Mama and Papa, Don't Preach

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Mama and Papa, Don't Preach

By Salma A.

I just came across a terrific Salon essay titled "Mama Don't Preach." I'd printed it out and saved it 15 years ago, back in the days when I used to collect essays about the pros and cons of having kids. At that time, I felt 85 percent sure I'd never have children. The lifestyle, as far as I could understand it at the time, wasn't for me. But the to-breed-or-not-to-breed debate intrigued me (and still does), and I wanted to mentally play out as many possible scenarios as I could before it was time to make a decision.

Which turned out to be a full decade later. As I reread that Salon essay now, the writer's leave-women-the-hell-alone argument feels as spot-on as ever. (By the way I'm reading it on the hard copy I printed out, because back in 2003, who knew if that whole "Internet" thing would survive? Ahem). Author Amy Reiter wrote it as a mom who'd had enough of other parents pontificating to kid-less adults about the joys of parenthood. And now that I have two kids of my own (who bring me boundless joy, especially when they're not busy wrecking our sleep and our walls and furniture), I couldn't agree more with Reiter.

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Why Do Articles About Brigitte Nielsen's Pregnancy at 54 Sound Oddly Familiar?

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Why Do Articles About Brigitte Nielsen's Pregnancy at 54 Sound Oddly Familiar?

By Salma A.

The 54-year-old Danish-Italian actress Brigitte Nielsen—known in the States mainly for her roles in Beverly Hills Cop II, Cobra, and Rocky IV, and partly for her former marriage to Sylvester Stallone—just announced she's pregnant. This is Nielsen's first pregnancy, and the father is her 39-year-old husband Mattia Dessi.

That's just about all the media knows now, or needs to know. But why just publish a one-page article about a celebrity's pregnancy news, when you can pad it out instead with a Mad-Libs-worthy piece on the likelihood and unlikelihood, the ins and the outs, the cliches and the eye-rollers, about pregnancy at "advanced maternal age"? 

To wit: Newsweek's article about Nielsen's pregnancy news, headlined "Risks of Pregnancy for Women Over 50? Brigitte Nielsen Announces Pregnancy at 54," starts off with a couple of brief paragraphs about the announcement, then launches into this:

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Here's the Latest Idea for Renaming the Dreaded "Advanced Maternal Age"

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By Salma Abdelnour Gilman

An article on NBC's 9News.com headlined "Can I have Kids After 35? And Other Mom Questions Answered" doesn't have much to offer in the way of insights. Spoiler alert: The answer to the headline question is, "Research has shown that women are having babies later in life." So... this gives you a sense of the level of hard-nosed, ear-to-the-ground reporting we're dealing with here. But there are two intriguing takeaways from the article:

1) "Women with more children have less teeth." This is weird. But it's apparently a "FACT" (all-caps), according to the aforementioned 9News.com.

2) There's a better alternative to "Advanced Maternal Age," and it's... are you ready? "Waited Until I Could Handle It Moms." Not entirely accurate, since certainly not everyone waits on purpose, but we could get used to this one. WUICHIM is the acronym, and it's already growing on us. Bye forever, AMA?

Photo by Maurice Schalker via Unsplash.

Single Mothers' Day Is Saturday, and Yes, It IS a Thing

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Single Mothers' Day Is Saturday, and Yes, It IS a Thing

By Salma A.

Happy Single Mothers' Day to single moms who are kicking so much ass every day, everywhere on earth, making a life and a home for their kids and themselves against so many odds. Wait, Single Mothers' Day is a thing? Yup, it’s on the Saturday right before Mother's Day.

But, and here's why you probably don't know about it: Single Mothers' Day only happens in South Korea. At least, it did for the last few years. There's no mention of Single Mother's Day 2018 anywhere, as far as we can tell, but we're celebrating the day anyway, and toasting all the single moms we know and the ones we haven't met yet. I first heard about Single Mother's Day in this NPR report

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This InStyle Article on "The Diet That Cured" Infertility Sounds Like an Ad, But Is It the Real Deal?

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This InStyle Article on "The Diet That Cured" Infertility Sounds Like an Ad, But Is It the Real Deal?

By Salma A.

Spoiler alert: We don't know if the infertility diet promised in the headline above is the real deal. But we're linking to today's InStyle article anyway, because the writer's story about her journey from hormonal issues and infertility to a healthy pregnancy at age 37 is potentially useful for anyone struggling with the same symptoms.

At age 20, Alisa Vitti, author of the InStyle piece, suddenly put on more than 50 pounds and started getting her period only twice a year. Doctors couldn't figure out what was going on, but Vitti, a medical-school hopeful, researched her symptoms on her own and found out she had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).  

"As I aged, I could expect to gain more weight, get diabetes, and develop heart disease and cancer," Vitti's doctor told her. '"And I would likely never be able to have children naturally—even with IVF."

VItti decided to attack the issue with dietary and lifestyle changes, and at age 37 she got pregnant after only trying for a few months. So, what were those diet and lifestyle changes?

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Where Were You in the Summer of '78?

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Where Were You in the Summer of '78?

By Salma A.

Summer 1978 was my own version of the Summer of Love. I was six, and instead of weed and psychedelics I had chocolate ice cream (did the trick back then). Instead of cruising around in a VW van, my brother and I crammed into the back seat of a Buick station wagon as our parents road-tripped our family around America.

A photo of me in San Francisco, fudge popsicle drippings covering my chin, is all I need to bring the trip flashing back: camping near the Big Sur cliffs (magical), getting kicked out of a Reno casino for being under 18 (scary), and eating syrupy mangoes in Miami, the best I'd ever had before or since (unrepeatable).

Where were you in the summer of 1978? If you happened to be in New York City, maybe you're in one of the photos the New York Times just discovered from that summer.

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Cheers to Rachel Weisz and Tammy Duckworth's Big Baby News

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Cheers to Rachel Weisz and Tammy Duckworth's Big Baby News

This was a Crunch Time double-header of a week: Rachel Weisz, 48, announced she's pregnant with Daniel Craig's baby, in a New York Times profile by Maureen Dowd. And Senator Tammy Duckworth, 50, brought her newborn daughter, Maile, with her to the Senate floor, a day after legislators voted unanimously to allow babies less than a year old to accompany their Congress-member parents to work.

“I’ll be showing soon,” Weisz tells Dowd. “Daniel and I are so happy. We’re going to have a little human. We can’t wait to meet him or her. It’s all such a mystery.”

And that's about all Weisz says, and all she needs to say.

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The Life-Saving Magic of Doulas

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The Life-Saving Magic of Doulas

If you don't read anything else this week, read this: the New York Times Magazine's "Why America's Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life or Death Crisis." Reporter Linda Villarosa tells the jaw-dropping story of a 23-year-old black mother of two named Simone Landrum, whose third pregnancy ended in a tragedy that could've been prevented if anyone bothered to listen.

Landrum's doctors and nurses kept ignoring the excruciatingly painful symptoms she reported all through her pregnancy—which should be shocking but, sadly, comes as little surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to reports on the horrendous rate of black maternal and infant mortality in America (black women are 12 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than white women). Institutional and structural racism in the medical system is killing mothers and babies at a sky-high rate—the racial disparity in childbirth-related deaths between is now higher than it was in 1850—and the only good news is that this issue is making headlines now. 

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Trying for a Second Baby in Your 40s?

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Trying for a Second Baby in Your 40s?

Having a kid after 40 can feel like a mind-blowing triumph, but what happens if you want to give your child a sibling? We know lots of women who've had two kids in their 40s, naturally or through IVF, and plenty who are trying but aren't having luck yet. We also know moms who've always wanted only one kid, and those who are gradually resigning themselves to one-and-done. 

A neighborhood listserv in Brooklyn is hosting a discussion by moms in their 40s who are trying for a second child. Sample comments: "My two-year-old daughter wants a sibling and I feel like I'm failing." "I'm a single mom, and at 45 I don't see how I can pull off having another kid." "After too many expensive IVF cycles and a miscarriage, I'm giving up." "We have two frozen embryos, but at 44, my body is too worn out so we're not going to try them."

Women who did have a second kid in their 40s haven't chimed in yet, probably because they're not looking for support on this issue as much as their single-child peers are. Since that Brooklyn listserv is members-only and and charges a fee, we thought we'd open up our free lines to any parents out there who'd like to weigh in about your own experiences.

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The Complex Math of Egg-Freezing Just Got Easier

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The Complex Math of Egg-Freezing Just Got Easier

Planning to freeze your eggs? Trying to figure out how many eggs you should freeze, how your age factors into the equation, and what you can actually afford usually means grappling with a series of complex math problems. But the numbers just got a lot simpler.

Joseph Doyle, M.D. recently did the math for the journal Fertility and Sterility, as noted in a recent article in Pregnantish, a site devoted to fertility and infertility issues. Doyle, who works with the Shady Grove Fertility clinics, suggests this formula:

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Chime In! Send in Names of Favorite Doctors & Health Providers for Moms 35-Plus

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Chime In! Send in Names of Favorite Doctors & Health Providers for Moms 35-Plus

Thanks to all of you readers who've submitted the names of doctors, fertility specialists, and other health providers who've been super-supportive and positive (as opposed to judgmental, weird or plain mean) as you've navigated your pregnancy and childbirth in your late 30s or 40s. We've started a little list of Health Providers and Organizations in our Resources section, and we're always looking for more names to help anyone who is starting out on this path or thinking about it. We want to cover as many cities and regions as we can, so please keep the names coming.

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9 Kid Snacks That Sound Weird But Are F'ing Awesome

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9 Kid Snacks That Sound Weird But Are F'ing Awesome

How many packs of Bunny Grahams and Pirate Booty are you planning to buy in your lifetime? 800? 8000? 800,000? If you’re like us, we’re guessing you’re well on your way to hitting that number, the big one, and deep inside you’re silently screaming, “Please, no more.”

Is there no other crunchy snack out there we can feed our kids (and, yes, ourselves) and feel ok about? A snack that doesn’t have a terrifying amount of saturated fat, sodium, and sugar? One that isn’t jammed with a heinously long ingredient list that would make Michael Pollan shake his finger and whisper, “Uh-uh. No.”

The answer is yes, those healthy-crunchy-AND-delicious snacks do exist in the world. But too often they’re hiding behind bizarre branding choices that make you walk right on by and reach for the Bunny Grahams yet again.

Today, we bring you a spanking new Crunch Time Parents roundup of favorite crunchy-yet-virtuous supermarket snacks. As it happens, these snacks are on the weird side, because you know about all the "normal" ones. We like these snacks a lot. An informal focus group of toddlers and adultish people love them too, although some like certain ones more than others. Try them. Tell us what you think. Here goes:

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