The embers of the Stay-at-Home vs. Work-out-of-the-Home Mommy Wars must have grown cold there for a moment; good thing this study came along to fan the flames. According to a recent BBC News story, young kids whose mothers work are less likely to lead healthy lives than those with stay-at-home moms.

That headline could easily include step parents, but I ran out of room. The gist of the question remains the same: Should your significant other, who is not your child's parent, be allowed or encouraged to discipline your child?

Lynsee, a 23-year-old teacher in Minneapolis, is expecting her first child any day now. And she's decided to share the whole experience, from the first labor pain to that final awesome push, with the internet.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and this morning I dropped an adorably ferocious dinosaur and a sparklingly happy winged fairy off at preschool. They have been looking forward to their class parties all week, proudly making decorations and planning games and treats (a pinata shaped like a ghost! Slightly spooky stories at circle time! Haunted apples!).

The month-long march toward trick-or-treating with ghosts and ghouls (and princesses, and superheroes, and animals, and celebrities, and licensed characters like Harry Potter or Dora the Explorer) is considered pretty normal, by most people. Apple-picking and pumpkin carving are traditional celebrations of fall, and Halloween is a time for dressing up and having fun.
But there are many parents who consider Halloween to be a quasi-religious holiday -- and they don't want it celebrated in schools.

I read the New York Times article last week about how, for some parents, shouting at kids has replaced spanking, and I immediately felt guilty.

I've been solo-parenting for the past week while my husband is with our oldest kids, out of state. I've noticed that I've been yelling much more than I usually do, and over things that usually don't frustrate me right away.

My about-to-turn 3-year-old is really pushing limits, trying to see how much he can get away with. After asking him to do something (or, more commonly, not to do something), my voice gets louder and sharper, and there I am, yelling instead of speaking calmly. I'm not saying anything awful, but I'm definitely angry -- and he can tell. It gets his attention, but it's having an effect I didn't notice right away: My sweet-tempered 5-year-old has picked up on my frustration, and when he gets in her way now, she yells at him.

And I cringe.

My post about Hillary Swank being nude around her boyfriend’s child sparked some interesting discussions, one of which took place on Twitter. “Nudity is natural. Violence isn't," one person wrote. Others shared stories about parents who covered their kids' eyes during a brief nude scene but let the same kids watch the hours of violence that preceded the kissing.

Which got me thinking about Halloween and all of the slasher movies and tortureporn (like the Saw series) out there... how come that stuff is acceptable in the mainstream, but nudity isn’t?

The American Psychological Association estimates about 700,000 children under the age of 18 have a parent deployed overseas for military duty; according to the Department of Defense, more than 30,000 teenagers have at least one parent in the National Guard deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

I'm in awe of the way so many parents are coping, and with the stories I've found about kids who are dealing with their mom's or dad's deployment in inspiring and constructive ways.

There's much buzz about Hillary Swank's interview in November's Marie Claire, in which she tells Joanna Coles that she sleeps in the nude -- even with her boyfriend's 6-year-old son around.

Our society is a little over the top when it comes to equating nudity with sexuality. (It's OK to wear a bikini at the beach, but if my child sees me in my bra and undies at home I've scarred him for life? Come on). Granted, most of us don't have Hillary Swank's figure, and so the issue of sexuality isn't quite as blatant for most of us. But still, it's there -- even more so if the child isn't biologically yours, and still more so if the nude or semi-nude adult is the dad and the child is a girl (the interview doesn't mention whether Swank's boyfriend is nude in front of his son).

Last week, supermodel and Project Runway star Heidi Klum filed a petition to take the name of her husband, Seal.

The singer's full name is Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel.

No word on whether their oldest child, 5-year-old Helene "Leni" Klum -- who was legally adopted at birth by Seal but is the biological daughter of Klum's ex, Flavio Briatore -- will change her name as well. Their two sons, Henry Gunther Ademola Dashtu Samuel, 3, and Johan Riley Fyodor Taiwo Samuel, 2, already have Seal's last name, as does their baby daughter, Lou Sulola Samuel, who was born this morning (Oct. 13).

Like many women, I kept my name when I got married. Which means that I have a different last name than my children.

In spite of certain lawmakers who liken universal preschool to government-funded "babysitting," there's no denying that there's a real need for solid early education in the US.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 35 percent of children enter kindergarten without the skills they need to learn how to read. Those language skills -- things like phonological awareness and knowledge of the alphabet -- are the building blocks of reading, and the best way to teach your children about them is to spend time reading to them.