Fred Savage baby, holiday shopping and more: Our parenting news roundup
Fred Savage baby announcement, pols Joe Biden and Cory Booker try living like the people by shopping at Costco and going on foodstamps, US birthrates plunge, and ... in the best news for parents child sex abuse crimes drop.
(Page 2 of 3)
If that’s the case, though, he’s still no match for Newark Mayor Cory Booker. That same day, Mr. Booker told the Associated Press that he will live on food stamps for a week, starting Nov. 27. He has challenged Twitter followers and even some celebrities to join him in the effort – part of a campaign by a number of public figures to show the difficulties of living on government assistance. (In New Jersey the monthly food stamp benefit is around $134 a month. Booker says he will be limited to $1.40 per meal.)
Skip to next paragraph
Correspondent
Stephanie Hanes is the lead writer for Modern Parenthood and a longtime Monitor correspondent. She lives in Andover, Mass. with her husband, Christopher, her daughter, Madeline Thuli, a South Africa Labrador retriever, Karoo, and an imperialist cat named Kipling.
Recent posts
-
05.17.13
The Office finale: How I made this sad moment a happy one for my family -
05.16.13
Disney misses the point in response to Merida petition -
05.16.13
Kirstie Alley slams Abercrombie (+video): Moms, will you be shopping there? -
05.15.13
Drunk ASU student left at hospital with a Post-it note stuck to him -
05.14.13
Disney Princess Merida makeover: A 7-year-old’s verdict on the 'Brave' heroine
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Next week, the pols reveal their favorite couponing strategies.
Sexual assault down
Here’s a positive, if sober, news item that came out this week: Researchers at the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center said that data coming from a number of sources seem to indicate that sexual crimes against children have declined significantly since the 1990s. Violent crime overall has also dropped during this period, but there are conflicting reports as to whether physical (not sexual) child-abuse has declined.
Some of the stats:
- FBI statistics based on local law enforcement crime reports show a 35 percent drop in sex crimes overall between 1992 and 2010; with 50 percent of rape victims younger than 18, these numbers suggest a drop in child assaults.
- The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, showed a 62 percent decline in substantiated sexual abuse between 1992 and 2010.
- And the National Survey of Children Exposed to Violence, conducted in 2009, found that 2 percent of children ages two to 17 had been sexually assaulted, down from 3.3 percent in a survey five years earlier.
Sexual assault statistics (and local crime statistics overall, for that matter) are notoriously problematic as far as accuracy and reporting go.
Still, we’ll take it.
No baby boom here
Feel like all of your friends are giving birth these days? Are the post-work get-togethers dwindling? Is holiday party chatter veering dangerously away from hip new restaurants and adventure travel toward strollers and preschools?
Well, we’re here to say that, yup, it’s just you.
A new report from the Pew Research Center, putting together numbers from US Census data and National Vital Statistics Reports from the US Centers for Disease Control, says that the birth rate last year was the lowest in recorded history. Immigrant women having fewer babies was the main reason for the drop, Pew says. (The birth rate for US-born women has been declining for a while.) You can check out our piece on this here for more details.
Previous
These comments are not screened before publication. Constructive debate about the above story is welcome, but personal attacks are not. Please do not post comments that are commercial in nature or that violate any copyright[s]. Comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence will be removed. If you find a comment offensive, you may flag it.