Parent Network collects and highlights quality information on parenting and healthy family lifestyles by sharing stories, research and news that support parents all over the world. Our community connects you with the insight, inspiration and information needed to expand in the ever changing role of parent through segments via Parent Planet; resources on Parent Network; and a spotlight on teenagers with Teen Talk. Be a part of our network, participate! Build your community and join the PTVN family today.
![logo_bm2[1]](http://www.ptvn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/logo_bm211.png){kind=logo}
By Vicki Elson, MA, CCE, CD
It matters how babies are born. Whether the mother is richer, poorer, younger, older, straighter, queerer, single, partnered, polite, mischievous, wild, pious, lucky, struggling, pink, golden, or chocolate, she and her family deserve love, respect, appropriate evidence-based medical care, helpful resources, and support. When a child is born, the future begins, and so does a whole lot of laundry. (more…)
When my husband and I first decided to start a family, I knew right away that a natural birth with little or no medical intrusions is what I wanted and what my healthy 39-year (young) body could handle. My belief was that women have given birth since the start of time, that our bodies know what to do by some archaic lineage, and that whether I understood what was happening scientifically or not was totally irrelevant. (more…)
![Bon-Headshot-better-res-150x150[1]](http://www.ptvn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Bon-Headshot-better-res-150x15011.jpg)
by Bonnie Harris
Is this the age of guilty parents? Have mothers always felt this guilty? I don’t think guilt was part of my mother’s generation of parenting—even though she felt plenty guilty…but we won’t go there.
Revolution requires a pendulum swing. We know so much more in the past two decades about brain development and children’s needs that our current revolution is fighting hard to banish traditional parenting modes of fear, pain and suffering to get desired behavior. (more…)
These days, most of us are looking out the window waiting for that magic hour or moment to say: “Ok c’mon kids! We’re going for a hike!” Are you itching to spend more time outside with your family as the summer months approach? Here are some wonderful guidelines for parents to be teachers when out in a field, in a pea patch, backyard or by the window garden.
