Don't Have A Baby to Fix Your Marriage....Video #2

Here is the flow of the dozen videos: the first few are about poor reasons to have a (another) child. Then comes the best reason to have a child followed by the timing of children and the myth of the only child. Last are the self test questions re: you the individual, your marriage, and your parenting skills.

Video #2 is a reflection of the fact that I NEVER tell couples that what they need (whether they report that their marriage is superb or problematic) is to have a (another) child.

First fix the relationship, then make your family size decision.

When All Else Fails, Read the Directions....Video #1

Here's the first of 12 video trailers for my new book. The instructions from my son-in-law Noah, were explicit: each video, no matter how shticky, must have content. So I set up 12 story boards of content and then built the scenery and plot (?) around the content.

[Video 1: man in trench coat; U.S. flag in background]
After all the editing of the book was done by Jossey-Bass, lo and behold....the first lines of the book were a terrific quote from my father. To say the least, I was quite emotional. When Dr. Frank Pittman read and endorsed my book, he said...."This book is the directions". I was really honored, because he's a renowned Psychiatrist and prolific author....ie "Marriage isn't supposed to make you happy, it's supposed to make you married!"

Like I state at the end of the video, this book (and video) is not supposed to be a monologue, but rather a conversation......so Please keep in touch!

A Book Is Born !!!

Decades in the making and my book, Creating Your Perfect Family Size has finally arrived!

Look right >>>>>>>>>>>and you’ll see the links to your favorite booksellers. My wife says it took 28 years, because she adds the 13 years that I worked on my PhD (dissertation topic = family size decisions) together with the 15 years post-doc. My children say, “Dad’s coming out of the basement this year!”

If you follow the Wiley link above, you can read the entire first chapter on their website. That’s terrific, except that there’s only 5 chapters in the book so you’re getting 1/5 of the book for a free click. I assume the logic is that you’ll like the sample so much you won’t be able to resist the main course.

The Book Title: My working title for 3 decades was “Family Size Does Matter” but the PR experts at Wiley felt that Creating Your Perfect……was more marketable. Folks, I’ve already started getting emails, “So Dr. Singer what exactly is the perfect family size?” As I state throughout the book….As many or as few, as long as you think it through.

The Video Trailers: So how am I going to be able to keep these blog posts interesting for you, the reader, in the next month as Wiley distributes the books? Of course, by using video book trailers. The goal of each trailer is for you to Tweat it and FB it to your closest 10,000 friends and then it goes viral....hey thanks loads! My son-in-law Noah is editing each trailer and posting it to YouTube (Thanks Noah!) and then I’ll blog about each video as it is released. That’s because, at Noah’s insistence, each video is low on hoakiness and high on actual content from the book.
Please let me know what you think of Chapter 1 and the videos.
AMS

As the Economy Tanks, So Does the U.S. Birth Rate

The number of babies born in the United States fell by 2.3 percent in 2009, and the number is continuing to slide. The recent drop in births puts the U.S. total fertility rate below the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman.

These are the findings that are posted on the Population Reference Bureau website in an informative article by Mary Mederios Kent.

"The recent fall is not surprising given the current economic downturn—couples facing economic uncertainty often postpone having children. Many had predicted fertility decline given high unemployment rates, the home mortgage crisis, and slow economic growth since 2008. The Great Depression of the 1930s and the oil-shock of the 1970s were also periods of record low fertility in the United States.

I think this quote from her article is fascinating, "For the first time in years, the rate of births to unmarried women declined. However, births to married women declined even more, which pushed the percentage of all U.S. births to unmarried mothers to 41, an all-time high." As you have seen me write elsewhere, I am on record as predicting that in 2017, the rate of births to unmarried women will hit the unprecedented level of 50%. That means that 2 million or so babies each year in the U.S. will be born to unmarried women. What Kent's statistic shows is that even though births to the unmarried dipped a bit because of the recession, relative to the larger dip in births to married women, the percent is at an all time high.

"Will fertility bounce back when the economy improves, or will low fertility become the norm for Americans, as it has for Canadians and Europeans? Will couples eventually have the babies they postponed during the recession? For now, we can expect to see continued declines over the near term."

Children Under 5 Make Up the Bulk of Americans Treated in the ER After Swallowing Medications

Home sick today and popping medications, advil, and vitamins, gave me this chance to blog about Liz Szabo's recent piece in USA Today about child safety and medications.

According to Szabo, "Most such poisonings occur in 1- and 2-year-olds — an age group whose curiosity and climbing skills often outstrip their judgment — according to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. About 90% of child poisonings happen in the home, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Thanks partly to better caps and packaging, child poisoning deaths have fallen by 80% since 1972.

And most people don't store medications properly, says Lara McKenzie of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. When people are sick with colds, they often leave cough syrups and other drugs by the sink. More and more people also now request "easy open" caps on bottles or day-of-the-week pill organizers, Casavant says. That can be especially dangerous when children get into a grandparent's open purse or begin exploring her house."

"Experts offer these tips to keep children safe:
•Properly dispose of unneeded or expired medications, advises the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
•Don't take medications in front of children, which may inspire them to try to imitate you, Casavant says. Tell children never to take medication unless you give it to them.
•Never refer to pills as candy.
•Because children can sometimes open child-resistant caps, keep medications out of sight, out of reach and in a locked container.
•Keep the national poison control center number — 800-222-1222 — on or next to all of your phones."