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Shawn Bean

Shawn Bean is the executive editor of Parenting Early Years. He lives with his wife and two young sons in Florida, where family time often means fielding questions about body parts, ninjas, cavemen, and lava.

Thursday, October 20, 2011 - 16:58
Can Same-Sex Couples Fix Opposite Sex Marriage?
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
When I read today about the heavy lifting taking place in Washington D.C. and in courtrooms nationwide to keep same sex marriage illegal, one thought came through loud and clear: we are missing a tremendous opportunity. Perhaps if we make gay marriage legal, then gay couples can give this age-old institution of ours a go, breathe new life into it, help it evolve. Because right now, when it comes to marriage, heterosexuals are the L.A. Clippers. Maybe, just maybe, homosexuals could be the L.A. Lakers of long-term commitment.Read Full Post
Friday, October 14, 2011 - 12:30
How bad parenting created Occupy Wall Street
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
It’s a nice time of year for an uprising. Temperatures in New York are in the high 60s to low 70s. Sunny skies, little rain. It drops to about 50 at night, so the free blankets come in handy. Every so often you march. The rest of the time you do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight. Occupy Wall Street is a Bonnaroo-ed version of a revolution. If T.G.I. Friday’s made a civil rights movement, this would be it. And it’s parents, moms and dads, i.e. us, who are to blame for these people throwing a tantrum in a public park.Read Full Post
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - 12:22
Are dads more popular than moms?
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
When a dad manages to mix formula without turning the kitchen into a scene from Scarface, there’s a ticker-tape parade. But we collectively scratch our heads and furrow our brows if we see a mom struggle to set up a playard. (Is it squeeze, lift and snap, or lift, snap and squeeze?) We know this storyline all too well: When the class clown gets an A, we say hip hip hooray. When the valedictorian gets a B, we wonder why her performance level is dropping. This should help explain why average Americans think today's dads are doing a better job than today's moms.Read Full Post
Friday, October 7, 2011 - 17:13
Why are we un-boy-ing our boys?
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
Walk into any preschool classroom and you’ll see little girls sitting still, paying attention. You will also see little boys fidgeting, making faces, turning umbrellas into lightsabers. Most would describe this scene as the girls behaving and the boys misbehaving. But the question is: Why do we want boys to act like girls?Read Full Post
Monday, October 3, 2011 - 12:40
Not getting enough QT with your family? Pick a new religion.
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
The U.S. policy on paternity leave (no paid leave; take unpaid leave at your own professional risk) is not going to change anytime soon. To get more time with our families, we’re going to have to be craftier. That’s when it came to me: When can you miss work and no one says anything about it? Religious holidays.Read Full Post
Thursday, September 29, 2011 - 16:17
Do men really want to have kids?
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
Fathers are less likely to die of heart disease than childless men, says a new study out of Stanford University. When I read stories like this, I always search for that one nugget that gets lost in the sauce. I found it seven paragraphs down: the study’s authors used the children men have "as a stand-in for whether they were infertile.” In other words, if a guy didn’t have kids, it's because his reproductive system was defective. That’s an awfully big leap to make. Maybe those men didn't want kids. I know I didn’t.Read Full Post
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 13:29
I have a favorite son. And his name is....
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
Why do we like one kid more than another? That’s the crux of Time’s latest cover story, “Why Mom Liked You Best: The Science of Favoritism.” One study found that 70 percent of dads exhibited a preference for one child. I know I do. Guess which one... Read Full Post
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - 22:58
My boys are sexy. Please exploit them.
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
A major study was published recently that measured the sexiness of children’s clothing. (The researchers defined “sexy” as emphasizing breasts or buttocks.) Of the 5,666 clothing items studied, roughly 30 percent had both sexualized and childlike features. An example would be a short skirt (sexualized) with pink bubbles or hearts (childlike). It goes without saying that all 5,666 items were pieces of girl's clothing. Which begs the question: why don't we exploit boys? I’m really disappointed that my sons' sexiness is being overlooked.Read Full Post
Monday, September 19, 2011 - 20:08
Save the world. Have more kids.
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
Pop a Smint, light some votives, and put on Drake. It’s time to do some planet-savin’. In his new book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Bryan Caplan, Ph.D., a professor of economics at George Mason University, in Fairfax, VA, and father of three, offers some interesting reasons we should all take another ride to procreation station.Read Full Post
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - 17:32
Hey Chaz Bono, I'm with you, bro
by Shawn Bean
Pop Culture
A lot of pro-family organizations have called Chaz Bono's impending appearance on Dancing with the Stars an abomination. They say Chaz will negatively impact our kids, that he promotes gender confusion and body mutilation. Sure, the psychiatric and physiological wiring inside Chaz Bono is different than it is for you and I. But why should that preclude him from being on television? If psychological testing was required before going on TV, there would be no TV. There would be no wives (real, basketball or otherwise), no teen moms, no Jerry Springer, no bachelors or bachelorettes, no wife swaps, no bridezillas, and definitely no toddlers in tiaras.Read Full Post

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