I'll apologize in advance for this week's Friday Freakout. I've been trying hard to muster a freakout over anything, anything at all related to kids, parenting, safety, whatever, that can match the freaking out I've been doing since reading that sitting at a computer all day is basically going to give me a heart attack that no amount of gymgoing will prevent. Daddy Types, Daddy Dies, people! How can anything top that?!
But I must try, even if it kills me. Which it obviously will:
- A study finds that Swedish breastfeeding rates and duration are increased by paternity leave, but not paternal unemployment. Could the US just reclassify the latter as the former? It'd be win-win-win! [pubmed/nih via a dt tipster]
- A new study found that an alarming 87.5% of Japanese new dads cited employment status as the cause of their postnatal depression, while 25% cited unintended pregnancy. Which translates into 7 and 2 out of the 8 guys surveyed. Scientific method, people! [pubmed/nih]
- "Children's development is influenced by the quantity and quality of father involvement (FI) in their care," summarizes a paediatrician in Australia who is apparently getting his research updates delivered by outrigger canoe. [pubmed/nih]
- Just like in humans, gay penguins make the best parents. And by gay, I mean, loves showtunes. [eurekalert]
- Baby concierges are neither hot, nor new, nor even baby concierges. Baby concierges are parents. Or nannies. Pregnancy concierges also are neither hot nor new, nor anywhere near as annoying as journalists who call every thing they hear about "the hottest new thing." [nyt via dt reader andrew]
- Some mom is suing because the rolled up sheets of fruit-flavored corn syrup she's been buying are not as healthy as actual fruit. Or corn. Or even syrup, probably. [nydailynews]
- This hillbilly anti-antivaccination Vaccine Song is that it's not as catchy as the hiphop anti-vaccine Vaccine Song. Which I guess is part of the point, but still. [youtube]
- Neither of which are as embarrassing as this crunchy wingnut white guy Vaccine Song rap [youtube]
- All this, of course, assumes that it's the Vaccine Song genre's depth and breadth that's causing the freakout, not its very existence.
I learned about the desk-job-is-going-to-kill-me story yesterday. The original study apparently assigns values to activities you can do during the day--"changing a light bulb" is a "1," et c. For humorous effect, they listed "slaughtering animals" as a "7." I was, of course, slaughtering animals at the time.
Now I'm at my desk. It's a death/death situation!