Students protest graduation ban

Seven kids at East Carter High School in Grayson, Kentucky thought it would be funny to release 10,000 crickets in their school last Thursday morning as a senior prank. Unfortunately, school administrators didn't get the humor. According to local WSAZ News, the seniors were not allowed to walk in their graduation ceremony on Saturday morning and will not receive their diplomas until they each pay a $600 fine.

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Some of the pranksters' classmates came to their defense, "We've been to school with them since we were in diapers. It's not fair to us to not have them there with us," senior Alissa Lawson told WSAZ during a student protest on Friday night. Dozens of seniors chanted, "Let them walk [in graduation]" and held signs in support of the "Cricket Clan." Kentucky state Senator Robin Webb, who once served as class president for East Carter High School, called the decision "overreaching" given that the kids had never had any

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.

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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

Every two or three blocks on the avenues of downtown Brooklyn, a big old stone church rises from the ranks of the brownstones. A couple of weeks ago, my little boy Felix pulled his trike to the curb and squinted at the steeple of one.

"What's that castle, Da-da?"

"It's not a castle, it's a church."

"What's a church?"

"It's a place where people go to worship god."

"What's god?"

"God is a concept some people believe in. A creative force, I guess you'd say."

"Huh."

And with that, he rode on. I must admit, this isn't the most compelling definition of the supreme being I could think of - I attended Catholic school for nine years and am steeped in Bible lore. I could've told him the story of the Garden of Eden, in which god-with-a-capital-G appears as a benevolent father whom his creations defy, or perhaps recounted how the vengeful deity punished Sodom and Gomorrah, or the demanding dictator demanded Her loyal subject Abraham to sacrifice his only son.

Read More »from Losing My Religion: Why I'm Raising My Child to Believe in Science, Not God

When Jennifer Siebel Newsom was pregnant with her first daughter, she realized that it was hard to find any female role models that her daughter could eventually look up to. There were powerful, strong, and independent women all around her, Jennifer observed, but they weren't portrayed that way in the media. In fact, there was a huge disconnect - there are many women in positions of power and influence making a difference in the world, but in the media, women are most often reduced to sexual beings, with looks being more important than anything else.

So Jennifer decided to do something about it. She made a documentary called "Miss Representation," which addresses these issues and features interviews with successful women from all walks of life. In this clip from "The Jeff Probst Show," Jennifer tells special guest Yvette Nicole Brown why she made this documentary, and what she hopes viewers take from it.

"The Jeff Probst Show" is airing its finale episode on Wednesday, May 22 -

Read More »from The Disturbing Ways Women Are Shown in Media

The key to better sleepWhen we meet new people, whether it be on public transportation or just randomly when we are out and about, there are three questions they ask about Elvie. First, they want to know how old she is. Once they know, they ask if she is walking. When that is answered in the negative, the next question is nearly always regarding if she is sleeping through the night. When I say no to that one, there are often heads shaken in dismay.

Frankly, sometimes I shake my own head in dismay when Elvie wakes yet again in the middle of the night, but I've finally figured out what needs to happen before she will sleep through the night, and I am accepting it and looking forward to the day when it becomes reality. It's silly, really, that it took me this long to figure out what she needs to do, but at least now I know.

Related: 8 ways to deal with baby-induced sleep deprivation

When we first took custody of Elvie in Ethiopia, she was waking every one to two hours to eat. Once she was home with us and

Read More »from The Hidden Reason Why My Baby Woke Every 45 Minutes

How will you tell your story?Writing your birth story can seem like a daunting task, especially if you're not someone who likes to write. As a mom of two, I can say that the birth stories of my girls, both carefully and thoughtfully written out, are two of my most cherished keepsakes. Whether you are the next Steinbeck or someone who cringes at the thought of writing, you can create a birth story that will be meaningful to you (and your child) for years to come.

1. Don't wait too long
Yes, it might not be possible to write your birth story the day or day after you give birth, but don't wait too long. You want your experience to be fresh in your mind. (I think I wrote both of mine roughly a week after.)

2. Take notes
With my first baby, I remembered every single thing about my birth experience. With my second, it was all a blur. Thankfully I took some notes during the process. My little bullet points, like "water broke at 8:30″ or "she had the cutest, tiniest sneeze right after she was born" came in handy when my

Read More »from 10 Tips for Writing Your Birth Story (Even If You Hate to Write)

Harris, left, and Haney. Photo: WOOD-TVTeenage pregnancy is a fact of life. But it seems more and more high schools want to pretend it’s not when it comes to the pages of its yearbooks. First, a North Carolina school banned a photo of Caitlin Tiller and her infant. And now, a Michigan high school has edited out full-body shots of two pregnant students.

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“What’s the difference of letting me walk for graduation, letting me walk around the school? It’s the same thing,” Kimberly Haney told a local news station WOOD-TV after explaining that her pregnant belly wouldn’t be allowed to show in any of her White Cloud High School yearbook photos.

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Superintendent Barry Seabrook admitted to the news station that he agreed there wasn’t a difference but wanted to keep parents from complaining. Allowing the photos to remain would also be “contrary to” the Michigan statewide mandate of abstinence-only based

Read More »from Pregnant Teens Have Bellies Banned from Yearbook