Parenting in this modern age

[1] The impression I get leafing through an issue of South Florida Parenting [2] is that we as a species simply can't survive without modern medicine, modern education, child self-esteem therapy and family counselling. It's just amazing that we made it for the six thousand or so years of civilization without such services. Just to get pregnent seems to require a team of specialized doctors to help move the sperm to the egg to ensure proper fertilization and yet again, modern medicine comes to the rescue when when it pops out and the head needs reshaping.

Can't have a kid with an odd Charlie Brown shaped head, now can we? Think of the poor self-esteem the kid will suffer through as it heads its way through our wonderfully modern education system [3] …

And it's also the poor parent that can't afford to send Tylor or Madison to a cheerleading or computer camp for the summer. Or the ever popular Adventure Camp where kids compete in inane competitions and every night the least popular kid is voted out to spend the rest of the summer in time out.

[And what's with the pregnancy fetish photos?] [4] But perhaps most disturbing were the ads for pregnancy fetish photos, where you and your mate can pose for artistic maternity portraiture up util the time of delivery (where the mother-to-be probably wants to pull the lower lip of her mate up over his head for putting her through this).

“That's not pregnancy fetish photos,” said Spring [5], looking at one of the ads.

“Okay,” I said, flipping through the magazine some more. “What about this one?” The nude couple standing in a large body of natural water, the male, lovingly adoring the female's swollen belly. “You can't say that that isn't a pregnancy fetish photo?”

“Now you're just being silly,” she said.

[1] /boston/2003/04/23/shaping.heads.jpg

[2] http://www.sfparenting.com/

[3] /boston/2002/11/14.2-3

[4] /boston/2003/04/23/pregnancy.fetish.jpg

[5] http://www.springdew.com/

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