I did misunderstand, but what you are saying is very fair. Thanks for clarifying!

I'm not convinced by the "I made it through my bad home life without lashing out, so everyone else should have equally good coping skills" argument. It sounds a heck of a lot like "Bootstraps!"

If one believes (as I do) that there's no such thing as a bad kid, then the natural corollary is that kids who are behaving…

Because I waited too long to edit: In re-reading, it looks like I'm putting "father" in scare quotes because I don't recognize him as a father due to surrogacy. That's not what I meant. What I meant to draw attention to was his callous treatment of his son, and also the fact that I frankly don't believe prison…

"If these things came to pass (they won't) couples would just move on to poorer, more vulnerable women in a different country."

I'm not sure. I mean, individual countries working together and separately have been able to dramatically stem the flow of infants available for international adoption and to improve the…

I hadn't heard the part about the "father" being a child molester. I fervently hope that the Australian authorities are involved, and carefully monitoring the health and well-being of the baby girl they took home.

It's worth remembering that the anti-colonialism thing originally came from (convicted felon and known idiot) Dinesh D'Souza. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content…

Let's dwell on this for just a minute. A guy who looks like this:

There's not a great answer here. It would be much easier if there were. My personal preference is not to wear things with traditional Native designs, both because it isn't really my aesthetic but also because I worry about perpetuating the idea that it's okay to rip off another culture.

As for practicing yoga, if…

In general, I actually agree with you. I was presenting the least-bad option to someone who wanted to continue to wear a certain style of clothing. However, I don't think the bindi example is exactly appropo, because my understanding of the bindi is that it has religious significance.

Similarly, my understanding is…

I wonder if some of this is confusion between a service dog (that provides a service and is specially trained) and an "emotional support dog" that is not trained to do anything. Both can be licensed and you can buy a vest for the dog online.

Have you thought about how you might buy the items that you like directly from individuals representing the cultures that you admire? There is a line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange, and that line is that cultural exchange is given willingly.

So, if you like traditional Native American beadwork,…

This is kind of where I come down on the issue. If my boy child wants to choose circumcision later, at least I've left him a choice. But I also have this kind of nebulous sense that, if evolution has chosen something, maybe I should leave it alone until it proves to be a problem.

100% all of this. If someone says they feel like they were violated, well, then I believe them. I may privately think they are being a little hyperbolic, but it's not my body and not my place to project a "you're being unreasonable" vibe onto someone who is obviously upset.

For what it's worth, a lot of Asian women who have had surgery chafe at the idea that they are doing it to look less characteristically Asian. They are doing it to make their eyes wider, the same way that European-descended women use mascara and eyeliner.

In your phrasing, it sounds like they are doing it to look…

One of my pupils (not in the United States) had one of these cages on his leg when I started teaching him. I assumed that one of his legs was congenitally shorter than the other. Imagine my surprise when he came back the next year with the cage on his OTHER leg. I would guess that he would have capped out at around…

That history is super interesting - thanks for sharing. I'd love to see CNMs staffing birth centers in rural areas. They would need to be ready to deal with pretty much anything (including a surprise breech presentation) and as a result I worry that the insurance would be prohibitively expensive.

Yeah, I'm torn on this. I love CNMs. You would think I got paid by the midwives' lobby for all the time I spend talking them up online and in person. With that said, I am concerned by the lack of professional standards for direct entry midwives. A lot of my friends have used direct entry midwives, and what I've…

I wish we had this system here. Most often, here, you can either have a nurse midwife in a hospital or birthing center, or a direct entry midwife at home. There are very few nurse midwives who will do homebirths, and even those are passed around by word of mouth.

How can I link that? There aren't newspaper write-ups of "stillbirths" that were only stillbirths because they happened at home at 33 weeks. Or babies lost due to shoulder dystocia. Why would I be able to link that sort of thing? Why would I be willing to?

The question is whether direct entry midwives (who typically learn through apprenticeships rather than through becoming licensed nurse midwives) can attend home births. I used to be a big proponent of choosing whatever kind of birth care provider you wanted, but changed my mind after my small community lost four…

This. The case that was presented to the Supreme Court isn't about whether men can lactate, or whether it's okay to fire a nursing mum. It's about whether the plaintiff exhausted all of her options before suing. On that basis alone, and barring the fact that her employer acted abysmally, it's kind of compelling. …