I grew up in a Catholic household. My mother was raised Baptist but converted to Catholicism shortly after marrying my father. If the term “Holy Roller” could be applied to Catholics, this would describe my parents. They volunteer at the church, participate in the mass, bring communion to the housebound, and never miss a weekend mass.

In my mid-20s, I came out as an atheist. My family isn’t known for it’s tolerance, so my skepticism and loathing for religion doesn’t go over well at holiday reunions. Usually I’m the butt of jokes (my dad gave me a “I LOVE GOD” yo-yo one Christmas), or the subject of “her soul is going to hell” head shaking.

So, all of this backstory is leading to an exchange that took place not too long ago.

During a visit, my mom sneezed. My eldest daughter (then about three) said, “Excuse me!” only to have my mom correct her. “No, sweetie. Say, ‘God bless you.’” My daughter dutifully repeated it and I felt my spine straighten.

I turned to my mom. “Please don’t teach her to say that. That’s not something I want her to say.”

First, my mom tried to rationalize the teaching, and then she launched into her religious tirade. “Well, what if you’re wrong? You were baptized and your daughters weren’t. So, if you’re wrong, then you’ll be in heaven and your daughters won’t.”

Where to even begin?

I tried to remain level-headed, but the exchange did make me angry. I love my mom dearly, but she is a religious zealot. Which is fine. I just don’t want her beliefs influencing my kid. At the time, I think I made a few snide remarks about a big cocktail party in the sky when we die and then left the room. (Hey, if atheists need a poster child, I’m not it.)

I want my kids to discover religion on their own, through careful research and investigation when they are old enough to make sense of it all. I don’t want it shoved down their throat from birth. But, how do I not cause a rift with my parents in the meantime?

So, if you have religious parents, have their views ever influenced your kids? If so, how did you handle it?

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This routine took place during a “World of Dance” competition and the internet is abuzz with outrage over the bawdy moves and risqué costumes. While talented, the dancers do sort of look like…well, women who dance for a living--and I’m not talking about at the Met. Two of the parents made an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America to defend the video. They say it was taken out of context and never meant to be viewed by millions of strangers. Apparently, this type of routine is normal, according to the parents.

What bothers me, other than this lame explanation, is the crowd reaction. The bumping and grinding get the biggest cheer from the crowd, which surely is made up of kids, parents and other adults. It’s all just so weird to watch. But, are we overreacting?

Yes, the girls dance in a sexually suggestive manner, but they won’t automatically become promiscuous later in life. That assumption would be ridiculous. I took a lot of dance classes as a young girl and we had recitals and performances. The costumes probably were a little more bathing suit-like than burlesque, but still pretty form fitting. Still, I don’t remember doing moves like this. Not because I couldn’t do them (I couldn’t) but because I shouldn’t. Like Chris Rock said, just because you CAN drive with your feet doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Just because an 8-year old can shake her moneymaker doesn’t mean she should.

So, I don’t fault the girls. The song is catchy and they are clearly great dancers. Long-term harm? Most likely none. But, I’m wondering what kind of parents think this is normal? What world these parents have immersed themselves in where this is age appropriate?

Or, am I just out of touch with what “age appropriate” means?

Let’s hear it, moms and dads out there. Weigh in on what your reaction was….

The top places to be a mom are Norway, Australia, and Iceland. The worst places are Chad, Niger and then Afghanistan at the very bottom. Surprising (to me) was that the U.S. ranks 28th, which is actually down a spot from the previous year. Here’s why:

One in every 4,800 American women dies due to pregnancy. It’s one of the highest maternal-morbidity rates in the developed world. To put that number into perspective, in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Greece and Italy, the risk of maternal death is less than one in 25,000 — and in Ireland, it’s less than one in 47,600.

But it’s not just American moms who die due to pregnancy: American babies don’t fare so well, either. Our infant-mortality rate is pretty dismal for the developed world, with eight out of every 1,000 children dying before their fifth birthdays. A child born in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a child born in Finland, Iceland, Sweden or Singapore to die before his fifth birthday. Also, the U.S. has the least-generous maternity-leave policy of any developed country, fewer women in elected government positions than other developed countries and fewer kids enrolled in preschool.

The list illustrates that access to education, economic opportunities and proper health care provide the best chance for mothers and children to survive and thrive. In the U.S., we should do a lot better. So, what’s the deal with the ranking?

First, let’s look at infant mortality.

“Infant mortality is defined as the number of children born alive who die after birth — but this differs state to state and country to country,” said Dr. Benjamin Sachs, a fellow of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

For example, he says in the U.S., a baby born at 17 weeks who later died would be considered a miscarriage. But, a baby born at 23 weeks who later died would count towards the infant mortality rate, even though it only had a 20% chance of survival outside the womb. In some other countries, this would instead be considered a miscarriage.

Abortion politics in the U.S. also are thought to play a factor.

“About 20 percent of the children who die in the U.S. do so from birth defects,” said Sachs. “In a country that has a liberal abortion policy, those children will die in abortion — some countries even allow third-trimester abortions so their rates [of infant mortality] are going to be lower,” he said.

Next, let’s look at maternal mortality, which is shockingly high for a country so rich as ours. Only, that’s the difference. If you’re a rich American, you’re more likely to be better educated, with better health care. But, if you’re in a lower economic class, or an illegal immigrant, you’re at greater risk.

Powers said Save the Children’s research has also found that pregnant “minority” women who seek medical care do not end up getting the same quality of care as pregnant women “in the majority.”

That is appalling.

There are 40 million people in the U.S. without health insurance, a large population of which are illegal immigrants. The doctors interviewed agreed that the rates would improve if every pregnant woman were guaranteed access to health care.

Also, other factors at play may include the obesity epidemic here as well as the older age of some mothers.

The bottom line: Maternal and infant mortality rates are complicated issues where more than one factor may be at fault. Still, the U.S. has a long way to go–especially when it comes to maternity leave, flexible workplaces, and affordable health care. We can do better for our mothers.

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WE know we have it hard. Well, the research is now catching up to prove it. LiveScience.com posted 5 Scientific Reasons Mom Deserves Mother’s Day. Included here are some insightful findings based on recent scientific data. For example, moms today get less help and are expected to do more. Moms feel more pain. And, researchers have discovered that, although our genes come 50% from dad and 50% from mom, for some unknown reason mom’s genes have a more significant effect on the person you become.

One stark example: While you were in the uterus, if your mother had a very stressful experience, you’ll be at greater risk for anxiety disorders. And a new study on rats, out last month, indicates that your mother’s diet during pregnancy affected your genes.

More surprising, studies are showing that what your mother ate when she was a child, the toxins she was exposed to, and other experiences before and during pregnancy affect how the genes she passes on to you actually get expressed in your body.

Another study, reported this year in the journal Child Development, shows a profound impact of nurturing by mothers in the early years, too. A child who has a strong relationship with Mom during preschool years tends to form closer friendships in grade school, the research revealed.

So give yourself a pat on the back today, moms. You deserve it!

I love sugar. I really really love sugar. I generally think of dinner as something I have to endure to get to dessert. In March of this year I stared a monthly cookie/dessert exchange where my friends and I get together under the pretext of exchanging cookies/desserts and their recipes but it’s actually just an excuse to sit around with my friends, talk, laugh, and eat a lot of sugar.

After a particularly good Cookie Exchange I updated my Facebook status with “Jessie is loving the sugar high from Cookie Exchange this afternoon.” A couple of my friends commented on my status informing me that there is no such thing as a “sugar high”.

This seemed crazy to me, I thought it was common knowledge that eating a lot of sugar gives you a buzzed feeling and makes you hyper. Kids go crazy and run around like Tasmanian devils at birthday parties and holidays because of all the sugar, right? Wrong.

It turns out my smarty-pants friends were right, according to The Journal of the American Medical Association’s 1995 meta analysis, sugar does not cause hyperactivity.

JAMA’s Meta analysis looked at 23 studies where children were given food or drinks containing a known quantity of sugar or artificial sweetener (placebo) and their behavior was observed and tested afterward. The tests were double blinded, meaning that neither the children, parents nor the researchers knew which children were getting the sugar and which were getting the placebo. 

The conclusion was: 

       “The meta-analytic synthesis of the studies to date found that sugar does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of children. The strong belief of parents may be due to expectancy and common association. However, a small effect of sugar or effects on subsets of children cannot be ruled out.”

Although they stop short of saying that sugar has absolutely no effect on children’s behavior, the evidence was very compelling that sugar does not affect the behavior of an average healthy child. 

Even confronted with this evidence it can be difficult to believe. I’ve heard people grudgingly accept that it may not cause hyperactivity in children but insist that it causes rapid spikes and falls in blood sugar levels which create the feeling of the “Sugar Rush” and the “Sugar Crash”.  

The fact of the matter is, if you are healthy, not diabetic and do not have impaired glucose tolerance, your body does a very good job of producing insulin and regulating your blood sugar levels. 

When your kid eats half of his Halloween candy before you can stop him, his body takes care of it by producing a bunch of insulin that keeps his blood sugar in the normal range.  Diabetics don’t produce enough insulin to regulate their blood sugar and can experience high levels of blood sugar and their symptoms are frequent urination, thirst, hunger, weight loss, fatigue, irritability and blurry vision. This is NOT how people describe a “sugar high” in themselves or in their children. 

“But when I’m hungry and I eat a sugary snack in the afternoon I feel a sugar rush.”

Most likely what you feel is your body responding to having fuel, any fuel. You were hungry and now your body has something to burn. Sugar and simple carbohydrates are absorbed into your body quickly so you may feel the effect of having fuel sooner then if you ate protein. 

The “Sugar Crash” is attributed to a sharp drop in blood sugar or low blood sugar with is called Hypoglycemia. According to Harriet Hall (the totally awesome and generous SkepDoc):

      ”Hypoglycemia was a popular “pseudo disease” a few decades ago: all sorts of vague symptoms were attributed to low blood sugar or rapid drops in blood sugar, and patients were advised to avoid sugar and eat protein. When they actually tested blood sugar levels, this idea didn’t hold up. Real hypoglycemia does occur – in diabetics and people with certain other diseases.”

WebMD describes MILD symptoms of hypoglycemia as nausea, extreme hunger, feeling nervous or jittery, cold, clammy, wet skin and or excessive sweating, a rapid heartbeat, numbness in the fingertips and lips and trembling.  Again, not how people describe a sugar crash. 

So why do so many people, myself included—until recently—talk about a “sugar high” as if it is a fact and why do so many parents insist that sugar makes their kids hyper?

1) In my opinion, it doesn’t seem crazy to assume that something you ingest could affect the way you feel or behave. When I take aspirin, my headache goes away, when I drink alcohol, I tell everyone how awesome they are and act like a moron. 

2) Children can be sensitive to caffeine and may be reacting to the small amounts of caffeine that are found in chocolate and soda.  

3) Kids often get lots of sugar at a special event like Halloween, Christmas, or a birthday party. Special events are exciting and fun and can make kids hyper. If I was at a birthday party where I got to run around with 20 of my friends, hit a piñata, and jump in a bounce house, I would act hyper, too! 

4) The big one and the hardest to swallow is parental expectation. We see what we expect to see. There was a study done at The Menningar Clinic and published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology that showed how strong expectations can affect the parent’s perception of their child’s behavior.  

In this study all mothers identified their children as “sugar sensitive”. All the children were given a placebo (aspartame) but half of the mothers were told that their child was given a large amount of sugar. The mothers who thought their child was given sugar tended to stay physically closer to their child, criticized, looked at and talked to their children more then the parents who knew their children had the placebo. The mothers who thought their children ate sugar also rated their children as significantly more hyperactive the control group.  

5) Children respond to subtle and not so subtle cues parents give them. If they hear parents talking about how all kids go wild every time they eat cake, they think they’re supposed to go wild after eating cake. 

Even though I feel a little silly for falling for the myth of the sugar high, I still love sugar! I’m not advocating eating lots of sugar all the time or saying that eating sugar is healthy,  but I’m glad to know that sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity or any spikes in blood sugar that my body can’t handle. It’s just one fewer thing to worry and feel guilty about. So at my next Cookie Exchange I will enjoy my sugar a little more knowing that I feel “high” because I love eating baked goods and talking with my friends not because all the sugar is doing something weird to my body.

Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics, gave a fascinating talk about car seats. Apparently, for kids over the age of two, car seats don’t really work much better than the regular old seat belts that are in our cars—free!

I’m a huge fan of Levitt, and getting to see him, in all his nerdly lispiness, is really a treat. This video also sums up for me what we’re trying to do here.

How much money do we need to spend as parents to make sure we’re doing our jobs right? How much do we trust agencies that tell us they are working for the protection of our children? How do we examine information from various sources to filter for the truth? How do we separate rumor from fact?

And most importantly, how much do we need to worry? I’d like it to be less. Or at the very least, I’d like to focus my worry on the right targets.

Any parent, up on hearing that vaccinations might be harmful, would naturally worry. But yet another study proves that the rumored link between vaccines and autism just doesn’t exist. Hooray, we don’t have to worry about that one. And it’s a good thing, because vaccinations are bad enough without the worry. I just took my son for his first round, and he was grumpy and feverish for 24 hours. I can understand why vaccinations freak people out, having gone through that. But yay—we don’t have to worry about permanent developmental damage.

I admit that I purchased cord blood banking before my son was born. If only I’d done some research, like Blake over at Domestic Father, I’d have known I shouldn’t have spent that money. I really didn’t need to worry about saving my son’s cord blood, but it seemed like a good idea. The advertising on the website of the company appealed to the careful, protective parent in me. And it was meant to do that. But finding out the real story has changed me from a well-meaning, intelligent mom to a bit of a sucker.

And now car seats aren’t really necessary? Wait, I just spent a few hundred dollars on the top of the line brand. I don’t feel too bad about that one. Our son is so big—I think he’s got to be 99^th percentile for height and weight—that he will outgrow his infant car seat pretty soon. So we bought one that will keep him safe. Until he’s two-years-old, and at that point, a seatbelt would keep him just as safe, according to very sound data and an actual crash test! (Seriously, watch the Steven Levitt video. It’s great. And he’s weirdly cute—what is it about skinny Harvard economists?) After two-years-old, the car seat is mainly a way for me to avoid an expensive traffic ticket, I suppose.

Being skeptical is not easy when there is so much information—and misinformation—all around us.  Not only is it tough to question certain issues without a medical degree, it’s tough to even know what to question.  Who would question car seats?

I have a couple of fancy degrees from some fine institutions, but they’re both in writing and literature.  So while I consider myself a critical thinker, I don’t get the real story all the time.  Being part of this blog is an excuse for me to do research and ask questions and get the facts.  And worry less.