Hotels Woo New Cash Cow: Kids

Managing the expectations of your free-spending kids

(NEWSER) - What to do with a 10-year-old daughter who insists—insists!—on designer 'jeggings' for fall? "Manage expectations," advises the Wall Street Journal in a feature on suddenly cash-strapped middle income parents and their "costly" kids. Today's children face a real drop in their standard of living, writes Sue Shellengarger, and it's up to their parents to guide them through this "painful" shift. More»

Forget about the Ramones education and teach manners instead

(NEWSER) - David Hochman tackles the question surely foremost on every parent’s mind: “Am I raising a douchebag?” Sure, you want your kid to be hip, and you might think it’s cute when your offspring “can tell which Ramone is Dee Dee and which one is Joey.” But beware: The signs of impending jerkishness may start small. An assessment of an 8th birthday party as “unbelievably lame,” for example, or a declaration that “these taquitos taste like turd,” he writes in Details . More»

Man in fleece suit will take off the chill for you

(NEWSER) - Do you love it when your bed has that already-slept-in feeling? Then Holiday Inn is the hotel for you, friend. The chain is testing human bed-warmers at three locations in England. Request the service, and “a willing staff-member” will don a one-piece fleece sleeper suit and slip between your sheets, heating them to 68° Farenheit. More»

Figure hits 90% for black children, study finds

(AP) - Nearly half of all US children and 90% of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say. The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. More»

(NEWSER) - Teens forced to move often by their parents’ jobs are much more likely to attempt suicide than those who stay put, MSNBC reports. Kids between 11 and 17 who moved three or more times were twice as likely to try to kill themselves as children who grew up in the same place, Danish researchers found. If a family moved 10 times, the likelihood of suicide quadrupled the average. More»