• Cursing around, and at, a child.
• Brawling with your man or your woman in front of your child.
• Letting your child roam the streets until somebody else’s mother has to tell the child to go home. (But I thought “free-range parenting” was all the rage…?)
• Putting your child off on friends and relatives because you want to hang out in the street.
• Getting so hooked on substances that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has to remove your children and place them with strangers.

I would argue that cursing and brawling in front of children are hardly unique to the “ghetto,” but her column — inspired by the tragic fate of victims of such parenting –  is a provocative one, as evidenced by the, oh, three gazillion responses to it.

In my West Hollywood neighborhood, I am more privy to another kind of lousy, albeit significantly less abusive, kind of parenting.  An approach I like to call “You’re So Smart!” Parenting.  That is, parents who allow their toddler to sit on the Starbucks counter — dirty sneakers next to my latte — and fling a pile of straws and cup sleeves on the floor WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO PICK THEM UP, and then reward their child for this behavior by gushing, “You’re so smart!”*  Smart?  Say wha –?!

*At least that’s my fuzzy recollection of it.  I will admit that, after I saw the rubber soles resting perilously close to my drink, my world went black.

Don't be jealous of my fancy Photoshop work.

Literally minutes after Mr. Candy gave some Tylenol to Skye for an especially painful bout of teething, I read that Johnson & Johnson has recalled the kind that we gave her (a certain lot of Dye-Free Cherry Infants’ Drops), along with a whole bunch of other children’s medications.

Awesome.

So I thought I would post the recall info before (hopefully) you make the same mistake:  J&J is voluntarily recalling certain over-the-counter liquid medicines — including Tylenol Infants’ Drops, Children’s Tylenol Suspensions, Infants’ Motrin Drops, Children’s Zyrtec liquids in bottles and Children’s Benadryl Allergy liquids — because of “manufacturing deficiencies.”

Um, and what the hell does that mean?  Good question!

Well, some of the medicines may contain more of the active drug ingredient than specified.  Meanwhile, others may contain foreign particles (i.e., solidified product ingredients or manufacturing residue such as tiny metal specks) or inactive ingredients that may not meet testing requirements.

I know, I know… tiny metal specks?  That can’t be good.  (Gives me the mental image of a bottle of Baby Goldschläger.)

Although there are no known adverse health reactions to the products, and the potential for serious medical problems is “remote,” the company advised consumers to stop using them.  (Yeah, thanks, too late!)

The responsible J&J business unit, McNeil, has a hotline, (888) 222-6036, available 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday and on weekends from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The full list of recalled products can be found here.

At least two-year-olds are cute (says Candy before her kid reaches the terrible twos/threes… We’ll see how “cute” I think it is when Skye is kicking and screaming in Target’s toiletries aisle because I wouldn’t let her buy a razor).

According to a survey of 2,000 mothers and fathers of children over the age of 18, 14-year-old daughters are the most difficult to parent because of their desire to grow up too quickly, their demands for greater freedom and peer pressure to be thin.

Yup, that sounds about right.  Pretty sure that’s also the age at which I perfected the Disgusted Eye Roll and Frustrated Sigh.

Fifteen-year-old boys are no piece of cake either, say those surveyed.  Although parents were frustrated by the teens’ “bad” behavior, two-thirds of them chalked it up to raging hormones.

“We have to remember that as well as being the worst age for the parents, the teenage years are also the most difficult for the children themselves,” said Kathryn Crawford of TheBabyWebsite.com, which carried out the survey.

The best thing parents can do, says Candy, the clueless publisher of TheLaughingStork.com, is try to keep the lines of communication open and stock up on a lot of alcohol.

D’oh.

The scoop, according to Chicago Sun-Times:

The day after her son was born, Jennifer Spiegel was awakened about 4 a.m. in her Evanston Hospital room and told by a staffer, “Your baby wants you.”

A patient-care technician then wheeled a newborn in and handed him to Spiegel, who breast-fed him.

But it wasn’t her son, according to a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

A surprised nurse walked in while Spiegel was breast-feeding the boy and realized the mix-up, the Spiegels told the Chicago Sun-Times.

“The nurse saw Jennifer and looked very surprised. She told us … ‘I was just with your baby in the nursery,’ ” said Jennifer’s husband, Scott, who was in the room at the time.

“She said, ‘The baby you’re feeding isn’t yours,’ ” Jennifer Spiegel, 33, recalled. “It was just an awful, internal feeling.”

The Spiegels said they didn’t notice they had the wrong baby because he was swaddled up to his chin and wearing a cap — and it was the middle of the night.

“I couldn’t see his hair,” Jennifer Spiegel said.

The patient-care technician offered a tearful apology, which they accepted, Scott Spiegel said.

“But it’s not enough,” he added.

So, really, they didn’t accept it.  Perhaps even odder than unknowingly nursing a stranger’s baby:  they are filing this lawsuit TWO YEARS after the incident happened.  Hmmmm… been hit by the recession, huh, guys?

From what I’ve read, Evanston Hospital follows the same procedure that many other hospitals do, whereby they ask parents to verify their matching I.D. bracelet before handing over the baby.  Would not be surprised if the mom, being utterly exhausted, just shook her head “yes” without even looking.  I’m not saying the hospital wasn’t in the wrong – it obviously was – but to the tune of thirty grand…?  C’mon.  I mean, we’ve ALL stuck a breast in a stranger’s mouth at some point and survived just fine, right?  Um… right?  (Yeah, no, me neither! Ha, ha! Just kidding. *Ahem*)

Despite its obvious hilarity, the Arizona school principal who penned the sarcastic letter chiding parents for children who were either “too lazy or too stupid” to complete their assignments in class was suspended after the missive was mistakenly sent home.

Oops.

“The math we do is really easy,” said the letter from Litchfield Elementary School principal Ron Sterr. “If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I’m sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child’s progress.”

Ron Sterr has called each parent individually to apologize and take responsibility, the Litchfield school district said.

I’m sure that went well.

The letter sent home Jan. 26 with second graders also contained passages about students with peanut allergies, nervous ticks and emotional problems stemming from puppy deaths.

That’s a comedy goldmine right there!

Sterr claims he wrote the joke letter in response to caustic comments made by “an individual” and a teacher accidentally sent it home.  Yeah, mmm-hmmm.  “Accidentally.”

To read the “joke letter” in its entirety, click here.

The best part of their new homebase:  Only a short car ride to DOLLYWOOD!

The decision clears the way for Uwe Romeike (roh-MY-kee), his wife and five children to stay in Morristown, Tenn., where they have been living since 2008.  Romeike says his family was persecuted for their evangelical Christian beliefs and for homeschooling their children in Germany, where school attendance is mandatory.  (I bet Ali Lohan is relieved she doesn’t live there.)

When the Romeikes wouldn’t comply with repeated orders to send the children to school, police came to their home one October morning in 2006 and took the children to school.  German state constitutions require children to attend public or private schools and parents can face fines or prison time if they don’t comply.  As Romeike did:  the couple was fined the equivalent of about $10,000 over a two-year period.

“We didn’t pay it all because we couldn’t,” he said. “We went to court and tried to fight against it, without success.”

The U.S. government can appeal the asylum ruling. A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment in an e-mail.

Romeike said in an interview that when his oldest children were in public schools they had problems with violence, bullying and peer pressure.

“I think it’s important for parents to have the freedom to chose the way their children can be taught,” Romeike said.

Yeah, I suppose.  But to willingly leave a country where — be still, my beating heart — beer and soft pretzels are considered a perfectly good breakfast…?  I can’t imagine ANYTHING trumping that.

Good thing the kid didn’t try to take a Hannah Montana lunchbox, too.  Her mom may have requested a life sentence!

Diane Lyons said she doesn’t believe she overreacted when she discovered the girl, Shiane, had taken the $3.11 package of stickers used to make temporary tattoos, because she was merely trying to teach the girl a lesson early in life.

Chief Ronald Yeager of the Carrollton Police Department took the girl to the police station in his cruiser before releasing her to her mom again.

“I don’t think I went too far,” Lyons said in a phone interview. “You’ve got to catch them when they first start if they do something wrong.”

HERE’S THE BEST PART:  Lyons, 31, asked about collecting a $30 reward for turning in shoplifters but decided not to follow up because she felt bad about doing it. Wow, what an upstanding citizen!

“People think that I set her up or something to get the reward,” Lyons said.

Gee, ya think?

A parent’s own discipline is typically more effective when dealing with a young child’s wrongdoing, said Stanley Goldstein, a child clinical psychologist in Middletown, N.Y.

“You’re asking police to do something that’s not in their training,” said Goldstein, author of “Troubled Children/Troubled Parents.”

“They’re not experts on kids; they’re experts on policing the community.”

Also, they have more important things to do.  Like give a ticket to that four-year-old punk who cut off Skye’s stroller with his tricycle this morning.  Throw the book at him, I say!

I’m not gonna lie:  Since having Skylar four months ago, my brain has become even mushier than Jack Nicholson’s naked ass in “Something’s Gotta Give.”  But am I sorry that I invested in a bachelor’s and a master’s degree…?  Of course not.

Where ELSE would I have learned the proper keg-stand technique?  Geesh.

In all seriousness, many mothers, I’m sure, would argue they’ve benefited from being educated, from being able to pass that knowledge on to their kids, and having a strong foundation when… if… they choose to re-enter the work force.

I believe a better question is, “Have companies wasted great talent by not offering better work-life solutions for mothers?”

I also don’t understand why the trouble maker targeted stay-at-home mamas when MANY people have wasted money on expensive degrees.   I mean, thank GOODNESS I got my Political Science degree so I could become a writer for “The Bold and the Beautiful” and then a smart-ass blogger!  *Ahem*

Come on down, Madison and Matthew!  You –

Whoa.  Um, there sure are a lot of you.   On second thought, don’t all come down at once, please.

As I was saying… Madison and Matthew topped the most popular American names in 2009.  Matthew is a classic, of course, while Madison has risen in popularity over the past decade.

Mr. Candy and I always imagined we’d name our daughter Madison until, well, we actually got pregnant and went to my seven-year-old cousin’s softball game where the pitcher, the catcher, the second basewoman and two-thirds of the outfield were named Madison.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  But sure makes for an interesting game of softball.  As if seven-year-old softball players aren’t confused enough.

“Get the BALL, Madison!  The BALL!  The ball sitting on your feet!  No, not YOU, Madison — the other Madison.  No, the other, OTHER… oh, forget it.”

So, in the interest of our daughter’s future softball career, we named her Skylar.

The top boys names of 2009 were Matthew, Owen, Ethan, Jackson, Evan, Braden, Noah, Jack, and Zachary.  The top girls names of 2009 were Madison, Emma, Hannah, Olivia, Audrey, Isabella, Grace, Taylor and my husband’s one-time fave, Emily.

For the decade, the top boy names were Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Christopher, Jack, Daniel, Aiden, William, Joshua and Ryder.  For girls, the most popular names were Emma, Madison, Emily, Hannah, Olivia, Samantha, Ashley, Ava, Elizabeth and Madelyn.

Meanwhile, Candy remains a popular name with hookers and strippers, and Candace is a favorite among drag queens.  Woo-hoo!

A Michigan mother who started breastfeeding her four-week-old daughter in the Electronics aisle at Target was told by Security that she had to stop because public breastfeeding was illegal — and, when she disagreed, Target called the police.  D’oh.

“I asked one of them if it was indeed illegal maybe in Harper Woods to breast-feed. He said, ‘No.’ And that was it. We got our stuff together and we left,” the father, Jose Martinez, said.

Hmmmm.  Maybe they should have tried feeding her in the magazine aisle.  From what I understand, people rarely go in that aisle anymore.

According to Target’s corporate headquarters, they do allow mothers to breast-feed in their stores.  However, “This specific situation escalated to a point where we were concerned for the safety of our guests, so law enforcement was called. We regret the incident in our store and will continue to provide a shopping environment that respects the needs of all guests, including nursing mothers.”

“Forcing me out of the store. Two security guards, the manager or team leader, two officers, they just made a spectacle and a scene. I feel like I can’t go to that specific Target anymore,” the breast-feeding mama, Mary Martinez, said.

That does seem ridiculous.  Although, even as a nursing mother, I can’t imagine whipping it out right in front of the Webcam section.  I’m still way too modest.  The one time I did have to feed a VERY cranky Miss Skye at Target, I scooted into the dressing room.  They’re fairly spacious and have chairs — and those fluorescent lights shining on my post-pregnancy breasts did WONDERS for my ego.  *Ahem*