A young patient with a rare brain disease tells what it’s like to be a husband and father, while watching his capabilities and his freedoms dwindle. More patients will share their stories in the coming weeks. At 44, Matt Rouse has the kind of laid-back, boyish charm that might lead you to mistake him for a post grad type from across the room. His nimble wit and easy way belie his condition – frontotemporal degeneration (FTD), a rare form of dementia that strikes earlier than others, destroying fundamental aspects of a person’s behavior, personality, judgment, empathy, and decision-making. Matt is the first to admit that he’s not yet come to terms with the year-old diagnosis. Living in constant fear that a blip in his behavior ... Continue reading →

Parents (magazine) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I used to keep a running tally of the affronts against fathers perpetuated by so-called parenting magazines: the mom-only contests, the snarky articles suggesting ways to use child-rearing techniques to train husbands, the beauty tips. Every once in a while I’d hit a breaking point and post a brief rant about the myriad ways that dads were excluded from what were nominally gender-neutral titles. The response to those rants was equally dispiriting. I’d receive hundreds of comments, most of them repeating the same rationale for the decision to ignoring fathers in “parenting” magazines: dads didn’t want to read about parenting. That is, of course, demonstrably untrue, and in the last decade, a number of smart publications have proven that there ... Continue reading →

It was satisfying to watch the two Presidential candidates find their ways to absolutely opposed positions on gay marriage. Elections are supposed to present us with clear choices like that, but they usually don’t. Just two weeks earlier, on an issue that affects many more people, Barack Obama had taken a stand that he evidently thought would also showcase a sharp contrast between him and Mitt Romney. A temporary reduction in an interest rate that makes some federal student loans more affordable is due to expire on July 1st, and Obama called for its extension. Republicans in Congress have fought Obama on the interest rate, saying that keeping it low would add to the federal deficit. Last month, in response, Obama delivered a rip-roaring address ... Continue reading →

Anderson to 'Human Barbie': 'You're Dreadful' Tuesday, May 22, 2012 8:57AM It was the first time this season Anderson cut an interview short... Sarah Burge, who reportedly spent over $500,000 on plastic surgery and calls herself the “Human Barbie,” gave her now 8-year-old daughter "plastic surgery vouchers" on her 7th birthday, and encouraged her teenaged daughter to get Botox. After asking Burge about why she’d encourage her daughter to get plastic surgery and why photos of her daughter on a stripper pole were released to the press, Anderson felt she was only seeking publicity, and said, “I honestly have nothing more to talk to you about.” He added, “I try to be really polite to all my guests. I think you’re dreadful and I honestly ... Continue reading →

Worth a Thousand Words: Bina D'Costa Tracked Down the Australian Doctor Who Performed Late-Term Abortions on 1971 Rape Survivors. Image Credit: BDNews The post- Liberation War generation of Bangladesh know stories from 1971 all too well. Our families are framed and bound by the history of this war. What Bangladeshi family has not been touched by the passion, famine, murders and blood that gave birth to a new nation as it seceded from Pakistan? Bangladesh was one of the only successful nationalist movements post-Partition. Growing up, stories of the Mukti Bahini, (Bengali for “Freedom Fighter”), were the stories that raised us. My mother told me in 1971, you would send out the men in your family to look in large public parks for the bodies ... Continue reading →

Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife You’re not where you want to be at work, or you’re happy with where you at but the next level beckons, or you’re totally outside of the field you want to be in and you want to know how to get in. Is it them or is it you, and what can you do to climb up the ladder? There may be reasons why those around you aren’t taking you as seriously as you want them to. TIP #1: It’s the way you talk. I’ve noticed? This habit? Among women? In the workplace? Over the last few year? To make everything they say? Sound like it’s a question? This is particularly prevalent among young women. Talking like this does ... Continue reading →

The original lead dramatis personæ of House, M.D.: Wilson, Cuddy, Chase, House, Cameron, and Foreman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Tonight, House, M.D., the iconic medical show, draws to a close. If you’ve been living in an opiate-induced haze, the show followed a Sherlock-Holmes-like doctor at a major, fictional Princeton, N.J., hospital who has an uncanny knack for sifting through a dizzying array of weird symptoms to diagnose and save the patients no other physician could. House defined our public image of a doctor in the naughts, in the same way M.A.S.H. did in the ‘70s and E.R. did in the 1990s. As played by actor Hugh Laurie, Dr. Gregory House was a genius wrapped in vengeful id, a Vicodin-addicted misanthrope who spent his days playing pranks ... Continue reading →

A new analysis by the New York Times today shows that more men are entering female-dominated professions like teaching and nursing, in an effort to achieve job stability, financial security and more time for family life. This employment shift has accounted for nearly a third of men’s total job growth from 2000 to 2010. However, while it’s good for men and potentially good for families, it’s a bit more complicated for the women in these fields. The historical difficulties for women’s success in the workforce are well documented. First there was a closed door. Once it was opened and women started flooding the labor market and taking on the male-dominated corporate world, they then hit a glass ceiling—the unseen barrier that keeps them from rising ... Continue reading →

Some new research came out late last week on stay-at-home mothers that’s bound to create a new battleground in the so-called mommy wars. Gallup reports that stay-at-home mothers are more likely to experience depression, sadness, and anger than their counterparts who work for pay outside the home. Of the more than 60,000 women it interviewed, “women with young children at home who are employed for pay…report experiencing sadness and anger a lot of the day ‘yesterday,’” it says. Meanwhile, the emotional state of a mother who’s employed is about as strong as that of a working woman who doesn’t have children at home. It would seem, then, that it’s the staying at home part that’s causing the negative mental state. What’s interesting, however, is how ... Continue reading →