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Now this is depressing. A new study says that you can affect not only your kids with any stress you may be feeling, but your grandkids, too. Exposing female adolescent rats to stress before they even become pregnant leads to changes in behavior and the hormonal system not only among their children but also among their grandchildren when they reach adulthood; this according to a new study from the University of Haifa.  he researchers also found a gene related to stress which expresses itself differently in the brain of individual offspring from the moment they are born. According to the researchers, this finding suggests that it is not maternal care which influences variations in offspring, regarding stress, according to newswise.com. As in previous studies, the researchers exposed the female rats, when still adolescents, to minor stress involving changes in temperature and routine for a week. Their direct offspring grew up without any stress-inducing intervention,...

Big surprise.   Who doesn’t know this? But a new study has found that when a new baby comes into a dual-income, highly educated family, the mom does the majority of the extra work. Although research discovered that neither parent did as much, on average, as they thought – four hours – moms still did two hours while dads, 40 minutes, a day. This is not to disparage dads.   My husband got up with the baby at night and rocked him and fed him (diapers, not so much). “The birth of the child dramatically changed the division of labor in these couples,” says Jill Yavorsky, co-author of the study and doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State, at newswise.com.   “What was once a relatively even division of household work no longer looked that way.” I think that’s because we start feeling a whole different way once we have a baby.   It’s like that child is still inside you and attached to your organs.   Sounds kind of silly, I know.   But h...

Even if you're as skinny as a pencil, having a mother who was obese may make you die sooner. That's according to a story by Kim Painter at USA Today, who writes that "Middle-aged adults whose mothers were obese or overweight in pregnancy have increased risks for developing serious cardiovascular problems and dying young, a new study shows." Genes and upbringing may play a part, Painter reports. "But the results also add to growing evidence that adverse conditions in the womb might have profound effects on offspring long after birth, says the study, published Tuesday in the British medical journal BMJ ." This, actually, has been around since 1999, when a blog about schizophrenia ran a story on how conditions in the womb affect health well into adulthood.  Calling it "fetal programming," the site went on to say that "programming has permanent effects that alter responses in later life and can modify susceptibility to disease. . .involves...

A shocking new study has found that children who are exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to grow up to be aggressive and antisocial, according to newswise.com. This, despite whether their mothers smoked during pregnancy or either parent had a history of antisocial behavior. “Secondhand smoke is in fact more dangerous that inhaled smoke, and 40% of children worldwide are exposed to it," Linda Pagani, of the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine hospital, told newswire.com. It's especially damaging if a child is exposed to secondhand smoke when young when his brain is still developing, she noted in the article. Pagani went on to tell newswire.com that 40% of children worldwide are exposed to it, a very frightening statistic when you think that some of those kids may grow up to be Adam Lanza. The Web site reports that although no causal factor has been definitively established, "The statistical correlation suggests that secondhand smok...

I remember dreading when my son had play dates with parents I couldn't relate to. Now that he's in middle school, I wish I just knew who his friends were .  I hear the names -- Michael and Nazir, Sofianne and Alex -- but who they are and what goes on in school with them and my son is a dark hole I can't seem to fall into. Maybe that's the point.  I've been reading this Mother's Day about women who worry their babies will grow up to share their neuroses, or like licorice, or the one mom who particularly got to me who worried who she was, now that her three sons were grown. (Of course, I have a ways to go.  Mine is only 12.) But I came to motherhood so late I was convinced I'd never be a typical mom, or a real one. Raising a child did not come easily to me.  I felt like people were laughing at me when I bought diapers or scrolled through the six months rack for onesies at Carter's.  What does she know about being a mother?  I even had to ask if the...

I just don't get it.  How can she stare into the camera and say so unequivocally that he didn't do it?  When they have pictures of his face on TV, and blogs and tweets about his going radical? "I know my son," she cried. But I'm a mother, too, and I tried to think what I would do, how I would feel, if my son (nearing 12) ever did something like this.  As much as I hate this woman, yes, hate, I sort of understand.  She bore, birthed and raised this man, and much as what he did was despicable, he's still her son. But what does it tell our children if we shield them for their mistakes?  Or deny they made them?  Fortunately I've got a pretty good kid (most of the time) but I know there will come a day when he's going to do something big, wrong.  Will I be tempted to explain it away, or rationalize it ("he was framed"), to act like he didn't do it, or it's no big deal, when really, it's huge? Of course I've denied things in...