My wife and I want a divorce. We’re going to get a divorce. It’s been a long time coming and we are both okay with it. But we also love our four-year-old and don’t want to divorce for his sake. We think we will put our life on hold for a few years — until he is 9 so we are both at home. It’s a sacrifice, we know, but we both strongly agree on this and think it’s for the best....

The team at Visual Capitalist wanted to find out which country drank the most beer. So, using data from the Kirin Holdings Company, Limited’s Global Beer Consumption Report, which looks at beer consumption in over 170 major countries and regions, Visual Capitalist created a handy, easy-to-read graphic that gives us an excellent worldwide snapshot. And it turns out that although beer is this country’s favorite alcoholic beverage, it doesn’t top the list in terms of total consumption—but it’s close....

I’m Lazy “I always say that I’ll clean the basement when I have the time. I’ll organize the garage when I have the time. I’ll start writing a book when I have the time. Well, guess what? For nine weeks, I’ve had the time and I haven’t done any of that. I’m ashamed. I really am. Because it’s been a hard, two month look at how lazy I’ve become. I could make excuses, like ‘It was hard to keep track of the days....

So, is it OK to judge? It is, as it turns out. “I totally judge people by their stroller. Some strollers cost more than my first car. It says a lot about your personality,” says Jennifer Beall Saxton, the founder and CEO of Tot Squad, a service that connects parents to experts in particular fields. “It’s hilarious how many people become obsessed with strollers. Some people have 11 strollers. Others get the free one off the curb....

Your Second Toe Matters Most Scientists suspect the length of a person’s ring finger is a potential biomarker of the amount testosterone they got in the womb, and the length of the second toe might signal the same thing. One study found this effect especially pronounced in women, who were more competitive and physically aggressive the longer their second toes. But the effect was salient in men, too. You know what they say about long second toes…...

Dana B. Myers and her husband, Charlie, live in Miami with their two kids, who are five and eight. They also own and operate the Booty Parlor, a sex toy and intimacy store. Before kids, they considered themselves freewheeling and fun. After their first kid, however, Dana struggled to reconcile the old Dana with the new. In fact, they both had a very hard time adapting. Using their expertise in sex and relationships, they eventually found the routine that helped them find rhythm — and keep their relationship happy....

The Way You Chew Neuroscientists suspect that some people are enraged by the sound of other people’s chewing, slurping, and other unpleasant sound-making because their brains are especially sensitive to those noises. The condition is known as misophonia and it may affect as much as 20 percent of the population. What separates individuals who are reactive about chewing from those who are fine with it might come down to differences in their frontal lobes, one study suggests....

The misconception that there is an ideal preschool-age rests in a misunderstanding of the difference between quality child care and preschool. “Child care provides preschool, but preschool doesn’t provide care,” explains Nikki Darling-Kuria, program manager of professional development at child-development nonprofit Zero to Three and author of Brain-Based Early Learning Activities: Connecting Theory and Practice. Darling-Kuria notes that parents who already have their kid in a good child-care setting may not need to transition to preschool at all....

“Sometimes kids do it just because they’re following an instruction and trying to get out of whatever just happened,” says Jamie Perillo, child psychologist and founder of Inspired Families. “But having them apologize is helpful to understanding forgiveness.” (And probably also to get other parents off your back.) A kid’s understanding of the consequence of their actions and the process of forgiveness is constantly developing, and parents play a big role in how it evolves....

No matter the internal or external motivation, posting a picture of your kid online is, of course, far more complicated than framing a photo. A social media post isn’t as simple as a printed photograph. Photographs are physical objects that can only be seen in person. They can’t be mined for data. And if the child in the photo later became embarrassed or upset by the image, they’d be thrown away and forgotten (or to hide away until they’re adults to look at and laugh) instead of hanging on a worldwide digital platform in perpetuity....

Mayor Pete’s response, which might have been overlooked by the press in September of last year, has now, over a year later, gone viral after people on Twitter brought the comments back up again as an incredibly empathetic way to view abortion that happens that late in the pregnancy. It’s also the type of message that matters greatly to parents, who have gone through pregnancy either successfully or unsuccessfully, and know what it means to have to terminate a pregnancy late in the term....

If you’d prefer to talk about paternity leave from an empirical perspective, rather than an abstractly depressing one, then you will relish the work of Brad Harrington, director of Boston College’s Center for Work and Family. Harrington has spent the better part of the last decade authoring a number of illuminating studies that have quantified just how bad of a job our society is doing helping new dads connect with their babies....

Luckily, babies are resilient, and in the vast majority of cases in which a baby falls or is dropped a small distance, there’s little cause for concern. When a baby falls, the most important thing to do is calmly assess the damage and watch for the signs of serious injury. In fact, the way parents react to a baby’s actions teaches them how to respond to it themselves. If a parent overreacts to minor slips and trips, a baby may have trouble learning resilience....

Against Vince Guaraldi’s lovely jazz piano score, everyone’s favorite bald blockhead frets forlornly, and herein lies the brilliance of A Charlie Brown Christmas. For sad sacks like Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown, and many of us, the world can feel like a rollicking party that you were pointedly not invited to year-round. That feeling is particularly intense during the Christmas season when the pressure to be holly and jolly is unrelenting....

READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to Parenting in Other Countries In Bébé, Druckerman, the subtitular American mother, depicts her French counterparts as ineffably stylish, unswervingly strict, and deeply loving mothers of equally stylish, polite children and also as defenders of their own private lives outside the penumbra of parenting.. The Gospel of Bébé puts a lot of emphasis on saying non firmly and establishing inviolate rules for children concerning etiquette, eating, and sleeping....

Here’s why women are shopping for divorced men. Divorced Men Have Done The Commitment Thing (At Least Once) Marriages that end in divorce last about eight years on average, according to several decades of U.S. Census data. That a man can keep a relationship going for eight years shows at least some commitment, and studies suggest commitment is hard to come by. Although divorce may signal to some that when the going gets tough, you get going — many savvy women know that anyone whose willing to stick around for nearly a decade is worth a second glance....

Why Button Batteries Are Such a Danger to Kids Button batteries appeal to kids because they’re shiny, smooth, easy to grab, and even easier to fit inside their mouths — all reasons that make these batteries a choking hazard. But it doesn’t hugely matter whether your kid swallows a button battery or gets it lodged in their throat. That’s because the major danger with button batteries is that acid within them can ooze when the batteries become wet, like with saliva....

“Gossip has gotten a lot of bad publicity. But the definition is merely casual or unmonitored conversation about others,” says psychotherapist Janet Zinn, adding that it doesn’t have to refer to throwing people under the bus, and offering some good news: “Men gossip a lot more than perceived. They tend to gossip in ways that indicate that they can connect with others.” Still, there are some psychological reasons men may be less eager to engage in gossip than women....

My husband wants my 18-month-old son to play with toy guns and I absolutely don’t. Should I let my kids play with toy guns? When my children were small (they are now in their 30s) I started off with some pretty weird ideas. To begin with, I was under the vague impression that a baby arrived as a blank sheet that you could write on. Wrong, as I very quickly discovered — you have a small person there, with their own likes and dislikes, and there is very little that you, as a mere parent, can do to change those....

The Science Behind Weight Gain in the Face A chubby face is a result of extra fat deposits building up around the sides of a person’s face. This causes it to become gradually rounder, fuller, and puffier. Medically, this is called moon face. “Facial bloating will tend to fluctuate day to day depending on the underlying issue causing it,” says Joseph Cruise, M.D., a plastic surgeon in Orange County, California. “Excess facial fat typically occurs from weight gain resulting from a poor diet, lack of exercise, aging, or genetic conditions....