LilSugar

Politikids: Did You Take Them Along For the Historical Ride?

babysugar — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:00:24 PST

Yesterday marked a historic day in American history. No matter how the election pans out, it will be momentous. This was the first time an African American male was a contender on the Democratic ticket, and the first time a female was part of the Republican ticket. To be a part of history in the making makes me proud and patriotic. I was thrilled to have my daughter along to experience it all.

Seventy-four percent of you said you would take your child to vote. Did you?
Source

Will You Take Your Child to Vote With You?

babysugar — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:00:28 PDT

The presidential election is less than two weeks away so we are being inundated with commercials, mailers, news articles and conversations about the next commander-in-chief. Yesterday we gave you some ideas for including your lil ones in the electoral process. Today, we want to know if you plan to bring your children to your polling station on November 4th.

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Politikids: Why Parents Should Take Their Kids to the Polls

LilSugar — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:00:44 PDT

You may need to be 18 to cast a vote, but you're never too young to have an opinion. This is why I have brought my kids to the voting booths since they were born. I grew up listening to my mother say, "You can't complain if you don't vote" so I registered as soon as I earned the right. Moms and dads worried about the line at their polling place need not. The upcoming election may be the most important one we vote in and as parents our children will be affected by who we support. To make the experience fun for future voters of America, check out our tips!

Put a "Countdown to Vote" calendar on your refrigerator and have your lil ones tear the days away
Teach them a lil election etiquette - we all have the right to make our own choices, but need to be respectful other others, too
Help them make a button that says, "I'll be voting in 2020!" (or whatever year they are of age) to wear to the polls.
Bring along a makeshift ballot for them to fill out while you cast your vote.
Allow them to pull the lever in the booth
Have your child hand in your ballot
Give them your voting sticker and treat it like a badge of honor

To check out our ideas for older children,

Prep them on the issues that directly affect them like education and simply explain what each candidate promises and ask them who they support
Have a dinnertime debate and allow each family member to argue for their candidate
Set up a mock-election party

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Politikids Think This Election Is Important

LilSugar — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:00:58 PDT

The presidential election has most parents on the edge of their seats - tuning into the debates, making sure their registration is updated, even campaigning for their candidate - but, even preschoolers are going political. Our children hear more than just mom and dad's opinion, they read the billboards and digest the commercials on television and memorize the slogans. In one Iowa home, mealtime turns into a debate between a couple of opinionated siblings.

Does your child favor a candidate?

Baby Bait For Presidential Candidates

LilSugar — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 08:00:46 PST

One of the Presidential candidates will be the future leader of our country, but would you trust them to hold your babe? One dad did.

Darren Garnick, father of two, recants his experience hitting the campaign trail for pictures of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and Mitt Romney with his 5-month-old daughter, Dahlia in a recent Slate article. He wrote:

"As a resident of the "Live Free or Die" state, I'll concede that the New Hampshire presidential primary gives us ridiculously disproportionate influence. But I love the fact that my state's electoral power comes with a great fringe benefit: It's easy to enshrine the next president in your family scrapbook. A sucker for political kitsch, I set out to photograph my 5-month-old daughter, Dahlia, in the arms of every candidate with a prayer of making it to the White House."

To finish the post,

The quest for photographs took Garnick from a parade to a private party and a sporting goods shop to a bookstore. But, he is no novice when it comes to getting political figures to say cheese with his lil ones. He admitted:

"During the 2004 presidential race, I took a few photos of my then 2-year-old boy, Ari, with Democrats Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, and Wesley Clark. As a first-time parent, I was overly protective and had most of the candidates pose next to his stroller."

8 Myths About Sex Differences

The Good Men Project — Fri, 25 May 2012 02:00:49 PDT

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Today, Agustín Fuentes points out that when it comes to men and women, what "everyone knows" isn’t what science shows.

Everyone knows that men and women are really different. We think differently and act differently because we are wired differently. I mean look at our brains and genitals: they are just plain different. Right?

Wrong.

What if many of the things we assume about the biology of difference are not so different at all? What if it is not our “wiring” but the ways in which our bodies and minds develop and play out in society that makes us seem so unalike? Could it be that men and women are more similar than we think?

I Dumped the Love of My Life and Now She Doesn’t Trust Me

Yes, women give birth and lactate and men do not. And yes, men are, on average, slightly larger than women and usually have greater upper body strength. There are these basic biological differences between the sexes and they are important . . . but why always focus on the differences and not the biological, and behavioral, similarities? Ahh, that would be because of gender.

Gender is a powerful reality; it is the perception and expectation of differences between males and females and it shapes both our bodies and our society. Gender differences are real and important, but they are not hard wired or even static. There is no biological or evolutionary mandate that only women really care for babies and show emotions, or that males are the best at economics and politics and prefer beers and skirt-chasing to domestic bliss. These are patterns of gender roles and expectations that shape the ways we look at our biology and behavior. They influence the way we expect the world to be. It is the strength of the societal myths about sex that fool us into thinking that men and women are so different by nature.

So let’s bust some of those myths.

Gender and sex are the same thing.

Sex and gender are interconnected, but not the same thing. Sex is a biological state that is measured via what chromosomes you have (XX or XY, usually) and aspects of your body and physiology. Gender includes the roles, expectations and perceptions that a given society has for the sexes. Most societies have two genders on a masculinity-femininity continuum. Some have more. We are born with a biological sex, but acquire gender. There is a ton of individual diversity within societies and sexes in regards to how sex and gender play out in behavior and personality.

There is an extensive body of data demonstrating this, but people interested only in specific differences between men and women choose to ignore it.

Male and female genitals are totally different.

Most people think that male and female genitals are about as different as can be: penis=male and vagina=female. But even this basic dichotomy is not quite correct: the genitals emerge from the same mass of embryonic tissue. For the first six weeks of life the tissue masses develop identically. At about 6-7 weeks, depending on whether the fetus has XX or XY chromosomes (usually), the tissues to start to differentiate. One part of the tissues begins to form the clitoris or penis and another forms the labia or scrotum. Another area begins to form into either the testes or the ovaries. This means that physiologically, male and female genitals are made of the same stuff and work in similar ways.

Male and female brains are different.

If there were really deep seated differences between male and female human behavior and biology they should show up in the brain. The genitals start in the same place and end up looking different, the brain does not. Our brains are pretty much the same. Male brains are a bit bigger than females’ (like their bodies) and females’ brains stop growing earlier than males (as with their bodies). However, whatever one may believe about other organs, in the case of healthy brains, size really does NOT matter one iota. There also might be a few differences in a small part of the brain called the straight gyrus (need more testing in this one). Other than these minor aspects there are no consistent and replicated reliable differences in male and female brains; it is a human brain . . . but how we use it is another matter.

Hormones make the difference.

Everyone thinks that males and females have different hormones . . . testosterone for men and estrogen for women. Nope, all the actual hormones in males and females are the same: there are no male-only or female-only hormones. Both men and women can get a flood of testosterone when they get into a fight or take part in an exhilarating sports match. Both men and women can get a flood of oxytocin and prolactin when they pick up a newborn baby. There can be differences in the levels, patterns, and impacts of some of these hormones in male and female bodies, but individual variation is often more important than the variation between the sexes.

Keep reading for the rest.

Is Gisele Bundchen Pregnant With Her Second Child?

Lauren Turner — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:36:05 PDT

Why Gisele Bundchen might be pregnant with her second child - Lainey Gossip
Anna Faris covers up her baby bump on set - Us Weekly
See who Jay-Z got to play at his Made in America music festival - HuffPost Entertainment
Ashlee Simpson debuts her adorable new puppy - People
Ben Affleck hosts huge political fundraiser - Hollywood Reporter
Daisy Fuentes flaunts her hot body in a bikini - TooFab
Angelina Jolie uses her jewelry line to give back - Celebitchy
Eleven hilarious things to know about John Mayer - The Daily Beast
Find out what it's like to watch big stars do their thing at Cannes - BuzzFeed
Lea Michele shows serious cleavage - The Insider
Watch Elizabeth Banks and Chris Pine in their People Like Us trailer - Rotten Tomatoes
Scott Wolf and wife expecting second child - Wonderwall
Ray J hospitalized in Las Vegas - Lifeline Live
Bond girl Berenice Marlohe gets glam at Cannes - Zap2It
Usher gets emotional over fatherhood - Your Tango

9 Freegan Tips to Save Money and the Earth

Emily Co — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:00:53 PDT

Although most of us associate freeganism with dumpster diving, freegans actually do advocate much more than sifting through garbage for food.

Madeline Nelson from freegan.info shared with me the ideology behind their lifestyle. She says, "Not all freegans are dumpster divers and not all dumpster divers are freegans. Freegans' focus is much broader and much more political - how to throw a cog in the corporate profit machine, help alleviate social injustice and ecological destruction, and create ways to live more independently of the giant corporations that now rule the word with the sole aim of profit for their owners and top managers."

Rummaging through trash receptacles is only for the bold, so for those of you who still want to do some good and save money at the same time, Madeline shares some easy tips you can implement in your everyday lifestyle.

Pick Your Produce With Care: Don't buy factory farmed animal products! There are so many reasons, from not ingesting the antibiotics and hormones still in the products, to the cruelty of factory farm conditions to animals and workers alike, to the 70 pounds of high quality vegetable protein wasted to produce a single pound of beef.
Support Local Farmers: Eat as local as you can afford to do; use farmers markets and CSAs if you can. By reducing the distance your food travels (these days, often 1000s of miles) you reduce your carbon footprint and opt out of the exploitation of tenant farmers whose kids are picking baby vegetables for the USA when they should be able to go to school.
Grow Your Own: The most local you can go is to grow your own fruits and veggies. Got a yard? Turn it into a pea patch. Don't? Join a community garden, make new friends, and learn relaxing new skills.
Dumpster Dive: Feeling brave? Try seeing what your local supermarkets are throwing out every day. Dumpster diving is often fun and always a wake-up call to waste being perpetrated in our names - we, who supposedly wouldn't buy an odd shaped potato or a nearly ripe banana. And it is economically much more viable than working a low wage job to earn enough to buy the same stuff.

For more freegan tips, read on.

Reese Witherspoon Takes Her Pups and Pregnant Belly For a Hike

Lauren Turner — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:03:16 PDT

Reese Witherspoon hit the hills of Brentwood, CA, for a hike with her dogs this afternoon. She covered her growing baby bump in a black shirt after showing it off on the red carpet at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington DC last weekend. Reese traveled east for the event with her husband, Jim Toth, who also joined her for the afterparty at the home of the French ambassador. The political support may continue if Reese and Jim attend George Clooney's fundraiser for President Obama at his LA home, with tickets going for $40,000 per person for the May 10 dinner.

Reese Witherspoon Gets Back to Business on the West Coast

Allie Merriam — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:23:43 PDT

Reese Witherspoon covered her growing baby bump in a flowing dress yesterday while out in LA. The expecting mom is a few months along with her first child with husband Jim Toth. Reese and Jim married in March 2011. She's also a proud mother to two children from her previous marriage to Ryan Phillippe, 12-year-old Ava Phillippe and 8-year-old Deacon Phillippe.

It was back to LA for Reese after attending last Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington DC. Reese is keeping her political connections in tact despite a return to California. She even offered to host a political fundraiser at her LA home. The president's reelection committee, though, decided to host an Obama event at George Clooney's home instead, since it's a better fit.