Superman

I used to be a big NBA fan. I grew up in Utah during the era of John Stockton and Karl Malone. Those two sports figures were always elevated figures that I looked up to. Neither ever rose to the level of John Elway in my mind, however, but they were the two sports icons that fell right behind John Elway.

I looked up to John Stockton and Karl Malone not as people, but as basketball players, and I modeled how I played basketball after how they played the sport. Hours were spent out in the front driveway practicing my passing to match John Stockton's passing and my low post moves to match Karl Malone's low post moves.

Modeling my football playing after John Elway wasn't realistic, but I always looked up to him, and I even shed a few tears when he won his first Super Bowl. Watching him retire from the Denver Broncos was very surreal for me. I had never known the Denver Broncos without John Elway, and in my mind he should be Denver's quarterback until the day I died.

What

Read More »from Sports Authority: Why Being a Famous Basketball Player Doesn't Make You a Superhero

gay teensWe can talk about supporting marriage equality and gay acceptance all we want, but LGBT teens still struggle with all sorts of bullying, homelessness and other issues related to oppression. Even legal issues. A Florida crisis case right now illustrates the precariousness of being an LGBT teen in a frightening way.

A high school student is facing felony charges because on her 18th birthday the parents of her girlfriend decided to legally harass her. I don't understand why law enforcement is assisting this, because if Kaitlyn were an 18-year-old boy they wouldn't be involved. In Florida, typically legal action about consensual relationships between teens would only be pursued if the one person is 24-years-old or older.

Related: 10 things a mother should NEVER say to her daughter

It seems clear that Kaitlyn is in trouble because she's gay. There is a window of time where she has already turned 18 and before her girlfriend turns 16, and carefully timed prosecution is

Read More »from Is it Illegal to Be a Gay Teen in Florida?

Pregnancy shapewear from Cozy Belly. Photo: Cozy BellyAh, to be pregnant and gorging again… I don’t know about other women out there, but personally, I loved using those nine months as a reason to eat two (or three) desserts without guilt and, finally, to unequivocally love every inch of my body. So it made me totally sad this morning when I received a press release from Cozy Belly touting its “pregnancy shapewear,” reminding me that it is, in fact, a thing.

But really, why?

I tried to block out word of the depressing trend when Kim Kardashian blogged about her love of belly shapers recently. “For any concern that my clothes are too tight, I have so many pieces custom fit for my growing body! They make pregnancy Spanx which are tight,” she wrote. “So this theory sounds ridiculous! I feel my best when I am in heels and chic clothes!”

But then came the clincher, so to speak, from Cozy Belly:

"For pregnant women who want to gain a little extra control over the shape of their body, we offer pregnancy shapewear. If you want to cover up some of

Read More »from Pregnancy Shapewear: The Baby Bump Girdle No One Asked For

Daddy's girlMy oldest daughter, Adair, is a daddy's girl. I used to think it was just a phase because when her baby sister was born, she spent lots of extra time with her daddy. But now, her sister is a toddler, and it's clearly not a phase. Addie is a daddy's girl to her core. Some days, this makes me a bit sad. I wish I was the one she wanted to comfort her when she was scared or hurt. I wish I was the one she preferred to read her books. Instead, it's her daddy. Always. Some days though, it's pretty cool to see their bond. The way they love each other, the way they "get" each other - it's pretty rare.

Here's why I'm OK with my daughter being a daddy's girl:

1. Adventure
Phil has a big heart for adventure. He spends nearly all of his free time exploring the woods, working in the garden, and dreaming about backpacking trips for the whole family. From a young age, he started taking Addie to explore the wilderness and now, it's her favorite place to be!

2. Play
Phil has always been

Read More »from She Prefers Daddy Over Me (and 9 Reasons Why I'm OK with It)

Kaitlyn Hunt was expelled and faces felony charges for being in a same-sex relationship with a younger student. (Photo: Courtsey of the Hunt Family)An 18-year-old high school senior in Florida has been expelled and is facing felony charges for dating a 15-year-old freshman at the same school. Parents complained, and it became a classic "we don't want you to date our daughter" story, but with a modern twist: both of the students are girls.

Also on Shine: Dad's Love Letter to Gay Teenage Son Goes Viral

Kaitlyn Hunt was arrested on February 16 and charged with two counts of “lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12-16 years of age.” If convicted, she faces jail time or house arrest and will have to register as a sex offender, something that could affect her for the rest of her life. She has until this Friday to accept a plea deal -- two years of house arrest, followed by a year of probation plus sex-abuse counseling -- or take her case to trial.

Also on Shine: Indiana Anti-Gay Prom Plan Sparks Backlash

According to the Hunt family, Kaitlyn met her girlfriend (who has not been named) months ago, during basketball practice at Sebastian

Read More »from Teen Expelled, Charged as Felony Sex Offender, After Parents Object to Same-Sex Realtionship

Students protest graduation ban

Students protest graduation ban

Many high school seniors are 18 years old, but that doesn't mean they think like adults: according to neuroscientists, the area of the brain associated with reason and self-control doesn't fully mature until one's mid-20s. Maybe that's why seven kids at East Carter High School in Grayson Kentucky thought it would be funny to release 10,000 crickets into their school early last Thursday morning as a senior prank. According local WSAZ News, the seniors were not allowed to walk in their graduation ceremony on Saturday morning and would not receive their diplomas until they paid a $600 fine.

It's not fair to us to not have them there with us, More on Yahoo: Obama Delivers Morehouse Commencement

Some of the pranksters' classmates came to their defense, "We've been to school with them since we were in diapers," senior Alissa Lawson told WSAZ during a student protest on Friday night where dozens of seniors chanted, "Let them walk [in graduation]" and held signs in support of the

Read More »from Cricket Prank Bans Seniors From Graduation

Kylie and her dad Bob on the trail. Photo: Courtesy of the Trawick family.In an effort to fight hunger, 13-year-old Kylie Trawick and her dad Bob are going the extra mile in a major way—hiking more than 2,180 miles from Georgia to Maine, at a clip of about 20 miles per day since setting off in late March. And, at 723 miles in, they’ve already surpassed their goal of raising one pound of food for every mile completed. About 4,000 pounds have already been donated in Kylie’s honor to food pantries across the country.

More on Shine: 6 Ways to Create a Father-Daughter Bond That Will Last Forever

The biggest challenge, as it turns out, has been for Bob, a 50-year-old registered nurse, to keep apace with his daughter. “Kylie is a phenomenal hiker, and she’s never quit anything in her life,” he told Yahoo! Shine by phone from Daleville, Virginia, where the two had stopped to rest and refuel for a couple of nights. “So the truth is, she’s wearing me out. She’s just so fit and strong! It’s the Sassafras Express and I’m clearly at the back.”

Muddy father-daughter hiker feet. Photo: Courtesy of the Trawick family.Sassafras is Kylie’s Read More »from Father and Daughter's Amazing Appalachian Trek to Save Lives

By Erika Stalder, Refinery29

.Those old directions for How To Make A Nuclear Family - grow up, find a man, get married, and have a baby - seem so dated, so simplistic, it's almost laughable. Modern women are staying in school longer, going after more advanced degrees, and are delaying childbirth. Birth rates for women aged 35 to 39 increased nearly 50% between 1990 and 2008, according to Pew Research. And, the number of women aged 40 or older who have babies tripled over the same timespan.

Among women who want to have children, more are reaching their professional and educational goals before becoming mothers. And, why not? It's natural for successful women, who have made careers of pragmatically setting goals and achieving them, to think they can apply the same strategies to pumping out a kid or two. Besides, if Hollywood is any indication, it feels more and more logical for 40-something women to be packing so called "baby bumps" on the regular. (Though the experts we talked to for

Read More »from Baby Talk: The 411 on Your Future Fertility