Watching Dance Moms and Toddlers & Tiaras is always interesting for me– both because the shows are often entertaining (if only in a horrifying way, like the recent T&T episode that featured Heaven, a modern day Violet Beauregarde with her incessant gum chewing, and Honey Boo Boo child and her TLC crossover extreme couponing momma [...]
A feature story I wrote on afterschool math enrichment centers appeared in today’s The Boston Globe Magazine. You can read it online (and see additional links below) by clicking here! I researched and wrote this in the last month or so of my pregnancy, so joke that now I know which math programs my son [...]
I know Amanda Scott as a fellow Gates Cambridge Scholar. But I can’t run like her! A very impressive person. CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE ON BLOGHER SPORTS! 2012 is not only a leap year, it’s an Olympic year. That means that in the next few months thousands of hopefuls are gearing up for [...]
One week ago I gave birth to our precious son, Carston Cook Levey Friedman. We have been affectionately referring to him as Little Man. During labor I spent a good amount of time on Facebook and Twitter. It was amazing to feel like so many friends and family were part of the process. A Twitter [...]
ETA: On January 4th, 2012 we welcomed our son, Carston, into the world. Two days later, his daddy’s research on value-added teachers appeared on the front page of The New York Times. Coincidence?! Everyone is doing well and no one has been fired yet! I was correct (per original post below) that this work would [...]
I have a soft spot for scholastic chess. In 2005 I started studying chess as part of my dissertation research (which is forthcoming as Playing to Win: Raising Kids in a Competitive Culture). One of the things I loved the most about the chess scene is the diversity of people who meet and engage over [...]
I recently published a book review of Francesco Duina’s new sociological investigation on competition in the latest issue of International Review of Modern Sociology. You can read the review by CLICKING HERE. While it did appear in an academic journal, I believe the review (and the book itself!) should be accessible to a non-academic audience. [...]
I was honored to participate in an “online roundtable” panel of experts over at Boston Magazine related to overparenting. The question I was asked to answer, along with four experts in psychology and social work, was “Are We Overparenting Our Kids?” This roundtable was tied to a feature story written by Katheine Ozment called “Welcome [...]
One weekend I went shopping at a mall in downtown Boston—and was transported into another culture. A hotel, connected to the mall, was hosting an Irish dancing competition (or “feis”). My friend turned to me and asked, “Wait, is this a child beauty pageant, or something else?” With the bobbing heads full of Shirley Temple-like [...]
Back in March I started a monthly feature on my blog: Shrinking and Pinking. This series focuses on female athletes, who often have to fight against the literally shrinking and pinking of their sports, uniforms, and professional lives/opportunities. The past few months a different definition of “shrinking” has been creeping into my posts– child athletes. [...]
