December 2007 Archives

Lynne Spears, Britney's Mom, has put her book about parenting on hold now that Jamie Lynn, Britney's 16-year-old sister announced that she is pregnant with her high-school boyfriend's baby.

Apparently, news of the teen pregnancy tipped off the Christian publisher of "Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World" that Mother Spears might not be the best person to provide parenting advice. The book was set to launch on Mother's Day 2008.

"This is such a strong case for why you should be a parent and not a friend," Janet Chan, editor in chief of Parenting magazine, told The New York Post.

Now, Nickelodeon is reportedly considering a special about sex and love following the news. Rather than focus strictly on Spears, Ellerbee said she's considering producing a broad discussion about how people know they're in love, when is the right time to have sex and what are the value systems of their parents and friends. It could air as soon as next month.

But what if parents aren't sure what their value system is? A lot of parents don't know when the right time to have sex is, so how can they tell their kids? What would you, or do you tell your kids?

Full disclosure: I saw this on parentdish.com. How come Posh has the most kids and is the skinniest of the group?

For parents who track these things, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the government agency responsible for making sure toys sold here aren't tainted with lead, is getting a big funding increase for fiscal 2008 that should help it do a better job.

Under an appropriations bill passed by Congress today, the CPSC will get $80 million next year, $17 million more than it got this year. According to a Chicago Tribune article, that's the biggest budget hike for the agency in 30 years.

When it comes to taking on debt, college students continue to behave like home equity addicts in a rising real estate market. Student loans for the 2006-2007 averaged $4,337 per full time student, up from $3,415 ten years ago (figures are in 2006 dollars), according to a College Board study. Borrowing to foot today's education with the assumption that the first real job after graduation will pay it all off can be a dangerous game, especially if that first post-graduate job is in teaching and not law.

See the Trends in Student Aid report at http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/trends/trends_aid_07.pdf

This is hilarious and makes the point in a way that a million recall announcements just can't do. Of course, just because a toy is "American,'' as the kids sing about, doesn't necessarily mean it's lead-free.

See this hit video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=hIXGXyQ6L1Q

‘Please Don’t Bring Us Toxic Toys
This Year on Christmas Day’

PITTSBURGH – There’s a new warning out this holiday season about toxic toys and it comes from a group of youngsters singing to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” The “Toxic Toys Jingle” was an immediate hit when it was posted on YouTube as viewers responded to the humorous video with the scary message.
“Out of the mouth of babes comes a profound message,” said Leo W. Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, which produced the video. “Because lead-tainted and other unsafe imports are being allowed to pass through North American ports and are being stocked on store shelves this season, our kids are in danger if parents don’t check labels and ensure that the toys they buy are safe.”
As part of the USW’s “Protect Our Kids – Stop Toxic Imports” campaign, the union’s Women of Steel are conducting in-home training sessions across the United States and Canada to educate families about the threat of lead and demonstrate how to test for lead in toys and other products. Millions of lead-tainted imported toys have been recalled this year.

Being Mormon may not be the greatest thing for a Presidential candidate. But when it comes to nannies, belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a plus.

“All of our nannies have to have a strong moral character,’’ says Kari Shafer, non-Mormon owner of Your Child’s Nanny, a placement agency that pairs families with Mormon caregivers. “All the LDS nannies have to have a recommendation from their bishop and they are strict about who they recommend.’’
Shafer said 90 percent of the demand for LDS nannies comes from non-Mormon families. In the year since she bought the business, she’s noticed that although the company places all sorts of caregivers, the LDS branch is responsible for increasing hits on the Web site.

See http://yourchildsnanny.com/

California environmental enforcers pressured retailers Wednesday to immediately pull from shelves children's jewelry pieces that tested illegally high for lead. See Full story.

Stores where spot testing was done included Macy’s, Dollar Tree, and GAP Kids outlets throughout California. The 16 red-flagged trinkets include a "Molly 'N Me" necklace and a "Best Friends Two" bracelet. SEE A COMPLETE LIST of the tainted items at http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/LeadInJewelry.cfm.

Teaching sign language to babies and toddlers became trendy several years ago, attracting attention as the latest evidence of hovering parent syndrome. But speech therapists and child psychologists see a new application for sign language in helping autistic children communicate their emotions.

“A lot of my kids have trouble articulating or getting in touch with any kind of feeling state, and I thought if there was a way for them to communicate it would improve their relationship with their parents,’’ said Dr. Esther Hess, a clinical child psychologist in West Hollywood who’s been working with autistic kids for 17 years. SEE THE FULL STORY FROM TODAY's PAPER.

File this one in the brilliant ideas I wish I'd had category. It's called Zwaggle.com (not crazy about the name) and it's basically Ebay without any purchase prices. Targeted to parents with too much kid stuff they've outgrown, Zwaggle users earn points for shipping their stuff to someone who wants it, then they can use those points to redeem stuff they do need/want. The only money that changes hands is shipping costs. I just logged on, and some users are offering to pay for shipping as well, just to find a home for their child's outcasts.

It's something that a nonparent can't understand -- and it sounds crazy. But the high chairs, baby swings and toys that your child drooled on, pooped on, played with, bit, laughed at, is saturated in sentimental value, and it's hard to just leave it on the sidewalk outside a Salvation Army store somewhere. I love this idea of getting things to people who will use them and love them!

The ladies of The View had a fascinating discussion last week about giving feminine toys to boys and masculine toys to girls. That line of talk disintegrated somewhat into a shoutfest about children with transgender tendencies, but it brought up some interesting topics. Whoopie and Sherri Shepard really get into over whether a boy should be allowed to dress up in princess garb.

Definitely worth checking out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78ND3vqPz90

Ouch. This nanny got caught on tape getting abusive when one of her two-year-old twin charges resisted going down for her nap. Angry dad Brad Roth started NannyAbuse.com to create a forum for parents to get more information.

Watch this clip from NBC: http://video.knbc.com/player/?id=192803

Here are two other inventive nannywatch sites that I've written about:
LAnannywatch.blogspot.com
ISawYourNanny.blogspot.com
See my story from a month ago:

By Barbara Correa

Nasty nannies beware. Parents everywhere are watching you.

Whether on message boards, Web sites or blogs, the Internet is abuzz with reported sightings of rogue nannies slapping kids, leaving them unattended or worse.

Now, nervous moms and dads are finding total strangers out there willing to watch their backs and report any nanny abuse. And what some are reporting is fueling new concerns about the largely unregulated industry.

On LAnannywatch.blogspot.com, launched a year ago, a mother describes how she discovered that her nanny was dropping her infant twins off at a private house every day, paying another woman to watch them, and then pocketing the difference.

The nanny would then go to work at other families' homes or run errands.

The mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she is pursuing legal action against the nanny, said she checked references and did a background check on the nanny, who seemed legitimate.

She said she suspected nothing until someone in the neighborhood told her what was going on. The nanny was fired, but the mother said she posted a message on the blog to warn other parents about the scam.

After a rash of news reports showed secret videotapes of nannies slapping or beating children in the 1990s, some families took to installing hidden nanny cams.

But with the evolution of the Internet and the ability to post and blog in real time, citizen "nannywatch" sites have boomed.
Smacked on street

A recent thread on Peachhead, the huge Yahoo group for parents in Los Angeles, details the saga of a little girl named "Holland" who was seen being smacked on the street by her hired guardian.

On Oct. 30, one Peachheader -- as the site's members are known -- posted a description of a 3-year-old on Ventura Boulevard and Laurel Canyon Boulevard holding a lunch box with "Holland" written on it. The nanny was allegedly screaming at the girl and hitting her on the top of the head.

A few hours after the first post went up, mothers swarmed into action, calling local preschools to ask whether anyone had a girl named Holland in their class.

By the next morning, a message went out announcing that the child had been identified and that the parents were handling the situation.

"I couldn't get it out of my mind," said Priscilla Sanchez, an infant nurse in Encino and one of the mothers who started calling schools when she read about the bad nanny.

"It reconfirms why I don't use a nanny," said Jessica Gottlieb, a mother of two in Sherman Oaks.

Gottlieb is is a frequent visitor to ISawYourNanny.blogspot.com, a watchdog site that allows anyone with a computer to post a performance report on a caregiver.

Child left alone

One report filed on the site over the summer assails a grandmotherly caregiver who left a 2-year-old girl alone at the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square food court while she went to Panda Express "to get a bowl of chow mein."

"Why I didn't give the woman a tongue lashing, I don't know," the poster wrote. "Maybe it was because she had an accent and I wasn't sure she'd understand.

"Point of the story: Don't leave your child alone in a mall. ... This carelessness could have cost the child her life."

Gottlieb said one reason for the increase in nannywatch sites is that parents are not being selective enough when they hire. They're also learning the hard way that you get what you pay for.

"My kids go to an expensive private school," Gottlieb said. "The nannies I see there are not going to be up on that Web site."

Unfortunately, a lot of working families are looking for deep discounts on nannies.

Employing a nanny was once reserved for the rich and famous. But today, it's unusual to find a dual-income L.A. family with little children that doesn't use one.

Pat Cascio, president of the International Nanny Association, said that when she started her Houston nanny agency in 1983, there were only about 20 such businesses nationwide. Now there are thousands.

Registry virtually unknown

In 1987, California created a voluntary background-check registry called Trust Line, a database that lists in-home child-care providers who have no criminal convictions or child-abuse reports.

But the registry is virtually unknown among parents, and it only checks for certain crimes committed in California, said Cascio.

Professional nannies working on the tax rolls say that while the sites and blogs might hurt the industry overall, they also make good nannies look even better.

"The majority of what I'm reading (on ISawYourNanny.blogspot.com) is illegal immigrants. It's a little disappointing -- you have a lot of people who are ... trying to get the best deal in terms of pay," said nanny Amanda Casabianca.

Casabianca said her $18- to $19-per-hour salary puts her among the highest-paid nannies in the business.

She said an abundance of people willing to work for low pay allows more working people to employ nannies, but it also hurts quality.

"There's so many nannies," she said, "and no regulation, no licensing."

barbara.correa@dailynews.com

Barack Obama is against banning junk food ads on kids' TV shows. Bill Richardson thinks parental education is more important than legislation in keeping ultraviolent video games out of the hands of children. And Mitt Romney calls the current media culture a cesspool of violence, sex, drugs and perversions. These responses are to a questionnaire sent out by watchdog group Common Sense Media. See the full responses at http://www.commonsensemedia.org/news/specials/presidentialquestionnaire

How to raise kids of interfaith parents came up in my story today about celebrating the holidays. What seems clear from interviews with couples of different faiths is that one tends to dominate and become the religious tradition the family follows. Of course, if a couple is childless, like some of the sources in the story, there's no problem. Each partner can just practice what they want.

What do you do in your family? Send a comment or email me at barbara.correa@dailynews.com

Santa Claus really is coming to town – on the Metrolink. The train rolls through the San Fernando Valley starting this Friday, December 7. The free spectacle includes a light show and Santa dancing along the rail platform along with dancing polar bears and snowmen.

Friday, December 7: Downtown Burbank and Glendale
Saturday, December 8: Simi Valley, Chatsworth, Northridge, Van Nuys
Sunday, December 9: Oxnard, Camarillo, Moorpark

Go to www.metrolinktrains.com for full details.

Just in time for toy-shopping season, there's a new danger threatening the toy supply. It's asbestos, found in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation™ Fingerprint Examination Kits and two different brands of toy clay, according to testing by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

The findings were the result of 18 months of research testing hundreds of consumer products. Another advocacy organization working on the issue, the Environmental Working Group, points out that toys like the CSI kit are so dangerous because the asbestos was found in toy fingerprint dust that is easily inhaled.

Yet another reason to shop wisely this season.

It's MYSPACE for babysitters. Finally, a social-networking style Web site for babysitters. At www.sittercity.com, you can see prospective babysitters photos, profiles, availability chart and what they charge (vary wildly, from $7 to $25). The site has partnered with LexisNexis to do instant background checks for $9.99.

Wish I'd thought of this.

An attorney sent me this information yesterday about a bus driver in Santa Monica who claims she was fired because she revealed her pregnancy. The jury agreed. Here are the details:

In 2005, Wynonna Harris was working as a driver for the City of Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus line. Two days after she gave her superior a doctor’s note indicating that she was pregnant, she was fired. A jury awarded her $178,000; the judge raised that to almost 600,000 this fall. “A lot of people think that if they are pregnant and their employer terminates them, it’s OK,’’ said Michael Nourmand, the plaintiff’s attorney. “I want [pregnant] women to know that they have rights.’’

MomsRising has more information on women's rights with respect to pregnancy and motherhood.

What's in a name? More than most parents bargained for. According to new studies published in the journal Psychological Science, baseball players whose names begin with the strikeout-signifying letter K strike out more than others. Students whose names begin with letters C and D achieve lower grade point averages than do students whose names begin with A and B.

And because lower GPAs lead to lesser graduate schools, students whose names begin with the letters C and D attend lower-ranked law schools than students whose names begin with A and B.

So where does that leave middle-of-the-alphabet names, like Isaac (the name of my newborn nephew)? Researchers say there's a very good chance that his favorite dessert will be ice cream, maybe he'll go into investment banking or ichthyology, and he'll listen to Iggy Pop.

Jen Levinson is a major source of kid and parenting-related info for San Fernando Valley moms. Many of you receive her daily e-mail list of events and insider tips. Well, she has now officially started a Web site, where you can subscribe to her infamous list and read her soon-to-launch blog. Check her out at http://jenlevinson.com/