Scientific Studies

There are always ridiculous headlines summarizing the results of scientific studies that I am really embarrassed to say grab my attention time and again. Examples include ‘Drinking alcohol makes you live longer and escape cancer and Alzheimer’s’ and ‘Being a mother can be a stressful endeavor and result in early onset psychosis’ (is that something that can be early onset? granted I made that headline up so I say yes it can). I read these and shout yes! I knew I wasn’t crazy….mostly. However, there are certain headlines that drive me bonkers. I get that grad students need to publish and so they perform studies that are so necessary to our understanding life; groundbreaking work that will reveal the true nature of our existence. Today on the news they had something to the effect of ‘Sleeping less than 6 hours a night can make you underperform normal tasks’. That is so incredibly interesting because I was wondering why when I had a baby I was stumbling around like an idiot. I thought it was those hormones. They are after all named after women of ill repute. Oh and recently, ‘Helicoptering parents make anxious kids’. Apparently they did a study of college kids whose parents have to talk to them every freaking day at least once when they are in colleggggee – the time when you are sent out to sink or swim. These very kids are not as confident as their drunken roommates.

I gathered that I was a reckless mom because I was frequently at parties and I didn’t really pay much attention to my kids besides making sure they weren’t killing themselves every once in a while. Turns out I was being a great parent. I wasn’t just making a kid, I was creating a confident, independent girl who one day would score the winning goal in the group round of the world cup. Oh shit she’s a girl. Maybe she could one day be running for President like Hilary…oh wait, there’s those genes and of course the minor problem of not being rich. Either way I was doing a good thing by paying less than adequate attention to my kid. Yes, there are times that you can have your cake and eat it too. Most of those times you have to be wealthy, but there are some times when you can just squeak by and I totally own those times.

Check out this one – a little bit of awesome…. I prefer this article.