All the Jewish parenting news you probably didn’t have time to read this week.
– Eating placenta (in a vitamin-like capsule, granted) is apparently all the rage (in Brooklyn, at least), New York magazine reports. One proponent-turned-afterbirth-entrepreneur even sells “I Love Placenta” t-shirts. (NY Mag)
– Thanks in large part to advances in reproductive medicine, the rate of multiple births has risen dramatically in recent years. This week, Slate takes a posthumous look at the psychoanalyst who changed the way Western society looks at, and raises, twins. (We’ve got a new personal account of twins, here.) (Slate)
– A new study shows that hiding vegetables in your kids’ favorite meals — a form of deception popularized by Jessica Seinfeld (or was it Missy Chase Lapine?) — goes a long way to curbing children’s caloric intake, and could be a key to fighting childhood obesity. (Science Daily)
– Or there’s always the more heavy-handed approach of reading “Maggie Goes on a Diet” to your youngster. That forthcoming children’s book about an overweight 14-year-old who, through healthy eating and exercise, transforms herself into a svelte soccer star has sparked a debate over whether children as young as four should be encouraged to “diet.” (Time)
– An Australian college professor has some advice for baby-wearing parents: The next time you put on that Bjorn or Snugli or K’tan, make sure your infant is facing toward you. Catherine Fowler told The Daily Mail that outward-facing carriers create “a bombardment of stimulus” that she calls “stressful,” even “cruel,” for infants. (Daily Mail)
– Over at the Forward, Kate Fridkis, a home-schooling ‘alumna’ herself, writes about the (still tiny minority) of Jews who are educated at home by their parents. (Forward)
– This JTA article about new efforts to promote genetic screening contains a jarring statistic, courtesy of Mount Sinai School of Medicine: One out of every 3.3 Ashkenazic Jews living in the New York area is a carrier for at least one Jewish genetic disease. (JTA)
– And finally, a reason not to embrace your inner supermom: Working mothers with unrealistic expectations about ‘doing it all’ are at higher risk for depression than are their counterparts who do not expect to balance seamlessly their professional and child-rearing responsibilities, according to a University of Washington researcher. (Fox)
