Reading through all of the hubbub going on in the news at the moment about Madonna and her attempt at a second adoption from Malawi, one part of the case caught my attention.  The father of little Mercy James, the young Malawian girl Madonna is still hoping to adopt has said that he does not want the pop star to adopt his child, he wishes her to remain in her birth country and that:

I want to take care of her, and I'm capable to take care of my baby...

-source

 

I can understand him not wanting his daughter to be taken out of the country, the thought of being so far away from my own children sends shivers down my spine, but if he has never met his child, and she resides full time in an orphanage and has done so since birth, should he really have a say in who can, and who cannot adopt her?

Mrs. Turner came to visit her son Tony for dinner, who lives with his female roommate, Michelle...

“Well, I doubt it,” Tony replied, “ but I'll email her, just to be sure.”  So Tony sat down and wrote the following:

Irritability and testiness. According to the experts, this may spill over into your career environment. "If a parent's feeling stress at home, they may be more testy at work," explains Buccino. "It's hard to manage the work-home balance. Sometimes they'll feel as if they're not doing well at either."

Resentfulness, a lack of joy, guilt, anger and feelings of frustration and inadequacy.  Goodman states that these types of feelings can frequently be related to feeling as though you have no control in or aren't being rewarded by your job. "Certainly," she reminds, "Children provide their own types of rewards-- like kisses and doing well in school--but  they are not always immediate."

Withdrawal, detachment or a lack or "presence" with your children.  It's usually an extreme case in which a parent feels so overwhelmed that she gives up parenting entirely, but it's not unusual for stressed-out parents to "let go" a little bit and be less involved in their children's everyday lives.

-education.com

Take me time on a regular basis. One of the easiest ways to avoid parental burnout is to make sure that you are doing something that you enjoy on a daily or at the very least a weekly basis.  Parents need to have fun and recharge their batteries too!

You’ve heard about sexting on the news, but you aren’t quite sure what it is and if you should be worried about your child being involved with it.  If your child has a phone, you should be worried.  So what exactly is sexting?  Let’s jump to Wikipedia for the definition: Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones. While sexting is mostly done from cell phone to cell phone, it can also occur online, so if your child has access to email, or chat services, he or she can still get caught up in the sexting game.  For some ungodly reason it has become all the rage, especially with young girls, to take pictures of themselves in sexually explicit poses or circumstances, and then send them to their friends, boyfriends, potential boyfriends; pretty much anyone and everyone in their phonebook, minus mom and dad of course. Because many of the youngsters pictured are just that, young and underage, sending the photos or having them on your phone constitutes being in possession of child pornography.  An assistant principal in Virginia was charged with being in possession of child pornography (and other related charges) after being asked to investigate a sexting incident at his school, and putting the lewd picture onto his computer for evidence.  He had to get a second mortgage on his home and spend more than $150,000 in legal fees to clear his name- and he was doing his job!