— Pretty on the Inside?

Dear Pretty,

Yours is a very common concern. In fact, it's so common we have already answered a similar question.

As we discussed in that column, there's no reason to believe that your son's facial particularities will be extreme or unattractive later in life. He's only twenty-three weeks! That little half-baked face will change as he grows, and it's not going to expand exponentially at precisely the same angles.

Believe us, we know; we both had the exact same fears during our pregnancies. One of us spent months wondering whether her daughter was going to come out looking like one of the Simpsons. Okay, she might have made a pretty good Maggie early on, and we're not expecting to escape without orthodontics. But the overbite we fretted about in utero has turned out to be part of what makes her cute. More so, it's part of what makes her HER.

We don't know what the ultrasound technician was thinking when she opted to comment on your son's features. Maybe she thought she was complimenting him (one woman's hawk is another woman's aquiline). Maybe she has some deep subconscious resentment or envy of sharp noses leftover from her childhood. Who knows? Whatever was going on in her head, she probably should have kept her mouth shut. Every flicker of the eyeball on the face of an ultrasound technician can trigger waves of anxiety in the person on the table.

Ultrasound technology has lots of advantages — and sometimes makes people feel more bonded to their fetuses — but it can also freak us out. We're looking through a tiny, blurry windowpane into a work in progress. A completely random comment can easily be interpreted as disastrous.  There's no reason to feel guilty. You, like every pregnant woman who's come before you, are just hoping that things turn out okay for your kid. This episode has suddenly focused that well-intentioned desire entirely upon the possibly imperfect curvature of a prenatal nose. Do your best to put the technician's loaded, but ultimately meaningless, words out of your head.

Perhaps you should do the same with those premature baby pictures. If they're giving you anxiety, there's no reason to scrutinize them or even look at them. We've come to think it's important to see our babies' images before birth, but is it really? Parents have been perfectly well attached to their babies for centuries before we started giving them those tiny blurry photocopies to hug and hold beforehand. This snapshot is a moment in time, at a time when your baby is far from fully developed. You've probably seen snapshots of yourself that highlight features you'd rather not focus on. Imagine if your appearance were being judged solely on one moment's image, and a glowing negative skeletal silhouette at that?!

Babies are engineered for cuteness to ensure that the adults around them give them the care they need. Fetuses enjoy no such evolutionary benefits. Give him some time. Your baby may not be quite ready for his close up yet, but we're betting that a few months down the line, the magic of twinkling eyes and baby fat will have you wondering . . . why you ever worried.

Oh, and for what it's worth, that nose doesn't look particularly prominent to us. 

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

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— Lost My Perspective in the Baking Ingredients Aisle

Dear Lost,

The hardcore bake sale scene does put the pressure on. But we are here to give some perspective: You are not required to bring home the bacon, bake it into muffins and provide a notarized letter re: the provenance of every ingredient. No matter how much the class rep to the parenting association nudges.

That's the good news. The bad news is, this is only the beginning. You *and your husband* will be asked to give time, skills, money, rummage, canned food, gently used books and/or small bits of flesh year after year for as long as your child is part of the educational system. (Unless you move somewhere where schools actually get enough money from the government to perform up to the standards of the parents who send their children there.) The expectation varies depending on where your kid is in school, but it's pretty much a given that parents are expected to help out somewhat. Some take this super-seriously. Many others blow it off, for lack of time or lack of interest.

One suggestion we'd make is to try to loosen the symbolic reins a little. Sometimes a bake sale is just a bake sale. Yes, it emerged from a time of more prescribed gender roles, but really, people just like cake. For every parent who dreads the pie tin, there's another who dreads the fancy dress auction, or the softball game at the class picnic. If you can't deal with baking, don't bake. Buy something and hand it over with your head held high (and the ingredients conveniently preprinted on the package!) Or beg off. We can assure you that you will not be the only one who shows up empty-handed that morning. And we can also assure you that there will be many opportunities for you to be of service to your child's school. We can't guarantee you'll hate those any less, but they probably won't require you to wear an apron.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

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— Are You There God, It's Me Mommy

Dear Are You There God,

One of us was recently involved in a conversation with parents about this very issue. How do you talk to a kid about god (we'll go lowercase here, out of respect for your beliefs) when you don't know whether you believe in god yourself? Or when you know that you don't, but don't want to force your ideology down your kid's throat? A lot of thoughtful discussion was had, and there were no easy answers. Is it as easy as saying "This is what I believe, this is what other people believe, you can believe what you want . . .?"

It's a bit much to expect a three-year-old to understand this abstract choice. She doesn't even know what or who god is, let alone whether to hitch her horse to his (or her or its) cart. One mom suggested parents should play shrink, dodging any personal inquiries by lobbing questions right back. We like this idea, if only for exploratory purposes: You want to know why this is coming up now. What has she heard? What does she think? But if she's anything like our kids, she'll eventually demand a direct answer on your own beliefs. Avoiding her curiosity won't be much help. As parents, your beliefs matter. At this age, it's fairly likely that she'll follow your lead.

When we read your letter, we were struck (and impressed) by your openminded attitude. Not every atheist (or anything-ist) shares your views, namely, that it's ok for not everyone to share the same views.  And therein lies the answer to your question. It seems like what you're looking to teach your daughter is not what to believe, but how to respect different beliefs.

When ("if" is not a realistic expectation) your daughter asks you about god, we suggest you tell her a simple version of your truth. And follow up with some context, including the fact that other people she loves have other ideas . . . and how that's ok with you. In terms of how exactly to talk about it, there are lots of ways. Sometimes people frame religion like a story that some people believe is true and others don't. You can also tell her feelings about god are a little bit like feelings in general; unique to each individual. So there's room for everybody's own ideas about god; yours, Grandma's, and eventually, her own.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

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Dear Royal,

Year after year parents worry that their vulnerable young daughters will be damaged by obsessions with Disney's wasp-waisted, pug-nosed role models. The princess industrial complex is unstoppable, and our little girls are drawn to it like flies to sh*t. If you manage to keep the whole thing outside of your daughter's frame of vision, we salute your efforts (and wonder if she's getting enough Vitamin D locked in that basement). If your daughter knows about princesses but doesn't give a hoot, we salute your . . . luck. The major feminist argument against The Princess is that her entire personality consists of being passive and pretty. Some worry more about the stress on beauty, for others it's the lack of agency, or the lack of cultural identity. It's all very interesting from a semiotics standpoint. But as Peggy Orenstein put it a few years ago in the Times, " maybe a princess is sometimes just a princess." In other words, what she means to you is not at all what she means to your daughter. Fighting her obsession could hurt your cause. These tinsel goddesses are characters she identifies with; negativity may be wrongly interpreted or internalized. You might teach her that you don't like what she likes, or what she imagines she is. Or, you might just show her a really easy way to rile you up. The last thing you want to do is to give the princesses the power of getting to you on top of their other powers. You can help your daughter see outside the pink satin box by providing her with a range of pretend play options, and reading her fantasy narratives that go beyond the basic happily ever after (AKA wedding) tale. You can certainly introduce her to the wonders of Wonder Woman and see if she takes the bait. (She does have a crown, after all.) But Halloween is probably not the time to challenge her interests. Halloween is an opportunity for self-expression and identification. We are believers in the self-generated costume (if not in construction, at least in concept). You can force your daughter to wear a Wonder Woman costume, but you can't make her like it. Our advice is to go with the flow and let her be whatever she feels like being for the moment, however much it abrades your feminist sensibilities. Word among parents of older girls is that the princess phase, though often torturous, passes quickly. If you don't add the element of rebellion into the mix, maybe it will run its course sooner. And hey, if you let her go as a princess now, you've got a good excuse not to let her be one again next year.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

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Dear Sugar free mama,

For parents, the avalanche of candy at Halloween can be scarier than the ghoulish costumes. On the one hand, there are your standards: healthy, natural foods. On the other, there's tradition: an all you can eat sugar-soaked artificially Technicolored candy gorgefest.

Unless you live in an exceptionally health-conscious neighborhood where kale chips are the Halloween treat of choice, if you want to avoid sugar altogether, you have to avoid Halloween altogether. Which would be a bummer.

Though the chasm between kale and candy corn is admittedly vast, there are ways to compromise, giving you some control over your kids' sugar intake while still giving them some degree of enjoyment. You just need to decide what enjoyment-to-control ratio you're comfortable with.

The way we see it, there's life, and there are special occasions. Some candy on Halloween is not going to undermine years of healthy eating. Forbidding your son from indulging while his cousins pig out, on the other hand, could provoke the beginnings of a flat-out sugar OBSESSION. We've too often heard about the sugar-denied kid doing all kinds of things — early childhood shoplifters you know who you are — to get his or her hands on the stuff once freed from mom and dad's immediate purview.

Like you, many parents subscribe to the hard line no-candy lifestyle early on. And we totally support this. Giving a toddler a box of Mike and Ike's? What!? Why? But an older kid is starting to pick up the corn syrup scent. Now your job is not only to take control but to teach control. Moderation can be a harder, longer lesson, but it's a valuable skill that your child can eventually apply to all kinds of temptations.  

The moderation approach to Halloween can include any of the following:

  • Don't let your little kid trick or treat forever. There's no reason a three-year-old should be dragging a 3 lb bag of candy home.

  • Make the event more about the costume and play than about the booty. For every mention of candy, there should be at least ten mentions of costumes, pumpkins, hanging out with friends . . .

  • Feed him a good meal before you head out.

  • Consider rationing the candy. Two pieces of candy a day till it's done? If the bag isn't so big, we're talking a week or two. Let him pick his poison at a high-energy expending time of day. Not before bed. And not as a reward for eating "good food." Candy as reward is not going to help your cause.

  • Consider letting him feel sick. Some parents go for the one night extravaganza method. On the good side, this gets the horror over with, on the bad side, it is almost sure to result in a stomachache/teachable moment.

  • Try not to make a huge deal about the candy. Tell your son it's not good for your body to eat candy and/or junk food. But a little bit on special occasions is OK. This is the boring truth.

There are lots of variations and combinations of you could try. But all will require you to accept the basic premise: you're letting your kid do something you don't love. Believe us, this will not be the last time . . . but that doesn't make it any less difficult. May we suggest some chocolate to soothe your wounds? Or maybe some kale chips.

Have a question? Email parentaladvisory@babble.com

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