Another bit of ammunition to show that the private school admissions proces will send parents into a frenzy of questionable behavior. Some therapists have revealed the bizarre stuff parents will do to the Post: more ›

Seems like you can't make a doll these days without horribly offending delicate parents— just yesterday adults were getting all up in arms over a tattooed Barbie, and now, Toys R Us is in hot water for selling a talking doll that some say utters the phrase "Okay, crazy b*tch." more ›

HopStop, the ever-useful website that helps folks route their best subway and bus routes in various cities, has now rolled out an option for parents and caregivers—and anyone else hauling a stroller—to find the most stroller-friendly routes. You can check the box for "Stroller Friendly" (it's also "Wheelchair Accessible"), which means getting a route that involves more walking and fewer stairs and, if possible, more elevators. more ›

Parents are not pleased with the latest Barbie to hit shelves, complaining that she's inappropriate for the delicate eyes of children. The tokidoki Barbie sports a neon pink bob, is covered in elaborate tattoos, and walks a spike-covered pet named Bastardino. Which actually sounds like...the coolest Barbie on the market in years! more ›

Every year, hundreds of NYC parents busted for pot possession—the vast majority of them recreational smokers—get caught in bitter legal battles with the city to keep their children. Parents with no criminal records routinely lose custody of their children after a small level marijuana bust, even in cases where the police didn't press charges. In an excellent article in today's Times, one Penelope Harris talks about how her son and niece were taken away after police searched her home and found a quantity of marijuana so small they couldn't even charge her with a misdemeanor. more ›

In a scene that sounds like it belongs more on the Jersey Shore than Park Slope, the parents of a teenager getting her nails did at H&L Nail Spa freaked the hell out in an ugly, racially-charged, chair-throwing debacle. Read this firsthand account of what went down from customer MacKenzie Fegan, who sent her story to FiPS. more ›

The mayor won't be winning over many public school parents with his latest comments: “Unfortunately there are some parents who just come from—they never had a formal education, and they don’t understand the value of education...the old Norman Rockwell family is gone." more ›

Babies: so annoying. Aside from blocking bike lanes, killing your buzz and totally getting away with eating on the subway, the latest study from the Obvious Institute says that mothers of young children don't eat well. You're also five times more likely to be outraged when restaurants don't offer kids menus. more ›

Gumshoes are starting to sound a bit desperate for work: first, we heard about a real-life Ace Ventura pet detective, and now the News has a story on retired NYPD cop Andy Spieler, who makes his living in the heady world of teenage surveillance. more ›

When the NFL postponed the Eagles-Vikings game due to the blizzard, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell complained, "We've become a nation of wusses. The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything... If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down." Now, to explain why Chinese kids seem more successful than others, Yale University law professor and mother of two Amy Chua has written a controversial essay in the Wall Street Journal, "The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, 'Hey fatty—lose some weight.' By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue." more ›

What's got NYC parents more worried than Osama bin Laden? Cyberbullies! According to a new poll, the number one fear parents have regarding their children isn't a terrorist attack—the group at Care.com that conducted the survey says, "parents are terrified about what they see as escalating incidents of bullying and cyberbullying. Terrorism is scary because it's the unknown, but it can seem very far away—and we're nine years away from 9/11." Overall, 31% of parents polled feared bullying, and 19% feared their children getting hurt during a terror attack. [via the NY Post] more ›

Are iPads the answer to keeping the kids quiet when parents bring them along for a nice civilized dinner, or beer? FIPS blogger Erica Reitman told the NY Post, “I’ve been out to dinner several times recently where I noticed parents at nearby tables who had kids with iPads. Those little suckers did not make a peep all night. As far as I’m concerned, I’d like to ensure every child within the borders of Park Slope gets their own iPad, pronto!” more ›

Windsor Terrace parents are throwing a tantrum at the Oak & the Iris Café, claiming that they have no right to cancel their weekly sing-a-longs just because their precious kids were breaking property. One miffed mom even threatened to burn the place down, writing, "To set yourself up as kid-friendly and then be appalled by a normal range of kid behavior seems bizarre to me." But owner Aleksandra Kameneva says if what she witnessed was "normal range," things sure have changed since when she was a kid. more ›

The final legislative step in ratifying the nation's first-ever bill of rights for nannies, maids, and other domestic workers is set to be taken by NY State Senate, provided it is still functioning. Legislation was already passed two weeks ago guaranteeing protections for the 200,000 NYC household workers, like paid overtime past 40 hours a week, five paid vacation and seven paid sick days, six paid national holidays, and two weeks notice of termination. more ›

There's a breeder rage outbreak on Yelp over the new Fornino in Park Slope. The pizza joint, which also has a restaurant in Williamsburg, just opened and the parents in the neighborhood are outraged that there's no children's menu. FIPS points to some of the reviews, which make mention of $16 ravioli dishes—too high a price for some people to spend on their flesh and blood miracle of life, apparently. more ›

The new Frank McCourt High School is a selective, application-only high school. That is, if you don't count all the low-scoring students they failed to mention in the school booklet. According to community leaders, the school said they would only accept students with high test scores in an attempt to attract "your typical UWS parent," even though they had discussed making the school rigorous while still bringing in students from struggling middle schools. Officials allegedly believed the lower standards may dissuate higher performing students from applying, but schools spokesman Danny Kanner said that was never the intention. He also specifies that "typical UWS parent" just means "parents highly engaged in the high school admissions process." more ›

About twice as many 25-to-34-year-olds are living "back at home" in multi-generational households than in 1980, according to a New York Times analysis of census data dating to 2008. The article takes an up-close look at the "Boomeranger" trend, which is bringing adults back to their parents' homes in ever-increasing numbers, in the wake of a largely jobless "recovery" from the great recession. And if you think moving back in with the 'rents is rough, how about moving back in with the 'rents with your husband, like 39-year-old unemployed lawyer Jennifer Bliss, who tells Time Magazine, "I went to law school to have a solid profession so that I wouldn't wind up in a situation like this." more ›

More than 85 percent of Park Slope families pay their the domestic help under the table. According to the Brooklyn Paper and a Park Slope Parents study [PDF], 58 percent of parents who pay their nannies off the books say they think that nannies prefer it that way. But nanny Deborah Manwaring claims that's not necessarily the case: "I don't bring up taxes because they might fire me. With the economy the way it is, I don't want to be unemployed, so I have no choice." more ›

Are baby bans seeping over the Park Slope line and into Windsor Terrace? According to Courier-Life, Double Windsor owner Jeff Switzer says their policy of no babies after 5 p.m. has been in effect for a few months now, and was instituted after some feedback from patrons. He says, “It’s more of an issue between people that live in the neighborhood than it is with us. Most people who come to the bar would prefer not to have babies in the bar.” And the debate rages on! more ›

Someone attempted to convince Brooklyn Tech students, parents, and teachers that the school was closed until further notice by sending a spoof email using the assistant principal's account. The phony email claimed that a construction accident in the basement had caused "a serious safety hazard for anyone that comes near or inside the school," according to the Times. more ›

There’s one thing you don’t mess with while on the grounds of school that’s struggling financially: a parent and their homemade brownies and cookies. But it seems as though the city Department of Education doesn’t know the deal. Parents in School District 21 in Brooklyn are heated over the DOE’s new regulation that allows only one bake sale a month and desserts to be sold after 6 p.m. on weekdays. more ›

Amy Sohn's tome on Park Slope parents, titled Prospect Park West, is officially out there causing a stir. Recently her "neighbor" and local blogger Louise Crawford trashed Sohn for fueling the cliches of the Bugaboo culture that thrives there, or maybe because she was jealous she didn't write the book... one of those. Now the NY Times takes a closer look at life in Sohn's portrayal of the neighborhood; any outbursts about that portrayal seems to be grounded in the paradox that Sohn says is “Every mother know[ing] what a Park Slope Mother is, but no one think[ing] she is one." (In fact, Susan Fox, the founder of Park Slope Parents, tells the Gray Lady she's “non-frumpy, non-cargo-wearing mom who actually has a good marriage, unlike PPW would have us believe”). more ›

Hey, pretend it's the '50s and you're reading this article in a newspaper titled "Who’s That With Baby at the Y? Why, It’s Daddy." Wait, shouldn't daddy be at the office with his briefcase while mommy is with the baby at the Y, or preferably in the kitchen making dinner and starching shirts? more ›

Ugh, with the financial crisis totally shredding mommy and daddy's investment portfolio, many young adults in Hipsterland are being forced to find jobs. Times reporter Christine Haughney talked to some landlords and people in the real estate industry, who confirm the tragic trend: parents are cutting back on their contributions to rent and apartment down payments, in some cases eliminating their support entirely. Landlord Ernie DiGiacomo says that instead of getting checks from his tenants' parents, some of them are moving back in with their parents! more ›

While aggravated Brooklyn residents near McCarren Park have launched an organized campaign against the insipid jingles incessantly blaring from parked ice cream trucks, parents in other parts of the borough are taking aim at Mister Softee not for how he sounds but for what he sells to their children. Well, two parents anyway; a Bensonhurst mom tells the Daily News she takes her 7-year-old daugher to Seth Low Park for exercise, but an ice cream truck parked there is tearing her family apart: "I’ve had fights with my daughter in the past about it. You kind of feel like it’s pushed on you. It’s one thing if they’re just in the neighborhood, but to be here by contract [with the city], they might as well be selling drugs." (They've been known to do that too!) more ›

Mayor Bloomberg sought to calm worried parental units at a City Hall press conference yesterday, telling the press that most of the people going to the hospital with swine flu symptoms aren't sick, just scared: "While there are an abnormal number of people going to the hospital who are worried, virtually none, a very tiny percentage of them, have any symptoms whatsoever." But the mayor's downplaying of the outbreak comes as the city closes an additional three schools (bringing the current total to 25), and mourners bid farewell to Queens assistant principal Mitchell Wiener, swine flu's first city victim. more ›

In one corner, there's Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Klein. In the other, middle-class parents who have been told their children have been placed on wait lists for kindergarten placement. The NY Times describes it as a "mounting...middle-class vitriol against the school system." One parent shared a letter to the Dept. of Education—"You have unleashed the fury of parents throughout this city with your complete lack of preparedness"—while another recounted, "I got a call from Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign about yadda yadda yadda was I going to vote for him. As a parent who has a child with no place to go next year, no indication of where he’s going to go next year as a result of the mayor taking control of education, I said absolutely not... You would think that Bloomberg, who is a businessman, knows how to manage inventory like this. My kid isn’t just a bottle of vodka, but this is about inventory.” The Dept. of Education believes their approach to wait lists is fair and "will ensure that children have a placement offer by the end of June." more ›

The father of one of the two FIT students busted for dealing cocaine says that she's getting a bum rap. Mickenzie Dippenworth's father Charles tells the Post, "OK, yes, she did something wrong. Does that merit what has taken place? That's what my taxpayer dollars are going to? I really don't understand. There's a hell of a lot more problems." Dippenworth stands by his daughter who "has sworn to him ten times" that she only dealt to the undercover cop who led to her arrest and not to anyone else. His daughter had previously been on probation after police in her Maryland hometown responded to the fourth noise complaint made by neighbors and discovered a party with around 50 juveniles and young adults drinking while Dippenworth's parents were upstairs sleeping. more ›