And you can see what the problem is just by reading the title: Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters.

That the author, Erica Komisar, even thinks there is a state called "motherhood" marks her straight off as an old-fashioned binary sex-role thinker.

As for "prioritising" being a mother for three years - she must be mad. How are women to maintain their jobs and careers?

Has she never heard of gender equality in the family? Does she not know that men can do child care just as well as women if they really try?

These are the kind of sentiments (not my own) that must have driven an interviewer for Good Morning America to tell Ms Komisar, seconds before the camera went live, "I don't believe in the premise of your book at all. I don't like your book."

And that, according to The Wall Street Journal, was about the only air time she got with a major outlet apart from Fox & Friends, which liked her book a lot.

But let's cut to the chase. Erica Komisar knows a thing or two. Unlike most gender theorists she has clocked up three decades of clinical practice, first as a social worker and then as an analyst.

She has raised three children, and put off writing her book for 12 years to be "emotionally and physically present" to them. Presumably she kept her professional practice going for some of that time.

It was her professional experience, however, that made the book necessary. She told WSJ:

"What I was seeing was an increase in children being diagnosed with ADHD and an increase in aggression in children, particularly in little boys, and an increase in depression in little girls."

More youngsters were also being diagnosed with "social disorders" whose symptoms resembled those of autism - "having difficulty relating to other children, having difficulty with empathy."

Komisar came to the conclusion that it was "the absence of mothers in children's lives on a daily basis was … one of the triggers for these mental disorders." Continue reading

• Carolyn Moynihan is a New Zealand journalist with a special interest in family issues, and is deputy editor of MercatorNet.

Speaking in the minor party leaders debate last Saturday Seymour said having babies while on the benefit was an "outrage" to working parents, and "the biggest driver of child poverty in this country.

"We don't want the state controlling people's reproduction. That's disgusting.

"What we do need to say is that we have a crisis in this country where one in five children are born into a family dependent on a benefit."

Seymour said that if a person on the benefit keeps having children they will be subject to income management.

"We're gonna pay your rent, pay your power, pay for the groceries so the kids get the benefit of those resources and we break the cycle of child poverty in this country."

In July Seymour told Jack Tame on TVNZ1's Breakfast the $60 benefit for every New Zealand child promised by the Labour Party would lead people to intentionally profiteer off having more children.

"At the margin, yes people will change their mind [about having children] because they'll say 'oh the Government will give me this money now'," Mr Seymour said.

He told Tame "all of the things a bleeding heart liberal, like yourself Jack, worries about all the time have been created, in terms of child poverty, by a welfare experiment gone wrong over the last 50 years."

Around the same time ACT deputy leader Beth Houlbrooke said the Labour Party promise "could extend the misery of child poverty and even child abuse", and that "parents who cannot afford to have children should not be having them".

Seymour said it just happened to be a coincidence that he sent his social media followers a photograph of an ACT-branded condom on the same day his deputy leader said poor people shouldn't have babies.

The condom wrapper had a sticker saying, "Helping people keep more of what they make - Vote ACT."

Source

• Newshub
• Newshub
• TVNZ
• Image: Stuff

Over 25 times from the top of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., I have seen a sea of people marching to proclaim the dignity of unborn human life, and how death-dealing abortion sends the unholy message that some human beings are disposable.

And the latest March for Life (Jan. 27) was equally inspiring. It's always a moral and spiritual shot-in-the-arm for me.

But good as they are, the Washington "March for Life," the "Walk for Life West Coast," the "Midwest March for Life" (Feb. 4), and dozens of similar events at state capitols throughout the U.S., they simply are not enough.

While significant progress has been made to lessen the number of abortions, nonetheless, according to the National Right to Life Committee over 1 million unborn brothers and sisters are brutally dismembered by abortion each year.

And according to the World Health Organization over 55 million unborn babies worldwide are aborted every year.

Throughout the entire year believers in the God of life need to pray, educate, peacefully protest at abortion facilities, donate and lobby on behalf of the unborn - the unborn can't do it for themselves.

It is important for us to remember what St. Mother Teresa said about abortion: "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself … We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other."

How can any person who truly respects life support abortion - the barbaric dismembering of tiny innocent unborn babies (see: http://www.abortionno.org). There simply is no morally acceptable reason to perform an abortion.

The developing human being in utero is nothing short of miraculous!

Watch this fascinating video produced by Alexander Tsiaras, mathematician and former chief of scientific visualization at Yale University's Department of Medicine (see: http://bit.ly/1XezTp2). And after watching it ask yourself, "How is it possible that anyone could destroy such a marvelous work of God."

A civilized nation does not kill babies waiting to be born. And if we dare carry this life-affirming perspective to its logical moral conclusion, we must also declare that a civilized society does not kill anyone, for any reason, period.

That was the life-affirming perspective of the early church. In their theology no blood could be spilled - no abortion, no capital punishment, no war.

It was a Gospel-centered theology based on the unconditional love of God towards every person, as best exemplified by Jesus.

We would do well to walk in the footsteps of the nonviolent Master and his early followers, proclaiming in word and deed that no life is disposable, and that every person is a beloved child of the God of life!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan and parish gatherings from Santa Clara, Calif. to Baltimore, Md. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net

Her parents have both returned back to the workforce, so I've been hired to go into the family home, and look after Molly four days a week.

She's cute, it has to be said. Like, super cute. Especially the way she wriggles her feet when she's feeding and coos when she's happy.

But it's also damn hard work. The challenges aren't at all what I was expecting. The things you don't think of, like - what do you do with the baby when you need to use the bathroom?

Apparently Molly's sweetness doesn't melt every heart however.

‘Single Mum' Experience #1.
Recently Molly was crying incessantly from teething pain so we went for an hour-long walk to the shops and back. She ended up asleep and I ended up hungry so I went into a bakery. The woman at the counter stopped smiling at the sight of me and all but refused to serve me. I don't know whether it was the pram in her spacious shop (trust me, there was well enough room cos I analysed all the Bishopdale shops for that particular feature before deciding which one to enter) or the fact I looked like a veeeery young solo mother (apparently I still look 16) but either way the shop assistant, an older woman, pursed her lips and tossed my paper bag containing the apple turnover to me.

So I was slightly anxious about how the (mostly retired) people would react to having a rather loud baby at a serene weekday mass.

‘Single Mum' Experience #2.
I staggered into Saint Teresa's balancing Molly and Molly's bag, thumped down onto a pew and belatedly noticed adoration was going on before mass began. I pulled out some Tiny Teddies for Molly to munch on to keep her quiet; she squealed with joy at the sight of the packet. Continue reading

• Jessica Claire in Restless Press

Jessica studied Music Performance at the University of Canterbury and works as both a model and photographer.