If one more person tells me to “embrace my age,” I’m gonna lose it.

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“Yeah, well, I got news for you: Life isn’t fair, so SUCK IT UP! If it were, our private chef would be making you lunch and the chauffeur would drive you to school and I would still be ASLEEP instead of having this conversation. AGAIN!”

No, I didn’t say that to my twin girls this morning, but I thought it so loudly they may have heard. What the ladies found so unconscionable was that after they had bickered for 20 minutes about who got to wear the pink sweatshirt with the fairy on it, I told them neither of them could. We then discussed how frustrating it is that we can’t always get what we want, and I explained the reasoning behind my entirely equitable decision. I knew they weren’t happy, I told them, but short of magically pulling an identical fairy sweatshirt out of my behind (gross-out faces ensued), it was the best I could do in the two minutes we had before we had to leave. Nonetheless, they harrumphed and stomped around and insisted that I was perpetrating a grave injustice against them and possibly children everywhere. This, before I’d had my coffee. But at least they weren’t arguing with each other.

It was a welcome respite, considering that Sasha and Vivian, who are 6, have recently found the following unfair (partial list): that Vivian’s class went to the museum, and Sasha’s didn’t; that Sasha’s class got to eat the marshmallows they used for making 3-D geometric shapes with toothpicks, while Vivian’s class didn’t even do that activity; that Viv’s tooth fell out first, even though Sasha was born 90 seconds before Vivian and so is “older”; that Sasha’s glasses are purple and not “boring old gold,” like Vivian’s; that Sasha “got to have” alone time with Mommy when she stayed home from school vomiting into the Hello Kitty trash bin; that Mommy sits on Viv’s bed to kiss her good night, but Sasha only gets kissed from a standing position (Sasha sleeps on the top bunk, which is hard for me to climb on). By the way, it also is sometimes unfair to Vivian that Sasha gets the top. It makes me insane.

I could go on, but you likely have a version of this fairness drama unfolding in your own home. The bones of contention can be just about anything — material (”Her lollipop is bigger!”), experiential (”He always gets to stay up later than I do!”), even metaphysical (”You laugh at her jokes but never mine!”). And, sorry, but parents of only children aren’t exempt, because having to share toys on playdates can seem unfair to some singletons, as can not getting to do or have what their friends have when they reach school age.

Clearly, kids’ concept of fairness differs greatly from ours, and it changes over time. “For very young children, like three or four, fairness is just desire: I want what I want, and if I don’t get it, that’s not fair,” says Judi Smetana, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York. For a period after that, until they’re anywhere from 7 to 11, fairness means equality — the same thing as someone else at the same time, or pretty darn close. Most children, when they get to school, will start to recognize some nuance, like it’s fair if two kids have different things of similar value (a chocolate and a strawberry ice cream, for instance), but the intensity of the issue is just as great. “Depending on how diverse their school is, they’re probably going to have major comparisons along socioeconomic lines,” says Robert Myers, Ph.D., an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine and webmaster of Childdevelopment info.com. This complicates things even more, as a 7-year-old generally does not yet have the perspective to understand why one family may be able to afford things that another cannot.

It’s not until middle school or early adolescence that most kids can be more logical about fairness, says Myers. That includes, say, accepting the idea that her little brother might need more attention from you sometimes, and while that’s not thrilling, it is fair. Not that it’s easy getting to that place.

“Sometimes I think it’s about ‘Who do you love more?’” says Andrea Kane, the Atlanta mom of Carina, 7, and Josephine, 9. Her daughters protest perceived inequities in how many sleepovers the other gets, who got which treat and how big it was, and dozens of other issues. Which is why Kane tries hard to show them there are, in fact, no inequalities on that front. “If I bring up something I love about Carina that Josie doesn’t have,” she says, “I’ll make sure to point out that I love Josie for who Josie is, too.” Then again, sometimes it’s just about a pink sweatshirt with a fairy on it, or anything that doesn’t have a duplicate. Vivian Scheidt of Seattle, a mom of two girls, 6 and 8, recalls a particularly baffling fight over a silver cup that had contained Hanukkah dreidels. “As soon as the cup became interesting to one child, the other child wanted it. They created the inequality.”

So what’s a parent with a caffeine-withdrawal headache to do to keep the peace? Take a deep breath, and remember that all this arguing is part of learning how to be a good person. Several studies have shown that kids’ early sense of fairness may have deep roots in human survival — if everyone treats everyone fairly, the group will continue to thrive. But whether a child develops a strong sense of fairness and empathy has partly to do with how parents handle things, says Myers. Below, a few strategies that can help your kids move in the right direction.

Explain Yourself Understanding that you’re not being arbitrary doesn’t always soothe kids’ immediate sense of injustice (see sweatshirt anecdote, above), but walking them through your logic isn’t a waste of breath, either. “It’s a good way to stimulate their development and understanding of fairness,” says Smetana. Try something like “The reason I let him stay up later than you is because younger kids need more sleep than older ones. When you’re his age, you will be able to stay up until the same time.” Reassure them that you’ve given the issue of fairness and their concerns a lot of thought. Myers suggests saying, “You have to realize that I treat everybody fairly, but I treat both of you differently depending on your needs.” Eventually, they’ll catch on.

Point Out What’s Really Important For a while, when the girls were 4 and we were having our alone-time afternoons, they each asked that we do exactly the same activity and eat the same food at the same restaurant. “Vivian saw the monkeys, and it’s not fair if I don’t get to see the monkeys,” Sasha would say. No amount of playing up the rockin’ reptiles (that Vivian didn’t see) could dissuade her, and things got mighty boring, at least for me. Because it’s still tricky for kids this age to get that “fair” doesn’t mean “identical,” Myers says it might have helped to remind them that even if they did different activities, the prize was Mommy time, which they both got in equal measure.

Listen to Their Feelings You know you’re being fair, and, deep down, they may even know it, too, but they’re still plenty pissed off. Joel Jacobs, a dad in Berkeley, CA, recalls an incident in which his 8-year-old daughter, Talia, didn’t want to go to a holiday gathering at her Aunt Nancy’s house. “She thought it was unfair that her views were being ignored,” he says. Rather than dragging her to the car (which we all resort to in a pinch), he encouraged her to talk about her feelings. “I saw that she was conflicted about it,” says Jacobs. It wasn’t that Talia didn’t want to see her aunt; it was just that, because her mom had been seriously ill that year, she wanted the holiday to feel like it used to, before all the tumult. That meant spending the holiday at home. Jacobs then asked her to imagine how her aunt might feel if they canceled at the last minute, and she came around.

Bounce It Back to Them If they disagree with your strategy, asking them what they think would be fair works shockingly well sometimes. When one of my girls came to me insisting that it was her turn to pick what they watch on TV, I said (truthfully) that I didn’t know whose turn it was, but that they needed to come up with a solution. (I said this not because I’m such a genius but because I had referee fatigue.) Within a minute, they decided to watch what one girl wanted for half the time, then switch. Bonus: Because it was their rule, they stuck to it, letter and spirit. This works differently but just as well with older kids. “Sometimes they come up with a great idea together, but other times they realize that the situation is, in fact, fair exactly the way it is,” says Jacobs of his daughters.

End the Conversation If the protestations continue even after you’ve explained why something is fair and allowed the aggrieved party to have his say, give yourself the last word. Telling him to SUCK IT UP! isn’t ideal, but something along the lines of “You’re right, life can be disappointing sometimes; we all hate that” works. It’s tempting to give in, but resist if you’re able; otherwise, it sends the message that you’ll accommodate him if he persists in playing the unfair card. “Something can be fair even if they don’t understand it,” says Kane.

Don’t Expect Everyone (or Sometimes Anyone) To Be Happy With little kids, “you’re never going to satisfy them,” says Judith Sansone, a mom in San Francisco who has two girls, 4 and 6. “They are irrational beings — their needs are so immediate.” Even when they’re a bit older, you still may not be able to, at least not entirely.

Scheidt, the Seattle mom, recalls the time she got her girls identical hats because each always seemed to covet what the other had; besides, her younger daughter wanted to look like the older one. Wouldn’t you know it? Her older daughter informed her that it wasn’t fair that she had to wear the same thing as her little sister just so her sister would feel the situation was fair, which was, well, a fair point. “There is nothing I can do about that. They’re the keepers of equality, and they’re always looking for unfairness,” Scheidt says.

Happily, other parents and Ph.D.’s say that the issue fades somewhat on a day-to-day level as kids’ understanding matures, usually by age 11 or 12 (thanks, in part, to your having the fairness conversation. Again.). But brace yourself: As they grow into adults, they tend to remember the perceived inequities, not all the times you twisted yourself into a pretzel to do the fair thing. Indeed, Kane says she felt for a long time that her younger sister always got the goodies when they were growing up, a feeling her older daughter has shared, despite the fact that Kane knows she’s being equitable. “I look at my girls and think, You’ll only get it when you have kids.” That’s called karma, and while it can be a bitch, it’s totally fair.

If you’re a parent, you’re tired. While one might be childless and tired — after, say, a day of shoe shopping (not that I miss having the time and money for such frivolity or anything) — having kids means being tired all the time, not just for a few hours after that trip to the mall.

And when you’re tired (which is always; see above), and the kids are, you know, provoking you, and it’s only 7:30 in the morning and you’ve got miles to go before you sleep, you’re inevitably going to have to make some executive decisions regarding which battles to engage in and which to concede. Do you let the 5-year-old wear her Barbie nightie to day camp, or do you bar the door until she puts on shorts and a T-shirt? Should you point out to the 11-year-old that there’s no way he took a shower (as he claims), or do you pretend not to notice the black crescents under his fingernails that tell a different story? After all, you have only a certain amount of time, energy, and patience, and you can’t afford to blow it on stuff that doesn’t really matter.

If giving in sounds like a cop-out, believe you me, it’s not. In fact (and here’s the part where we tell you that what’s easier for you is actually good for your kids), when they see you work out what’s really important, they learn how to work out for themselves what’s really important. It’s a win-win. You get to save your breath and what’s left of your energy, and your children get a lesson in what it means to be a reasonable person.

Kristen Arnold, a mother of four in Westboro, MA, recalls a dinner at which her 7-year-old asked for two forks, one for his rice and one for his meat. Her husband’s feeling was “you have to adapt — everyone gets one fork,” she says. Arnold, however, saw infinite value in avoiding a 45-minute tantrum that would spoil the meal. She and her husband discussed it calmly at the table, weighing the pros and cons. In the end, Arnold won out, and all the kids got a good lesson in considering all sides of a conflict and listening to others respectfully. “Now they’ll come back to me and negotiate,” she says.

“You want to be a positive force in the way your children look at life, so work out a deal whenever possible,” says Paul Fink, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine, in Philadelphia. If you don’t, a smart kid will look for a way around you, which will likely involve secrecy or lies. Besides, choosing not to engage in every little skirmish means fewer arguments, plain and simple.

What’s often tricky, of course, is figuring out the “is this worth fighting for?” part — especially if you’ve got to think fast. For starters, it’s important to note that there are certain developmental stages at which kids naturally assert their need for independence and individuality (say, by dressing like a circus freak). It helps to view the push-back as less about defying you and more about saying “I gotta be me!” says Bonnie Maslin, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in New York City and the author of Picking Your Battles.

For help with those times when, say, a crabby kiddie simply isn’t in the mood to cooperate, or when you feel strongly that a child do/eat/wear something that said child feels equally strongly that he should not have to do/eat/wear, we got the advice of parents who’ve done several tours of duty.

When to stand your ground

Let’s start with the simple ones. All the parents interviewed for this story cited a few battles they always choose to engage in, no matter how pooped they are. They have to do with a child’s safety or the safety of others, involvement in violence, and any kind of behavior that could land a kid in juvie. Others mentioned the intentional infliction of emotional harm. At minimum, you have to keep your kid from hurting himself or those around him, however you define “hurt.”

Then there are those clashes that involve your family’s values. Principles you may hold dear (patience with others and respect for religion, for instance) aren’t exactly top of mind when you’re 20 minutes late for the service and your 9-year-old demands to wear his wet suit to church. That’s why it’s a good idea to sit down one evening and list the ideals that really matter to you, and which family situations may test them. Consider how you want your child to interact with others and what would make you the most proud. You’ll find there are few things worth arguing about, but that the ones that remain — your core values — are critical.

“The most important thing in our family is that we treat others with respect,” says Michelle Wegner, a mom of three girls, ages 10, 9, and 5, in Granger, IN. The kids have been fighting and name-calling recently, so Wegner started docking them a dollar each out of their piggy banks whenever they cross the line.

To Christina Alborn, a mom of three in Phoenix, it’s important that her children grow up “with a sense of appreciation instead of entitlement,” she says. To that end, the battles she and her husband take on have to do with expecting their kids to earn toys and privileges many of their friends receive as a matter of course. “On my list are respect, kindness, inclusion, and truthfulness. If my husband or I caught one of our girls behaving unethically, we’d certainly take her to task. We’d like them not to be wasteful. And we want them to at least try to do for themselves before asking for help. We usually agree on which battles to fight, although we may have different reasons. For instance, he believes we should always fight the get-the-girls-to-clean-up-after-themselves battle, which for me has less to do with the dried-up macaroni under the table than with the larger principle, that they don’t have servants. For him, it has as much to do with the dried-up macaroni.”

Word of caution: Keep your family-values list to a reasonable handful. If it’s way long, you’re going to be fighting — a lot. Yes, it might feel like your child is carrying a sign that says ‘I reject every decent thing my parents tried to teach me’ when he leaves the house wearing stained jeans, ratty Vans, and a skunky hoodie. But when it comes down to it, odds are ‘I want my kid to dress in the clothing I think looks nice’ wouldn’t make your list of core values. Which brings us to…

What else is worth fighting for

There are things you want your child to learn that don’t fall under the exalted heading of “values” — for example, a taste (or tolerance!) for brown food. Still, you might argue with her about this if you’re going to a friend’s for dinner and you feel it’s important that she try new things and/or that it’s courteous to at least try what the host prepares. Or not. It depends on many things, including your energy level, your child’s temperament, and whether it’s a battle you can win — but you can usually figure it out by asking just two simple questions.

1. Will this battle fight itself? Just the other morning, my daughter Sasha, 6, turned her cute little nose up at the oatmeal with apples and raisins she had asked for. My husband began to argue about wasting food, but then stopped and said, “Fine, but no snacks. The next thing you eat will be lunch at school.” Sure enough, she was hungry and grumpy until noon — she asked for a snack on the way to school. She still futzes with her food sometimes, but after a quick reminder about the Battle of the Oatmeal, she usually reconsiders.

2. Can you live with it? If something your kid wants to do isn’t going to hurt anyone and won’t make you terribly unhappy, then try to let her. Say, for instance, “Peanut butter and cheese sandwiches really gross me out, but I know that they’re your favorite, and they do have lots of protein, so I’ll just try not to look.”

What you should do instead of fight

As any good leader knows, war is a last resort. If you can resolve something by negotiation and compromise, do so. Some tactics:

Close your eyes for a second, and when you open them, read the words on the next line.

A day for yourself.

Now imagine yourself taking one. For readers unfamiliar with this concept, a day for yourself is defined as a series of uninterrupted hours during which you relax, read, take a yoga class, see a friend, or skip through a wheat field in slow motion, if that’s what makes you feel good. What’s more, you do this without regard to anyone else’s opinion, hunger level, need to be at the speech therapist, feelings of abandonment, or your daughter’s desire for you to help get the yellow rubber minidress on one of those teeny-tiny Polly Pocket dolls RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND!!

Okay, so what is the primary feeling you’re having at the thought of that day just for yourself? Is it:

a) Guilt
b) Trepidation or outright worry
c) Righteous entitlement, because, dagnabit, you deserve some downtime
d) Shock at that pig flying by
e) All of the above

We all know we should take a “me” day (or at least some “me” time) every so often, and we know we’d feel less addled and overwhelmed if we did. Says Emily Bender, a certified holistic nutrition consultant from Fairfax, CA, and mom of a 5-year-old, “Not only was I calmer after I went to a weekend retreat, but being away gave me a lot of clarity about what my needs are and how I parent. It freed up a colossal amount of mental space so I could see things better.”

There are myriad reasons, however, that we can’t or don’t take a day. Some moms believe that the whole machinery of the house would screech to a halt if they were incommunicado for that long, while others don’t fully trust their partner to actually engage with the children instead of planting them in front of the TV while noodling around on Facebook. If you work outside the home, you may already feel sad that you don’t see your kids enough. And, of course, many single parents have added logistical and financial obstacles that prevent them from getting alone time.

But there are some deeper reasons many of us don’t take a hiatus. Melissa Leffel, a teacher and mom of two in Fredonia, NY, has never taken a real day off. She says it makes her feel selfish to leave her own kids, or her students. “It’s a sense that I’m not being responsible,” she says. “When I want a day off, it’s usually about wanting space, or to be able to sleep until nine. It’s about wanting back things that I used to have before I had kids and maybe didn’t realize what it would feel like not to have anymore.” The thought of wishing away your family (a notion that most moms have had, at least fleetingly, at some point) feels ungrateful and somehow reckless.

Nonetheless, Leffel’s sentiments are echoed in tot lots and middle school PTAs across the country. “Nobody wants to think of themselves as selfish,” says licensed psychologist Ann Dunnewold, Ph.D., author of Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box and a mom of two in Dallas. “They think, Time for me detracts from time with them. How could I not put my kids first all the time? If I don’t, I’m a bad mom.” By this all-or-nothing thinking, says Dunnewold, a “good” mom should always want to be with her children, and what’s more, enjoy every (sometimes tedious or aggravating) second of it, regardless of her own needs. Any other scenario is a sign that you’re not worthy of the good fortune the heavens have bestowed upon you in blessing you with such a lovely family.

To that, Parenting says poo. Let’s help you shelve those unrealistic expectations of yourself and go get a manicure (or take a walk or go to the mall or just sleep!). Because that old chestnut is spot-on: If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Time-off obstacles, overcome!

Below, some of the big reasons moms hesitate to pull a temporary disappearing act — and permission to do it anyway.

“I’m okay. I don’t really need a day off.” All moms need days off occasionally, and you might not realize that you’re at the end of your rope until you find yourself dangling over a precipice. “Everyone is like a pitcher of water. If you keep pouring it out — taking care of the children, pets, bills, your mother-in-law — without filling it up again, you’ll be running on empty,” says Dunnewold. “Remember: You’re doing a good thing for your kids if you do something for you.”

“The kids will suffer if I leave them for that long.” That would be true if you vanished off the face of the earth, never to return; we’re talking one day (or half a day, if that’s all you can swing). Your children may be upset when you actually say goodbye, but they’ll get over it with ego-crushing speed. “We think that things will fall apart or something bad will happen if we leave,” says Dunnewold. “But ask yourself, is getting your nails done or having lunch with your friend really going to wreck your kid?” Says Gina Osher, a mom of 2-year-old twins in Los Angeles, “I tell myself it’s really good for my kids to be with other people, so it’s not all about Mommy.”

“My husband/babysitter won’t keep her in her routine.” Even if you write it all down for your partner or caregiver, there’s always the chance that naps will be late or nonexistent, or that your child will not get the afternoon snack that keeps her from becoming a monster by dinnertime. But is it really such a disaster if it happens once in a while? Kate Miller, a mom in Providence, RI, has learned to let this stuff go on her weekly day off, when her husband has guys’ day with their two sons. “So he lets them watch too much TV, and he doesn’t wash their hair properly, in my opinion,” says Miller. “It’s fine. Everybody’s alive.” Besides, whoever’s left in charge will learn firsthand why that snack and nap are critical — and deal with the consequences. (The key here is to stay out long enough that you miss the meltdown, which may not even happen.) “This is less anxiety about the child than it is anxiety about control,” says Dunnewold. Let it go.

“I work all day, so I already spend so much time apart from them.” This is a toughie, but working at an outside job still doesn’t give you all you need to feel human. Besides, working brings home the bacon, which is another form of caring for your children. “If you’re the type to feel guilty about this, maybe you should feel guilty if you don’t take the day off,” suggests Miller. “You’re not letting your kids see their mom in a good state. They don’t get to experience you when you’re rested.”

“I stay home and my husband works hard all week, so I feel bad taking a day to myself.” Well, you work hard all week, too, if you’re taking care of kids — some would say harder, given the zillions of details you keep track of and all the needs you must satisfy. “There are labor laws in this country,” Dunnewold points out, and you can decide that they apply to you, too. For every eight hours you work, you’re entitled to a half-hour lunch and two 20-minute breaks. If you’re a stay-at-home mom with no help, you work 16 hours a day. That means you have 14 hours a week coming to you. If you take even half of that you’re still not slacking off. Raising children is a valuable contribution to the world; you should be rewarded for that.

“I’d feel better if I used time alone to take care of things that are stressing me out.” Okay, but use some of it for fun. If you have three hours off, be constructive during only one of them. And then keep reminding yourself: You will be a better mother, on all levels, if you tend to yourself.

Create free periods

You might find an hour or two while your kid’s in a karate class, at a dropoff playdate (return the favor to the mom-on-duty next time), or even during a kid movie you don’t want to sit through, if your child’s with an old-enough friend — just set them in their seats with snacks, and sit right outside the theater doors…to read or knit or play Minesweeper.

“If I have to do something, like go to the dentist, I will try to add on one frivolous thing, like getting my nails done.” — Gina Osher

“I get up, get dressed for work, and don’t tell anyone that I’m not going to the office. I work out, see a movie, and I’m home by dinnertime. And I don’t feel guilty at all.” — Nancy Smith, Parenting staffer

“I take the dog for ‘a long walk,’ but I actually walk over to my sister’s, where I sit and have coffee and chat.” — Lisa Bain, Parenting staffer

Signs you NEED a day away

1. The nail-polish remover is just where you left it: on the refrigerator door with the salad dressing.

2. You look forward to your annual Pap smear because at least you’ll be able to lie down in a quiet place with no children nearby.

3. You hear your big kid warning your little kid, “Dude, steer clear. She’s got that crazy-lady look.”

4. Sometimes when you pull into your driveway, you don’t really want to get out of the car.

5. Your unsympathetic, ass-in-chair-style boss gently suggested that you take one.

How to stop “checking in”

1. Get your nails done — it’s hard to use a cell phone with freshly painted nails.

2. “Forget” your phone in the car glove compartment.

3. Consider the fact that your husband might resent it when you check in and be insulted that you don’t have confidence in him.

4. Realize that he might have questions (”Where are the razor blades? We’re doing an art project”) that could stress you out.

5. Give your cell to a friend to hold, and confiscate hers.

Stephanie Dolgoff is Parenting’s editor-at-large.

5 Smart Ways to Handle Teacher Troubles

Is it the teacher — or is it your kid? How to find out why your child’s unhappy at school

By Stephanie Dolgoff, Parenting

There was no single incident that made Kim Black of River Ridge, LA, realize that all was not sunshine and warm fuzzies between her son Harrison, then 7, and his second-grade teacher. Rather, it was a constellation of things: Harrison insisting that “the teacher doesn’t like me,” that she yelled at him frequently in class, that she was picking on him in particular — as well as the dramatic change in her son’s disposition. “I’d had this happy-go-lucky child, and now he’s coming home crying every day as he gets off the bus,” says Black, a mom of four.

So before the end of the first month of school, Black went to speak with Harrison’s teacher. “I said, ‘My son doesn’t feel like you like him,’?” recalls Black. “She was very defensive, saying, ‘Of course I like him. I like all the children.’?” Black quickly explained that she wasn’t accusing the teacher of doing anything wrong, but that she was simply trying to make her aware that Harrison felt this way, and to understand why. The teacher insisted she had no idea. “I think that started us off on the wrong foot,” says Black, noting that things deteriorated from there and that she had “opened a can of worms.” Harrison grew to dislike going to school, and his grades suffered. Ultimately he was moved to a different class, but not without much angst all around.

It’s hard to know what to think (or do) when your child comes home clearly upset, or with a specific beef like Harrison’s. “You hear things like, the teacher plays favorites, we all get punished if somebody’s bad, she’s impatient with me, or that he’s bored,” says Susan Etheredge, associate professor of education and child study at Smith College. Some of the complaints can be about social issues — for instance, there’s a problem with another child and the teacher isn’t stepping in, says Etheredge, who adds that the beginning of the year is the peak time for all these concerns.

Depending on your style and whether or not your child is particularly sensitive, it may be tempting to advise him (in age-appropriate language, of course) to grow a pair. More likely, however, a part of you will want to elbow your way into the classroom like Nancy Grace on steroids and fight for your kid.

Totally understandable — although more likely to get you branded as the cuckoo mom to be humored than to resolve the problem. Instead, use our step-by-step guide to sorting out your child’s trouble with his teacher. You’ll find that he may soon be looking forward to school — or at least showing up and learning something.

Step 1: Play Reporter

Sometimes kids will make generic claims, like “The teacher’s mean to me.” You want to find out what that means. Etheredge calls this “unpacking” what your child is saying. Try to get as much detail as possible. Ask, “What exactly did she say? What was happening in the class when she said it?” (You might want to inquire casually, so your child doesn’t clam up or exaggerate.) “Mean” might mean “She makes me do my work,” in which case you could explain that the teacher is trying to show the kind of behavior you need to have at school; after all, some things are very reasonable under the circumstances, but they may not seem that way to a 6-year-old. The idea is not so much to uncover “the truth” of what went down but to get a more concrete sense of what your child is seeing.

Step 2: Play Advocate

Tell your child that you’re going to write down what she’s saying so you can go have a conversation with the teacher. (Give her a chance to elaborate on her story — it’s hard for kids to remember every detail.) “Let the child understand that you, her teacher, and the principal are partners working to help make school a great experience for her,” says Jan Harp Domene, a mother of three in Anaheim, CA, and president of the National Parent Teacher Association. This serves several purposes: Your child knows that you care about what’s happening, that her concerns are going to be heard, but also that you’re not just going to march in and “fix” a problem. Domene advises saying something like “Mom and Dad are going to talk to the teacher to find out why you feel this way” — not “why the teacher did this.” “It’s your child’s feelings you’re dealing with. Until you talk to the teacher, you don’t have the whole picture,” says Domene. You might also be able to give your older kid some tools to handle the situation herself. Suggest options, such as approaching the teacher after class and pointing out, for instance, that she doesn’t think she gets called on very often. Sometimes the teacher may not be aware of how your child feels.

Step 3: Play the Diplomat

If you decide you need to speak with the teacher, set up a time (not at dropoff or pickup), and go in as someone seeking help in solving a problem. Using inclusive language is important, says Etheredge. Say something like “I’m coming to you with a problem I don’t completely understand, but I’m hoping together we can best figure out Mark’s concern.” Here’s where you explain what your child told you and when, using his words as often as possible. “This de-escalates the situation,” says Etheredge. You’re not saying “Mark says you do this.” Instead, you’re saying “I need help understanding what’s bugging Mark.” Whatever you do, assume innocence all around. Your child may well have done something to annoy the teacher, who may have reacted with, well, annoyance. “I have seen some parents absolutely assume that their child would never do anything wrong, and when you do that, the chances really dwindle for a successful school year,” says Domene. “We need to realize that kids are kids and we love them, but they also can say stuff that may not be entirely true.”

Despite your light touch, the teacher might feel criticized — some people are sensitive, particularly beleaguered, tired, and underpaid educators who do occasionally deal with parents who are a little overzealous on behalf of their perfect little angels. Do your best to reassure her that you’re not blaming her. “You don’t want her to get defensive, because then you’re in a hole and you’re starting from behind,” says Etheredge. If she rears up, just stay calm and keep repeating that you’re simply trying to understand what’s going on.

Ideally, the teacher will shed light on why your child feels as he does, and you can have a mutually informative conversation that will help her teach your child most effectively. If your child says the teacher “never” calls on him, when you talk to her she might tell you that your son often knows the answers, but she’s trying to give the shier kids a chance.

Or the teacher may not have done anything at all. Maybe the teacher is a grump, and your child is taking it personally. Getting a firsthand taste of how the teacher communicates may illuminate the situation. Then you can talk to your child about how some people are not as smiley or are maybe less patient than the other adults in his life, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like him, says Domene.

A pleasant face-to-face helps in other ways: The teacher will see you as an ally and be more likely to confide in you, of course. But if the teacher is, let’s say, better suited to another line of work, you’re sending her a signal that you’re paying attention and are involved. If the teacher is, in fact, singling out your child, a little I’m-onto-you might be enough to get her to lay off.

Because the truth is, while teaching is the most noble profession, not all teachers are as noble as one would hope. Juliet Goldberg*, a mom of two girls in Vancouver, British Columbia, felt that way about her daughter Sara’s first-grade teacher a few years ago. “The parents just could not believe this woman was teaching our kids,” she recalls. “I kept saying to Sara, this is not what school is supposed to be about.’?” The teacher made callous comments, teased kids about sensitive issues, and told stories about her personal life in class, says Goldberg, adding, “Sara hated going to school.” Goldberg spoke with the teacher several times (something the experts advise) and volunteered in class two days a week so she could get a better sense of what was going on. When that didn’t help, she decided to take the next step. Which is…

Step 4: Play Tattletale

No one wants to go to the principal’s office, and that includes parents, but if you’ve raised your concerns with the teacher several times and you feel she isn’t doing her best to resolve the problem, you have a choice to make: You can decide to turn the unpleasant situation into a “sometimes life sucks, kiddo” learning opportunity for your child, or you can go over the teacher’s head. The first tactic, while perhaps not as just as the second, might ultimately be what’s best for your kid. “The truth is, most kids will do fine” even if they don’t like their teacher, says Etheredge. Ask yourself, is she learning what she needs to be?

This is what happened to Christine Klepacz of Bethesda, MD. Her tween daughter’s teacher was strict and not very nurturing. To help get Alysia through the year, Klepacz told her that even though the teacher had a different personality than she was used to, she was academically challenging, and Alysia was meeting the challenge. It was a good lesson: Alysia learned she could work with all types of people.

But if, like Goldberg, you feel that what’s going on in the classroom is turning your child off to school, by all means, speak to the principal or whoever is next on the school food chain. Tell the principal the steps you’ve already taken, and “keep bringing it back to the child’s perceptions,” says Etheredge. “Your attitude is still, we all want her to have the best year possible.” Explain how you’ve tried waiting and discussing it with the teacher, but what’s going on is interfering with your child’s education. Depending on the principal’s style, she either will arrange for you to have another conversation with the teacher or will speak with him herself. In Goldberg’s case, the principal admitted to her privately that the teacher was a poor choice and promised the parents in that class that the following year their kids would get an excellent teacher, which they did.

When things reach this point, of course, you may not exactly be the teacher’s pet parent, which may cause problems for your child. But if it’s something important, as in Goldberg’s case, advocating for your child is more crucial than being labeled the annoying mom.

Step 5: Play Hardball

If you suspect the teacher is taking her frustrations out on your child, especially after you speak to the principal, that’s the time to make it clear to the principal, firmly and calmly, that you’re not going away. As a last resort, request a change of classroom. Schools are very reluctant to do that, says Etheredge, but may if a child is truly suffering and the situation is unlikely to change. After much persistence, Harrison was ultimately moved out of his second-grade class and was much happier (and got better grades) with his new teacher. Still, Black saw a similar pattern developing with her second son, and moved both boys to a new school. “If you do nothing but defend your child and don’t investigate the issues, you are not helping matters,” she says. “But if a problem is repeated year after year and you’ve done what you need to do with your child, you know it’s the school.” At this point, both her sons are thriving at their new school — and that makes all the difference in the world.

Stephanie Dolgoff is Parenting’s editor-at-large. http://www.parenting.com/Common/printArticle.jsp?articleID=1000069197 ]]> http://www.stephaniedolgoff.com/2009/03/teacher-trouble/feed/ http://www.stephaniedolgoff.com/2009/02/a-few-body-image-stories-from-self/ http://www.stephaniedolgoff.com/2009/02/a-few-body-image-stories-from-self/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:04:17 +0000 steph http://www.stephaniedolgoff.com/index.php/2009/02/02/a-few-body-image-stories-from-self/ Words you’ll never forget

Can’t recall your ATM password, but still remember the insult about your butt from a fifth-grade jerk? Turns out, body barbs affect us for years. Read on to move on.

By Stephanie Dolgoff

From the February 2009 Issue

When Kristy Scher was 16, her father said, “I’m concerned about your weight—even your ankles are fat!” When he said that, “It was like, ‘Damn! Even the things I thought were OK about me really aren’t,’” says Scher, a 38-year-old yoga teacher in Portland, Maine. Almost every woman vividly recalls at least one childhood crack that influences how she feels about her body now. In a new SELF survey, 50 percent of readers say parents were a frequent source of these zappers. Worse, a study in The American Journal of Pediatrics notes that more than 80 percent of college women say parents or siblings have made negative comments about their weight or eating habits, which contributed to lower self-esteem. But the hurt can come from others, as well. In the SELF poll, 54 percent of women say schoolmates were the worst culprits. Megan McCafferty, 36, a writer in Princeton, New Jersey, recalls a fellow eighth grader saying, “It’s a good thing you’re smart, because you sure can’t rely on your looks!” Laughs McCafferty: “The only good thing is that the angst this caused has given me great material for my novels.”

Why, decades later, do such remarks remain vivid? “As a child, you lack the cognitive skills to put them in perspective, so you may take them more seriously than you should,” says Ruth Striegel-Moore, Ph.D., chair of the psychology department at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Worse, our culture tends to reinforce the idea that an imperfect body isn’t good enough, which can make the shame doubly hard to shake. Still, “you can choose to say, ‘I’ll let this rest and live by my own values,” Striegel-Moore says. Try these tips for letting go once and for all.

Get indignant. Instead of taking nasty remarks to heart, respond strongly—but in a healthy way. Says Scher, whose father maligned her ankles, “Nowadays, if I hear someone denigrating a woman’s body, I think, Bow to the goddess and kiss my curvy, luscious ass!”

Light a fire. Take the insult (thunder thighs!), jot it down along with the belief it’s searing into your brain (”I have no self-control”), then burn it, Striegel-Moore suggests. “The ritual lets you say a formal good-bye to the negativity.”

Talk back. “My mother once said, ‘You’re perfect from the waist up,’” recalls Deborah Jaffe, 43, a photographer in Los Angeles. Rather than bottling up the angst, try responding directly, in a neutral tone (”You’re telling me this because…?”). That forces the other person to justify her behavior, Striegel-Moore says.

Learn from it. “Many of us repeatedly put ourselves in hurtful situations, hoping to get it right,” Striegel-Moore says, which means you might gravitate toward someone because she insults you, as the behavior feels familiar. Alyssa Goldberg, 43, a systems analyst in New York City, used to tolerate bad behavior from “friends.” Then one day, “a guy told me I’d be happier if I lost 25 pounds,” she recalls. Instead, she lost him. “I said, ‘Watch me lose 180 pounds now,’ then I left him standing there.”

Check you out!

Are you constantly peering at yourself in the mirror—and disparaging what you see? It’s time to put your body-bashing habits to rest and give kudos to your fantabulous shape!

By Stephanie Dolgoff

From the February 2009 Issue

You’re walking along, having a lovely day (tra-la-la!), when you glimpse yourself in a store window and a voice in your head bursts in like a news flash preempting your favorite TV show: “You’re too fat to deserve to have a nice day!” Kiss your good mood good-bye. You’ve got self-denigrating to do.

I am well acquainted with that kind of self-critique. And although I know being healthy is more important than being thin, knowing isn’t the same as believing. “To shift your feelings, you have to change the way you act,” says Terry Wilson, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, New Jersey. In my case, he says, that would mean curtailing behaviors that reinforce my body negativity. To start, he suggests I notice when I check out myself—whether in a window, a mirror or even in my own head. (”My belly feels thick today!”) “Women like you, who worry about their weight, tend to body-check on a regular basis,” Wilson tells me. “There’s a tendency to think, If I’m not vigilant, if I don’t stand guard, I’ll let myself go.”

That strikes a chord. More signs of body-checking behavior: You constantly glance at your shape, ask your partner if you look fat or weigh yourself more than once a day. “One problem with body checking is that it keeps you in a heightened state of consciousness about what you perceive as a problem,” Wilson says. Once I start paying attention to my body checking, I’m shocked by how often I do it (six times in half an hour!). I suck in my gut while on the phone with my dad, stare at my butt in store windows when I’m on my way to a work meeting and take note of my belly extending past the waistband of my jeans as I sit down with a friend I haven’t seen in a while. The fairly obvious conclusion: When I’m feeling insecure—about work, a relationship—I’m apt to turn that dissatisfaction toward my body, maybe because it’s easier to do that than to cope with whatever is truly bothering me.

Simply seeing the link—stress leads to body checking—helps me see the habit as a sign I need to pause (”Hey, you’re checking again!”) and breathe. I discover that the less I check myself, the less I bash myself—and the better I feel about my body. Lately, I’m having more lovely days. I can live with that.

By Stephanie Dolgoff

From the November 2008 Issue

This morning, before I’d even had my coffee, the kitchen cabinet doors fell off their hinges, and cans of chickpeas rained down everywhere. My twin 5-year-old girls were each so desperate for my attention that I felt like a piece of raw meat in a tug-of-war between two starving Dobermans. I also noticed that I have a fungus on my right big toenail. Add to that my prematurely arthritic knees, my dad’s penchant for reminding me where I’ll find his will when he dies and the fact that my husband seems to love our hybrid car more than he does me, and you’ll start to get a picture of my daily life.

When I feel overwhelmed with all of the above, I remind myself that at least no one snatched one of my twins at birth and left her to be raised by a criminally negligent alcoholic. The love of my life didn’t come back from the dead, then suddenly develop amnesia. And thank God, I didn’t hire a surrogate to have my babies (because I am barren due to a mysterious scuba accident), only to see her run off with my husband, who wrongly suspects me of cheating with his estranged nephew, who also happens to be a defrocked priest. Things could indeed be worse.

Clearly, I watch soaps. Every chance I get. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you snort and roll your eyes, like all my public radio–listening, New Republic–reading, we-only-got-a-TV-for-HBO friends. There’s not a soap watcher out there who hasn’t endured this brand of disdain and incredulity from people who may be equally addicted to Gossip Girl, Project Runway, American Idol or Survivor. Whatever their TiVo habits, I suspect that lots of folks tend to see a soapless life as proof of their intellectual superiority. That doesn’t stop me from tuning in. Like my soap opera heroines—the Dixies, Dominiques or, if they’re really conniving, Dorians—I can survive anything.

A few years ago, when one of my favorite shows announced that a beloved character was returning to the mob-enforcer boyfriend she left a decade earlier, I realized how long I’d been following these cheesy, hyperbolically acted, unrealistic, sometimes embarrassingly bad daytime TV dramas. Fifteen years multiplied by as many as three hours a day during the years I worked as a freelance writer equals, well, a hell of a lot of malignant brain tumors, evil twins and faked pregnancies. Before I had children, I religiously taped All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital and watched them in marathon weekend sessions, fast-forwarding through the advertisements. These days, I hit the gym at lunch and watch my soaps while I’m on the elliptical trainer. At least I get in some good-for-me cardio along with my suds.

I may very well be the dimwit my acquaintances assume I am. The same could be true of the millions of women who watch daytime soaps, not to mention the millions more who are pulled into the only slightly more sophisticated prime-time versions of these dramas. (Have you seen The Hills lately? Technically, it’s a reality show, but if the story lines aren’t worthy of a soap opera, I don’t know what is!) Still, I’m betting that we aren’t as dumb as our TV habits might suggest. I’d even wager that many fluffy TV devotees derive the same kind of emotional benefits from this good clean fun as I do.

I spend most of my day rushing around as if the complex infrastructure of my work, family and emotional life would crumble into pieces if I stopped my frantic scrambling for even a minute. In contrast, when my soaps are on, I am immobile and slack-jawed. This is a good thing. As someone who has tried yoga, meditation and several other supposedly mindful practices, I’ve found that a single hour of One Life to Live is what makes me feel the most relaxed and centered. Even my husband, who likes to surreptitiously watch over my shoulder so he can tease me later, gets sucked in. (”Wait, so the urologist was a fraud and the vasectomy was never actually performed? So she could truly be having his baby?”) Following the convoluted, often logic-defying stories requires Einstein-like concentration, which means that when the hour is up, my mind is totally cleansed. I simply haven’t had the opportunity to dwell on whether an upcoming work project will go well. My focus is sharper, my mood brighter, my spirit more serene. Some women knit for relaxation; others go for a run. I watch soap operas. It’s better than psychotherapy—and cheaper, too.

Soaps are available to everyone. They’re of the people and for the people, a fact I find soothing and satisfyingly democratic. Even more so than tuning in to the rest of what’s on TV, watching a soap is like going to a party where everyone rushes to include you in the conversation. If you miss a day—or a decade—you can turn it on and catch up with the latest shenanigans relatively quickly, because the characters are constantly recapping. (”Now, Rock, just because you were twice married to my mother and once to my sister doesn’t mean we don’t have a future together!”) Unlike with Heroes or Lost, a soap opera doesn’t require you to make a full-on commitment to be a member of the club.

I’ve also become more self-confident since I started watching soaps. In part, that’s because of general maturation. But I have to give my soaps some credit. The characters on these shows tend to say what you wish you could say (or they at least think it out loud in a goofy voice-over), providing a powerful vicarious thrill. Like most women I know, I was raised to be nice, to spare people’s feelings and to declare war only when the matter is critical and all other tactics have failed. Nowadays, if I believe someone is taking advantage of me, I pause, take a deep breath and ask myself, WWEKD (What Would Erica Kane Do)? While I may not opt for the All My Children diva’s typically extreme measures, merely entertaining the idea of “pulling an Erica” allows me to speak my mind more easily.

But the best thing about soaps may be that they present a world—however artificial—that somehow seems rosier than the one we real humans inhabit. Love can transform rapists and pimps into devoted husbands. The capacity for human forgiveness is the size of the Mall of America. (”Of course I still love you! When you sold my baby to that Texas oil tycoon, you didn’t know it was yours!”) The one unifying theme on these soaps is that the rich aren’t necessarily happier than the rest of us. We all need to be reminded of that once in a while.

Have I mentioned that on soap operas, gorgeous men with eight-pack abs are constantly taking off their shirt, even in situations that don’t warrant pectoral exposure? Recently, I had the unexpected pleasure of actually mingling with a few of those blow-dried, sculpted hunks and their preternaturally attractive female counterparts at a benefit to raise money for breast cancer research. At first, I was giddy and starstruck. Fellow partygoers urged me to go over and talk to my stars, but I couldn’t. After all, what would I say? “I really respect your work, particularly in the scene where you attempted to intervene when your fugitive wife held a hostage at gunpoint because the judge had revoked the adoption of your only son.” Mostly though, I wanted to leave these larger-than-life figures where they belonged: in their glittery, tacky, emotionally overwrought, fictional universe. That way, I can continue to observe their outlandish antics and feel genuinely grateful for my sometimes mundane but nevertheless happy and comparatively simple real life.

From epidurals (ahh!) to vagina lifts (boo!), here’s Health magazine’s list of the famous highs and lows in the last 20 years of female wellness.

1. The (modern) tampon is invented
Look, we’re not trying to knock the ancient Egyptians, who used softened papyrus to stem the monthly menstrual flood. (That definitely beats the lint wrapped around a piece of wood that the ancient Greeks favored.) But if Earle Haas, who devised the modern tampon in 1929, were alive today, we’d all wear white pants in his honor. Haas adapted a cotton surgical plug (“plug” translates to “tampon” in French) with two concentric cardboard tubes for easy insertion; he filed for the first patent for his “catamenial [menstrual] device” in 1931. Haas, a Denver osteopath, dubbed his new invention Tampax.

2. The Pap smear makes its debut
The next time your gynecologist tells you to “just relax” as she pokes at your cervix with a cotton swab, lie back and think of George Papanicolaou, the guy behind the roughly 75 percent drop in mortality rates from cervical cancer in the United States since 1941. Papanicolaou invented the Pap smear in 1941; the screening susses out iffy-looking cervical cells before they have a chance to become full-blown cancer.

3. Shirley Temple Black takes mastectomy out of the closet
Back when cancer was the whispered “C word,” before Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller spoke out about their breast-cancer diagnoses, former child star Shirley Temple Black revealed that she’d had a mastectomy in 1972. Her action helped lift the disease’s stigma. Since then, the Pink Ribbon campaign has raised awareness and research dollars to find a cure, and women worldwide know to get screened.

4. The epidural is born
After his wife almost died from complications with anesthesia during the birth of their first child, John Bonica, MD, invented the epidural in the 1940s and used it on his wife the second time around. Nice, right? Tell your husband that the least he could do is take out the recycling.

5. Birth control pills are declared safe

On May 9, 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Pill as a safe form of birth control. Forty-eight years later, it’s the most popular form of reversible birth control.

6. Tubal ligation becomes an option for all women
Get this: Until 1969, a woman couldn’t elect to have her tubes tied unless she fit a formula—her age multiplied by the number of children she’d delivered had to equal 120 or more. (What that means: If you were 30 years old, you would have to have had four kids before a doctor would have agreed that you’d done your share of “women’s work” and sterilized you, unless another pregnancy would have posed a health risk.) But in 1970, tubal ligation got the green light for all and is now the leading method of birth control.

7. Women finally get straight talk about their bodies
If you need to know something about your body, what do you do? Look it up, of course. But before 1970 there weren’t any good resources. That year a group of Boston women published a stapled-together booklet—the precursor to Our Bodies, Ourselves—and fueled the burgeoning idea that women should be full participants in their medical care. Three years later, the radical publication (which discussed such issues as sexuality and birth control) was beefed up and released by Simon & Schuster. It’s now in its eighth edition.

8. Girls get straight talk, too (thanks to Judy Blume!)
Periods, flat chestedness, masturbation, sex. No topic stressing the teen girl was off limits for revolutionary writer Judy Blume. In 1970s classics like Deenie, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, and Forever, Blume gave readers fictional alter egos that reassured us—you are so normal.

9. Edith Bunker goes through the change
All in the Family’s put-upon Edith Bunker goes through menopause in front of a live studio audience in a landmark 1972 episode. When she couldn’t contain her mood swings and other symp­toms, her small-minded husband, Archie, nearly blew a gasket and hilarity ensued. More important, women could now point at the TV and say, “See, it’s not just me.”

10. Billie Jean King whips chauvinist butt
In a 1973 match billed as The Battle of the Sexes, tennis pioneer Billie Jean King fries self-proclaimed male-chauvinist pig and ex–tennis champ Bobby Riggs. Coming on the heels of Title IX—which mandated that female athletes be given the same resources on a college level as male athletes—her win encouraged more women to go out for sports. “She has prominently affected the way 50 percent of society thinks and feels about itself in the vast area of physical exercise,” Frank Deford wrote in Sports Illustrated.

11. The sports bra is developed
Lisa Lindahl, a female grad student, (with the help of two classmates) sews together two jock straps in 1977 and harnesses the power of the very first Jogbra. Bounce is effectively banished.

12. Betty Ford admits she has a problem
These days, addiction is seen as a treatable, if tenacious, illness. But back in 1978, it was viewed as a character flaw. First Lady Betty Ford’s openness about her addiction to painkillers and alcohol after a family intervention in 1978 sent her to rehab was nothing short of revolutionary. She later founded the Betty Ford Center, a facility that that’s helped tens-of-thousands of women recover from drug
or alcohol dependency.

13. Demi Moore poses seven-months pregnant—and naked
These days we practically expect a woman to show off her gorgeous pregnant shape, but in 1991 a very expectant Demi Moore made news when she sat sans clothes for a Vanity Fair cover shoot. “You’re either sexy or you’re a mother,” Moore said in a 1996 Interview magazine profile. “I didn’t want to have to choose, so I challenged that.”

14. Marge Simpson escapes to Rancho Relaxo
After überselfless Marge loses it from stress in this classic 1992 episode of The Simpsons, she runs away to a spa for rejuvenating treatments and Thelma & Louise on demand. She returns home less wiggy, and Homer and the kids survive (just barely) without her. Score one for Me Time!

15. Women are included in clinical trials
After years of conducting clinical and drug trials on white men and crossing their fingers hoping that the results would apply to women and everyone else, the National Institutes of Health in 1993 finally adopted the official policy to include more women and minorities in their testing. This paved the way for breakthroughs like discovering differences in men’s and women’s heart attack symptoms.

16. U.S. women win the World Cup
Brandi Chastain fell to her knees and whipped off her jersey after her penalty kick scored the winning goal against China in the Women’s World Cup soccer final in 1999. She later called the exposure “momentary insanity,” but the win inspired little American girls to not cut gym class.

17. Kathleen Turner bares all—at 45
The ever-sexy actress shows what 45 looks like by going au naturel onstage in the London tour of The Graduate in 2000. Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson!

18. Katie Couric gets a colonoscopy—on camera
Sure, colon cancer affects men, too. But you didn’t see any of them undergoing a colonoscopy on live television like Katie Couric did in 2000 to raise awareness after her husband died of the disease. Colonoscopy rates jumped 20 percent following the show, showing that the journalist’s gutsy move made a difference.

19. Sarah Jessica Parker gets honest about what it takes to “bounce back” after baby
Everyone’s obsessed with how quickly celebrities rebound back into their prebaby premium jeans. But flat-bellied actress Sarah Jessica Parker made us mere mortals feel better by pointing out that she has a private in-home yoga instructor and child care that enables her to have long workout sessions. “Not only is the standard too high for most normal women, it’s too high even for us,” she said six months after delivering her son, James, in 2002.

20. A shot to fight female cancer emerges
Gardasil, the first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer—or any cancer—was approved by the FDA in 2006. The vaccine wards off certain types of human papillomavirus, including two that cause roughly 70 percent of cases of cervical cancer, which kills nearly 4,000 women a year.

You’ve read the best advances in women’s health over the last 20 years. Here, our list of the top seven bad things in women’s health.

“You’ve come a long way …” not so much
In 1968, Virginia Slims co-opted the feminist movement by portraying smoking as an empowered act. The “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” campaign ran through the 1980s, well after tobacco companies knew that smoking can cause lung cancer.

Forced sterilizations
In rural Alabama, two African-American girls Mary Alice and Minnie Relf, 12 and 14 in 1973, were deemed mentally incompetent and then sterilized without their consent. The case brought attention to the practice of using federal funds to sterilize mostly poor minorities in the name of public health.

The hysteria diagnosis
From ancient times until 1980, sexually frustrated and otherwise emotional women were diagnosed with hysteria, a constellation of multiple symptoms that added up to one hell of a bad mood. Treatment for the problem was often doctor-administered “pelvic massage.” Gee, wonder why it was diagnosed so often?

The need for a Plan C
In 2004, at an Eckerd pharmacy in Texas, a pharmacist refused to fill a sexual-assault-victim’s prescription for Plan B emergency contraception because it “violated his morals.” (To prevent pregnancy, the drug must be taken within 72 hours of intercourse; the woman was able to fill her prescription at a Walgreens later that evening.) All three of the Eckerd pharmacists were later fired for violating the patient’s rights. But this was just one of a spate of cases involving pharmacists who refused to dispense the legal drug because they view the Plan B pill as an abortifacient.

Down-there tweaks
In 2005, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon performs a labioplasty (the first of many) on his reality show Dr. 90210—and the procedure has been gaining popularity ever since. Is no part too private to need to be perfected?

Tom Cruise slamming the baby blues
In July 2005, on the Today show, actor Tom Cruise slammed Brooke Shields—and by extension, every woman who has suffered from postpartum depression—saying she should have simply exercised and taken vitamins and not used antidepressants.

A plastic-surgery picture book
A 2008 book, My Beautiful Mommy, gives some pat explanations for why mom looks like she was run over by a semi after getting a breast augmentation or tummy tuck. A question it doesn’t answer: “Do I need to get operated on so I can be prettier, too?”

By Stephanie Dolgoff

For more excellent Health magazine content, visit www.health.com