Parenting Roundup

• Bedtime Stumblings from Killing the Buddha Peter Berbergal writes about his brother's suicide, how he talks about it with his six-year-old son, and his own religious faith. It's a
  lovely look at those challenging bedtime conversations.
• Must Hollywood dads be so clueless? from Salon.com "Moms and dads alike, single and partnered -- not to mention their children -- deserve more than this myth that women instinctively know what they're doing with kids while men, left to their own devices, will neglect their young at all times except at playtime." Amen to that.
• Census: Stay-at-home moms are not who you think from Penn State News Interesting article on stay-at-home moms (which makes me wish for a corresponding census study of stay-at-home dads). However, I take exception to some of the things they say. For instance, "though there's a perception that many well-educated, well-to-do moms are opting out of the work force to stay home with their kids, the census found that only 7.4 percent of stay-at-home moms had a master's or more advanced degree." This isn't the number that you need to make the argument they are trying to make. Only about 9.4 percent of people in the US have a masters degree or higher (and I don't have the figures for women of an age to have young children). Thus we should expect the percent of stay-at-home moms with higher degrees to be low. The percentage that we need is the percent of all women with masters degrees and higher that are stay-at-home moms, and then we need to compare that to the percent of women in the general population (or other restricted groups) that are stay at home moms. That would tell us something about whether there is an "opt-out revolution." OK, now I'll stop ranting about mathematics.
• Daddy Dialectic: Does parenthood make men more conservative and women more liberal? Jeremy Adam Smith's take on a recent study showing that men and women move in opposite directions on the political spectrum once they become parents. He asks the question, "Does taking care of kids push men in a more liberal direction?"
  
• rad dad -- a zine about parenting: Parenting Has Everything to Do With You Rad Dad writes about why you should read a parenting zine even if you aren't a parent and about the whole parenting zine scene. Makes me want a copy of Rad Dad 15, if only I'd get off my butt and get one!
• A Somewhat Shallow Exploration of Gender Preference « Project Kjetil Bree writes about wanting a boy and having a girl.