By what measures are boys stunted? We can see it when we look at how they’re doing academically. There’s a growing gender gap. In 1980, the National Endowment for the Arts surveyed American teenagers asking who reads for fun in their spare time. At that time, there was a small gender gap with girls more likely to do so. Recently they did the same survey and found the gender gap has become a chasm, and girls today are actually reading somewhat less than they did then....

Anatomically, this should be obvious. The Whatever-It-Is in the Hat has small ears, round eyes, no snout to speak of, only a handful of whiskers, and long snaking tale. What seems clear is that Dr. Seuss chose the words cat and hat because he knew that toddlers could pronounce them and then just drew whatever he wanted to draw. I noticed this after my toddler quickly picked up on the narrative misdirection....

Holding my son, looking at him with my wife, watching him discover the world. EVERYTHING makes me cry. I’m not a constant blubbering mess, but it turns out my apartment is much dustier than I remember. Right now maybe you’re giving me the benefit of the doubt. “Those are life moments.” But here’s the other thing: I can no longer watch television or movies without crying. Does your HBO Doc star kids?...

My take on Religion is a pretty standard College-Freshman-Back-From-His-First-Semester-Thanksgiving-Table take: Human beings are tribal and need structure. Religion provides human beings with a moral framework. It helps us ascribe meaning and face down the darkness that comes after we die. Religion also leads to war, hate, violence, judgment, fundamentalism, and is slowly poisoning the United States from the inside out. When I fell in love with my wife, I knew she was Catholic....

Better Homes & Garden did the research, and we confirmed it: Easter Gnomes are really a thing. According to Google Trends, the search for “Easter Gnomes” has increased 92% over the past four years, and we predict that it will go up even more next year. So, what do you do with an Easter Gnome, or really, what’s the point of these? Gnomes, or pixies, originated from Scandinavian folklore and is known as a nisse in Norway....

December rushes past. Most of us don’t have a whole lot of extra time at the end of the year. And yet, doing a little last-minute financial strategizing can be time well spent. That’s especially true for someone like yourself, who has a couple of huge life changes going on. In terms of the house, it’s important to start thinking about the tax implications, which can be significant. Because the standard deduction nearly doubled with the tax cut that went into effect last year – it’s $24,400 for couples with a joint return in 2019 — fewer people are itemizing their deductions now....

Why the doubt? Because research on the topic is limited, and the studies that do exist paint a murky picture: One report in the journal JAMA Dermatology, often cited by the growing number of facial gyms (yes, a gym where guys go to get their jowl exercises on), found that 30 minutes of daily facial exercises, performed for 20 weeks, moderately improved participants’ facial appearance. And South Korean researchers found that people who performed exercises using the face equivalent of a Thighmaster for 30 seconds, twice a day, for eight weeks showed a measurable improvement in their facial muscle structure....

Unless you’ve been stuck under a rock, or you aren’t a parent, you probably know that the United States is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t guarantee federal paid family leave to its workers. While it’s been unconscionable that the United States is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t guarantee paid leave — whether it be sick leave or paternity leave — to its workers beyond paid parental leave for federal employees....

Of course, the first hurdle for parents is understanding when to start offering finger foods. There aren’t really any specific rules on age because, frankly, every child is different. Knowing when to start feeding baby solids is more about understanding the signs that they’re ready, willing and able to start branching out from a liquid diet. “Typically it’s around six months, but you want to look for developmental signs of feeding readiness that can vary from baby to baby,” explains Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Crystal Karges....

What you want to do is focus on strengthening the all-important core, which includes not only your abs but also your lower back, oblique, and glute muscles. Working out these muscle groups as a unit is a far more effective way to tone up than crunches or sit-ups. “Utilizing many core exercises is the key to toning your waist and building core strength,” says Jorge Cruise, celebrity trainer, life coach, and author of The 3 Choices....

As someone who became unhealthily obsessed with Sesame Street following the birth of my first son four years ago, I have to reluctantly agree with Frank Oz. Sesame Street in its current incarnation is not bad by any estimation. It’s still an extraordinarily well-made children’s show but as Oz asserted, it’s overwhelmingly a show for children, and small children at that, and a shadow of what it once was. It’s still good but it used to be brilliant, transcendent, a goddamned work of art, the gold standard of children’s entertainment, one of American entertainment’s all-time greats....

In a video uploaded to Twitch, this video gamer dad masterfully avoids spewing out any curse words in front of his toddler while taking part in a game of what looks to be Player Unknown’s Battlegounds. And things were intense. When an unseen shooter starts lighting him up, the dad erupts in an angry “What the f—” before stopping himself short, finishing off the unsavory phrase with a kid-friendly “firetruck....

Fielder’s Choice Billfold Wallet Everyone can appreciate a gift that’s thoughtful and practical, and this leather wallet from Fielder’s Choice combines the best of both worlds. What makes this billfold so unique is that each is constructed from full-grain U.S. steer hide, and the interior is made with an upcycled piece of baseball mitt leather. Even better? You can send in an old glove and have it repurposed into a wallet, which makes the everyday accessory a deeply personal keepsake that smells of summer and swings in the batter’s box....

Indeed, every single frontrunner candidate has announced fairly comprehensive approaches to curbing gun violence in the United States, which just experienced its 251st mass shooting. Many policies call out Trump administration gun actions by name. Since Trump has become president, he’s lowered the standards for being eligible for purchasing a gun, made it easier to use 3-D printed gun technology, and reversed the ATF ruling that used to prohibit citizens from converting their pistols to rifles....

There’s no better antidote to the kind of panic shopping and hoarding that causes scarcity in the first place than the promise of a reliable consistent supply. This hand sanitizer subscription service has got your back — or in this case, hands. Sanitizer.com is a monthly subscription service that delivers non-toxic sanitizer at non-gougey prices. For $7/month, you get one bottle of sanitizing spray delivered each month, and for $20, you get a monthly pack of three....

The law would prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s a bill that has been on the radar since at least 2015, when Representative David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, first introduced it and has done so in each legislative session since. It even passed the House in 2019 but died in the Senate.The bill was one that President Biden campaigned on while running for President, and the renewed focus on it in the House, Senate, and from the administration is a sign that the bill might have a brighter future than it’s had over the past 7 years....

1. The Right Bag “Generally speaking, usually having one main bag for you and your partner is solid,” Patmor says. “A suitcase or duffel bag suffices for that.” But remember, you’re going to be in the hospital or birthing center for a few days, so you’ll need a few different bags. “Bring a couple of changes of clothes for each of you in your suitcase. And then on top of the main bag bring one or two tote bags full of food....

Hospital Bag Checklist Having the right bags prepped for departure isn’t rocket science, but you can’t pull it all together when she’s throwing pans at your head, which is of course the universal signal for, “Time to get me to the hospital, shit for brains.” Use this checklist to prepare a pair of hospital go bags — his and hers, which is totes adorbs, which is a fantastic first dad pun you can have for free, courtesy of your friends at Fatherly....

If you’re not caught up on the first three seasons of What We Do in the Shadows, a major spoiler is incoming! At the end of its third season, the show audaciously killed off breakout character Colin Robinson, an “Energy Vampire” played by Mark Proksch. Turns out, in the world of vampires, however, death is less a definitive end than a road bump so it was not altogether surprising when a child version of the iconic energy vampire burst out of Colin Robinson’s corpse in the third season’s final episode....

Many of these parents belong to the Boomer generation, a generation built on resolve, self-drive, and relative autonomy. Asking them to surrender those precious concepts can be, to say the least, difficult. But, here we are. We love our aging parents, and we want them to survive this. We also know that many of them are stubborn, obstinate, and difficult. So, it’s time to cock back and ready the kitchen sink — we need to throw everything we can to convince them to lock down....