Parenting

If you're still smarting from some hurtful exchange with--or deafening silence from--a sibling over the holidays, a book out this week might help you make sense of your strained relationship with a sister or brother. The book, "Cain's Legacy ," may not prompt you to patch things up with a sibling who's angry, jealous, entitled, bossy or makes you feel like a monster or an idiot (its author gamely acknowledges that sometimes, that's just not worth it). But by rooting around inside the baggage of one of life's earliest relationships, it might make your emotional burden a little easier to bear.

Dear Liz: Our mother just turned 64, and our father is divorcing her. She hasn't worked in years because of significant physical and mental health issues. My sister and I have been trying to figure out how she's going to survive on $750 a month, which is the equivalent of half his Social Security. She has always had serious issues with money management, which is why there are no retirement savings or a house. We are now about to embark on the maze of social service benefits that an older woman below the poverty line can receive, partly so we can decide whether she's better off staying put where she is in Arkansas, moving to my sister's in Texas, moving to be near me in Maryland, or moving to her childhood home of Chicago, where most of her friends are. For a lot of complicated reasons (mostly related to the mental health issues)

The American school lunch, long the butt of schoolyard jokes, is in for a nutritional makeover, fueled by concern over a national epidemic of childhood obesity and funded by the first hike in federal contributions in three decades. Starting next school year, U.S. schoolchildren will see changes in school lunch programs that are expected to bring fruits and vegetables, more whole grains and potentially smaller portions to every meal served...

The parents of two USC graduate students slain near the campus last month have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the university, saying the school misled them when it claimed that it ranks among the safest in the nation. Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23-year-old electronic engineering students from China, were fatally shot April 11 while sitting in a parked BMW in the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue. No arrests have been made, but Los Angeles police say they believe the killings were the result of a robbery gone wrong.

Why do some children of mean, neglectful or downright toxic parents become rotten human beings themselves, while their siblings thrive cheerfully? And why do certain offspring of loving, attentive parents grow into well-adjusted adulthood while their siblings become sour misanthropes?  In short, why does good parenting only sometimes produce good kids, and bad parenting only sometimes produce bad kids? The answer may lie in the genes. Specifically, the almost-famous 5-HTTLPR serotonin transporter-promoter gene, which governs the activity of the mood chemical serotonin in the brain and essentially comes in three varieties.

It wasn't surprising that the federal trial on Proposition 8 in January confirmed that the same-sex marriage ban is destructive to family life and discriminatory toward a group that has historically been subject to abuse. What did surprise us: Some of the strongest arguments in favor of same-sex marriage were made by those opposing it. Closing arguments in the case will be heard Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, more than four months after testimony ended. Even so, it's easy to recall some of the startling moments of the trial.

On school reform: No attempts to reform our nation's public school system (or any other attempts at societal reform) will prove to be wholly effective until we come to the realization that full-time parenting entails far more than staying home and giving teas and baking cookies! KATHY BROWN San Juan Capistrano

Compared with other ethnic groups, Hispanic adults spend very little time engaging in leisure time activity. And their lack of playtime may be contributing to their kids' sedentary habits--and excess weight, says new research . The authors of the study, published this week in the journal Pediatrics , note that compared with non-Hispanic white kids, Hispanic kids between age 6 and 17 are much more likely to be physically inactive...

It was an especially good week to be 8 years old. First, the little guy got a barrage of presents. Like waves of Union forces over the rural fences of Georgia and Arkansas, the gifts kept coming. Just when you thought, "That's it, right?" there would be another three or four under the tree. Baseball bats and sweatshirts and electronics that only an MIT professor could understand. The little guy got this one game, I swear, that was so impossible to assemble that I finally gave up. I am not the quitting sort, but I do value the next 12 to 15 years of my life.

The Times Poll was highly discriminatory toward working women, as evidenced by the timing and structure of the survey questions (June 13). For example, although respondents were asked their views about working women's parenting capability and emotional connection to their children, noticeably absent were questions along those same lines about working men. This survey only serves to perpetuate the notion that women should stay at home and are largely held...

The United States has reached a historic tipping point, with children born to Latino, Asian, African American and mixed-race parents now constituting a majority of all births, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The long-expected demographic shift is considered a milestone for the nation, though one that California passed three decades ago when births to racial and ethnic minorities surpassed those to white parents. The new report shows that minorities accounted for about 2 million, or 50.4%, of U.S. births in the 12 months ending July 1 of last year.

Adali Gutierrez rarely mentioned his scarred and disfigured chin. He kept quiet about the mangled lower lip that twisted when he talked. A 21-year-old raising four orphaned siblings had bigger worries. Today, however, he speaks without hesitation. A plastic surgeon has fashioned him a new lip and smoothed over the divots in his skin. Faded are the lesions that reminded him constantly of the night his parents were gunned down in Mexico. It was January 2010. Maria and Guillermo Sr. had arrived at a police station to bail out Adali, who had been stopped for drunk driving.

The parents of Kendrec McDade have reviewed the autopsy report of their 19-year-old son, who was fatally shot in March by Pasadena police, and said they were concerned that he may have been shot from behind. The report, released by the L.A. County coroner's office Friday, shows that the unarmed McDade was shot four times at point-blank range by one officer and was alive and handcuffed after being struck by a total of seven bullets. At a news conference Saturday, Caree Harper, an attorney for McDade's family, said the bullets that hit McDade's arms and one that hit his hip appear to contradict the police's assertion that none of the shots came from behind him. A diagram in the report appears to indicate one bullet entered McDade through the back, but the narrative states that bullet's trajectory was "front to back and downward.

In Los Angeles, red carpet treatment is not just for celebrities. Here, mere mortals can find specialists - medical concierges, cat whisperers, image consultants - for almost everything. And that includes experts who are hired to help families prepare for their newest members. Enter the baby planner. Before the advent of the current expert culture, it was a role that used to be filled by mothers, grandmothers and best friends, doling out advice, shopping lists and favors.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives are seeking to question Christopher A. Benton, the son of Pepperdine University President Andrew K. Benton, in connection with the death of a Malibu woman almost two weeks ago. The body of 25-year-old graphic designer Katie Wilkins was found in her parents' garage on West Moon Shadows Drive by her brother, Steve, the evening of April 28. Det. Tim O'Quinn of the sheriff's homicide bureau said Wilkins apparently...

Every parent knows what it's like to fail his or her child in some important way. We speak a hurtful word. We are absent at a critical moment, or we simply fail to hear what our children are telling us. The three moms I met this week at the Homegirl Café know this feeling well. It was a few days before Mother's Day and we sat down together for lunch and talked about the many sorrows they've inflicted on their children. "You make wrong choices, and your kids pay for them," Veronica Duran, a 39-year-old mother of two, told me. The personal histories of these three moms include drug abuse, homelessness and stints in prison that caused them to miss many, many of their sons' and daughters' birthdays.

Thank you, Daniel Akst, for the playful, provocative rebuttal to the contemporary, foolish experiment with part-time parenting, (Editorial Pages, Dec. 17), "From Instant Child to Instant Childhood--It's a Miracle!" But don't tell me there's no way to raise children on the quick. There are infinite variations on the techniques of neglect which have long passed as acceptable parenting. Mr. Akst describes one (common) way in which one notices the kid when he is 5 years old, again when he is 10 and finally again when he is 15 (probably only because he has resorted to spiky, pink hair in order to get the attention.

It took four phone calls to get her through the stir-fried chicken -- the first dinner my 19-year-old daughter tried to cook in her new apartment this week. How much oil? How big do you cut the pieces? How many breasts will it take to feed four people? How do you know when the meat is finished cooking? By the time I finished answering her questions, I had a question of my own: What kind of mother have I been if my nearly-grown child can't figure out how to use a wok, knife and wooden spoon to prepare a simple chicken dinner?

"Mad Men" actress January Jones ate her placenta (to be fair, dried and made into a pill). Alicia Silverstone chews up veggies and deposits them mama-bird-style into her baby son's mouth. And model Gisele Bundchen says her diaper-free son was toilet trained at 6 months. So what do these parents know that your average sleep-deprived parent - who barely has time to shop for food, let alone chew it for their kids - doesn't? Here, experts weigh in on the evidence. Pre-masticating In a breakfast-time video, Silverstone chews up the vegetables in her miso soup.

The most reliable predictor of box-office success these days may not be a marquee name or a masked superhero. It's thePG-13rating. Created in 1984 in the wake of the sometimes scary PG-rated movies "Gremlins" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" to warn parents that some movies might be inappropriate for young kids, thePG-13 has become an inclusive Good Housekeeping seal of approval - an imprimatur that promises adults won't be offended and...