Military Mom Almost Ruins Plans for Surprise Reunion With Daughter and We Totally Get It (VIDEO)

dinsdag 24 september 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Jeanne Sager 2 hours ago

I love a good military homecoming video. Who doesn't (no, really, who?)? But I've always wondered how it is that these moms and dads manage to keep themselves from blowing the surprise. If it were me just home from war, I don't know that I could contain myself. That's what I really love about the latest military mom surprising her kid at a football game.

Capt. JR Lund came home early from Afghanistan. She didn't tell her 13-year-old daughter ... so she could manage to surprise her at Saturday's Wisconsin vs. Purdue game. But from the looks of it, Mom almost didn't make it to the game!

Aww! Did you catch the part about how Mom just wanted to go run over and grab her daughter ... but she was trying her darndest to rein it in so she could make the surprise even more meaningful? She almost ruined her own surprise! Maybe it's because she's an Army Reservist that JR Lund is so much stronger than the rest of us?

Or at least stronger than me?

I don't know that I could do it. If I'm away from my kid just for a few days for a business trip, I come home and it's all I can do not to smother the poor thing with love and attention!

Not that JR Lund's daughter isn't getting plenty of that -- did you see the look on mother's and daughter's faces when they finally DID see each other?

Would you be able to hold out to surprise your kid or would you ruin your own surprise?

Image via Wisconsin Badgers/YouTube

Click "Like" if you love someone in the military! ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jeanne Sager

writes articles for The Stir by day, slays closet monsters and bounds through bedtime stories with her elementary schooler by night. The Phineas and Ferb soundtrack reverberates through her brain.

More
?

reacties | | Read More...

Parents Found Guilty of Killing Adopted Daughter Despite Their 'Christian' Excuse

dinsdag 10 september 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Kiri Blakeley 2 hours ago

Religion is no excuse for killing your child. That's the message that abusive parents Larry and Carri Williams got when they were found guilty of first-degree manslaughter when they let their adopted child, Hana, die in their backyard from starvation and hypothermia after reportedly following tactics outlined in a Christian parenting book called To Train Up a Child. Hey, just because you label something Christian doesn't mean it is. What's that saying? Lipstick on a pig is still a pig. And beating and starving your child is not Christian.

Hana was adopted from Ethiopia and believed to be about 13 years old. Hana was forced to stay in the couple's backyard -- apparently as part of cruel parenting rules that the couple got from the book. She died of hypothermia aggravated by gastritis and malnutrition. Her body was rail thin, covered in bruises, her head was shaved and lumpy, and she had evidence of physical abuse.

The Williams' defense team called this "questionable parenting practices" and said they didn't necessarily equate to a crime.

WRONG.

Horrifyingly, the couple had seven other children in their home -- all have since been removed. One of their other adopted children, Immanuel, testified that the couple beat them with belts and switches. As punishment, they were hosed down, forced to sleep in closets, and made to listen to the Bible on tape and Christian music.

The level of hypocrisy here is obscene. Christianity, like all major religions, is founded on principles of love, caring, forgiveness, and treating others as you would like to be treated. Unfortunately, religion is often perverted and those basic tenets are bent and twisted into something grotesque and far from the original idea behind them.

Religion is never an excuse for abandoning your critical thinking, compassion, and basic humanity. And the justice system recognized this. You don't get to kill someone and then say, "These were just my ways of parenting." You don't get to torture someone and say, "That's my religion."

Mankind's basic religion is kindness and do unto others. Anything that deviates from that is just perversion of religion. Unfortunately, all of this comes too late for Hana. But her death allowed the other seven children living in this hellhole to escape.

Do you ever hear people perverting the ideas of religion?

Image via KIRO7

?

reacties | | Read More...

Army Dad Surprises Daughter at School Dance and She Totally 'Freaks Out' (VIDEO)

vrijdag 30 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Emily Abbate 2 hours ago

Most 14-year-old girls wouldn't be ecstatic if their dad showed up unannounced to a school dance. But for Louisiana teen Tayla Carrigan, she couldn't have been more ecstatic when her dad, Army Sergeant Kelly Carrigan, surprised her at her back-to-school dance after being deployed for the past five months.

Sergeant Kelly, who left to go overseas in April, endured a serious knee injury that forced him to return home. While his daughter Tayla and her sister Logan thought he had been relocated to a base somewhere in Europe, Dad was really stationed just four hours away at Fort Polk. And as about 800 students sang "Proud to Be an American," Sergeant Carrigan surprised his daughter and she got the hug she's been waiting for for months.

Seriously, this is probably one of the best homecoming surprises I've seen in a while. Watch Sergeant Kelly Carrigan surprise his daughter, here:

How great is this?

Image via GFnews/YouTube

Click "Like" if you love someone in the military!
?

reacties | | Read More...

Why I'm Telling My Daughter About My Eating Disorder

zondag 25 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

We adults spend a lot of time editing our life stories for our kids, making them child-friendly. Honesty is one thing, but kids don't need to know everything. And when it comes to little girls, they certainly don't need to hear their moms talking about weight issues.

Just about every study out there will tell you that's a surefire way to raise a daughter with an eating disorder. But how much editing should we really do? One expert says our daughters should hear absolutely nothing about weight matters, nothing about diets, nothing at all.

And yet, I'm going to tell my daughter about my eating disorder.

Not today. Not tomorrow. Probably not for awhile, in fact, but it will happen sooner rather than later.

Because I disagree with Dr. Leslie Sim, clinical director of Mayo Clinic's eating disorders program and a child psychologist, when she says that the answer to raising a healthy daughter is:

Zero talk about dieting, zero talk about weight.

Never acknowledging the elephant in the room can be just as dangerous as moaning about your weight.

Take it from me, a recovering bulimic whose parents never mentioned the long hours I'd spend in the bathroom, the retching noises. Maybe they never noticed; I don't know. 

But they also never talked about eating disorders with me, never warned me against them. I won't make that mistake with my daughter.

More From The Stir: 7 Truths About Eating Disorders Every Parent Needs to Know

She needs to know that she is beautiful and that her body is perfect. She needs to know about eating healthy foods and exercising. But she also needs to know the truth about eating disorders.

Because she will hear about them. I did. I had friends with whom I bonded in no small part because we shared a secret -- we threw up our meals. We would exchange tips about throwing up. And although I was smart enough to know I probably shouldn't be doing it, there was no one telling me why, no one with any authority presenting a convincing argument against bulimia.

This is my duty to my daughter: to prevent her from making the mistakes I made as a kid, to be the voice of reason on all matters rather than letting her take another kid's advice (because we all remember getting some particularly bad advice on the school bus, don't we?).

We talk about other issues with our kids, other things they shouldn't do. We warn them against the dangers of drugs and alcohol, warn them not to smoke cigarettes or ride in a car without a seatbelt. And we start it all pretty young. Thanks to an uncle who smokes, my daughter was getting the "no cancer sticks" talk when she was a mere toddler.

So why not talk to her about eating disorders? Because they relate to weight, and weight is a no-no?

Unfortunately, weight exists, and kids talk about it.

And at times in a girl's life, your weight changes. You want to know why, you want reassurance. You want to know what to do about it -- if you have to do anything. 

Right now my daughter is 8, all slim hips and non-existent thighs. But she's getting so close to puberty, that I went out and bought her one of those books on a girl's changing body to prepare her for what will happen -- for acne and body odor, for her period.

I don't want her to be alarmed or scared. I don't want her making poor choices -- such as skipping the deodorant or pretending that blood isn't real, mistakes that are easy to make when you're a kid who doesn't understand why these things are happening and just wants to go back to the way things were. Nor do I want her to feel bad about the weight that often packs on as you gain hips and breasts, to do something drastic to try to reverse it.

This is why I'll talk to my daughter about my eating disorder. So she knows that it's the wrong choice but also so that she knows she's not alone as her body changes.

How do you talk to your daughters about weight? Do you have a 0 weight talk policy or do you talk about some things?

Image by Jeanne Sager

reacties | | Read More...

Farrah Abraham Is Trying to Keep Her Daughter Sophia Away From Her Grandma -- Not Cool

dinsdag 13 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Adriana Velez 13 hours ago

Watch out, Farrah Abraham -- it looks like Grandma Stormie is trying to get her hands on Sophia again. The mother of Sophia's dead father, Derek Underwood, sued Farrah for visitation rights in 2010, but the court ruled against her. Last week in an interview, Stormie Clark questioned Farrah's fitness as a parent and said she wanted at the little girl. But now she's clarifying that. NO, she is not suing for custody. (Yet.) All Stormie wants is the right to visit her granddaughter, she says.

After the rumors flared up last week, Stormie took to the comments section of WetPaint to set the record straight. And by the way, there goes her credibility as a rational, mature person if she's using the comments section to get her story out, but I'll overlook that for now. Apparently her strategy worked, because here I am, writing about it. Anyhoo! This is what Stormie says.

I would like to clear a few things up here. First and foremost, all I care about is Sophia's well being. There are always two sides to every story, and unfortunately my side of the truth has purposely not been aired.

I did not, and never would keep money from my own granddaughter. I am not profiting off of this article, and I could care less about being in ‘the limelight.’

I am not trying to get custody of Sophia. I am just very concerned for her well being. Sophia is all that we have left of Derek, and while still grieving his loss, we would like to be able to see his only child. Derek, not knowingly, left behind such a precious gift from God.

So there you go. For now, anyway, Stormie is not plotting a custody battle. All she wants is access to her granddaughter because by the look of things, time with Grandma Stormie might actually be an improvement over whatever Farrah calls parenting these days. I don't know, just because you're a sex worker doesn't mean your a lousy mother -- can we just acknowledge that? But I get what Stormie is saying.

She is, after all, the mother of Sophie's father. Sophie should grow up knowing something about that side of her family. It is sad that she lost her son and doesn't have contact with her granddaughter. And honestly, how crazy is Stormie's crazy compared with Farrah's and her parents' crazy? I kind of think it's bananas everywhere you look for these folks, so what's the difference? Farrah is in no position to judge -- she should go ahead and let Sophie bond with her grandma.

But I think Stormie might be a little more persuasive if she could make her case without insulting Farrah's parenting as she did in her earlier comments. Obviously Farrah's making some questionable choices in her life -- that's not lost on anyone. But pointing that out is just going to put Farrah on the defensive -- and in turn, that will make her less receptive to Stormie's request. Grandma needs to make this just about her relationship with Sophie, not about making up for Farrah's crappy parenting.

Do you think Stormie should get visitation rights to Sophie?

Image via Farrah Abraham/Twitter

Click "Like" for the latest on the Teen Moms. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Adriana Velez

is a staff writer who dabbles in food, parenting, news, entertainment, molecular biology, and anything else that that pops into her head. She lives with her elementary school-aged son in Brooklyn, land of urban farms and artisan everything.  

More
?

reacties | | Read More...

Disabled Daughter Left Handcuffed to Bed While Mom Attends a Wedding

maandag 5 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Jeanne Sager 4 hours ago

A mother in Maryland could be facing some serious jail time after her mentally disabled daughter was found wandering around a North Carolina hotel this weekend. Tiffany Davis was at a wedding at the time, and it seems she didn't want her teenager, who has the mental capacity of a 3- or 4-year-old, along. Cops say she'd handcuffed her daughter to the hotel bed!

Kind of makes you wonder why she brought her along for the trip to North Carolina at all, doesn't it? But thank goodness she did.

Imagine, for just a second, if Davis' 19-year-old daughter had been left back home in Maryland.

Not only would a mentally handicapped girl have been left alone -- as she was at the hotel -- but who would have found her?

It's sad when this is the bright side of a story, but the fact is, there is some good here. The girl managed to get loose of her shackles, cops say, and she left the room. She was found, taken good care of, and mom was arrested.

Davis was jailed in Gaston County Jail on a $100,000 secured bond. Cops say they found handcuffs and a dog leash in the hotel room, and they have the witnesses from the hotel who shared enough info to substantiate a neglect charge against the 37-year-old Maryland mother.

A perfect ending?

No. Not even a happy one, necessarily, but this is life, not a fairy tale.

The fact is, if this poor girl hadn't been left in that hotel room, who knows what would have happened to her with a mother like that. This was, in essence, her ticket out of there, her chance to be rescued.

And from the sounds of the charges against her mom, it was about darn time.

What do you make of this horror story?

Image via police

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jeanne Sager

writes articles for The Stir by day, slays closet monsters and bounds through bedtime stories with her elementary schooler by night. The Phineas and Ferb soundtrack reverberates through her brain.

More
?

reacties | | Read More...

7 Ridiculous Reasons Women Give for Wanting a Daughter

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Giuliana Rancic is one of those celebrity moms I usually respect, big time. Her willingness to be open about infertility -- a topic that's still very taboo in our society -- was incredibly inspiring. But the way the reality star and mother of little Duke is talking about having a daughter is rubbing me the wrong way.

Rancic says she wants a little girl to dress up like a doll. Literally!

Said Rancic of giving surrogacy another go and adding a sister to her family for little Duke:

I’ll buy her an American Girl doll and they can wear the same outfit, then I can get an adult version of the outfit so the three of us match. I’d Instagram that all day long!

Oh, come on, Giuliana! You're talking about a person, here, not a doll!

Rancic is hardly the first mom to say it, but I wouldn't be doing my daughter (or femalekind) a favor if I didn't say I hope she'll be the last. It's a generalizing of the female experience that rubs me the wrong way, the assumption that all little girls are exactly alike. And when your daughter comes out, with ideas of her own, it can make for a rather rude awakening for a mom.

Worse, if a mom is completely stuck on these ideas of what it means to have a daughter -- whether they work for her girl or not -- she could easily end up making her little girl's childhood a living hell. 

If you have any of these reasons for having a daughter in mind, it's time you drop them for your sake ... and hers:

1. To be your best friend. I love the idea of one day having the friendship with my daughter that some of my girl friends share with their mothers, but at the end of the day, that's not what she's there for. She needs me to be her MOM, and when I need friends, I owe it to her to look to my peers, not lay my troubles at her feet.

2. For dressing up. You have heard of so-called "tomboys," right? Just because she is a she does not mean your child will enjoy being clad in dresses and sparkly things (and who knows, a SON might enjoy those things!). Not to mention even girls who enjoy fashion need to know there is much more to life than looking good in their clothes.

3. To give you grandchildren. There's something extremely creepy about filling your non-existent daughter's non-existent uterus.

4. To be your mini me. One of the coolest parts of having a kid with someone is that they carry parts of you and parts of your partner. That means your kid will NEVER be an exact replica of you, and you should be celebrating that ... not fighting it.

5. To help you gang up on the boys. It can be tough being the only one with estrogen in a house full of testosterone, but siblings should NOT be set at odds with one another for any reason, least of all because of gender.

6. To play Barbies, princesses, etc. See above regarding so-called "tomboys." There is no reason to believe a girl is any more (or less) inclined to like these toys than a little boy. And if she does, there's certainly no reason to limit her to just these items.

7. To shop with you. My 8-year-old daughter is a bit of a "girly girl," but you know what she hates? That's right ... shopping, unless we're in a toy store. Vagina does not equal shopaholic.

What daughter stereotypes bug you? Have you ever made a blunder like Giuliana Rancic?

Image by Jeanne Sager

reacties | | Read More...

Actress Jiah Khan's Mom Now Says the Boyfriend Murdered Her Daughter

zaterdag 3 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Linda Sharps 20 hours ago

Oh lord, poor Jiah Khan is back in the news today. As in Jiah Khan the Bollywood starlet who dominated headlines back in June when she was found hanged in her Mumbai home, whose death sparked a seemingly endless number of tragic twists and turns as her boyfriend Suraj Pancholi was arrested, her alleged suicide letter was released to the public, Pancholi was found not responsible for abetting her suicide, and the note itself came under controversy with questions about the handwriting and the court's ruling that it couldn't be proven that it was actually intended as a suicide message.

The latest drama is related to her grieving mother Rabiya Khan, who's been clear all along that she blames Pancholi for Jiah's death. Rabiya has taken things quite a bit further in recent days, though, with a series of tweets that flat-out accuse Pancholi of murdering her daughter.

Pancholi was held by Mumbai police for several weeks while under investigation for abetting Jiah's suicide, but the court ultimately ruled that he couldn't be held responsible for her actions:

No doubt it was unfortunate that a young girl has committed suicide. She (Jiah) must have been impulsive and he (Suraj) cannot be held solely responsible for it. (...) She was in the relationship on her own volition.

In a six-page letter released to the public by Jiah Khan's mother, Jiah described an extremely troubled relationship with Pancholi. Some excerpts:

... the pain you have caused me everyday has destroyed every bit of me, destroyed my soul.

I just became increasingly scared that you would hurt me mentally or physically.

Things were looking up for me here, but is it worth it when you constantly feel the pain of heartbreak when the person you love wants to abuse you or threatens o hit you or cheats on you telling other girls they are beautiful or throws you out of their house when you have no where to go

I aborted our baby when it hurt me deeply.

All I want now is to go to sleep and never wake up again. I am nothing. I had everything.

Truly, I can't begin to imagine the pain her mother's been going through in recent days. But despite the reports that definitively state that Pancholi was not present at the time of Jiah Khan's death, Rabiya Khan has started posting a series of tweets making new claims about the case:

Rabiya has also tweeted the following:

When he did not love her then why hit her abuse her rape her and then kill her

Pls note that she never killed herself no proof is there finger print report in not complete.

They will get the evidence

The thing is, Rabiya Khan doesn't exactly sound mentally stable. It looks to me like she's come unhinged in recent weeks, because her other tweets include calling someone who disagreed with her a lesbian, and accusing another critic of being the murderer ("I suspect you now"). I don't know what all went on between Jiah Khan and her boyfriend, but I honestly doubt her death was caused by anything other than her own desperate decision to end her life.

The whole thing has been beyond sad from the very beginning, and Rabiya Khan's fixation on Suraj Pancholi is clearly preventing her from coping with her loss. I hope this poor woman is able to get help, grieve her daughter, and eventually start living her life again.

Do you think there's any chance that Suraj Pancholi actually DID kill Jiah Khan?

Image via Nishabd

Click the "Like" button below to get Linda Sharps's stories on Facebook. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Linda Sharps

lives in Eugene, Oregon with her family, where she works from home while wrangling two rambunctious boys. She always has a caffeinated beverage in hand and a LEGO embedded in her foot.

More
?

reacties | | Read More...

Mom Confession: I'm Letting My Daughter Have a Sleepover With a Boy

maandag 29 juli 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

There's a photo on my fridge from my daughter's first ever sleepover that always cracks me up. In it, she and a little boy are making funny faces at the camera. Did you catch the fact that I said little boy? We have rocked the co-ed sleepover in our house.

Movies. Popcorn. Ice cream sundaes. You name it, it's come out.

I guess this is where I should 'fess up to the fact that her very first sleepover friend was (is?!) her cousin. He's just shy of a year older, and they have a lot of fun together.

Still, he's a boy. She's a girl.

I never thought twice about letting him sleep over, even letting them sleep in the same bed.

Bad mom? To hear some of the mothers 'round the web talk (type?), yes. Admitting you've thrown a co-ed sleepover is just this side of saying you've dosed the kids' bottles with antifreeze (now, I have NOT done that) in some circles.

I don't get it. At least not when it comes to young kids (teens are a whole different story).

They're little kids! Little kids barely notice gender. And the risk of any hanky panky is 0. They are KIDS.

Little. Kids.

I'm not an ostrich with my head in the sand here. I know there are some kids who act inappropriately very early.

Those are the scary facts that keep moms up at night. But what allows me to actually fall asleep is reminding myself that those kids are few and far between. Most little kids are pretty, shall we say normal?

At 8, my daughter is pretty normal as are her boy friends, boys who frequently come over for playdates. As I type this, I can hear peals of laughter from my front yard where she and her friend, M., are digging for earthworms in dirt they've soaked with the hose.

The other day she asked for another co-ed sleepover with one of them. Some moms -- the moms I mentioned above -- would say "no" immediately.

I didn't. I said I'd talk to her father and to the little boy's mom -- the same answer I give when she asks to have a little girl sleep over.

At 8, I'm perfectly fine with her having a boy friend sleep at our house should the other adults say it's OK. The rules won't be much different from having a girl (although the girls often change clothes in the same room ... that will be different). They'll probably have pizza and sundaes, they'll play in the backyard until it starts to get dark, they'll be allowed to watch a movie before bed, and then they'll have to go to sleep.

They'll do kid stuff because they are still kids.

Do you let your kids have co-ed sleepovers? When will you stop?

Image via gabriel amadeus/Flickr

reacties | | Read More...

Dad Sues Store Because Boots Made His 4-Year-Old Daughter Trip

vrijdag 19 juli 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Julie Ryan Evans 13 hours ago

Have you ever met a parent who is always looking to blame someone when anything happens to their child? Well, I haven't met Shahan Stephanian, but my guess is he may be one of those.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the man from Pasadena, Calif., recently filed a lawsuit against Nordstrom. He says an employee at the store who was fitting his 4-year-old daughter for boots, put her in some that too big for her. Apparently she measured at about a size 11-12, but the employee had her try a 13 so there would be room to grow (something I actually appreciate as a parent). When the employee told her to walk toward a shelf to see how they felt, she tripped and hit her head.

Ouch. Apparently, it was a pretty hard fall as the lawsuit claims she suffered "serious injuries to her person. Said injuries include a laceration to her left eyebrow and eyelid area, which has left a permanent and very noticeable scar.”

I feel bad for her. I bet Nordstrom felt bad for her. But to sue over this incident is ridiculous, especially now since this happened in 2006! Nordstrom issued a statement saying they have let Stephanian know several times that they "welcome the opportunity to resolve his issues directly." But apparently he's not interested in something that civil.

The lawsuit says the girl was "too young to appreciate the danger of walking in boots that were too large or did not fit properly.” It claims the sales person "had a duty to use reasonable care to present the plaintiff with boots that were safe and of an appropriate size so that plaintiff would not have difficulty walking in said boots and/or would not stumble or fall while walking in said boots."

Her mother was there shopping with her, so she definitely could have intervened at any point. If anyone should be accountable, it's definitely her, but daddy doesn't see it that way -- probably because all the dollar signs in his eyes are in the way.

The bottom line is that it was an accident. Those happen a lot in life, and suing for something like this is just ridiculous. The worst part of it is the example this man is setting for his daughter -- to not take responsibility for yourself and your family but to pass blame whenever you can ... especially when there's something to potentially gain.

What do you think of this lawsuit?

Image via Avolore/Flickr

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Julie Ryan Evans

can be found writing from coffee houses wherever she may be. The quality of her days is largely influenced by the seat she nabs and whether a protein plate is available.

More
?

reacties | | Read More...