A recent study found…
Articles about two studies on the causes of childhood leukemia crossed my desk this week. The first reported on a study published in Cancer Causes and Control which links it to what mothers ate in the year before they became pregnant — the more protein, vegetables and fruit the mothers ate, the lower the risk of cancer. The other reports on a paper presented at a British conference suggesting that night-time exposure to light could be a cause of leukemia.
I have very mixed feelings about studies like these. Leukemia is a horrible disease, and of course we’d want to do what we could to reduce the incidence of it. But it’s bad enough having a child with a life-threatening disease without having to worry that you might have caused it. Parenting these days seems to be an endless litany of things that you shouldn’t do.
I confess — my 3 1/2 year old likes the light on at night, and since he and his brother share a room, that means the baby is being exposed to it too. Not only do I feed them YoBaby yogurt (which the puritans on my moms email list disapprove of because it has sugar added), I let them have cake and cookies too. My older son only eats vegetables when I hide them in muffins. He only brushes his teeth once a day, and we haven’t started brushing the baby’s teeth yet. Shoot me now.
September 23rd, 2004 at 10:01 pm
I am a stay at home Dad with 22 month old boy/girl twins. I am constantly surprised with the gender differences between my babies, with the attitudes of other stay at home spouses, and the whole way of raising children. My wife works and is an attorney. I am an artist. Mostly I notice how on top of women are of their children, whether this lets them develop their curiosity or stifles it, it surprises me. the best book I’ve read is “You just don’t understand” by Deoborah Tannen. Feel free to get more specific feedback from me. sincererly Dave Reed