Mom's Happy Hour: Paying Moms to Breastfeed. Really?

Welcome to Mom's Happy Hour, in which we sort through the latest news about parents, parenting and pop culture so you don't have to. And then we add a little bit of snark and a whole lot of judgment.

Mums are incentivized to breastfeed

Would you breastfeed longer if you received an Applebee’s gift card in return? Would a gift certificate to Ruth's Chris steakhouse up the ante? In the U.K., thanks to a new research study from the University of Sheffield, new moms will receive shopping vouchers if they breastfeed - $190 for the first six weeks, another $127 if they make it to six months.

Here in the U.S., Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin could motivate moms to breastfeed, but what they can’t do is support her – to motivate her on those days when she feels like a Holstein, to explain how she’s helping strengthen her child’s immune system, or to encourage her employer to be more understanding when she has to pump three times a day at work. It’s support breastfeeding moms need – not a gift card to the mall.

What moms desire is me time

After being climbed on, fed on and pulled on all day, by 9 p.m., the last thing many moms want is to be touched by another person. No matter if it’s our beloved husband or Ryan Gosling, sometimes we just want to make a pillow fort of chastity around ourselves in bed.

According to the Huffington Post, a survey of 500 women conducted by Celestial Seasonings found that 76 percent would choose me time over sexy time. And it’s not surprising – the study reported that 42 percent of women have less than one hour of me time each day. So when that 9 p.m. hour hits, sometimes we just want to sit on a couch by ourselves with a box of wine and American Horror Story on the TV.

A holiday present for the entire family

Why oh why didn’t someone tell me this years ago? Babies on Roombas videos are spreading like wildfire and it’s easy to see why. Every baby cruising around the house on a Roomba is so stinkin’ happy. No screaming, no crying, just pure joy – and better yet, each trip they make cleans up all of their crushed Cheerios. It’s almost as good as when I strapped Swiffer pads to my daughter’s knees when she started crawling for the first time.

Check out my sweet office, Mom and Dad!

In 16 years, my dad has never had a clue what I do exactly for a living. And then he tries to explain my career to his acquaintances, who in turn make the same small talk with me:

Baby boomer: Copyrighting? That must be an interest career! Lots of cool inventions I bet!
Me: Excuse me?
Baby boomer: Your dad says you work with copyrights.
Me: No, I’m a copywriter. Writer with a “w.” Again with this, Dad?

Call it a career divide between generations. With the influx of high-tech and Internet media jobs, many parents don’t understand what their Gen-Y and Millennial spawn do. On Thursday, 28 companies worldwide launched “Bring Your Parents to Work Day,” giving parents an inside look at their kids’ jobs, helping to bridge the gap that often makes talking about work a confusing conversation all the way around.

One school destroys the fairy tale – and that’s a good thing

Every little girl dreams about being a princess, which is ok when you’re 3 and your life revolves around Sofia the First. But when a tween starts calling herself a princess and buying sweatpants with the world emblazoned on her backside, every woman cringes. Except for maybe the women on Shahs of Sunset.

An all-girl Catholic prep school in Kentucky is combatting the negative stereotype of the Catholic schoolgirl by running a feminist-tinged ad campaign telling prospective students “You Are Not a Princess.” The pay-off is the explanation of how Mercy Academy is preparing their girls to take on the world by themselves, not to expect someone else to do it for them. Definitely progressive for such an institution, but inspiring and effective at the same time.

Denying your child McDonald’s makes you a bad parent

In a New York custody battle, a father who was trying to steer his son away from unhealthy fast food got flamed by both his wife and a child psychologist for giving his son a choice – dinner anywhere else than McDonald’s or no dinner. Like any kid with a stubborn streak, his son chose no dinner. The son’s psychiatrist filed a report after the incident, stating the father was “wholly incapable of taking care of his son,” and in turn, she got slapped with a defamation suit by dad.

After seeing the viral photo of frozen McRibs this week, can you really blame Dad for trying to steer Junior away from the Golden Arches?

Frozen McRibs. Yikes.

_{Photos: iStock, Ad Week, abcnews.com.}