family life

With graduation season at hand, many young women are beginning new chapters of their lives and thinking deeply about their futures, including if and how motherhood will fit into their lives. So we asked women who are already in the thick of motherhood to offer words of wisdom for graduating women who want to be moms someday. Here is a selection of their heartfelt and encouraging advice for future moms.

Children may be big fans of Pixar's Cars, but an inflatable pool decorated with the movie characters may be dead in the water once parents get a close-up view of the product's packaging. Reddit user Matenbock has discovered that the image on the box was (presumably) accidentally photoshopped so that it shows a mom with her hands in her son's pants, The Huffington Post reports.

Consumerist's Chris Morran says one possible explanation for the inappropriate image is that it is a composite of multiple stock photographs. "You can tell as much from the above image because the woman's crudely cut-off legs are floating in the foreground when they should be behind the pool," he says. The original image of the mom also was used for a different product, he adds.

Disney hasn't said whether anyone from the company got into hot water for publishing the image, but the product manufacturer appears to have cleaned up its act. People seeking to purchase the pool on Amazon are privy to a more family-friendly image.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, and most of the time, I love it. In the two-and-a-half years I've been a mom, I've worked full-time, worked part-time, and finally took a second maternity leave that hasn't ended. I'm coming up on my first anniversary of that transition from working mom to stay-at-home mom.

I adore my girls. For our family, this was the best possible scenario. I'm thankful we could make it work.

However, my new full-time job comes with long hours and very little time off. My bosses are sweet but extremely demanding. I thought I'd have more time to keep up with the house, but with two little girls home full-time, it is actually more difficult to keep up. By the time they're in their cribs, I'm exhausted. I realized a few weeks ago that since the birth of my first daughter, I have been completely alone in the house once. Once. In two-and-a-half years.

That was a revelation.

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Scarlett Gurr is hardly old enough to get a driver's license, but nevertheless, the 7-year-old drives a mini Ferrari. In fact, "she has an entire garage filled with her own fancy cars and is the youngest member of the British Women Racing Drivers Club," the Huffington Post reports.

Scarlett's vast car collection is one of the perks of being parented by the owner of a car tuning and restoration company in London. Her dad Stuart has been building replicas of real cars for Scarlett and her 3-year-old sister, Maddie, for several years, and dreams of participating in the Little Big Mans race in France next year.

Stuart and Scarlett's favorite car is a red Ferarri, which took more than 600 hours to build and cost around $3,025. Fortunately, Stuart doesn't have to worry too much about Scarlett hurting herself or wrecking his investment — he admits that the vehicles she "drives" are "more show than go."

A Utah mom gave her daughter a taste of her own medicine, forcing her to wear unflattering thrift shop clothes as a punishment for bullying another student about her appearance, the Huffington Post reports.

According to Salt Lake City's KSTU, the 10-year-old girl named Kaylee had been teasing another fourth grader about the way she dressed so much that the other girl no longer wanted to attend school. When questioned about the bullying, Kaylee showed little remorse. So, mom Ally decided to show Kaylee how it feels to be teased about her clothes.

"If she chooses to be a bully after this, then at some point in her life, she's going to be on the other side and she'll know what it really feels like," Ally said.

What do you think? Is making your teen wear ugly clothes a good way to stop her from bullying someone else about their appearance?

Elementary school educators spend a lot of time teaching children to love and accept all kinds of people. But a recent study suggests that children have "already absorbed an upsetting message: that fat is a negative indicator of a person's character, and that overweight people are undesirable as friends and as people" at an earlier age, The Atlantic reports.

In a study conducted by the University of Leeds, researchers found that kids' prejudice against fat people starts as early as preschool. Approximately 300 schoolchildren ranging from 4 to 6 years old were read a story about two friends who get stuck in a tree. In one version, both children are normal-sized. But in another version, one child is presented as overweight or disabled. When asked what they thought about the characters, the children overwhelmingly decided that the fat kid was less likely to win a race, do well in school, be happy with the way he looks, or get invited to parties, according to the report. Additionally, the children rated the overweight or disabled child more likely to be naughty and have fewer friends.

The "rejection" of the fat character was consistent when the story was portrayed with both male and female characters, the researchers said, indicating that "children pick up on societal cues as to what is socially acceptable and what is not" at a much earlier age than initially assumed.

Should your child's teacher tote a gun?

Allowing guns in school is a controversial issue, especially after the shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary school in December. But at least two Utah teachers have anonymously admitted that they legally carry concealed guns at school, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

The paper interviewed two middle-school teachers who hold concealed firearm permits — and therefore are not required to tell parents, school police officers, or principals that they are packing heat — because they believe it makes their classrooms safer.

"I can think of nothing worse than having to witness my students being killed or maimed without me being able to at least attempt some sort of intervention," one teacher explained. "I might even die in the process, but, in my opinion, going down shooting would be better than standing in front of them helplessly."

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Dread cleaning the bathroom? To help streamline your bathroom cleaning, we've rounded up five strategies from real moms on how to make the task easier. Keep reading.