For someone who had little to say about her pregnancy, Minnie Driver is certainly opening up these days. She won't reveal the name of the baby's father and she has no plans on finding out the baby's sex before the big day, but she has a lot to say about the rest of parenting.

The actress recently revealed she has no real plans to stay with the baby's father and is seriously considering single motherhood. Now she admits she is prepared to be a "chubby" mother as well. As opposed to other Hollywood starlets who look like they were never pregnant to begin with (Keri Russell, I'm talking to YOU) or those who hit the gym moments after they shed the placenta and worked out frantically to reduce their size, Minnie has no plans to do anything other than be a mommy! Take that, Kate Hudson! (Hudson gained seventy pounds with son Ryder.)

Driver says to plan on seeing her around Malibu, and to plan on seeing her fat. As most of us realistic gals know, it takes a year to put it on, and heaven knows it can take at least a year to take it back off--if we ever do. Nice to hear someone from tinsel town taking a breath of reality! I doubt Minnie will stay 'chubby' as she likes to call it, given that she gained a ton of weight for her breakout role in Circle of Friends and lost all of it, but only time will tell. I just wish someone would advise Minnie she doesn't look fat now that she's pregnant--she looks fantastic!

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Ok, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to be totally honest. Recently, a friend of mine revealed that when she went into the hospital to have her first child, wherein she had a Cesarean, she was offered and took advantage of free liposuction while she was in there.

My pal said she figured they were in there already, so why not go for it? Within a month of having her baby, if that, she was back in her regular jeans. Meanwhile, here I am, going about it the regular old way of the vajayjay, and I got nothing but running fourteen miles a day trying to get my butt back to its original, non-Texas size.

My friend said, however, that when she had her second child (also C-section, not VBAC), she was not offered such a thing. When she asked the doctors and nurses looked at her like she was insane. Her first child was born in New York City, her second, upstate. Perhaps it was a city trend. Perhaps it was because she had a rather large baby in there. Perhaps it was because she had a scheduled C-section. Perhaps it was NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So. Were you offered a free bit of lipo when you went under the knife? 'Cuz if so, it might explain why all those Hollywood moms look pencil thin ten minutes after giving birth. And, it may be reason enough to sign up for an elective C-section!

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These days, bringing up the "mommy wars" is as potentially explosive as a faux pas at a Middle East peace negotiation -- except everyone is a lot less diplomatic.

I happened to grow up in a family of political junkies who loved to philosophize and argue at the family dinner table about all the supposedly taboo topics -- politics, religion, the Arab-Israeli conflict. So as a SAHM, the emotional minefield of the so-called "mommy wars" is familiar and fascinating territory and I read just about everything I come across on the subject whether I agree with it or not.

One of the latest releases in this genre is Linda Hirschman's Get to Work...and Get a Life Before It's Too Late. No surprises here. It's standard feminist fare; you know, boomer feminist rails against Ivy educated SAHMs for not taking their rightful positions of power and leadership in politics and commerce, thereby shirking their duty to improve conditions for less fortunate working-class women. With educated women home caring for toddlers instead of working to change the world, who, asks Hirshman, will fight for gender equity? Shame on all you over-educated, ungrateful, Pilates-toned, Starbucks-swilling moms! Now get back to work!

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Although it is a decidedly less controversial issue, many people are talking about whether or not have more than one child, especially in this terrible economy. Here in New York City, having more than one child can be such an exorbitant expense it's seen as a luxury and a status symbol to have a child at all!

For actress Kate Beckinsale, however, who is probably not so concerned about money, having more than one child is not in her interest. Kate has a nine-year-old daughter, Lily, who is so well-behaved that Kate thinks she might stop at the magic number of one.

Kate also comments that she was an only child so having only one child would suit her just fine. As an only child myself, I was always lonely and looking for someone to play with, so I made every effort to make sure my son would have a sibling. If we're all lucky, he'll have one in October. Is it better to have one or two--or eight!--children? Who can say. I think it's up to the parents and their desires. According to Kate, her little family is "a merry little bunch," so it sounds like she's found the perfect number.

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Many celebrities, it seems, don't believe in natural childbirth (and by that I mean through the vajayjay, not without drugs). Many women don't either, and they schedule c-sections (or their doctors do it for them). While I agree there is a real need at times, especially in emergency situations, for a Cesarean, I don't agree at all with the elective kind. It seems like a waste of money and resources, and could lead to other potential dangers associated specifically with having a C. Maybe I feel this way because my mother, who had to have one, got such a bad infection in hers she couldn't take care of me when I was born! Maybe I also feel this way because I've come in contact with doctors who feel their dinner reservations are more important than a woman having her baby, so they just schedule the woman in rather than take a chance on her interrupting them!

Angelina Jolie, who had her daughter Shiloh, now two, via Cesarean, is now keen to have her twins the old school way. Set to bear the babies in her mother's native France, Ms. Jolie has confided to a "source" that she was disappointed she had to have Shiloh via C-section and is really hoping she'll be able to give birth to the twins the old-fashioned way. Given our recent discussion about VBACs, vaginal birth after Cesarean, I wonder if her doctors will even let her! In France she may have more of a choice than a woman might here.

The source, who blabbed everything to OK Magazine, also claims Ange won't go full-term with the babies. I seem to recall reading that multiples tend to come early, but that's probably just heresay! According to the source, the prospect of early delivery is what sent Ange and her brood to France earlier. Only time will tell when those babies are born and how it happens. Either way, let's hope for a safe and speedy delivery! Good luck, Ange!

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Mona Ackerman, contributor to Huffington Post and "shrink" as she calls herself, has a few choice things to say about breastfeeding. Ms. Ackerman is also a grandmother. Recently another grandmother wrote to Mona in dismay over her daughter-in-law's "incessant breastfeeding" of her nine-month-old grandchild.

The new grandmother couldn't understand why this was necessary all the time. The grandmother also wondered if the "marathon" breastfeeding wasn't taking away from the daughter-in-law's other priorities such as the household duties.

I'm sorry, but is this woman for real? What century does she think this is? The grandmother admitted to being perplexed and at least had the courage to ask if she was in the outer corners for feeling these things. I also agree it was a good thing to be able to admit such hesitations. Still, what business of it is hers whether or not her grandchild is breastfed? She had her children, and made her choices at that time based on social norms, the wisdom of the day, and what her doctor told her to do. A woman's choice to breastfeed or not is her own business, not anyone else's.

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I usually love to play with my 3 year old. I love taking walks that slow to the pace of a snail so that he collect a pocket full of pebbles or jump in puddles. I love listening to his stories and hearing him giggle when he catches a ball.

But there are also days when I don't love it quite so much. Days where I've worked long hours and come home exhausted. Days where all I want are twenty uninterrupted minutes to check my email and get caught up on my favorite blogs. Days where the minute he sees me settling down with my lap top he starts to whine. "Play with me mommy! When are you going to play with me?"

"In a minute," I say, trying desperately to stretch that minute to five. "Go see how tall you can build a tower with your blocks."

But the guilt that creeps up then is made only worse by the fact that like so many others, I am a full time working mom, and my time with my son (who spends his days with my in laws) is curtailed during the week to an hour in the morning and a few at night. Because I work, feel like when I'm home I should always be engaged, involved, hands-on, actively seeking out learning with my little boy.

And the expectation for parents to spend more quality time with their kids is pervasive. According Elizabeth Cooksy, a sociology professor at Ohio State University, "Parents are feeling peer pressure to spend more time with their kids, and guilt when they do not,"

"We've really moved into this cultural expectation that this is what good parents do," Cooksey said. "It's more a cultural consensus, that if we are going to be parents, we are going to have to put time into it."

And 2006 study found that both single and married parents are spending more time with their kids. Which means that in spite of the fact that there aren't miraculously more hours in the day, working moms are spending at least as much quality time with their kids now as mothers did forty years ago. (Incidentally, this also means working moms are insanely busy. All the time.)

But really is all that hands-on playtime a good thing? Maybe at the end of the day everyone is better off when mom (or dad) insists on some downtime and kids are left to their own devices for a while. Perhaps I'm actually encouraging creativity and self-reliance when I tell him to bug-off and go build with blocks? One thing I know for sure: when I've had some downtime, I'm that much more likely to fully engage him in his request to "pretend we're baby sharks!"

One article--and one set of research--would have us think so. Perhaps this story is more the sort that would fall under "Pregnancy Fact or Fiction," as breastfeeding in general is a REALLY hot topic, but let's investigate the findings.

To be honest, before we get started, I'd like to point out that this story feels very familiar. That's probably because it is. We never seem to stop talking about breastfeeding--those for it, those against it, etc.--I guess that discussion is a good thing. Way back when no one ever talked about breasts or using them for anything other than filling out a bullet bra.

In this most recent study, 14,000 babies were studied by an international research team. Their findings suggested that breastfeeding makes babies smarter, especially when not mixed with formula. The way the process worked was a little unsettling to me, though: half the mothers were strongly encouraged to breastfeed and the other half were given no encouragement.

As someone who was a recent new mom myself, I can't say that a lack of encouragement would be especially helpful. I guess I wouldn't want the medical staff breathing down my neck about it either, but it would seem especially unfair to a new mom to not encourage her to give breastfeeding a chance. I was able to breastfeed, but I was also given a ton of support and encouragement from everyone from my family to the OBGYNs and nurses to our ParentDish readers. Not everyone gets that kind of support.

What really upset me about the article are some of the other assertions made by the researchers, namely that mothers who breastfeed are "different" because they are smarter and more invested in their children. Say WHAT? So, someone who chooses to not breastfeed or can't breastfeed given the circumstances is not as invested in her child? I disagree. Completely.

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Actually, it's my former neighborhood. Apparently--and please pardon me, as there may be just a teensy little bit of bile forming in the back of my throat (and it's NOT morning sickness)--the creator of Melrose Place are considering another such type show set in, gag, Park Slope. For those of you unfamiliar with the Slope, it's in Brooklyn, New York. The people who live there think it's the bomb--the epitome of making it in, well, at least Brooklyn if not New York.

People move from Manhattan to Brooklyn, specifically, to have their babies and clog the sidewalks with their OBNOXIOUS (note, I didn't use the word annoying--it's not annoying; it is, in fact, OBNOXIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!) double-wide strollers and brag to each other and anyone else endlessly about how wonderful they are from all their righteousness and do-gooding. None of which is mixed with an ounce of altruism.

And I used to be one of them. Well, sort of. I fled to Windsor Terrace (sort of like the older cousin of the Slope whose been around the block and knows better) long before I thought about babies--my own, anyway. See, you can't live in the Slope without at least one kid. They'll scorn you otherwise. Seriously. And regardless of cost, they must have the best of everything--you will be snubbed for a simple Maclaren umbrella style stroller like the one I have when you could have shelled out $800 for whatever Euro design is hot this week. I'm basically considered a bad parent by these people because I don't have one. But mine folds up. Easily. With one hand.

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High school girls in Brisbane, Australia recently created an elite group they called "Club 21." The girls ranked themselves and each other based on weight, appearance, and popularity with boys -- the higher the number, the higher the ranking -- and then wrote their number on their wrists. One student wrote, "Ugly girls need not apply."

When the club was discovered, parents and local media were outraged. The club made the front page of many local papers. The school principal, however, is now defending his students, saying they've been devastated by the negative attention. He's asking everyone involved to remember that these are teenagers, vulnerable young people who make mistakes.

I was surprised when I found his view refreshing. As a former sensitive girl who is now a mother to two sensitive girls, I'm concerned about the high school years ahead. The "mean girl" culture scares me; I worry that my girls will be a target of it or that, maybe worse, they'll be a part of it. While I think the behavior of these girls is unacceptable and needs to be dealt with, I have to agree that the harsh media criticism their getting is likely more damaging than it is helpful.

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Carme Chacon is 37 years old and an expectant mom who is seven months pregnant. She's also the defense minister of Spain, which has put her in a difficult position. While Spain has a mandated 16-week maternity leave (paid maternity leave...lets hear a collective groan from our American sisters), some are saying that she shouldn't be allowed the time off, due to the important nature of her job. Others are calling that point of view sexist, saying that if a man in the position fell ill, there'd be no question.

While it's hard for us in the States to relate (six weeks unpaid leave is hard enough to pull off), it is easy to understand the crossroads where motherhood and career meet. As women, motherhood forces us to make choices about the direction our lives are taking. Will we step aside from our careers -- careers we worked hard for in our youth -- to raise our children, or will we try to strike a balance between work and home?

MSNBC has an interesting article about the different viewpoints surrounding this issue. Take a minute to check it out, then come back and share your thoughts with us.

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In India, boy babies are preferable to girls due in part to their ability to grow up and become family breadwinners. Not only do Indian girls not bring home the bacon, parents must pay large dowries in order to marry them off. For that reason, the United Nations says that about 2,000 unborn girls are illegally aborted every day in India.

This baby girl in the eastern state of Bihar was lucky enough to survive her mother's pregnancy, but just barely. Officials say the newborn child was discovered buried in a mound of mud and likely would have died had it not been for three stray dogs. "The dogs removed the soil around and began to bark and the baby started crying which drew attention of the local villagers," Ram Narayan Sahani, a senior government official, said.

Police assume the baby's mother left her there to die and are still searching for her. As for the baby girl, it looks like she is going to be just fine. With people trekking to this remote village to see the miracle child who was saved by dogs, she's become a bit of a celebrity. But the best news is that a local couple with no children of their own have adopted her.

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This weekend, I rented the Oscar-nominated film, Juno. It's easy to see why this little film generated such buzz. It's funny, smart, and heartwarming. It also brings up the perpetually relevant topic of teens, sex, unplanned pregnancy and the ever-contentious issue of "choice". As a mom, these are issues of great interest to me. As someone who has personally dealt with an unplanned pregnancy prior to marriage, it is also a subject dear to my heart.

After watching Juno, I came across an opinion piece in the Boston Globe about the film by Ellen Goodman, a well-known feminist writer. Goodman is critical of Juno and a "wave of movies about unexpectedly pregnant women - 'Knocked Up', 'Waitress', and 'Bella' - all deciding to have their babies and all wrapped up in nice, neat bows". She expresses deep concern for the row of tweens sitting in front of her in the movie theater while she watches Juno. What misleading messages, she asks, are "being absorbed through their PG-13 pores"?

Goodman is certainly not alone in her thinking. Many adults, pundits and parents alike, expressed outrage at the recent announcement of 16 year-old television star, Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy. In a society that offers abstinence as an "option" for teens and follows up with information about "safe sex", the parental fury over Jamie Lynn is presumably about her carelessness and ultimately, her decision to keep her baby - not her sexually active status. And understandably, no one wants to see a teenage girl go through the stigma of pregnancy, the pain of giving up a child, or the hardships of raising a child when one is seemingly ill prepared.

When I first learned that I was pregnant, I was 27 and in the middle of a series of on-air live auditions for a seat on ABC's "The View". I knew that the producers were seeking a single 20-something and that my untimely pregnancy would likely cost me the job, no matter how well I performed. Moreover, the auditions (11 in total) were going to continue for several months due to the immense ratings boost they were providing the network; it would be nearly impossible to disguise my condition through the process. I made the difficult decision to publicly announce my pregnancy (on the show). Sean and I got married in a small ceremony a month and a half later in Arizona.

I was in a committed relationship, but I was not engaged when I learned of my pregnancy. Sean was still in law school and I was on the verge of launching a television-hosting career on the hottest daytime talk show. Professionally speaking, the timing couldn't have been worse. Plus, I was deeply aware of the embarrassment and disappointment this would cause my devout Catholic parents.

Of course, there are difficulties that one must endure in making any tough choice. Witness Juno waddling through the school hallway, missing out on prom, and enduring the stares of peers, the judgmental look of a school secretary and the insensitive comment of an ultra sound technician during one of her prenatal visits. Her wit, good humor, and steely exterior did little to dissipate the pain I felt for her during those scenes - a testament to the fine acting skills of this film's rising star.

I was not a teen, but I could certainly relate to the feelings of despair that drove Juno into the "Women Now" clinic. However, what Juno (and the women in the other movies) learn, is that life's problems always look their worst when they first present themselves. In those moments we are very susceptible to underestimating our own strength and the willingness and ability of others to help us through. But it is precisely when we are gripped by fear and self-doubt that courage counts most. The films and heroines that Ellen Goodman dismisses as "fantasy" all celebrate this little life secret, crumpled bow and all.

As I have come to learn for myself, an unplanned pregnancy and child often results in unplanned and unexpected joy - and not just for the mother. What Goodman and others, fail to grasp is that in order for that to happen, one must have faith, hope, and the unsullied optimism of a teenage girl to believe in such things.

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If you walk through the children's section of a book store, it's pretty easy to find literature for kids on all sorts of life- changing topics. Things like such as divorce, moving, starting school, adding a baby to the family, and going to the hospital, for instance.

But after a plastic surgeon noted children getting upset seeing their post-surgery mothers bruised and bandaged, he realized people were not telling their kids since Daddy got a young,new secretary they needed new boobs there was not a children's book that prepared kids of plastic surgery patients so he wrote My Beautiful Mommy.

In My Beautiful Mommy the mother character explains to her daughter that she's going to a doctor to get a "prettier nose" and get her aged, stretched body to fit into clothes better. Of course, there's a happy ending! Mom didn't die on the operating table and once her beak was shaved down and her pregnancy flab removed she's able to smile happily in the spotlight baring her midriff top and squeezed into a pair of low rise pants.

I wonder what effect this sort of book will have on young girls' body image and sense of self esteem? Will the sequel end up being If You REALLY Loved Me, You'd Buy Me a New Nose and Boobs for the Prom?

Can you imagine opening the glossy pages of a high fashion magazine and NOT seeing stick thin models? This is may be made reality in France.

The French parliament's lower house has recently adopted a landmark bill that would make it illegal for anyone to promote or "publicly incite" extreme thinness. Remarkably, this legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party and was approved in a series of votes by the National Assembly. It goes to the Senate in the next few weeks, and if passed, it would affect affect the way fashion magazines, Web sites, advertisers and other media portray thinness.

French couture are of course opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards--but just think how a ban on the portrayal of extreme thinness might positively affect the way women and young girls see themselves.

Of course, it seems like fashion models have almost been replaced in the U.S. by the Hollywood elite. It is more likely for an actress to grace the covers of Vogue or Elle than for a model. And I imagine were a similar ban to be put in place here, the American appetite for Hollywood gossip would blur the lines between promoting thinness and portraying a lifestyle that places an extremely high value on thinness.

But I'll be watching the outcome of this with interest. In my small high school, probably one in three girls (or more) had an eating disorder of some sort, and two were memorably hospitalized. Now I teach first graders and I am constantly listening to little girls talk about their weight. "I'm thin," they say proudly, as if they were declaring that thin equals smart or creative or talented. And it kind of makes my heart ache.