Oh, my. God loves gay Robins. That's AWESOME.

I thought of you immediately when I saw that.

Your beau should be Gay Robin for Halloween.

The Bender costume wins, hands down.

There are those same sorts of feelings over practically any pain-relieving drug. "Strong" people are supposed to be able to "tough it out."

And I understand that there are risks, but for so many centuries under Catholic doctrine, women were explicitly PROHIBITED from receiving any palliatives during childbirth, because they needed to feel the pain during childbirth that God had mandated for Eve's sins.

I think the message that the author is trying to convey, albeit a bit confusedly, is that women should have some authority over their experience during birth. Which I completely agree with.

For (older) immigrant children, how young do they generally have to have immigrated to have no discernible accent? If they're in a place without a large population speaking their first language?

I'm sure it entirely depends on many factors, like the language, and the environment they're in--if it's predominantly foreign language at home and socially, they may have a stronger accent. Assuming, of course you only mean immigrants from places with foreign languages.

I know Jamaicans that never lost theirs, but I dropped my Canadian accent from age 4, my Jamaican from age 12, my British from age 18. Uh, entirely possible I'm just not sticky.

Because it's not risk-free? Because when you have it, you may have felt pressured into it? Because if you wind up in the intervention cascade afterwards, you feel like you could have done something to have stopped it? Because women are humans too, and humans feel guilty about all sorts of things they couldn't actually have as much control over as they think they should have?

Okay, but I'm not trying to state it is unreasonable if you do feel bad about it. It seems like there's this pressure that you should feel bad about it that I don't understand. But like Jesse said, there is a lot of should-ing about all sorts of decisions that mothers make.

But like Jesse said, there is a lot of should-ing about all sorts of decisions that mothers make.

And that, I think, is the core of the problem. No matter what you do as a mother or parent, someone is sure your doing it wrong.

I doubt there has been any other time in human development when parenting has been so societally micromanaged.

I blame the Victorians.

No matter what you do as a mother or parent, someone is sure your doing it wrong.

That nails it.

I'm going to yoga tonight. I skated an hour and a half yesterday and lifted weights so I am feeling it all over today.

Is anyone else just a little in awe of Crash Mere?

Your beau should be Gay Robin for Halloween.

Oh, Jesus. There's already too many gender issues going on in this relationship -- I don't need Gay Robin added to the mix.

Besides, I like him better in Tony Stark tank-style undershirts. I'm a simple girl who just likes to objectify her boyfriend.

Olivia keeps asking to go back to the rink. It kills me dead! She's so tiny but so determined.