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As U.S. Population Swells to 300 Million, New Survey Examines the Evolution of Motherhood

An In-depth Look at What Has Changed and What Has Stayed the Same in Motherhood Over the Past 40 Years

According to demographers from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population will reach 300 million people this Tuesday, October 17. To celebrate this milestone, JOHNSON'S Baby commissioned a survey looking at moms of today and at moms who gave birth in the late 1960s, when the population hit 200 million, to take a definitive look at how motherhood has changed and stayed the same over the past 40 years.

This in-depth survey examined the evolution of motherhood, including where moms get trusted advice, viewpoints on childcare and rearing and sense of satisfaction in life. It also looked at concerns for the health and safety of their children, whether moms work outside the home, what type of support systems they depend on and what they do with their free time.

"Technology, mobility and science may make lifestyles radically different today than a couple of generations ago," said Sara Ellington and Stephanie Triplett, co-authors of The Mommy Chronicles (Hay House, Inc.), a book recounting their actual e-mail conversations during their first year of motherhood. "It is amazing to see how the experience of being a mom has changed over time, and reassuring to know that some things stay the same."

Mothers' Helpers: Mom Still Knows Best

When it comes to being a mom, some things change with time – while others just seem to stay the same. Both groups gave the nod to their own mothers and medical professionals as their top trusted sources for advice and information on child rearing. "I would have been lost if not for my own mom, and my network of mom friends," said Ellington. "No matter what we read, nothing – but nothing – beats first-mom jitters better than talking with friends who are also moms. And, of course, talking to my own mom."

87 percent of parents believe scholarships and grants will cover at least part of their children's undergraduate expenses

The study looked at the college saving habits and goals of parents with children under 18 and compared them with what college financial aid administrators have to say about college funding. Financial aid administrators said 92 percent of parents overestimate the amount of scholarship money their children will receive. Meanwhile, parents are not saving much on their own for their kids' educations, the study found.

Via: PDF Download

Breast feeding has little or no effect on intelligence in children. While breast feeding has many advantages for the child and mother, enhancement of the child's intelligence is unlikely to be among them.

Effect of breast feeding on intelligence in children: prospective study, sibling pairs analysis, and meta-analysis.

Results The mother's IQ was more highly predictive of breastfeeding status than were her race, education, age, poverty status, smoking, the home environment, or the child's birth weight or birth order. One standard deviation advantage in maternal IQ more than doubled the odds of breast feeding. Before adjustment, breast feeding was associated with an increase of around 4 points in mental ability. Adjustment for maternal intelligence accounted for most of this effect. When fully adjusted for a range of relevant confounders, the effect was small (0.52) and non-significant (95% confidence interval -0.19 to 1.23). The results of the sibling comparisons and meta-analysis corroborated these findings.
Via: British Medical Journal

Bucking the norm, some families think big: Could 4, 5, even 6 kids become suburbia's new status symbol?

Clark, 38, is aware of the buzz that large families — in the suburbs, at least — are a new status symbol.

“I thought it was kind of funny,” she said “Most people who have a lot of kids don’t have the time or energy to care what about others think.” On top of other family duties, Clark has an extra, self-imposed workload — homeschooling all five children ranging from the twins to an adolescent daughter. “One of the biggest struggles for me,” she said, “is that 4-year-olds’ interests aren’t the same as a 13-year-old’s interests.”
Via: MSNBC

A Rush to Medicate Young Minds

I have been treating, educating and caring for children for more than 30 years, half of that time as a child psychiatrist, and the changes I have seen in the practice of child psychiatry are shocking. Psychiatrists are now misdiagnosing and overmedicating children for ordinary defiance and misbehavior. The temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized as psychiatric illnesses.

Using such diagnoses as bipolar disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Asperger's, doctors are justifying the sedation of difficult kids with powerful psychiatric drugs that may have serious, permanent or even lethal side effects.
Via: Washington Post

KATIE Holmes has told best friend Posh that she’s already longing for another daughter.

Katie, who gave birth to her daughter Suri by Tom Cruise, 44, in April, is convinced that to be sure of having a little girl you have to surround yourself with images of womanhood. The 27-year-old is a big fan of the book Gender Giver by Portia Gardner and her "visualisation" approach to making sure the stork brings you a boy or a girl.
Via: Daily Snack

EXCLUSIVE: Linda Evangelista Has a Boy

Linda Evangelista has welcomed her first child – a boy, the supermodel's agent, Didier Fernandez, tells PEOPLE exclusively. Augustin James Evangelista was born on Wednesday in New York City.
Via: People Magazine

Pregnant women 'oily fish alert'

Eating too much oily fish during pregnancy may increase the risk of delivering the baby too early, scientists believe.

The researchers told New Scientist magazine the harm is probably caused by high mercury levels in oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines. But experts warn it is important for pregnant women, and indeed everyone, to eat enough fish to keep healthy.
Via: BBC Health

[C3@MIT] Book -- The Commodification of Childhood

This weekend, I read a review for a book that I thought may be of interest for those who follow the aspects of the media industry we study here at the Convergence Culture Consortium. In our initial formulation of this research group, there was a particularly strong emphasis on what we were referring to as "branding cultures," looking at fan communities as they surround entertainment properties and consumer brands. Although our outlook is much broader than just branding at this point, we retain a strong interest at the marketing process and in finding ways that marketers and consumers can work together to create a media environment in which messages about products and brands get to consumers in ways that are neither manipulative to consumers nor intrusive but which still provides a viable financial model for mass entertainment.

This brings me to the review I found, of Daniel Thomas Cook's The Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer, written by Cord Scott of the Lincoln Technical Institute in the August 2006 edition of The Journal of Popular Culture. Cook's book, published in 2004, is part of an increasing attempt to understand how the children's market has been created over the past century and normalized in the lifestyles of Americans. Of course, this "commodification of childhood" both has its negative aspects, as your anti-corporate and anti-branding folks would be glad to point out, as well as its benefits, such as the autonomy consumerism has granted to children in so many ways.

Cook, a sociologist, focuses on how clothing brands began to be formulated in the 1910s and the subsequent development of the industry. As Scott points out, branded clothing becomes "truly a visual outlet for children's self-expression, as well as what parents convey to the public about the child's (and the parents') social standing. I'm taking a course this semester on globalization at Harvard University by anthropologist James L. Watson, who points out the major differences this consumerism has made in the Chinese market, with the creation of the much-discussed "Little Emperor" phenomenon.
Via: http://www.convergenceculture.org/weblog/2006/10/interesting_bookthe_commodific.html