A Special Lunch Date

We were delighted to welcome 12 mom bloggers to our new Mom Central offices last Wednesday for our first Boston-area Mom Bloggers lunch. It was the perfect opportunity to get together with our local mom blogger community and introduce them to our team here at Mom Central.

Give a bunch of bloggers who usually only converse through the written word an opportunity to get together live, and conversation flows! The ladies who joined us cover so many different topics in their individual blogs – family, babies, kids, working from home, working outside of the home, homeschooling, raising teens, single parenting, and so on. You name it, these ladies do it and have an opinion about it! Needless to say, there wasn’t one moment of silence throughout lunch.

Pregnancy Pact in Gloucester: So Many Things Wrong

Recent news about teen pregnancy in Gloucester, Massachusetts, highlighted in Time Magazine, has been spreading like wildfire, controversial not only because the news involved 17 girls in one high school, but because many of them made a pact to get pregnant together on purpose.

Although this story evokes a number of different responses, the main question on my mind is: what went wrong? What failures were there in parents talking to their teens, in schools educating their students, and in community resources reaching out to young adults? Honestly - how many people weren’t paying attention in order for this to happen?

On the girls’ part, they appear to be classic millennials who seemingly lack direction and ambition. Is this a reflection of the economic situation (which, in Gloucester, due to an ever-decreasing fishing industry, is especially bad)? Perhaps these girls couldn’t see a lot of options for their future, found nothing to engage them, and considered this to be their way out. Many of these girls in telling their story believe that pregnancy won’t just bring them unconditional love, but it will make them whole. In fact, they’re so sheltered that they didn’t even think about what pregnancy would mean, about their lives falling apart around it. Rather than thinking through the consequences, these girls instead act impulsively, all too likely believing that their parents would be there to back them up and figure out the details. However, unlike teen rebellions of the past, which involved tattoos, body piercings, and gothic hair, this one has lifelong irreversible consequences.

Sunny Days

As soon as June (and that incredible heat wave) hit, parents started stocking up on sunscreen for their kids, only to find that they had a choice not just of sunscreens for body and face (in a variety of forms, including lotions, sprays, and bars), but sun-protective glasses, hats, bathing suits, shirts, and even the beach towels themselves.

These days, parents are not just stocking up on sun-protection for their kids - this is just a piece of a larger problem - we don’t think we are raising our kids in a safe environment. In fact, we no longer think that our kids are safe anywhere: we give them constant supervision while they play in the back yard, keep them away from any food that might have preservatives or toys that we think could have toxins, and strap them into booster seats until they’re 13. When we were kids, we not only played outside until dark, we never wore sunscreen, which is part of the problem. Now we practically chase our doctors down to have them check out the newest freckle or mark we’ve discovered. We didn’t wear bike helmets back then either, but now any time a child is moving at a speed faster than a walk, you can be sure she’s not only wearing a helmet, but knee and elbow pads as well.

“Sure,” we think, “we can buy some SPF 45 sunscreen and be good parents, or we can buy sun-protective shirts and children’s sunglasses with not just SPF 70, but UVA and UVB protection to the point that kids can barely see through them and be great parents.” Which is exactly how these things get out of control.

Sunscreen is still important – you can be sure my family will be wearing it next time we spend an afternoon outdoors - but there’s a limit to the amount of protection that’s a good thing. Otherwise it won’t be long before we’re locking our kids up in their rooms and forgetting about helmets and sun protection all together.

To read more about this, see the USA Today article in which I commented.

Father's Day with Mommy Daddy Blog

By Sheena at Mommy Daddy Blog

Our third B.O.M.B. Award goes to Sheena. We love her post because she celebrates someone who is important in the lives of moms and kids everywhere - Dad! And even though Father's Day is now behind us, it's never too late to take the time to praise and thank the daddies who change diapers, read bedtime stories, and just love being with their kids.

Today is a very special day for a very special man in my life, Hounz, I mean Greg! Today Greg will be celebrating his very first Father’s Day. Although I’m not showing any signs, I think that I’m actually just as excited about Father’s Day as he is because today will be the first Father’s Day that I’ll get to celebrate too.

Classy Mommy Interview: Dr. Sears on The Vaccine Book

By Colleen Padilla at Classy Mommy

Our second B.O.M.B. Award goes to Colleen because, not only are vaccines one of the hottest topics around right now, but she has brought an archetypal expert to the world of Mom Bloggers. The interview is both thoughtful and really informative, and it's something that will interest us all. Great blog, Colleen!

As a Mom of a 2 year old and 3 month old, I loved The Vaccine Book. I found your writing style and research easy to digest. As a former pharmaceutical sales rep, I really appreciated your comprehensive research into the Product Inserts for each vaccine and your breakdown of each vaccine by brand to show the differences in ingredients dependent upon the manufacturer of each shot. That info coupled with your discussion on what ingredients could be controversial enables parents to draw their own conclusions about each vaccine so they can make the best decision for their children.

Our First B.O.M.B. Award!: Titles. Tags. And labels. STAY AWAY!

By Audrey at Pinks and Blues

Why do we love Audrey's post? Because she says something we've all thought and that makes us strive to be better mothers, despite the fact that it's really easy to fall into the exact conversation she just described. Thanks for the post, and congrats on being the first ever recipient of Mom Central's Best of Mom Blogs award!

I was at the playground yesterday with the boys. There were 4 other mothers standing around next to me watching their kids play.

None of us had ever met, but we all had kids that were about the same ages - 5 and under.

Out of the 5 of us there, 4 of us had 3 children. So there were 14 kids playing together. It was very cute.

But then one of the little boys started crying because his older sister “by mistake” threw sand at him.

The Joy of a Cardboard Box!

Keeping it simple, easy, and green!

Postcards From Yo Momma

Here’s something that anyone who is a mom – or has a mom – will be able to appreciate. Postcards From Yo Momma is a clever site that was started by two women, Doree Shafrir and Jessica Grose, who would gather and share funny messages from their mothers. Eventually, inspiration struck and spawned a website that almost immediately started receiving thousands of submissions.

Breakfast BREAKS Wants to Give You a Break

Thanks to Breakfast BREAKS, mealtime on the go with kids has never been easier. Within each ingenious little box is a General Mills cereal Bowl Pack, a healthy snack, a Minute Maid 100% fruit juice box, and even a spoon, napkin, and moist wipe. Which all means that nutritious eating while out is suddenly much more convenient. And they’re perfect for home as well - Breakfast BREAKS is a great way to make sure your kids get a nutritious meal in the morning without having to slave over a hot stove or run
around the kitchen trying to pull together a full meal.

And now the company wants to give you a break from the daily race. Breakfast BREAKS is teaming up with Denise Jonas, mom of today's hottest band, The Jonas Brothers, in search of "Mom's Craziest Morning." All you have to do is log on to the
Breakfast BREAKS website and enter your "craziest morning" story for a chance to win four tickets to one of the Jonas Brothers' summer 2008 concerts. And if that's not enough, to truly give you a break, they're also throwing in a $150 gift certificate to Spafinder.com. So, while the kids are busy being kids, you can take the day off to relax and unwind at your choice of one of 4,000 spas. The "In Search of Mom's Craziest Morning" contest will run from May 1st to June 15th at www.BreakfastBREAKS.com. One winner from four regions of the country will be chosen.

Breakfast Breaks is not only dedicated to teaching kids about the importance of a healthy breakfast, but to making the lives of moms everywhere a little easier – which is something we can all appreciate! To learn more or enter the contest, visit the website here.

Camp Baby

I may be the slowest blogger to write about Camp Baby out there (in fact talking with and reading the posts of my colleague bloggers I am sure of this!), but there was so much to think about and reflect upon, and suddenly writing a thoughtful blog took quite a bit of time.

Invite 55 prominent Mom bloggers to gather (all expenses paid) at a corporate-sponsored event, as Johnson & Johnson did recently at Camp Baby held in Hackensack, New Jersey, and watch the online fireworks begin before anyone has even arrived.

Perhaps blogstorm is the most appropriate description.