OMG! We’re Parents

In 2005, a protein was discovered on the surface of sperm thought to enable binding to the egg. Researchers named the protein Izumo, after the Izumo-taisha in Japan, a shrine dedicated to Okuninushi, the Shinto deity of marriage. The search was on to discover a counterpart protein on eggs. Last week, we found it — and it had been under our noses all along.

At the same time, the hard data makes clear just how much more effective the Dutch strategy has been. Sexually active teens in the Netherlands are, as Schalet shows, much more likely to use contraception than their American counterparts. Rates of teenage pregnancy and abortion are also substantially lower.

Moms in Babeland is an effort to address sex after parenting, and a good one at that. Last week, the quad behind the blog conducted an informal survey of their Facebook friends to get a sense of what they had learned in sex ed. They discovered — surprise, surprise — that very little to no attention was paid to the clitoris.

Here’s an easy SafeSearch user’s guide to prevent the inadvertent access of children to adult content via Google. We hope it helps.

Parenting. It’s not easy. And what bigger challenge is there than talking birds and the bees? Feast your eyes and lolz on a selection of mothers who had to think fast on their feet and whose children came out relatively unharmed.