Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as the source of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages. But how dangerous is pink and pretty, anyway? Being a princess is just make-believe; eventually they grow out of it . . . or do they?In search of answers, Peggy Orenstein visited Disneyland, trolled American Girl Place, and met parents of beauty-pageant preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. The stakes turn out to be higher than she ever imagined. From premature sexualization to the risk of depression to rising rates of narcissism, the potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable—yet armed with awareness and recognition, parents can effectively counterbalance its influence in their daughters' lives.

    Intrauterine insemination is a simple medical procedure that has been available since the 1950s, but doctors were baffled by Jenn's situation. With no man factoring into her relationship, she was disparaged by doctors, given an inaccurate diagnosis, and her medical needs were overlooked.Berney decided to step outside of the system, and, looking into the history of fertility and her own community, she realized queer women have a long history of being disregarded by a patriarchal medical community, and have worked around it to build families on their own terms. In The Other Mothers, Berney reflects on the odds that were stacked against her because of her sexual orientation and envisions a bright future worth fighting for. Writing with clarity, determination, and hope, Berney gives us a wonderful glimpse of what America can be.

    Mom Genes reveals the hard science behind our tenderest maternal impulses, tackling questions such as whether a new mom’s brain ever really bounces back, why mothers are destined to mimic their own moms (or not), and how maternal aggression makes females the world’s most formidable creatures. Part scientific odyssey, part memoir, Mom Genes weaves the latest research with Abigail Tucker’s personal experiences to create a portrait of motherhood.

    God never intended for us to act like "little girls," says Jan Silvious. His goal is for each of us to live as "big girls"-mature Christian women-who are capable of enjoying the richness of life He has planned.In Big Girls Don't Whine, Jan helps women:Move beyond the past and on to healthy relationships, Choose to be proactive rather than let life just "happen,"Discover their full potential,And become everything He made them to be.So how can we tell if we're living life as an immature 'little girl" or a confident "big girl?"A little girl…Is insecureBecomes the victim of circumstancesSays "I can't"ManipulatesA big girl…Is secureRests in God's sovereigntySays, "I can"CommunicatesIn Big Girls Don't Whine, Jan Silvious calls us to be real women in a real world, free to experience a life of full of potential and vision. This book is the how-to manual for making it happen.

    Are you ready for your child's teen years?If you've ever lain awake at night wondering what might be around the corner of your child's adolescence, this book is for you! After more than thirty-eight years of working with more than 2,500 years, Mark Gregston, founder of heartlight, a Christian residential counseling center, introduces Tough Guys and Drama Queens — a must-read "how-to" book for parents of pre-teens and teens with time-tested, biblical techniques to guide you  through these unavoidably challenging years.Mark helps parents realize that some natural parenting approaches are actually counter-productive and therefore totally ineffective.In place of those, he offers tried and true wisdom on the vital importance of relationship, forgiveness, and explains how conflict is actually the precursor to change.Everyday your child is bombarded by highly sexualized culture and over-exposed to words and images that can influence them beyond your reach.your connection to them during these years is critical as is your response to tough issues such as appearance, performance, authority and respect, boundaries, and many more.

    Whisper. Yik Yak. Vine. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media. What it is doing to an entire generation of young women? This the subject of award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales’s riveting and explosive American Girls.With extraordinary intimacy and precision, Sales captures what it feels like to be a girl in America today. From Montclair to Manhattan and Los Angeles, from Florida and Arizona to Texas and Kentucky, Sales crisscrossed the country, speaking to more than two hundred girls, ages thirteen to nineteen, and documenting a massive change in the way girls are growing up, a phenomenon that transcends race, geography, and household income. American Girls provides a disturbing portrait of the end of childhood as we know it and of the inexorable and ubiquitous experience of a new kind of adolescence—one dominated by new social and sexual norms, where a girl’s first crushes and experiences of longing and romance occur in an accelerated electronic environment; where issues of identity and self-esteem are magnified and transformed by social platforms that provide instantaneous judgment. What does it mean to be a girl in America in 2016? It means coming of age online in a hyper-sexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism and a sometimes self-undermining notion of feminist empowerment; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. From beauty gurus to slut-shaming to a disconcerting trend of exhibitionism, Nancy Jo Sales provides a shocking window into the troubling world of today’s teenage girls. Provocative and urgent, American Girls is destined to ignite a much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate unprecedented new challenges.

    They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting--sad, afraid, angry, and silent. Kindlon and Thompson set out to answer this basic, crucial question: What do boys need that they're not getting? They illuminate the forces that threaten our boys, teaching them to believe that "cool" equals macho strength and stoicism. Cutting through outdated theories of "mother blame," "boy biology," and "testosterone," the authors shed light on the destructive emotional training our boys receive--the emotional miseducation of boys.Kindlon and Thompson make a compelling case that emotional literacy is the most valuable gift we can offer our sons, urging parents to recognize the price boys pay when we hold them to an impossible standard of manhood. They identify the social and emotional challenges that boys encounter in school and show how parents can help boys cultivate emotional awareness and empathy--giving them the vital connections and support they need to navigate the social pressures of youth.

    Analyzing data from the psychoanalyst’s couch to the hidden history of wet nursing, psychologist Shari L. Thurer wends her way from the Stone Age to the age of Hillary Rodham Clinton, painting a vivid, often frightening picture of life for mothers and children in a time when their roles were constructed by men. Along the way, she debunks myth after myth—exposing the not-so-golden ages of Classical Greece and the Italian Renaissance, and revealing the pervasive ideal of Dr. Spock’s selfless, stay-at-home mother as the historical aberration it actually was. A work of impassioned scholarship and astonishing range, The Myths of Motherhood does nothing less than recast our conception of good mothering.

    Melissa Stanton’s The Stay-at-Home Survival Guide is an all-encompassing, truth-telling how-to book that addresses the many practical and psychological issues facing stay-at-home moms today.How do you create time for yourself? Is there really time to do it all (feed the kids, keep them busy, clean the house, balance the checkbook, and take a shower)? How do you deal with the absence of the “professional you"?An invaluable resource for mothers, The Stay-at-Home Survival Guide includes interviews with stay-at-home moms, discussions with experts (family therapists, educators, medical specialists, career counselors), checklists to help you make the most of your time and keep you balanced, and Melissa Stanton’s own experiences leaving a career as an editor for People magazine to become a stay-at-home mom herself.

    Paoletti's journey through the history of children's clothing began when she posed the question, "When did we start dressing girls in pink and boys in blue?" To uncover the answer, she looks at advertising, catalogs, dolls, baby books, mommy blogs and discussion forums, and other popular media to examine the surprising shifts in attitudes toward color as a mark of gender in American children's clothing. She chronicles the decline of the white dress for both boys and girls, the introduction of rompers in the early 20th century, the gendering of pink and blue, the resurgence of unisex fashions, and the origins of today's highly gender-specific baby and toddler clothing.

    In the few short years between grade school and high school, girls go through an incredible number of physical and mental changes, making this the most formative—and precarious—time in their lives. Groups form and turn on each other; classmates whisper about who’s saying what to whom; childhood friends tell trusted secrets; and just deciding where to sit in the lunchroom can be a daily struggle. Then there’s the biological wave of changes—all the growth spurts, new curves, and new hormones—and suddenly, there are more grown-up things to worry about like dealing with guys and sexuality. All the while, they’re constantly bombarded by contradictory and confusing messages from society and the media—not to mention the world of video chat, texting, Facebook, and Twitter. In 2002, when she was only fifteen, Haley Kilpatrick created Girl Talk, a nonprofit organization of more than 35,000 members dedicated to helping girls deal with these issues. The Drama Years is packed with the voices of tweens, who share their experiences, anecdotes, and advice on everything from stress to body image to getting along with parents. This is a survival guide written from the trenches, packed with real life examples and practical strategies, to help parents and daughters survive The Drama Years.

    But it can be plenty tough, too: Around the clock, you’re working to keep your little one healthy, teach her the difference between right and wrong, and make sure none of her little fingers find their way to the electrical outlets, the dog’s nose, or grandpop’s cup of coffee. In YOU: Raising Your Child, Drs. Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen, the New York Times #1 bestselling authors of the YOU health series, help you navigate the often tricky journey of parenting with the ultimate guide to raising a happy, healthy child. Dr. Mehmet Oz—host of television’s The Dr. Oz Show—and Dr. Michael Roizen—chief wellness officer and chair of the Wellness Institute of the Cleveland Clinic—have sold millions of books informing readers about healthy dieting, aging, and overall health. Picking up where their prior book, YOU: Having a Baby, left off, the docs provide oh-wow information and insider advice to help parents understand the biology and psychology of raising a child from birth to school age. With humor and cutting-edge biological insights, the authors address everything from troubleshooting infant health issues to creating an environment that supports the emotional and intellectual development of your growing child. They talk about the various approaches to parenting—are you a Marshmallow Mommy or an Iron Maiden, passive or hyperinvolved? The docs help you identify your style of parenting, encouraging passive parents to create clear boundaries and hypervigilant ones to step back more often and let their kids develop. You will learn to become the ideal parent: firm but flexible. The docs also provide an extensive overview of nuts-and-bolts health problems— from asthma to fevers to emergency room visits and the sensitive issue of vaccinations. In YOU: Raising Your Child, America’s most trusted doctors, who co-host a daily Sirius/XM radio program for Oprah Radio, once again come to the rescue with wisdom about how to provide an enriching environment with the ultimate goal of raising a child with a healthy body—and mind. As the docs say in their introduction: “Our goal is to teach you how to create the optimal environment for your child—an environment that’s most conducive to your child thriving in all areas of life, physically, emotionally, socially, and developmentally. Why? Because the latest research shows us that the environment—as defined not only by physical space but also by the behaviors of parents and caregivers—is the number-one determinant of your child’s future.”  *** YOU: Raising Your Child offers a brand-new way to think about parenting. Imagine child development—and your child’s journey though life—as a ride down a long, often unpredictable river. You are the guide, there to control the direction and speed that you travel. For the fi rst few years of their lives, your children are your precious cargo—the passengers who take in everything they see and who learn from you how to paddle on their own. As the guide, you can control the path you take and the environments you choose to travel in—with the goal of creating a healthy and happy life for your child. Here’s just a sample of what you’ll learn: • The mind relies on the environment to give clues and signals about how it’s supposed to develop and what it’s supposed to learn. Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz show you how to create the best learning landscape possible to help your child thrive. • Breast milk provides the perfect concoction of nutrients to help protect your baby against infection, asthma, and many other conditions (it also burns 500 calories a day to help you lose that baby weight!). But if you aren’t able to breastfeed, we have plenty of tips on exactly what and how much to feed your baby to make sure that he or she is getting the best possible diet from day one. • Get the truth about high fevers and learn the most accurate way to take a temperature (it’s not what you think!). You’ll also get insider tricks for handling everything from earaches to febrile seizures.  • Whether your child is allergic to gluten or peanut butter, there are two dominant theories about why more kids have allergies today than ever before. YOU: Raising Your Child explains them and tells you unique ways to prevent and treat allergies in your child. Our goal is for YOU: Raising Your Child to be the map that you need to safely navigate the waters of your baby’s life from day one to day 2,190, and in it we will give you all the tools you need to steer the best possible course.

    

    Breastfeeding nightmares, eating dinner with one hand, soft play hell and chronic sleep deprivation - but also the sheer beauty of falling in love again and the amazing discovery of what it's like to have a family - these are all captured in Sketchy Muma's glorious drawings.This is the perfect gift book for both young and experienced parents. Anna Lewis understands the light and shade that comes with motherhood, and it is those universal truths that will connect all those parents who delight in her sketches.

    She also suggests when to switch toilet-training methods. The anecdotes in each chapter's "Stories from the Bathroom" illustrate how different approaches can make toilet training successful and trouble-free for both parents and children. And if you're on the receiving end of criticism regarding your child's toilet-training (you know, the "But all my children were potty-trained by the time they were..."), you'll appreciate Faull's tips on handling unsolicited advice.