Inasmuch as the U.S. likes to consider itself a good ol’ fashioned family-oriented, home-comes-first kind of country, statistics have a little trouble matching up to that claim. A lot of trouble, in fact. The National Partnership for Women & Families has released a new report that grades each state according to laws and resources benefitting new parents including paid parental leave, paid sick days, and accommodations for breastfeeding mothers. And it ain’t pretty. Like a kid who swore she studied for a test and then bombed the thing in its entirety, we did really, really poorly as a country.

We don't need a reality TV series to show us that life for a teen mom is tough. The conventional wisdom is that teen pregnancy leads to poverty -- especially if you never finish high school. But are we looking at this backwards?

Maybe it's not that having a baby makes teen moms poor. Maybe it's that teen moms have babies because they're poor.

That's the idea researchers Melissa Schettini Kearney and Phillip Levine considered when they took a close look at teen pregnancy. They found that it's when a teen sees that her prospects in life are dim that she chooses to become a mother.

We all know that what we name our babies basically creates the life they lead. Don't believe me? Read Freakonomics. There is no doubt that what we name our children affects not only their future success, but also says a lot about us and who we are.

Our backgrounds -- social class, education level, and cultural influences -- have everything to do with the names we choose for our children. A recent article posted on NPR reveals that even our political parties can have quite a bit to do with our naming choices. Liberal babies might be Abigail or John while Republican babies might be Paislee, Liberty, or Rykan.

Makes sense, right?

What's the worst place in the world to live for women? Well, going by these Worst Places to Be a Woman maps, they all seem to be on the other side of the world. Overall the U.S. is a pretty good place for women. We do a good job of educating girls. Baby girls are cherished just as much as baby boys. And underage marriage (under 16) is illegal. Score, USA! 

But when it comes to safety -- eek! Let's just say the U.S. is definitely not the safest place in the world for women.  

I never intended to breastfeed, did not think it was for me at all. But once I tried it, and loved it, and found that my babies loved it and benefited from it, it was only natural I tried to convince friends and relatives to do the same -- or to at least give it a shot! What many women and newbies don't realize is that for all the nutritional and health benefits there are for baby, there are just as many for mom. Here are 6 amazing benefits to breastfeeding that I love to tell my friends about. Hey, would you mind sharing this for me?

Image via iStock

There’s some good news about your teens and there's some bad. First, the good: Teens ages 13-15 exercise more than any other high-wealth nation in the world. The boys rank #1 and the girls rank #2. Yeah for the gym! The bad news: Teens are probably drunk and high while they work out. American teens rank #1 for pot smoking and #3 for binge drinking. Dude, where's my treadmill?

Some recent studies have suggested that Republicans have lower IQs than their Democratic counterparts. Another study even likened being Republican to being drunk. These have always made me scratch my head, because the Republican platform is the one of self-sufficiency. We believe that anyone can do anything, and that the safety net of welfare should never become a hammock. Plus we freed the slaves, led the civil rights movement, and demanded equal voting rights for women.

One of the things that scares me the most about being a parent is all the pressures my kids are going to face when they become teenagers. Seriously, peer pressure? Scary stuff. I was there once; I remember. Add a driver's license, a car, and some alcohol into that mix and it's a teen drinking scenario that no parent wants to imagine.

So often we talk about how we are going to have the "sex talk" but what about the "alcohol talk"? My mom had the alcohol talk with me many times when I was younger. Yes, it often was followed with "See how your relatives get when they drink too much? Don't be like that." And I understood exactly what she meant. And never wanted to be like that.