I’m sort of famous for dragging my kids on hikes (emphasis on the dragging part) and begging them to do yoga with me. If you drive by my house on any random night, you might even catch a glimpse of us staging a highly aerobic Taylor Swift karaoke marathon together. But I have to tell you, I’m drawing the line at pole dancing with them.

Snicker all you will, but it seems — as one magazine headline roared — some people believe that the family that poles together stays together. Okay, that article was in Pole Spin magazine, which might just be skewed the tiniest bit toward the already-enthusiastic exotic-dance crowd, but trust me, there’s a scary trend going on here.

Doubt me? Blame it on buxom D-lister Brooke Hogan filming herself practicing the classic pole move “very bad kitty” with her mom in 2008. She can share some of the blame with Miley Cyrus, who practically molested a tall, cylindrical metal beam onstage at the Teen Choice Awards last year. And clever marketers are catching on. In addition to the Pole Spin piece (which features a two-year-old dancer and a six-year-old instructor), Fox News recently reported on a Canadian fitness studio that offers a kids’ pole dancing class — and is considering adding a new one for the “mommy-and-me” crowd. Do a random search for “pole dancing for kids” — just for grins — and you’ll get more than half a million mind-blowing results.

Listen, I am far from prudish. I swear like a sailor, my kids know way too many Gwen Stefani lyrics, and I relish a juicy celebrity scandal as much as the next gal. I love dancing and getting sweaty and wearing sexy clothes, and I get the whole crossover concept — really I do. If mixing up your usual yoga-spinning-Pilates routine with an occasional “vertical dance class” gets you jazzed to work up a sweat, more power to you. But last time I checked (which was about five minutes ago, and you can Google it yourself if you must) pole dancing is — and always has been — a stripper skill. And while wriggling and gyrating around a very large phallic symbol may be athletic and artistic (and I applaud strippers everywhere for bleeding stupid, lecherous men of their cash and sashaying with it all the way to the bank), it’s not necessarily something I want to see my daughters doing any time soon. Or ever.

(As Chris Rock so eloquently said, “if your daughter’s a stripper, you fucked up.”)

Am I the only mom who’s not enrolling her kids in pole dancing school?

(Originally published minus the Chris Rock clip on iVillage.)

For fun and escapism, most hot-blooded female bookworms turn to the latest titillating Twilight-type saga. But when we want to delve deep into our psyches – say, to discover why we continually date jerks or can’t seem to drop a dress size no matter how many bread baskets we pass up – there’s always a sparkling new self-help tome within arm’s reach. And the most popular of the bunch, frankly, aren’t all that kind or gentle.

Seems we gals love us some tough-love. We ate it up when the painfully spot-on He’s Just Not That Into You essentially called us a bunch of fools who refuse to read the neon signs being flashed by the misogynistic chumps we choose to shower with our unrequited love. Then we cheered when those infamously Skinny Bitches informed us that the real reason we’re fat and unhappy is because we repeatedly ignore common sense and “shovel the wrong crap into our mouths.” Now, the just-released Marry Him: The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough aims to tell us – for our own collective good, of course – that if we’re unmarried and of a certain age, it’s pretty much all our fault. You know, for having the audacity to still believe we might meet a kind, handsome, intelligent man to whom we are sexually attracted and with whom we could conceivably consider breeding and sharing adjacent cemetery plots. What’s that? You’re alone with your 16 cats and your fertility has dwindled to paltry 3 to 12 percent of what was once a bounteous cornucopia of eggs? Well, says Marry Him, don’t come crying to me.

Marry Him reflects the collected wisdom a 40-something woman, author Lori Gottlieb, who listened to her mom’s “don’t settle” advice – and then lived (alone) to regret it. It sounds obvious, but I’ll go ahead and say it anyway: Nobody’s perfect. Therefore, I agree with Gottlieb that saving oneself for the singular guy who fits into the arbitrary husband-mold you designed those many years ago would be utterly asinine. But how many women do you know who went into marriage thinking “Oh, he’s good enough,” only to find themselves dividing the assets and sharing custody a few short years later? Marriage is a marathon — not a sprint — and half of all couples who sign up don’t make it to the finish line as it is. If you don’t at least go into it feeling like Charlie Bucket when he found the golden ticket in his Wonka Bar, you’re in for more than just a few blisters.

I have a dear friend who turned down a date from a perfectly nice guy — a nice, attractive guy with a car and a job, I might add — because he didn’t have “floppy hair.” What? She likes floppy hair, OK? Perhaps she might benefit from skimming through Marry Him. But I also know dozens of single, egg-depleted ladies whose husband criteria have been distilled down to a clean criminal record and a pulse. If these women lowered their standards any further, they’d happily shack up with the first inmate who poked them on Facebook.

Should you settle for Mr. Good Enough? Well, if your goal is to get married — to have the big party, hire the videographer and wear the freaking tiara — go ahead and legally bind yourself to the first dude who’ll don the monkey suit. But if you want to be married — as in, share the rest of your life with a guy you think you might actually still like after 30 years of picking his stinky underpants up off your bedroom floor — you might want to consider holding out for Mr. Great.

Originally published on Betty Confidential.

It must be so hard to be rich and famous. Take Gwyneth Paltrow; the poor gal tries to pen an authentic “day in the life” post about how she balances work and motherhood, and the haters go ballistic. The articles and comments in response to GP’s post could pretty accurately be summed up thusly: “Oh, poor baby was late to meet her personal trainer and she can only get her ‘favorite fishmonger’ to deliver when she’s at her London pad. The sad, tragic shame.”

Would someone please give the lovely Ms. Paltrow a break? The lady only knows what she knows, and if you get resentful hearing her wax poetic about her privileged life, maybe try not to read her blog. If you want something you can relate to, there are plenty of blogs written by “real” moms who detail their ho-hum lives daily. Here’s how mine would read:

Wake at 5 a.m. to the sound of husband snoring. Again. Punch him in the arm and hiss at him to roll over. He does. The snoring continues. Toss and turn for 45 minutes before accepting the fact that I am not going to fall back asleep and drag myself out of bed. Check mirror to see if yesterday’s pimple miraculously disappeared overnight. It did not. Wait not-so-patiently for coffee to brew, then realize the milk is bad. Add extra sugar and a huge squirt of whipped cream, and decide it’s even better this way. Congratulate self on creativity.

Check email, Facebook, Twitter. Ooh, Pottery Barn is having a sale on a bunch of stuff I still can’t afford. Delete. Kids begin to trickle into my office (I work at home), demanding elaborate breakfasts. Make frozen waffles instead. Endure meltdown from one over the position of the part in her hair (“It feels weird!”), leaving me with no energy to fight the other about the foolishness of wearing sandals in January. Cringe when hear self utter, “When you get frostbite, don’t come crying to me.” Refuse to explain what frostbite is, out of spite.

Attempt to assemble backpack contents. Realize we didn’t finish homework, can’t find library book and swore we’d walk to school today. Too late. Park around corner from school and pretend to look very, very tired from the stroll.

Race home. Write, field emails, tweet (like Gwyneth, it’s part of my job.). Eat granola bar at desk. How can it be time to pick them up already?

Sit in endless school pickup line. Recall yesterday’s promise to get some exercise today and perform a few halfhearted kegels. Drag kids to grocery store. Spend an hour lifting children in and out of the shopping cart and refusing snack requests. Get everyone home, unload groceries, unpack kids’ crap, force them to do homework. Decide “because I said so” is, in retrospect, a fine response to just about anything. Scour refrigerator and pantry for least offensive possible meal option. Open a bottle of wine. Bribe kids with marshmallows for eating their hotdogs without complaint. Agree to “one” TV show and pretend not to notice when it turns into three. Count number of days since the kids’ last shower, and decide natural oils are good for skin and body, so proceed with sponge bath. Pay older child a dollar to read younger one a book, flop onto couch and watch last week’s Tivo’d Modern Family. Vow to do better tomorrow.

What does a day in your life look like?

Originally published on iVillage.

For a regular column in Baby Talk magazine, I am looking for moms willing to confess their imperfect parenting thoughts/actions. Examples in the past have been moms admitting they were upset upon learning the sex of their baby, moms who resent over-involved dads and moms who lie about their baby’s age (for various reasons–like to explain lingering pregnancy weight and such).

So… what’s your less-than-stellar mom moment? Do you occasionally nurse your newborn in a moving car? Mash up mac-and-cheese as an intro to solid food? Make up fake “appointments” so you can leave baby with dad and get some precious alone-time? I’m not looking for heinous crimes here (in fact, PLEASE don’t tell me if you leave your baby in the car while you go grocery shopping)… just your funny, or at least mostly-harmless mothering moves…

FYI: I’m looking for moms with kids under 18 months old to weigh in here.

Thanks!