From Generation X to Generation Me
Rhiana Maidenberg
Writer, wife, and mother of toddlers.

I am a proud, social security card carrying member of Generation X. In high school, I dressed in the latest grunge fashion (plucked fresh from the bins at Goodwill), and drove my beat-up Honda Civic in the rain while listening to REM, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana. My fellow Gen X'ers and I remember fondly the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign, and the debut of Michael Jackson's Thriller music video.

We were an independent generation, adaptable to change. Many of us came from divorced families, and found it normal to split our time between two homes. We lived in households where both parents worked and were often labeled as "latch-key" kids. Watching our parents work tireless hours at jobs they didn't like, we embraced technology and education, vowing to do what we loved, on our own terms, with a reasonable work/life balance.
And then we began to procreate.

In contrast to our upbringing, we resolved to be a more constant presence in our children's lives. Many of us, now as mothers, are now staying home, sacrificing career and economic prosperity to be the one to do the drop-offs and pick-ups. We read every new parenting book, determined to raise our children with all possible opportunities and advantages. By the time the children are two, they are enrolled in ballet, soccer, gymnastics, music and art class. Our kids are constantly praised for their efforts and are repeatedly told how smart, talented, beautiful and special they are.
And this is how we raised the "Me" generation.

The problem is that these children are now dependent on their parents. They have become accustomed to their moms and dads holding their hands through each major decision, and many of these young adults now call home multiple times a day for guidance. College professors are fielding phone calls from parents wanting to discuss their child's grade on a paper. Managers complain that this generation is so unfamiliar with criticism that they are nearly impossible to train. This generation truly believes that they are exceptionally smart, talented, and beautiful, and therefore unprepared for the real world.

So, what do we do? As a mother of toddlers, how do I combat this trend and raise independent children, while still being an active participant in their childhood?

Lori Gottlieb, author of How to Land Your Kid in Therapy, offers many suggestions to find this balance. Here are a few I intend to follow:
Allow the child to fight her own battles. Imagine a common preschool scene. You witness another child grabbing a toy from your little one. As much as this may trouble your mama bear instincts, resist the urge to interfere. Give your child the opportunity to problem solve for herself. If she can't manage to get the toy back, let her feel the frustration.

Don't be the parent that demands her child be invited to all birthday parties. Life is unfair, and not every kid is going to like your child. Help the child cope with the disappointment of being excluded instead of saving her from all possible unhappiness.

Let them experience failure. Sometimes you try to climb a new play structure and fall. Sometimes you study really hard for a test and still get a C. Sometimes you strive to be everyone's friend and nonetheless, these is still that one girl who continues to spread rumors. This is life, and it should also be childhood.

Recently my oldest, Elana, tested me on just this. She advanced in her swim lessons to the next level and was finding herself in a difficult position -- she shifted from the best in her class to the worst. After the first session in the new class she sweetly pleaded with me, though teary eyes, to be moved back to her old group. "It's too deep. I'm scared. I don't like the teacher." While part of me hated seeing her sad, I knew that this was an important lesson for her. "Whenever we try something new, we often suck," I explained, "but, without sinking, we never learn to swim."

Follow Rhiana Maidenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/marriedwtoddler

Easy-To-Pronounce Names More Likely To Succeed, Study Says
By Claire Gordon

Many parents are giving their new babies unusually spelled first names, reports The New York Times, so that they can pop up on the first page of a web search, and avoid sharing it with a serial killer who happens to have the same one. But new research shows that if parents really want the best for their kid, they're better off choosing a simple name that rolls off the tongue, even if it means sharing it with a famous fetish-porn star.

Researchers Simon Laham of the University of Melbourne, Adam Alter of New York University Stern School of Business, and Peter Koval of the University of Leuven, Belgium, found that people with easy-to-pronounce names were evaluated more positively. Not only did the dozens of participants in their studies like names better when they were easy to pronounce, but of 500 U.S. lawyers, the ones with the easiest-to-pronounce names had advanced faster and held more senior positions.

Past research has found that your name has all kinds of effects on your life: applicants with African American-sounding names are less likely to be called back for a job interview; children with popular names are less likely to get into trouble with the law; girls with more feminine names are less likely to pursue math and science; and boys with names that are also common among girls are more likely to be suspended.

But the discovery of "the name pronunciation effect" is entirely new. The study, which included names from Anglo, Asian, Western and Eastern European backgrounds, was conducted in both lab settings and natural environments, and was published online in December in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The researchers were careful to distinguish pronunceability from "unusualness" -- a quality that is well-known to spark bias. Barack Obama, Alter points out, is certainly an unusual name, but it doesn't trip the tongue. They also controlled for the nationality or ethnic connotation of a name, as it's been well-established that this can also provoke subtle, or not-so-subtle, negative feelings.

In the lawyer study, the researchers thought that the relatively recent entry of minorities into the field might skew the results. Of course the Smiths and Johnsons ranked higher than the Pfefferbergs and Borgognones. They'd been there for a lot longer. But even when they looked at the Anglo names alone, seniority correlated strongly with how easy the person's name was to say.

"Independently of all those other features of the name, the mere ease of pronunciation is enough to drive outcomes," Alter told AOL Jobs. "There's sort of a warm glow associated with things that are easy to process."
We feel good when our minds process something easily and fluently, according to the study, and when it comes to a name, we attribute that good feeling to the name-bearer.

Alter thinks this may be evolutionary; most things that required a lot of effort for our ancestors to process were probably dangerous, or at least cause for concern.

Politicians are also given a boost by an easily-readable name. 35 undergraduates took part in a mock ballot study of 12 names, knowing nothing about the candidates. Those with the simpler-to-say names were more likely to win the race.

To make the situation more realistic, the researchers had 74 college students then read a newspaper article about the background of a candidate running for a local council election, including his family and career history, and one of his policies. In some of the articles the man's name was Greek and difficult or easy to say, in others it was Polish and difficult or easy to say. Afterwards they rated the man's eligibility for office. When the same candidate had an easier-to-say name (Lazaridis over Vougiouklakis), he rated much higher.

By this logic, Mitt Romney's name gives him a serious boot in the Republican primary, while Rick Santorum's name, for other reasons, is a serious liability.