When I am not too busy with my day job, I occasionally dive into the Twitter for DadWagon. And today I ran across a company there–UpSpring–that makes a product called MilkScreen. I don’t know about the rest of their inventions–the toddler-tether and the hip-squeezer seem a touch absurd–but the idea behind MilkScreen is inspired: a home test that will tell you in a few minutes how much alcohol is in mom’s breast milk (not, as the post’s title might suggest, whether you’ve been drinking breast milk).

Does it work? Who the hell knows. But I love the idea: it’s trying to find out how much alcohol there is in the milk, not whether there’s alcohol in the milk. It’s a huge difference: in a world of baby products that try to deliver a ridiculous (and probably unattainable) level of safety and comfort for the kid, this one is designed to help nursing moms get their drink on.  Instead of having to endure an all-out prohibition on drinking while breastfeeding, women can figure out if they’ve had just the right amount of alcohol, or maybe even if they haven’t had enough: I’m testing low, honey, pour me another shot.

So what does too much alcohol do to babies? UpSpring has reposted a study from Pedriatics which mostly makes me feel bad for the test babies, not because they had alcohol, but because they were given ethanol instead of something yummy like 16-year Lagavulin.  Note to scientists: ethanol is for cars.

The moms in the study were no good at guessing whether their kids had been given alcohol or not. But the machines picked up that the babies were sleeping less after some of this ethanol consumption. Nothing more serious, just bad sleep. So maybe you shouldn’t dip their binky in brandy like our grandparents used to do it, but neither should you succumb to the current anti-alcohol mania (this comment thread seems typically hysterical, with lots of dubious warnings like “Babies… could DIE from alcohol poisoning from even a few drops”).

Anyhow, I am officially a fan of MilkScreen, and am eagerly awaiting future versions that I hope will let you know if your breast milk has an acceptable level of nicotine, goofball, whizbang, yellow bam, water-water, wet daddy, gorilla biscuits, polvo de angel, Mexican brown, chalk, crink, wolf, worm and all of the other little yummies my wife swore off while she was breastfeeding.

This one made the rounds quickly this morning: the Texas State Board of Education banned Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?, written by Bill Martin, Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle, because Martin has the same name as an academic who once wrote about Marxism. One of my old colleagues at Time sent the story around, and then blogger the Zero Boss posted his reaction, which was about the same as mine. Namely, the board of education is running its libraries like the TSA runs its no-fly list–all zeal, paranoia and utter incompetence. Here’s how the decision went down, according to the original story:

Hardy said she was trusting the research of another board member, Terri Leo, R-Spring, when she made her motion and comments about Martin’s writing. Leo had sent her an e-mail alerting her to Bill Martin Jr.’s listing on the Borders.com Web site as the author of Ethical Marxism. Leo’s note also said she hadn’t read the book.

“She said that that was what he wrote, and I said: ‘ … It’s a good enough reason for me to get rid of someone,’ ” said Hardy, who has complained vehemently about the volume of names being added to the curriculum standards.

This is an inviting story on a few fronts. Everyone likes to mock Texas (though in fairness I’d expect this kind of thing more from my home state). Also, the fact that this poorly researched decision came from the board of education is delightful: The board is clearly made up of Texas’ goodest teechers.

Although, who the hell knows? They do sell the book in Russia. And some godless Russian mommyblog even suggests a lesson plan with the book, for mercy’s sake.

But I’ll leave the Zero Blogger the last word, since he summed up, far better than the Dallas Morning News ever would, why this is disturbing:

Martin Jr. was explicitly excluded because the Board believed he championed ideas inimical to capitalism. Not in his children’s books, mind you, but… over there, on some other bookshelf.  Shoddy research aside, how frightening is that as a standard? Does this mean that students in Texas can’t readAnimal Farm because George Orwell was a socialist? That they can’t analyze the poetry of the Fascist Ezra Pound? Can’t paint in the Commie style of Frida Kahlo? Apparently, considering authors and artists on their merits is too taxing for the Texas SBoE, which is more concerned with whittling down a “volume of names” than educating its students.

The next time a conservative decries “political correctness,” point to this story. Censorship isn’t an ideology, but the attitude of a narrow mind.

Birthin' Babies!

(This is the Tantrum, in which the four Dadwagon editors debate an important, or sometimes pointless, issue in parenthood.)

Good ole Butterfly Mcqueen–certainly captured the whole deal about birth didn’t she (for those of you who don’t know the reference, McQueen is the actress best known for playing Prissy in Gone With The Wind, who uttered the famous line “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies!”).

So putting aside the fact that I am referencing an actress named Butterfly who played a character named Prissy, I’d like to say a few words on this whole birthing thing. First, what the hell is it with birthing? Are we so busy as a society that we can’t taking the time and actually fucking say give birth? I did it–took about one-millionth of more of my time, and truly, I do feel better for it.

Back to birth. I mean, yes, as fathers, we do come through the experience largely unscathed, and certainly nothing we have to do during birth compares to mothers. In fact, one might say, well, wait for it, uh, yeah, that’s right–father’s don’t have any skin in the game! Hah! But hell, not having a right to an opinion has in no way stopped DadWagon from vociferously expressing an opinion before. Why would it now?

Before I do just that, let me state that while I may not think very much of my ex-wife,  she was a champion on that particular day of J.P.’s birth–strong, brave, moving, all that stuff. It’s no small matter to create life. I don’t imagine anything that I or my colleagues will be writing this week will contradict that notion. Women and birth–strong coffee.

I was thinking about birthing recently because a good friend of mine has, after many years of trying, finally succeeded in getting pregnant…with twins. I was talking to her husband the other night, and trying not laugh with malicious glee as he told me that they had signed up for a birthing class.

My main memory of this experience, after the giant volume of anti-doctor rhetoric, was the video they show of actual births. For some reason, they couldn’t just show you a normal, in-hospital birth. It was all hydobirthing, and incense-birthing, and you know, clips of Amazonian tribal ladies dropping out kids while they foraged for wild herbs and ritually scarred themselves.

Not inspiring. In fact, the ashen looks on the faces of my classmates was kinda priceless. Every bit of paranoia the instructor had tried to drum into us during the class (you’re evil if you don’t breast-feed until your child is thirty; midwifery is next to godliness; Leche League good–cafe con leche bad) went out the window, and all we could think was–the mother’s are fucked.

So, in that light, because I’m an asshole, I sent a link to this site chock full of birth videos to my two friends. It only hints at the joys of the birthing industry, which from my perspective is a big business all set up to scare the bejesus out of prospective parents.

There, then, is the crux of the Tantrum this week. How do we here at Dadwagon feel about an industry designed to freak you out? Personally, I feel like less information about what you’re going to go through at birth is probably best. But that’s not an entirely defensible idea. Perhaps by week’s end we’ll have a clearer sense.

Enjoy the horror, folks.

Pure genius from the Foodie Blog at SF Weekly, passed on by the mighty John F. I am going to break this out for my 4-year-old daughter the next time she goes scrounging for floor gorp. I may not convince her, but at least she will learn what an Emausaurus is, and why it should fear the Megalosaurus.