Well it's been a busy week in parenting news. Consumers are up in arms about meat, the Yahoo! baby was finally born, Canada's got its first official Mom of the Year, and the mommy blogs are all over mean daddies. I also saw a very interesting and entertaining product sent to the office this week -- I just had to share.
1. Bad Daddy
Public sharing online reached a new peak when a dad posted an online image of his daughter wearing a shame sign last week. The three year old went to the bathroom in the shower by mistake and after cleaning it up, her dad thought it would be funny to make this humiliating sign to wear. He took a picture and posted it on Reddit. Other parents, experts and bloggers are appalled, calling his actions abusive. It's made the headlines in traditional media -- I read about it first on the Huffington Post and watched this video from the Today Show.
Using humiliation as a disciplinary tactic -- especially with a three-year-old -- is bad enough at home. But to share it with the rest of the world, that's inconceivable. Public sharing is indeed going too far, and it begs the question of who will begin to expose those who are acting inappropriately behind closed doors. Do you think it's better that this dad has been exposed?
2. What's His Name?
Since we all love to judge other parents (and pretend not to), we'll love reading the buzz surrounding the birth of Marissa Mayer's baby. Marissa, the first female CEO of Yahoo! has been making headline news because of her recent high profile appointment while pregnant. There has been much discussion about whether she is a role model for women/moms or not.
She is not planning to take time off. She'll work from home for a few weeks before returning to the office to prepare for her first major presentation of her new strategy on October 22. She's accepting name suggestions by email. Some might say she is brave, some naïve. I think it's just bad planning. Any mom will tell you not to book a major event (like her presentation) within a month of your due date. And if you do, book it before, not after. And as for crowdsourcing her son's name, that's just a bad idea all around.
3. Major Meat Recall
Last week I wrote about the big switch from rice cereal to meat as baby's first food. Bad timing for babies apparently, since we've had a major recall of beef in this country, making consumers very nervous. There is still "safe" meat to buy, but it does get one thinking about where meat comes from and how much we need in our diet. It's creating a culture of what the Globe and Mail referred to as "meat anxiety."
If you have meat anxiety, start with this list of XL Foods' recalled products. If your grocer is not on that list, you should be safe but don't be shy to speak to the butcher before you purchase!
4. Mom of the Year
It's no secret that most of us deserve to be crowned Mom of the Year for everything we do, and Walmart Canada happens to agree. We were honoured to attend a very special gala dinner last weekend in celebration of their First Annual Mom of the Year Award program. Almost 17,000 moms from across the country were nominated and a selection committee, which included Olympic mom Hayley Wickenheiser, narrowed the list down to eight incredibly deserving moms who had put their families and communities first.
After a weekend of celebrating these amazing women, a delicious dinner and a surprise performance by The Tenors, the very inspirational Katie Schultz (pictured above with The Tenors) was named Mom of the Year for her tireless work with her own daughter who was born with cystic fibrosis, and as President of the Kitchener-Waterloo chapter of Cystic Fibrosis Canada.
5. The Parent Box
An interesting sample was delivered to the office this week from Déjàmor. I'm calling it the Parent Box because it caters to on-the-go parents who are apparently too busy for amor.
Déjàmor delivers a complete kit to your door each month in a convenient and beautifully designed package. A kit for what, you say? A kit for love, apparently, or intimacy as it suggests. A new package arrives monthly so whether you're a clueless romantic, an adventurous type or just seeking to surprise each other, this kit will apparently help you reconnect every month with new ideas for the bedroom.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!
This post originally appeared on SavvyMom.ca. Follow Minnow and SavvyMom on Facebook for more savvy tips and solutions.