by Carolyn Moynihan

One of the most studied aspects of childhood in recent decades is early, non-maternal childcare. Research tends to show benefits for a child’s cognitive development but not for emotional wellbeing and behaviour. Now a study has found that youngsters are less likely to succeed at school if their mothers return to work within a year of their birth. Read more…

One consequence that is sure to follow from marriage redefinition is that courts will be yet more empowered to assign parental rights and responsibilities.

How wonderful that would be!

If we just allow biology to determine parental rights, what a disaster!  In disputed cases, we would send wet, messy biological samples to labs!  There, those samples will be analyzed by scientists.  Scientists who probably never took a humanities course in their lives!  How can we let people who don’t know the first thing about postmodern critical theory make decisions like that?  How would social justice be served?

And that’s not just in same sex cases, either.

Andrew Stuttaford discusses an article in which this frightening idea is aired: Read more…

I thought this was interesting enough to share. Anyone with children should take heed.

by Mary Rice Hasson

James, a teacher-friend of mine, lamented recently how “morally challenged” his high school students seem to be. “They don’t think twice about lying or slamming someone’s reputation. Cheating on tests is no big deal. They only worry if they’ll get caught.” Read more…

Last week, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that the U.S. just saw the largest annual increase in poverty recorded in our nation’s history: In 2009, 3.7 million more Americans joined the ranks of the poor.

The recession bears part of the blame, but media outlets have failed to inform the public about the long-term root cause of poverty in this country: unwed childbearing. Buried in the Census report are startling figures revealing that the collapse of marriage is creating this crisis of poverty. Single-mother families are almost five times more likely to be poor than are married couples with children; overall, nearly 70 percent of poor families with children are headed by single parents. Read more…

This post on Yahoo Answers has been making the rounds as of late.

Can you make a male baby sitter pay child support?

I’m a single mom going to college with my sister. We currently rent an apartment together. A couple weeks ago, I asked my neighbor, a trustworthy guy, if he could watch the kids for two hours while I went to class and my sister wasn’t home, and he agreed. If he babysits and doesn’t accept pay, can I sue him for child support because he took on a fatherly role?? I’m sure I can convince a court that he accepted a fatherly role. Read more…

Monday (July 5th) I listened to a broadcast on the Diane Rehm Show of an interview with James T. Patterson, author of Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America’s Struggle over Black Family Life from LBJ to Obama. That title was already on my long (long…) wish-list of books I’d like to buy if I had a few thousand bucks to spare (and a few years of leisure time I could spend to read them) so of course I listened with interest. But if what I heard was any indication of the kind of self contradictory ‘logic’ to be found in his book, then it’s probably no longer one of the must-have titles on my list. (So don’t take this as a review of Professor Patterson’s book, which I haven’t read. This is just my reactions to some of the assertions he made in his interview.) Read more…

Part 1. in a series of responses to a question posed by a student.

No one contract can treat same sex couples and opposite sex couples identically.

(Warning: this post is long! But Worth the effort if I do say so myself!)

1. If you believed that it is not possible for the government to be neutral in the definition of marriage, would that change your view of the desirability of your proposal? Read more…

Nice sound, eh? I met the brains behind CatholicMom, the original Catholic Mom, Lisa Hendrey, at the NACFLM conference this past weekend. I don’t know how she does it. I thought I was hyper-active. Check out this site of hers, all you Catholic Moms! Or non-Catholic moms. Or Jewish dads. Or, whatever!
she also blogs at the Faith and Family blog, put out by Circle Media.