Best Of The Web: April 27-May 3

Lisa Belkin
opens up a reader-sparked conversation on banning Barbie from children’s
toy chests. (NYTimes)

Recent
reports suggest that bullying affects not just children, but their parents too.
When a kid is bullied, parents experience the same emotions as their child:
anger, frustration, and helplessness. (LiveScience)

Many states
are raising the bar when it comes to school standards. And some NYC teachers
are already starting to change their teaching methods, experimenting with new
curriculum standards known as the common core. (NYTimes)

Tiger Cub
starts a blog of her own! Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, daughter of “Battle Hymn of
the Tiger Mother” author Amy Chua, has something to say: “When the whole
world’s calling you a mindless robot, you kind of get the urge to start
talking!” Check her out here.

Grandparents
live close by? How helpful (or not!) are grandparents and in-laws with child
care or other household tasks? (Wall Street Journal)

Three new
studies provide evidence that exposure to high levels of common pesticides in
the womb (the kind sprayed on food crops and used to control pests in city
apartments) lead to lower I.Q. scores. The data was collected from about 1,000
pregnant women and their babies in New York and California. Does it make you consider the
benefits of organic produce? (NYTimes)

In related
news, doctors say that the Toxic Substances Control Act fails to protect kids
because it’s riddled with flaws that render it ineffective at protecting us
from the potential hazards of chemicals. Not all chemicals are being tested to
determine possible effects on children and reproduction before coming to
market. (MSNBC)

The
editor-in-chief of Hitched considers
the role of technology in marriage. Are these tools (cell phones, Facebook,
Twitter, television, etc.) good for marriages, or bad? The answer may surprise
you. (Huffington Post)