Brain, Child

Brain, Child Here, my friends, is a magazine for every mother (and possibly father) on my f-list. While most parenting magazines vary by parenting style or (in my experience) devolve into bland children’s clothing and toy fashions, Brain, Child assumes only that you still have a brain and want to use. It’s not how to parent but why we parent, and how we feel about it. The issue that I read was serious and tender and funny. It had two viewpoint essays on whether or not there’s such a thing as too many toys. Both authors made good points; the “yes” stance was taken by Adrienne Martini, whose Hillbilly Gothic I reviewed a while back. There were articles on the effects on your sanity of elimination communication; how real the emotional support provided in on-line groups; a birth mother’s story; an exploration of the movement not to try to get people with autism and other thing commonly labeled as disabilities to fit into mainstream society. Perhaps my favorite – I’ll just give you the tag line in the magazine: “Special needs children are given to special mothers? One mother calls bullshit.” It’s a quarterly magazine, which could be good or bad depending on your reading speed. If I had the money, I’d be buying you all subscriptions. Since I don’t, you’re on your own.