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Catalyst: Helping mothers through friendship
In the U.S., most mothers work full time before coming home to take care of family and household chores. So, who is taking care of mom? Experts say friends are the best remedy for a healthy mom.
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Secrets Of A Maya Supermom: What Parenting Books Don’t Tell You
There's no other way to put it: Maria de los Angeles Tun Burgos is a supermom. She's raising five children, does housework and chores — we're talking about fresh tortillas every day made from stone-ground corn — and she helps with the family's business in their small village about 2 1/2 hours west of Cancún on the Yucatán Peninsula. Sitting on a rainbow-colored hammock inside her home, Burgos, 41, is cool as a cucumber. It's morning, after breakfast. Her youngest daughter, 4-year-old Alexa, sits on her knee, clearly trying to get her attention by hitting a teddy bear on her mom's leg.
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Pride has gotten a bad rap. Here’s how it can help kids develop grit and resilience.
Parents know that grit and inner motivation are building blocks to success, yet they sometimes struggle with how to instill these qualities in their children. Recent research finds they have a surprising — and often overlooked — key ingredient: pride. “Hubristic pride” — the arrogance of feeling superior to others — was once considered to be the most serious of the seven deadly sins. But in recent years, researchers have focused on a healthier, more productive type of pride. “Authentic pride” — the deep personal satisfaction of hitting a valued goal — can encourage the kind of self-discipline and hard work it takes to stay motivated, overcome challenges and achieve.
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Identical Twins Hint at How Environments Change Gene Expression
Monica and Erika Hoffman stand barefoot, side by side near a sign that reads “Twin Studies Center” at California State University at Fullerton. Their glasses removed, both have auburn eyes, softly jutted chins, light freckles, and perky noses. Both wear black shirts and small sparkly earrings (Erika’s are flowers, Monica’s, bows). The identical twin sisters turned 39 the day before this lab visit. “You are the 101st twin pair we’ve had in this study,” Nancy Segal, a shrewd, spirited professor in a sequined black hoodie, tells them, as a cluster of graduate students shadow her through the halls. Segal, a fraternal twin herself, is a walking Wikipedia of twin science.
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Humans Are Dumb At Figuring Out How Smart Animals Are
If an animal is smart enough, should we treat it like a human? An abstract question, but one that found its way into a courtroom recently. A case bidding for consideration by the New York State Court of Appeals sought to extend the legal concept of habeas corpus — which allows a person to petition a court for freedom from unlawful imprisonment — to cover two privately-owned chimpanzees. The case for giving the chimps a human right like freedom from unlawful incarceration is based on their similarity to humans — they can think, feel and plan, argue the people bringing the case on behalf of the chimpanzees, so shouldn’t they have some guarantees of liberty?
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How Same-Sex Couples Divide Chores, and What It Reveals About Modern Parenting
When straight couples divide up the chores of daily life — who cooks dinner and who mows the lawn, who schedules the children’s activities and who takes out the trash — the duties are often determined by gender. Same-sex couples, research has consistently found, divide up chores more equally. But recent research has uncovered a twist. When gay and lesbian couples have children, they often begin to divide things as heterosexual couples do, according to new data for larger, more representative samples of the gay population. Though the couples are still more equitable, one partner often has higher earnings, and one a greater share of household chores and child care.
