect--told the class that they'd be getting one hour of homework a night, but sometimes they might receive as much as five hours' worth.

Now, it's possible my daughter is leaving a crucial piece of context out, but it's no secret that kids at many schools are getting more and more homework at younger ages. What's more disturbing, there is almost no evidence that homework improves academic performance.

So what is a parent to do? I called Nancy Kalish, co-author of the new book making waves, The Case Against Homework. Nancy said parents' first task is to educate themselves about the research.

"A Duke University meta-analysis of 180 studies done on homework found there was virtually no correlation between homework of any kind in elementary school and achievement," said Kalish. "There was a minor correlation in middle school and a moderate correlation in high school, but the benefits maxed out after two hours of homework a night," at which point the homework could become detrimental.

The rule of thumb, from the National Education Association, is 10 minutes of homework per night, per grade, beginning in first grade. But Kalish says, "That rule is based on what kids are developmentally able to handle. But if it's ten minutes of busy work, that is time not time spent well, because it's time taken away from reading, practicing music, or eating dinner with their family, which is the single most important predictor of higher achievement and social success."

Parents need then to educate their children's teachers, who most likely are unfamiliar with the research on homework. "Parents need to get over their fear of talking to teacher," she says. "My co-author and I surveyed hundreds of teachers and found just one had taken a course on homework. Even the Harvard School of Education doesn't offer a course on homework," says Kalish. "So teachers are winging it."

Most important: in this discussion, she says parents need to be non-confrontational, and explain how the homework is negatively impacting your child. "Teachers want children to have a positive learning experience. Recognize that they are on your child's side," says Kalish. "They probably have no idea what havoc the homework load is wreaking."

If that fails, Kalish says you can organize a group of parents and push for school-wide changes, which is what Kalish and a couple other parents did at her daughter's middle school. Now her Brooklyn school has a homework coordinator, who makes sure there are no tests on Mondays, no vacation homework (something I deeply loathe), and the teachers don't give a bunch of assignments all due the same day.

As I watched my ten-year-old last night hunched over a lap top, finished her two hours of homework--which she tells me the teacher will not check, probably because she doesn't have time to check every kids' pages and pages of homework--I decided I'd have the homework discussion with her teacher.

Wish me luck.

In the meantime, if you want even more reasons to oppose homework in elementary school, take a look at a Slate book review of Kalish's and two other books about the homework controversy.

Stumble It!

Today's New York Times gave front page treatment to a story about how lower income women aren't given the same opportunities to express their millk at work as their higher paid counterparts. They aren't given the time and privacy they need to use a breast pump, whereas the women in higher status jobs frequently enjoy lactation rooms.
I'm willing to bet that the writer of this article is a new mom--since apparently she found this to be a stunning revelation. Also...who else but a new mom (who is spending lots of time working one of those pumps) would think that this issue is one of the biggest facing working moms?
I will grant you that when you are in the midst of nursing--those first few months especially--it is a big issue, but in the scheme of things, is a lactation room really the biggest obstacles lower-paid working mothers face? How about the fact that low income women (or those at small businesses) don't get much paid maternity leave? Or that they're paid a fraction of what men in comparable jobs are paid? Or that they don't get any time off to meet with teachers or help out at their kids' schools? When you consider the big picture, aren't all of these things more significant and worthy of front page treatment?
Stumble It!