A study on the effects of porn on teenagers was recently released that seems to conclude that porn does not have as much of an influence on teenager’s sexuality as previously thought. Researchers concluded that it had a small effect on how adventurous a teenager might be and how willing he or she would be to try new things, but it wasn’t the main contributing factor to promiscuity in teens.

It did suggest that girls who watched hardcore porn were more likely to have sexual experiences than those who didn’t.

I can agree with that. There are lots of teens having sex that haven’t ever watched porn.

It turns out that one of the main factors that affected teens’ sexuality was (get ready for it) their temperament. Some kids are just more interested and curious about sex than others. Some kids have a higher sex drive than others — it isn’t that they shouldn’t learn to control it and handle it responsibly, it’s just that they are more likely to be drawn to sexual things.

I love asparagus and my husband hates it — guess which of us has a hard time staying away from it if it’s on the table?

Other factors include peers, family circumstances, and what their initial sexual experience was like. Basically, while porn is one of many factors that affect sexuality in teens, it isn’t the only factor or even the biggest one.

The study went on to say that society as a whole was becoming increasingly accepting of sexually explicit material.

I can agree with that, too. After all, situations and dialogues that would have been only available in tiny, out of the way movie houses in the 1970s are now featured on our widescreen televisions during prime time.

I admit to watching a couple of shows that cause me to get bug eyed once in awhile because of the blatant references to various activities and I know that the more you are entertained by sexual innuendo and scenes, the less it bothers you. We are increasingly desensitized to the morals that we grew up with.

Here’s the thing. Despite the fact that Desi and Lucy slept in twin beds and bra commercials were only shown during daytime soaps and only on headless mannequin torsos, kids in the 1960s and 1970s had sex. Lots of it.

Some people believe that the study is biased. After all, the people most likely to be online and answer sex surveys are those who are sexually active and adventurous to some extent. If the majority of the responders are sexually adventurous, then wouldn’t it be skewed since it didn’t include celibate kids that were unlikely to seek out sexually oriented materials?

Personally, I don’t care what the studies say. I don’t think porn is a positive influence on society in any way, shape, or form. I think it gives boys (and men) unrealistic ideas of what a healthy sexual relationship is.

The value of the study, in my opinion, is that rather than concentrating on how bad porn is for teenagers, perhaps we should be looking at our own examples, what we accept, what we watch, and what we do. Maybe parents should keep a closer eye on children’s peer groups, and encourage kids to be themselves rather than be pushed by peer pressure.

Porn has been around for eons and it likely isn’t going anywhere. We have to learn to work around it rather than spend all of our energies trying to subdue it.

source: NBC News

photo credit: Www.CourtneyCarmody.com/ via photopin cc

Since I photograph food and entertaining types of things a lot, I am always on the lookout for props that will make my images more engaging to the viewer. I generally like antiques and vintage items because that’s just the way I am. Once in awhile I’ll pick up something with a different theme and I often find it at Etsy.

So browsing the website for potential props, I came across Cute Kids Food Box. The title of the shop is not an exaggeration either.

Whether you are hunting for some props for your blog, planning a party, or looking for ways to make the kids’ lunches more creative, you’ll want to check this shop out. The items have a retro 1950s – 60s look, but they could be used for any casual party. Most of them won’t make people say, “Oh! This is a 1950s theme!”

I love the paper straws with stripes on them and Cute Kids Food Box has them in colors like pink, black, yellow, and aqua. There are adorable plastic milk bottles to serve drinks in and each bottle has a chalkboard label that you can write names on so no one loses a cup.

Remember those old fashioned red plastic food baskets with the red checked paper in them to hold your burger and fries? They have those, too.

I am at this very moment planning a party in my head just so I have an excuse to buy some of these. By the way, this wasn’t a sponsored post or anything. I just thought you’d like to know about this place.

image: Cute Kids Food Box

It always seems other people’s pregnancies go so much faster than mine did. When I saw pictures of Jessica Simpson at the Tom Sawyer-themed baby shower being held for her son, I was surprised at how far along she is.

That probably has something to do with the Weight Watchers commercials that ran even after she learned she was pregnant. For the shower, she wore a tight fitted bright blue dress and a big smile to mark the occasion.

I’d never heard of a Tom Sawyer theme for a baby shower, and I absolutely love the idea. Wooden tables were decorated with yellow flowers in sprinkling cans, straw hats, and checkerboard picnic tablecloths while banjo music played. Mismatched furniture completed the look and shower guests were served champagne with fresh blueberries in vintage baby bottles designed with custom straws.

While not all of us have an event planner or the funds to pull off exactly the same ideas, a Tom Sawyer theme is perfect for people who know they are expecting a baby boy.

I’m thinking stick with the checkerboard tablecloths but set up a snack table with a picnic basket full of finger sandwiches and a bucket full of apples, cherries or other seasonal fruit. I started hunting for cake ideas and even found one on Pinterest that looks like a blueberry pie!

Drinks can be served in mason jars, and if you hold the shower out doors you can create seating with bales of hay…if allergies allow.

Simpson gained 60 pounds with her daughter, Maxwell Drew, who is now 11 months old. This time around she’s working out three times a week. She told People magazine “This pregnancy I’m active, I’ve only gained half of what I gained in my first pregnancy.”

Photo credits: extratv

Today’s link round-up takes a look at a spacious diaper bag, Britax’s new car seat technology, lots of handmade items you’ll treasure forever, and more.

Thrifty Nifty Mommy reviewed a gorgeous and spacious 2 Red Hens diaper bag, and it’s worth checking out.

Dear Baby Blog claims to have the coolest sandbox around, and we tend to agree.

People’s Celebrity Babies has the scoop on Britax’s ClickTight technology.

Grey Likes Baby shared a few favorite handmade nursery items.

Continuing on the handmade note, Hello Bee featured some favorite handmade goodies, too, like clothes and shoes.

Motherlode talked about childhood obesity and how the solution’s in your kitchen.

Empowering Parents shared a blog post that compared bullying and normal sibling fighting.

Photo credit: 2 Red Hens, Britax, and stephendepolo

In this, the final part of this series, Lisa discusses grief and moving on with life. If you haven’t read parts one and two be sure to do so before continuing with part three.

Marye: Was there a turning point for you when you were ready to go on with life? What was it?

Lisa: I don’t know if I can pin point a certain day. I knew my choices were I could kill myself or I could live.

I was so paranoid that I might totally freak out from the grief and kill myself, that I made sure the guns and ammo were not accessible to me. I don’t think I could have ever done it, but it was the paranoia of “what if”. Does that makes sense? Nic did it, what would stop me from doing it?

Marye: What is your advice to other parents walking through the suicide of a child?

Lisa: Grieve however you want to, as long as you are not hurting yourself or anyone else. Losing a child sucks! Add suicide to the mix and it’s even more messed up. Death is normal part of life. Suicide is not.

Seek out a good therapist — I love mine. She would remind me that everything I was feeling was normal. Your emotions are so out of control sometimes you wonder if you are totally losing it. It helped me to know I was not losing my mind.

Don’t rush to get rid of things. You may want them later on. Pack them away if you cannot bear to look at them. A few of Nic’s thing became sacred. Things that were very important to him.

It’s OK if you don’t want anyone touching them. I am very particular about who can touch his things.

Do not be afraid to talk about your child. I don’t care if it does make someone uncomfortable. In fact, it helps me see who I no longer want in my life. I live with this every single day. I don’t need people around that aren’t supportive or who I feel are judging my parenting.

Guilt won’t bring your child back, but I do understand it. We all do the best we can at the time. Let go of the “I should have known”. No, kids are secretive. Remember when you were a teen/young adult?

You might gain or lose weight. I gained a lot. Try not to obsess over that even though it’s not always easy. I smoked like chimney. I got up close to three packs a day. It was nervous energy and a way to escape I guess. I finally had to quit because it was causing me so many health problems.

As odd as it was, I never drank. I was on medications for a while to help my emotions to be more stable. I decided to quit those when I became such a zombie on them that I barely uttered more than yes, no or I don’t care. What works for you at the beginning, is not forever. I cannot stress enough - do not beat yourself up over it. You did your best at the time.

Tell your family what you need, what scares you, or anything else that is on your mind. Just make sure that you communicate. Sometimes I just need someone to sit with me and not say a word.

It’s OK to say “no” to things you once used to do. Holidays can suck. Ours have become a little “better” and that is not even a word I would use — not sure there is a good word that describes it.

It’s not your job to make others feel OK about about your loss. No one will really get it unless they’ve experienced it.

Reading about how others survive the suicide of a child may help. Or it may just piss you off to no end.

There will be set backs. You will break down and cry. Feel those things. It doesn’t make you weak. Crying is healing, cleansing. I found myself afraid to cry and it was not good for me emotionally. I thought, what if I start crying and can’t stop? I sometimes had to make myself cry just get that release.

Anxiety, fear and depression were a big part of my grieving process. While things are better now, I still get that twinge of anxiety when my daughter is not home when she says she’ll be. I’m still afraid to go places alone. There’s just no reasonable explanation for it.

If You Need Help…

If you or someone you know has experienced the suicide of a child, you aren’t alone. There are support groups in nearly every area of the country.

Here are some links that you may find helpful.

• Compassionate Friends
• Yahoo Voices
• Healthy Place

Many thanks to Lisa for sharing her experiences.

credit: Image of Nic provided by Lisa and her family

Even when we plan to get pregnant, we all experience levels of stress during pregnancy. I thought about my job and whether or not I’d quit or return to work, and the financial implications. Little things can become bigger like what to wear to a wedding, not feeling attractive to our husbands, and some of us deal with the added stress of morning sickness.

I even wondered if my baby would be okay. My mother miscarried twice and had one baby born with a physical defect that took her life at a year old. Can’t say it didn’t concern me. Then on top of it all, there’s stress due to changing hormones.

Now I read an article that says a mom’s anxiety during pregnancy may influence the development of her baby’s immune system. This was determined by a study published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity that showed infants whose mothers experienced high levels of stress while pregnant experienced suppressed immune responses to vaccinations at 6 months of age.

Take time to rest.

So how did they determine the level of stress and anxiety? The women who participated in the study completed anxiety interviews at 20 and 32 weeks gestation. Researchers also collected saliva samples to measure cortisol levels (stress hormone).

After the babies were born, their immune responses to the Hepatitis B vaccine was tested within days of birth, at 2 months, and again at 6 months.

How to Beat Stress During Pregnancy

Previous studies have linked stress during pregnancy with asthma in children, too. So what’s a mom-to-be supposed to do? Stress is part of life.

Granted, some of us handle it better than others, so maybe the answer is to look at our cool, collected counterparts and try to learn from them. However, no one’s life is stress free. It’s more a matter of learning to manage the stress.

Here are a few ways to do that:

• Make time to rest: Notice I didn’t say take a nap or take it easy. We have to make time for ourselves to rest. Even taking 15-20 minutes to put our feet up and read a book helps, but to get an afternoon off is better. Ask a friend or grandparent for help. Then…don’t feel guilty about it.
• Talk about your feelings: Many of us keep thoughts about whether or not our baby will be born healthy or safely to ourselves. That just creates stress. It helps to talk about how we feel. Don’t hold it inside.

Exercise like walking can help beat stress.

• Diet: We hear about the importance of eating healthy during pregnancy but choosing the right foods can actually help beat stress. Eat foods rich in B vitamins. It raises the anti-stress hormone serotonin in your system.
• Exercise: Whether we are pregnant or not, physical exercise helps relieve tension. Talk to your doctor about what you can or can’t do. Usually, it is fine to continue with your normal exercise routine. Exercise like walking and swimming are perfect choices even for short amounts of time.

If you’re stressed about being stressed, talk to your doctor for suggestions.

Photo credits: MD Clic Photography, mr. toaster, Photos by Mavis

Giving your child access to a library full of books is one of the best things you can do to encourage a lifelong love of reading, but it can be hard to watch your little angel happily ripping into the books you’ve so painstakingly chosen.

Uncommon Goods solves this problem with an Indestructibles book set that includes five classic nursery rhymes:

• Frere Jacques
• Hickory Dickory Dock
• Old Macdonald Had a Farm
• Mary Had a Little Lamb
• Humpty Dumpty

The books are 7″ L x 7″ W and made from non-toxic, flashspun high-density polyethylene fibers. They feel like they are printed on paper, but liquid can’t pass through the material and it’s very hard to tear. The material is also machine washable and dishwasher safe.

The Indestructibles book set sells for $25. I think this is very reasonable because most individual board books are between $5 and $10 each, even if they’re not made to resist tearing, chewing, and drooling.

All of the books feature paintings by Jonas Sickler. The words are only on the back cover, however. The individual pages just have pictures to encourage you to be creative in telling the story.

Eventually, you can have your child make up his own version. I think they’d also be fun to have on hand if your baby has an older sibling who wants to read him a story but isn’t quite old enough to actually be able to read independently.

What do you think? Would you buy an Indestructibles book set for your baby?

Photo credit: Uncommon Goods

If you’re looking for a way to encourage your child to keep reading all summer long, consider signing him up for the Scholastic Summer Challenge.

Registration for the program began May 6, but there’s still plenty of time to join the fun.

After you register your child, you can keep track of the minutes he reads each day. If he meets the weekly total, he can unlock a special badge and have a chance to win virtual rewards. Your child can also enter to win different prize packs all summer long. The Round 1 prize pack includes an autographed copy of The False Prince and an autographed copy of The Runaway King.

Your child has an option to tie his minutes to a school total. The school with the most minutes read can win a visit from Dav Pilkey, the author of the Captain Underpants series.

I didn’t bother doing this because my son’s school only has about 20 kids per grade and is too small to ever have a chance of winning a contest like this. But, if your child goes to a larger school that is encouraging all of the students to participate, it’s worth taking the time to complete this step of the registration process.

The Scholastic site is keeping track of all the minutes logged under the program to challenge kids to read around the world. As the total increases, they unlock different landmarks like Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower, and the Taj Mahal. The site also has fun videos and facts from Word Girl, the program’s “Summer Reading Ambassador.”

If your child likes ebooks, there is an option to send an ecard to your email address that lets you download one free Storia ebook. There are different titles to choose from for every age group.

This will be the first year I’ve signed my son up for the Scholastic Summer Challenge, but I like that it’s something we can do in addition to our public library’s reading activities.

Photo credit: Scholastic Summer Challenge

This is part two of a three part interview with Lisa, whose 21 year old son committed suicide in 2010.

It is hard to read and harder to imagine, but it is our hope that it will encourage anyone who might be dealing with similar issues as well as help family and friends support these parents in helpful ways.

Marye: What did you need from those around you — your friends, family, etc.? So much of the time people want to help and comfort but just don’t know how.

Lisa: What I really needed was for people to step up. It’s the every day things that were (and sometimes still are) incredibly difficult. I went to the grocery store for the first time after Nic died and I was like what the heck is wrong with all of these people?? How dare they be happy and doing stuff?? Don’t they know my son is DEAD and I am going to his funeral this afternoon???

Yes, it is totally irrational….and normal. The energy that it takes just to get out of bed can exhaust you for the rest of the day. It was intensely so the first year after Nic killed himself. There was so much to do an no energy to do it.

The house still needs to be cleaned, the laundry done, food needs to be cooked,and the yard needs to be done. You can’t just let everything go. We needed help with the every day stuff that we just couldn’t face. People tend to “leave and forget” after the funeral is over and that’s when the family needs support the most. As time goes on, the numbness wears off and the pain of it sets in.

Marye: Do you think there is a stigma attached to parents whose kids killed themselves?

Lisa: Yes,I do.  Suicide is still taboo. When your child kills himself, it really freaks people out — they don’t want to even think about it. Maybe it hits too close to home. Maybe people feel like it is a communicable thing, like by being near you their kid could catch the suicide germ, too.

I hate to admit this but at first I did not want to tell anyone that Nic had killed himself. I was in shock. There is no way he would have done this. I must be a horrible parent for not seeing this coming. Then there was the stigma, what would people think? 

Even when we went to make funeral arrangements and we were holding the death certificate that said suicide, I did not believe it. They just had to be wrong.

We did all the “right” things. We were good parents, protected our children as much as anyone can, and had a comfortable home life. This just isn’t supposed to happen!  Are you kidding me?

My husband and I both had a very difficult time with that. Here we were doing as much good as we could for our kids. We we helping other kids, friends of Nic’s and our other children, who were struggling, who had parents that didn’t seem to want to be bothered with their problems. How could it be that one of our kids killed himself?  It was a WTF moment!

Someone we were talking to let us know that they believed that Nic had gone to Hell because of his suicide. No matter what your personal beliefs are, that is not the time to be saying things like that to parents who are already devastated.

Those that were judgmental, I no longer associate with.

This is the end of part two of Lisa’s story, Keep on Living – Life after a Child’s Suicide. If you missed part one, be sure to read it.

credit: Nic’s image provided by Lisa and her family