Blog Posts by The_Stir

Pregnant women face discrimination in the workplace. It's a fact. It's as bad as the state of our maternity leave.

The Miami Herald took note of the large number of women blogging about being fired from their job for being pregnant. I'm sure they were reading CafeMom.

And forget about trying to find a job when pregnant. It's hard enough to find a job when you're not right now.

The sad fact is that you can be laid off when pregnant. You can be fired when on maternity leave. And there is little we can do about it.

Or is there?

"'In the tough economy, employers consider expecting mothers to be expendable employees,' Robert Weisberg, a Miami labor lawyer who represents victims of discrimination, told the Miami Herald. "'In these times, pregnancy is viewed as a real liability.'"

He went on to say that new mothers are seen as less productive on the job.

Women are speaking up - complaints on pregnancy-bias rose 14 percent last year...the biggest increase

I'll admit I've been in the dark about maternity leave. It's not something I had to worry about until now and when my sister was on maternity leave two years ago, the company she worked for ending up laying her off during her leave. Long story, but she did get severance and was able to stay home with baby for four months until she found another job.

I had no idea that some employers do not have to offer maternity leave. And I've read many stories here on CafeMom and beyond about women losing their jobs because they need to take time off to give birth. I'm outraged.

I checked out maternity leave around the world. Did you know that in Italy, they offer five months of maternity leave at 80 percent of pay? Russia offers 140 days at full pay. I also heard that in Australia, moms on maternity leave have the option of taking a full year, all while maintaining job security.

Yet in the US, under Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the most a mom can take is 12 weeks...and that's

Many parents don't want to think about their children engaging in any kind of sexual behavior; however, some sexual expression is really, really normal. For boys and girls alike, most kids masturbate and explore their bodies even when they're as young as two years old. But what's normal sexual behavior and when should we worry?

A new clinical report released by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and titled "The Evaluation of Sexual Behaviors in Children" (Nancy D. Kellogg, MD, and the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect) can help parents wade through the worry. Odds are, you probably have nothing to worry about.

According to the AAP report "The Evaluation of Sexual Behaviors in Children," "Most children will engage in sexual behaviors at some time during their childhood, and for more than half, it will be before their 13th birthday. While normal, these behaviors can be concerning to parents and disruptive to others." Others, also meaning us! - their parents. Am I

Last night my cousin was telling me about a problem she's having with potty training her 3-year-old son: He has quickly learned to use the potty when he has to pee; but when it comes to poop, he refuses to go in the potty.

Have you experienced this with your toddler?

When I asked him why he doesn't go #2 in the potty, he told me simply, "I can't. It's too big." (Translation: The hole in the training potty seat is too big, and he's scared.)

Whether it's due to fear, embarrassment, stubbornness or something else, refusing to poop in the potty is a common problem with many potty training toddlers (although I'm guessing the specific reasoning behind it will probably vary by child).

Here are some things you can do to help your child learn to poop in the potty:

• Make sure your child isn't constipated. Increase the amount of fluid and fiber in his/her diet so that her bowel movements are softer and easier to pass.
• If your child insists on only pooping in a diaper or

I can carry a tune pretty well, but nothing I'd dare showcase outside the walls of my shower or my daughter's bedroom when she asks me to sing her a lullaby. She thinks I'm the "best singer in the world." Yup, according to her, I'm even better than "Hannah Montanah." Ah, what the toddler years do for my ego ...

Her favorite lullaby is The Little Drummer Boy. She doesn't realize it's a Christmas song and not a lullaby. But I don't tell her because then she'll ask me to sing the words to Braham's Lullaby, the one that goes "Lullaby and goodnight, with roses bedight ..." and I wouldn't even be able to get through the first line. I'd have to make the rest up, and that's just too hard at 8 p.m.

So I struggle through The Little Drummer Boy, which I can pretty much remember word for word around Christmastime when it's played on the radio constantly, but not so much in the middle of summer.

I always get the parts all out of sequence. In my version, Mary often nods before the

The Pittsburgh Early Childhood Parenting Examiner recently asked its readers to share their favorite part of toddlerhood.

Some of my favorite answers:

"...the unconditional love. No matter how many time outs my son gets, he still hugs me and gives me kisses. There is no hate, just love."

And this one:

"...listening to my daughter sing the ABC's to herself."

What's your favorite part of toddlerhood so far?

Written by Kim Conte for CafeMom's Toddler Buzz

Next to the actual birth of your baby, your shower will likely be the biggest event of your pregnancy. It's always nice when it turns out exactly as you always dreamed it would be. And one of the ways to make sure that happens is to, well, throw the shower yourself.

The African American Mommies on CafeMom were tossing this idea around recently to mixed reviews.

Some said no way, it's like calling people up and asking for gifts. Others agree it's still really bad manners, but since nobody pays attention to that stuff anymore, why not? But some said it makes perfect sense; a few even spoke up and admitted to hosting their own showers.

Share you views on whether it's appropriate to throw yourself a baby shower ...

Written by Cynthia Dermody for CafeMom's Pregnancy Buzz

Antidepressants make you feel a whole lot better, but you're pregnant so now what? Should you continue to take your medication or should you flush it down the toilet pronto.? Surprisingly, until last week, there were no guidelines to help pregnant women-and their doctors-make that that decision.

Last Friday, the guidelines were published in two medical journals: Obstetrics and Gynecology (a publication of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology) and General Hospital Psychiatry (a publication of the American Psychiatric Association).

The gist: Medical experts believe that untreated depression in pregnant women can be harmful not only to the mother, but to her baby and the risk of harm needs to be balanced against the risk of drugs to the developing fetus. So for mothers-to-be who suffer from disabling depression, bipolar disorder, or psychosis, the benefits of antidepressants are likely to outweigh the possible risks to the fetus.

The guidelines take into