Parenting

Want to make your kids better people? Here’s new that will be music to your ears.

Pretty much everyone knows that raising a child is getting more and more expensive. But did you know that the cost of doing so went up $8,000 in just one year?

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are in the rearview mirror. We’ve shown how much we love our folks, no matter how nuts they make us.

Even though you love your kids dearly and want to spend time with them, the months that kids are out of school can be the longest of the year for any parent. The key to a peaceful summer household is keeping the kids busy and entertained.

It appears that children with same-sex parents occasionally turn out significantly worse than those children that come from stable married heterosexual parents. That’s the word from a new, controversial study out of the University of Texas.

Over the past decade, there has been a significant amount of evidence collected that suggests that having children does not make people happy.

It’s no secret that certain kinds of cribs — especially the drop-side variety — can pose a danger to your children. But a new report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that toys, bumpers and blankets kept in cribs can be hazardous, as well.

The Social Security Administration has come out with its annual list of the most popular baby names, and for the 13th straight year Jacob was the number one name for a boy. This is part of a broader trend toward names from the Old Testament (or possibly ‘Twilight‘), with Noah snagging the fifth spot and Elijah and Joshua at 13 and 14.

This weekend I spent a total of nine hours in a car with four boys and one husband. Any parent who has ever taken kids on a road trip knows the pain and agony that I just somehow survived. I have to admit, we have a DVD player in our car, so the road trip isn’t as torturous as they were when we were kids, but they still are less than pleasant. Of course, before ...

It’s no news that smoking is bad for us, and that the risks are compounded for expectant mothers. Research shows pregnant smokers have a higher risk of premature births, birth defects, low birth weight, miscarriages and stillbirths — so it’s especially shocking that a new study reveals more than a fifth of white women continue to light up while they’re eating for two.