Sibling revelry

In honor of Thanksgiving and the good family time that accompanies it, NPR is reporting on siblings all week. Yesterday's piece discusses why siblings raised in the same environment have such different personalities, while today's story looks at how birth order shapes our lives. Nothing groundbreaking in either, but both are worth a read. The articles don't really address the topic of spacing between kids, but I wonder how much that plays into the equation. Is the relationship between kids who are very close in age more intense?

Also on the topic of siblings, I've been meaning to post about NBC's Parenthood (Thanksgiving episode tonight!). It's clever, funny, relevant and makes me tear up at least once an episode. For lighter family fare, I'm a huge fan of Modern Family on ABC. In short, it's hysterical. In fact, I'll be so bold as to declare it funnier than 30 Rock. So, set your DVR if you haven't already. You'll be thankful you did.

Banking on cord blood

Here's an interesting CNN article on banking cord blood. There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding this topic, and while this piece answers a lot of questions, I'm still unclear on a few things. For one, if many cases require additional bone marrow, how do public banks handle that?

The topic of private banks' marketing is also one worth discussing. Parents, especially first-time parents, face so many choices--about childcare, and feeding, diapering and transporting the baby, to name but a few. In addition to that, the unthinkable: the idea that someday this tiny, not-yet-born person might fall very sick. Deciding to take an action--one that can be quite expensive--based on that emotionally charged hypothetical is tricky to say the least.

Did you find the decision to bank cord blood or not a difficult one? Did you feel you were marketed to in an inappropriate way?

Bang a Jong

Ok while I was dithering around with bullying, I missed the big story, by Erica Jong, from the Wall Street Journal. She's trying to inflame, which is her thing, and evidently she did, judging by a guest-post response on the Times's Motherlode blog.

I am tempted to file this under tempest-in-an-herbal-teapot, but I must say I appreciate what Jong says about the cult of celebrity motherhood and the tabloids that feed it, and "treating children like expensive accessories." (Does anyone else feel like baby bumps started blooming on magazine covers everywhere literally right around the time we all started having kids? I would love to participate in a discussion about the cultural factors that contributed to why that happened when it did.)

I also like her hypothesis about exerting control at home as a proxy for feeling desperate about the world at large, to wit: "Our obsession with parenting is an avoidance strategy. It allows us to substitute our own small world for the world as a whole." (I definitely feel at times that focusing inward on being a mother is akin to willfully burying my head in the sand. Or, maybe it's that I just can't worry about everything, so I worry about Drew.)

There's also a very entertaining sidebar with quotes from parenting manuals of old, and Molly Jong-Fast's charming response essay about her own mother.

So, all in all, it's Sieve-worthy. Enjoy.

Feel-Good Follow-Up

Ok here's some hope in the face of the last bullying post: A very heartwarming story about how babies in the classroom can increase kids' empathy and decrease aggression.

The comments are good, too; several people make the very valid point that today's smaller families, greater distance from extended family members, and various social structures and institutions that segregate people by age probably don't do us any favors in terms of teaching empathy or nuanced social skills.

Anyone witnessed positive changes in older children's behavior when a sibling comes along? Experienced a great mixed-age school or playgroup? Sought out time at a nursing home or other place where kids could encounter older folks?