I hear you. Maltreatment and outright murder of our black citizens by authority figures is horrendous and not to be tolerated, yet it keeps happening. I'm white, I follow the news and it makes me sick, but I have no idea what I can do personally to effect change. What can we do as individuals to fight injustice and…

I agree about the formula - I think the evidence suggests that the difference overall is small and is most important with respect to avoiding infections in the earliest months (and especially for small or premature infants) and declines pretty quickly thereafter. That said, over the population level those differences…

The authors you cite do not address sleep training as isolated from the rest of responsive parenting. It's quite difficult to do this but there has been one good, large, randomized controlled trial of infant sleep training and there were no differences in parental attachment, psychosocial adjustment, or any other…

I don't think anyone here is saying that unfixably low milk supply doesn't exist. (I've read it's about 10-20%.) But it happens to be the case that as a population we are extremely poorly informed about the physiology and mechanics of breastfeeding, in ways that set us up for failure even when there is no…

What is this 'proven to be harmful' business? There has been one large well-controlled randomized trial of sleep training with long (five-year) followup of attachment, conduct, psychosocial function, etc. and there was no difference on any measure between children who were sleep trained and those who were not.

That's beautiful. I hope it's that, but deep down I feel like there's about a 60% chance of a giant nuclear accident or act of terrorism happening in the next two or three generations. If that doesn't happen then yeah, I think things will get better. It's a race between the forces of reason and the forces of…

Adding because I can't edit: Obviously cup color is no big deal to an adult. It is often a huge deal to a toddler. Things that are no big deal to a toddler (like shit on the carpet) are a huge deal to mom. We would all do better to think more about other people's values and perspectives even when we do not share…

This is a reasonable lesson for a 6 or 7 year old. But children who throw tantrums over cup color are more likely to be in the 2-3 year old range. Appreciating their mother is not a lesson that is likely to be absorbed at that age. The child's takeaway is more likely to be 'Mom likes to thwart me to demonstrate her…

The article doesn't say that a choice was offered. It seems to be implied that the adult picked the cup.

Life will teach all children that they don't always get what they want just because they want it. Sometimes inconvenience outweighs preference, but this sippy cup example is a terrible example of Mom weighing her own incredibly minor half-second inconvenience over the child's reasonable preference.

Totally agree, and the nanny in the article was explicitly making a big deal of the 'principle' being that 'I'm the boss' with regard to the sippy cup. Enforcement for its own sake.

Really, I'm 36 and I think 35 is middle-aged (well, the beginning of it anyway). Because if you live to 70, 35 is the middle, no?

The other ridiculous part of this is that Anne Bancroft was actually 36 when she played Mrs. Robinson. The character was 42 but that doesn't seem to be the relevant factoid here.

I'm upset about all the stuff I'm going to miss after I die as well, but on the whole I'd really rather not be around for the end of humanity. It just doesn't sound like a good time.

This isn't new news. There was a study in Science a bajillion years ago that showed that the difference between a 'fast metabolism' and a 'slow metabolism' was almost all in the non-activity exercise thermogenesis (NEAT): i.e., all the tiny motions you make over the course of a day. So the biochemistry of calorie…

I don't care what Kim K has to say either but I actually like that the difficulty of combining paid work with responsibility for children is a matter of public discussion. I think it is leading to more general recognition of this problem, which I hope will eventually lead to some improvements. Our workplaces are…

Yeah everything after high school so far has been pretty darn good. Middle school was the pits, high school somewhat less so. Since then, life's been fun! (I'm 36)

I remember a lot of (justified) outrage about the media's nasty treatment of Chelsea Clinton when she was 13. I sure thought it was obnoxious and I remember reading articles written by others who did as well.

I think part of it is because they are generally better actors, more dependable workers, and not subject to issues like child labor laws and educational requirements.

You may notice that I also changed the means (I'd be more likely to do it with greater ease/removal from the process), and I didn't go into excessive detail but the degree of my need for the food would matter too, as would the identity of the animal in question and numerous other factors.