I don't have suggestions, but when it comes to hard-line librarians, my father lost his library card after having it for 20 years. When he went for a replacement, the librarian told him, in all seriousness, "Try to be more careful with this one."

We don't have any family nearby. When DD was born, we had a friend who had agreed to watch DS, and another friend who was our back-up. The friend who had agreed to watch DS completely forgot about it and was out of town, and our back-up ended up watching the 2 dc of another friend who was having a baby the same night. So, DH stayed home with DS, and I had the baby alone. Honestly, it wasn't that bad, although I wouldn't choose to labor alone again. DH finds labor and childbirth really, really stressful. It was kind of nice not worrying about how DS was doing, and DH was so rested and refreshed and excited when he came to the hospital (he and DS got there just as the baby was being born) that I really got to rest a lot after. This time, I'm using a doula, and we're going to take childcare as it goes. I have three or four friends who've all said they'll be around and be happy to watch one or both of the kids. Most likely, during the day, we'll have friends watch DD, and DH and DS will spend time at the hospital with me but DH's main job will be watching DS (and taking him out when/if things get too intense) and not providing me with labor support. If it's at night, DH will stay home with the kids, and I'll be with the doula. Then, when the baby is born and I'm still in the hospital, we'll probably have friends watch DD as much as possible (since, at 16 months, she's not going to know what's going on or be particularly interested in the baby), and DH and DS (who's 7 and loved hanging out at the hospital with me and the baby after DD was born) will spend most of the day at the hospital with us.

When my son asks me theological questions, I usually answer with a "Some people think this...other people think this...other people think this...What do you think?" I generally don't push my own opinion or what my church teaches when it's a contested issue. I figure DS can ask me specifically what I think if he's curious, and I can tell him, but otherwise I just want to provide him with information and allow him to make up his own mind.

I'd grate first then serve with a spoon.

Leaving the halter top aside, how is a child breastfeeding a doll any more "sexualizing" than a child pretending that their doll is their baby? My sister and I used to pretend to be mommies to our baby dolls all the time when we were little. In fact, I think we would sometimes keep the baby dolls under our shirts for a while, and then pretend to give birth to them. It wasn't about sex, it was about role-playing adult things, like all kids do. I don't see kids playing at breastfeeding as any different. If they've been breastfed and have seen their siblings breastfed, then of course when they play mommy that's how they're going to feed their baby. I just don't see it as any different than pretending to change a baby's diaper or pretending to rock a baby doll to sleep.

Sure, but the point is that people with one child or no children face comments just as rude. I was told I was being selfish, I had acquaintances tell me that "Children are a blessing, you know," as if my only having one showed that I didn't think that, I was told I was ruining my child. I'll take a good-natured "You know how that happens, right?" (which I've gotten a few times since being visibly pregnant with #3) over that any day.

I guess I just think that needs to go both ways. If we're going to laugh it off and assume people are being well-meaning when they make thoughtless comments about a family not being large enough, we should do the same when people make comments about a family being too large. In either case, it's very unlikely they mean it maliciously.

The thing is, it's not positive, because maybe that family was done at four. Comments about it being "a good start" imply that they should be having more. As rude as it is to have somebody to tell you to stop having kids, it's just as rude for somebody to say that you should be having more. The implication there is that people who don't have larger families are selfish, materialistic, don't view children as a blessing, have kids who are spoiled brats, etc. This is especially prevalent when people only have one child or don't have any kids.

When he was 2 and 3, my DS used to nurse his Hot Wheels cars. It was really funny. Is it any more disturbing than the many, many baby dolls that are designed to "drink" from toy bottles? I think the idea of it "teaching" girls how to breastfeed is silly, but I don't think it's any more troubling than any of the other baby dolls out there designed to do realistic things.

I can, but really only in the bedroom unless the kids are asleep and the house is cleaned up. I can't just relax on the couch after dinner. When there's cleaning to do and the kids are up, unless they're out of sight and earshot, I can't relax. I will sometimes sneak off to the bedroom to read for a bit after dinner, though, since DH can just relax on the couch with the kids around and a big mess all over.

That's kind of my take on it. I think there are valid ideological reasons to be opposed to Disney stuff in particular and princess stuff in general. But, quite honestly, 90% of the time in parenting, I let ideology go. I grew up playing with Barbies and princess stuff and all kinds of girly things. I don't think it impeded the development of my feminist consciousness. ;) So, while it's not an issue right now and I wouldn't select Disney/princess stuff for DD, if she likes it when she's old enough to pick out toys and it's in our price range, I'm not going to make an issue of it. I don't make an issue of it when she gets that kind of stuff as presents, either.

It really depends. I had a baby in March 2010, and then obviously had an infant, and then got pregnant again in the fall, and now am 37-1/2 weeks pregnant. So what "enough" is has really been all over the map, depending on how I'm feeling and what's going on. In the spring, when I was feeling good and working and homeschooling, "enough" was keeping the kids' needs met and keeping them occupied, doing school with DS, keeping the house clean, getting meals on the table, and getting my teaching work done. For most of the summer, "enough" has been getting the kids out of the house once a day and keeping them reasonably occupied with productive activities, keeping everybody clothed and fed, keeping the house pretty neat, and getting meals on the table. As of this week, "enough" is keeping the kids fed and reasonably clean. That's pretty much it. If I've got the energy and motivation to do some housecleaning or cooking I will, but at this point in the pregnancy, DH is cool with taking over pretty much all of the household chores that I usually do. And, if the kids want to spend the next 2 weeks or so until the baby comes playing video games, watching TV, and eating pretzels on the floor, that's fine with me.

Do you really think those are appropriate ways to talk about teenage girls? This is exactly what I'm talking about, how "modesty" is often a cover for having an attitude of total disrespect for women, especially young women, who don't meet our standards. It sounds like you think that how modest other people are is something that is your business. I don't think it is. As far as modesty is an issue, it's an issue for an individual and what they wear themselves, and, maybe, what their children wear while their children are young. It should not be any of our business what anybody else chooses to wear. I thought, as Christians, our responsibility was to love and serve others, not to harshly judge them based on what they are wearing. Judging people by their appearance is not modest; it's prideful and vain.

I wouldn't disagree that, overall, we are seeing lots of erosion of rights. Black men are being disenfranchised at alarming rates, due to felony disenfranchisement laws and the extremely unequal and unjust ways that laws, especially drug laws, are enforced and applied. Government agents are infiltrating mosques and spying on people involved in peaceful, legal worship. We've got a serious contender for the GOP presidential nomination arguing that communities should be legally able to ban mosques if they want. People accused of certain crimes are held without any of the rights and protections that are supposed to be afforded to them. The rights of workers to unionize is being continually undermined and restricted. Employers are being allowed more and more access to and control over the lives of their employees and potential employees. And there are many, many more examples of how our rights as citizens are being eroded. But, being patted down at the airport is just not one of those examples. If you can honestly look at our country and think that TSA pat-downs are a horribly egregious offense against individual liberty, then you are coming from a place of enormous privilege and should count yourself very, very lucky.

I don't think all behaviors need to be respected. But, I do think that using degrading language to refer to women--or anybody--is inappropriate. I don't think it's ever okay to call a woman a "tramp" or "slut." There are ways to talk about their dress or behavior without resulting to misogynistic name-calling or in devaluing them as human beings, which is what that kind of language does. I wish I could find the link to this talk I heard once, by some anti-feminist modesty proponent, who was so proud of her son for wanting to stay away from "trampy" girls--and had no problem with the degrading language he used to describe them. That, to me, is just sad and wrong. Maybe that girl could have used a friend. Maybe she could have used somebody to respect and value her as a person. But, this idea that it's okay to write off women who don't dress in the "right" way seems really prevalent among a good number of modesty proponents. Keep the slut away, as if it's somehow infectious. Dividing up women into the "right" and "wrong" sort and then ostracizing the "wrong" sort--especially when we're talking about teens and in some cases even younger girls--is just not the way we show that we respect and value women.

Maybe the idea is to not have to assign anybody that job, so that everybody can enjoy the shower. Honestly, my first response was that it's tacky, but I think that's more my personal comfort level about things like this than with the tag itself. Thinking more about it, I actually think it makes a lot of sense, and could help make the process of opening gifts and writing thank-you notes a lot smoother and easier for the mom-to-be.

I think the problem, though, is the way that much of the discourse around modesty goes. It's not, at least in many Christian circles, about a girl respecting herself but about protecting innocent young men from the lustful thoughts that they just can't help but have when they see a woman dressed in an "inappropriate" way. And, what's inappropriate? Well, any way of dressing that provokes lustful thoughts, obviously. The language that is used around women who dress immodestly by people who claim to value "modesty"--"trashy," "trampy," "cheap," "slutty," "prosti-tots," etc.--shows that this is not about respecting women for many of them. Because if you respect women, then you respect them no matter how they are dressed. You don't use degrading language to describe women who dress in ways you don't approve of. In fact, I've heard, more than once, proponents of "modesty" applaud their sons for using the most offensive, degrading language to describe women who are immodestly dressed. Personally, I'd be far, far more concerned about my son calling a girl a "tramp" or "slut" because of how she was dressed than about my daughter dressing in a way that might cause others to label her as one of those things. But, passing those kinds of judgments seems to be something that is often valued in many circles where modesty is highly promoted. And, I also find it disrespectful to women because of the double message being sent. The message is always, "Be modest, but for God's sake don't be frumpy. Don't inspire lustful thoughts in men, but you better make sure you still look attractive to them." That just galls me. The idea is still that women are there to be pretty objects for men to look at, it's just that the idea of what that should entail differs from what mainstream culture says it should entail.

Yes. The TSA isn't patting people down because the government has decided that airplane passengers are inferior and so deserve to be humiliated. The pat-downs are a security measure created in the wake of several instances of people trying to sneak small explosives onto planes. This isn't "abuse." It's a policy that bothers some people, I think because we're so puritanical in our culture that we can't accept somebody touching our bodies, in even the most professional and cursory way, as anything other than inappropriately sexual. To even think of comparing this "abuse" to what happened in Nazi Germany is ridiculous.

My DH was raised in a household and church where masturbation was seen as wrong and sinful. It did not keep him from looking at porn--in fact, he struggled with a porn addiction for a long time, I think largely because of how much guilt he ended up feeling around any sexual thoughts--but I would say his guilty/shame about masturbation has negatively affected our marriage. He's got a much, much larger sex drive than I do, and honestly I think it would be easier if, some of the time, he could handle his own sexual needs without shame or guilt.

Well, I don't think there ARE any "requirements" involving length or neckline. That's all culturally specific, which is the point. I don't think it's immodest to wear a bathing suit to the beach, for example. Of course not. You're going to draw far more attention to yourself if you're wearing a muumuu in that setting. And if you're wearing a muumuu so that everybody on the beach will see how modest you are, then I'd say that's being very immodest. (If you're wearing a muumuu because you are comfy in muumuus and burn easily, then I don't think that's immodest.) But, it would depend on why she was wearing it. If she was wearing it because she felt comfortable in it and loved it, I don't see a problem. If she was wearing it to draw attention to herself and how fashionable/feminine/"modest" she was, then I'd say that was immodest. That's why I don't think there can be hard-and-fast rules in most cases. It comes down to an individual's intentions. I think modesty is really about not putting undue emphasis on physical appearance, and it really is a matter of what's motivating somebody. I will say, too, that personally I'm more bothered by the prospect of my kids wanting to wear expensive designer clothing than I am by them wanting to wear clothing that shows more skin than some people might think is appropriate. That's an aspect of modesty that rarely gets discussed, which is funny since not wearing clothing that flaunts one's wealth seems to be exactly what Paul was talking about. But we seem to think that wearing clothing that flaunts one's wealth is fine, as long as the neckline is high enough.

I don't think it's that, so much as people having very rigid ideas about how many kids it's appropriate to have, in most cases that number being two, no more, no less. I got a lot of rude comments when I just had my DS (who was an only until he was 6). And, I've had a couple since I've been visibly pregnant with #3. Apparently, having more or less than 2 children opens you up to all sorts of thoughtless comments about how small or large your family is.

It sounds like your DS has had some big changes in a short period of time: going from being in public school to homeschool, and now moving. I do think you should take his feelings about this into account, but it sounds like maybe what he misses is his old friends at his old school. Starting at a new school, he won't have them, and I've got to imagine that being the new kid in 7th grade will be tough. Whether he's in public school or homeschooled, he's still going to have to deal with making new friends, and that's not going to be easy in either situation.

I'd check your local library's website, and see what online resources they have available. In general--although there are exceptions--I recommend to my students (who are first-year college students and so have more of an expectation of using "scholarly" sources) that they only use online sources they can access through our university's library website (newspaper, magazine, and journal articles, and ebooks). I think the internet is a wonderful way to do research--I did most of my research online during grad school--but you really have to use the right tools. Online databases are a great resource (although you generally need access to a large library's website to access them). Google Scholar, for older students, is very useful. But, I would not recommend doing a general web search when looking for sources. That can be a great way to get preliminary information and to narrow a topic, but when it comes to the sources that are going to be used to make the argument, I'd probably avoid doing a Google search (or any other general web search). One thing to consider, if you have a local college or university, is contacting them, letting them know that you are a homeschooler living in the community, and seeing if you can get an access ID to their online library resources. That could be a great way to access good sources from your computer at home.

Yeah, I'm not sure what's so modest about it, either. I think the whole point is that there are certain associations that go with it--being uber-religious, being "modest," being feminine in a very traditionalist way--that people either want others to think about them and so they wear it, or don't want people to think about them and so wouldn't touch one with a ten-foot pole.

I guess I'd see that as different. They aren't doing it to be showy. Most of the Muslim women I know dress in ways that are both appropriate to their religious convictions and fit in with how other people around them are dressing. That's true. I'd say that attitude matters. Wearing a denim jumper because you are comfortable is one thing; wearing it because you want to show off how godly and modest you are is another. That's kind of what it comes down to for me, why somebody is wearing what they are wearing and what kind of emphasis they are putting on their external appearance.