I'm guessing the OP lives in a border state and the families are visiting relatives in Mexico. In any case, the point is (at least, my point is) that it often makes sense to punish parents for truancy since small children can't control whether their parents take them to school. I don't know how old this woman's kids…

Plus, these dispatchers have heard it all. If they mustered up empathy for every call, they would be emotionally drained in a month. I do wish emergency personnel, including doctors and dispatchers, would have better bedside manner, but I can't say I'm surprised that they don't. This is also related to the caller's…

POOPY, NOOO!!!

Also: Austin (or Austen, if you're feeling literary).

I really like Logan for a girl. I probably wouldn't use it because it's relatively popular for boys right now and I have mixed feelings about the Veronica Mars character. I had a phase where I thought Hunter would be a bad-ass girl's name. Have you tried using nameberry.com? It's the BEST naming website. They have…

She was born and raised in the US, but has spent the past 3 years in Eastern Europe. Here's the thing that really gets me, though — I would be thrilled if my children wanted to live abroad someday. Even if Toby were uniquely American-sounding (which seems unlikely), I don't see why that should be a problem. Even if he…

Someone else made a similar comment, and it's a very good point! I would assume my friend was speaking of continental Europe, except she kept warning me that short-form names are a "uniquely American thing" and that "Toby" would forever label my child as a silly American. This is very odd because (a) Toby is more…

Good point. I'll have to direct my friend to Alfie's extremely high UK rating! Toby is also rated higher in the UK than the US. I suppose she was speaking of continental Europe, but I'm not sure why that should affect my naming choices. I'm not ashamed to be American or from an English-speaking country.

Aw, thanks! I will probably use it if I have a boy in the future. It's my absolute favorite boy name.

Sure! I actually won't be using it this time because I found out I'm having a girl. But the name I had chosen for a boy was Toby. My friend thinks it's a nickname for Tobias, but I think of it as the English version of the Greek Tobias, which is a version of the Hebrew Tobiah. I may have exaggerated on the 1400s, but…

Yeah, but think about why those trends exist. Those parents might be trying to give their daughters an edge on their resumes in the business world. Or maybe society has decided that male names are acceptable for everyone, but once a name turns female, it is tainted forever and can never again be used for a boy (see:…

Those foreign laws for choosing names from an approved list or banning gender-ambiguous names have strong xenophobic and heteronormative undertones. (I'm looking at you, Germany.)

Plus, martial arts can be an insurance policy. Even if we, as a society, "teach men not to rape," there will always be men who will rape anyway. Like homicide, rape has been around since the start of human history. No matter how condemned by society, a small percentage of the population will still do it if they think…

I will leave this quote from one of my favorite articles here:

Does he just have different standards of cleanliness than you? Or does he do chores differently than you? Because I'm having a hard time understanding how a grown man who functions in society is unable to operate a washing machine.

At my prep school, the dress code for girls was much more complicated simply because boys had to wear suits and ties, no exceptions, and girls' professional attire is much more diverse: skirts, slacks, capris, blouses, turtlenecks, scoop necks, etc. etc. I suspect this is happening to some degree in public school…

I'm with you. I think that sometimes the "rape and incest" line can minimize and delegitimize the need for abortions when women simply don't want to be pregnant or have a child. That should be enough of a reason. Having an unwanted pregnancy sounds terrifying enough without the added trauma of rape, so these…

My understanding is this:

To be fair, a huge percentage of those 19th century deaths could have been prevented with better prenatal care. If a woman has been seeing a care provider throughout her pregnancy, has been monitored for complications, and everything looks good up to her delivery day, the chances of something going catastrophically…

Didn't you just post an inflammatory comment on this very article, featuring "dead babies"? Just checking.