BuzzSugar

Buzz News Roundup, 7/9

BuzzSugar — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:30:29 PDT

Nat is back! Joe E. Tata is returning as the Peach Pit owner for at least the pilot of the new 90210, writes the Associated Press.
According to ComingSoon, there is a modern remake of Red Dawn in the works.
Hollywood Reporter writes that Kinky Boots may be the next movie to be turned into a Broadway musical.
E! reports that Jeffrey Tambor is coming to Entourage as another fifth-season guest star.
Lil Wayne is once again topping the Billboard 200 list, Billboard reports.
NBC News is going to produce a big Baby Borrowers reunion special, writes Variety.
ComingSoon reports that the comic Elfquest will head to the big screen.
Katherine Heigl's husband, musician Josh Kelley, might be the latest star to start producing TV shows, Entertainment Weekly reports.

The Baby Borrowers: Interview with Natalie

LilSugar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:00:00 PDT

Would you let a teen borrow your baby to teach them a lesson in life? We talked to one mom who did. Natalie, a 31-year-old mother of four, offered up her youngest child, 6-month-old, Etta to be cared for by teenage couple, Sean (18) and Kelsey (18) on last night's episode of the The Baby Borrowers.

NBC's new show takes five young couples and thrusts them into the real world by giving them a house to live in, followed by babies, tots, school aged children, preteens, teens, pets and elderly people as charges. The series couldn't be more timely with magazine covers dedicated to Jamie Lynn Spears's transition from Nickelodeon star to new mama. And, it's the glamorization of teen pregnancy that is why Natalie, who had her first son at the tender age of 17, decided to volunteer (no one on the show was paid) her offspring. With a professional nanny following the couple, and the ability to watch them on monitors and intervene at any time, the mother helped Kelsey experience the realities - the sleepless nights and frustration - of motherhood.

Did you have any apprehension about handing your baby over to teenagers? Not really - I thought it was important to do the show and everything was in place as far as safety measures. So I wasn't in fear at all as far as their (Natalie's son, Benjamin appears in the second episode) physical well being and I think that I was on hand to ensure emotional well being for them. I went over and interjected at one point.

What was the breaking point that made you decide to interfere? Well, Sean got frustrated and then he cursed, and said, "Put it in the other room it's just gonna cry anyway". The fact that he cursed and was referring to my daughter as "it" was my last straw.

To hear about Natalie's own experience as a teen mom and how she believes teenage pregnancy is portrayed in the media,

Did you relate to Sean and Kelsey's emotions and frustration as you were their age when you became a mother? Yes, I did and I told them it's perfectly acceptable to get frustrated and go in the other room and scream into a pillow or cry in the shower, but it's not acceptable to curse at or while referring to your child. And, at the age Etta was at - you're there to handle their needs because they can't do it for themselves and they just couldn't act that way.

How did you feel about the overall experience - would you do it again? I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

In light of the Time magazine piece about the pregnancy pact at Gloucester High School, do you think this show might change the teen's view of pregnancy?. I truly wish that this was incorporated in all of the schools. There's usually a focus on abstinence or sex education, but not so much the realities. More than just telling kids they could get a sexually transmitted disease, they should know that every single time they choose to have sex, condom or no condom, they still need to be prepared to have a baby as a result. If it's a decision that they are OK with and prepared for, then go ahead and do whatever you are going to do. I was one of those girls just like the girls that you are hearing about now. I got pregnant on purpose because I thought I knew it all and I wanted my parents to know that I could do it myself and I could be a good mother.

What do you think about the way the media portrays teen pregnancy? It's really wrong. Everything has a happy ending. You'll have the baby and you'll move on and that's just not the reality if you're not from a prominent family. There's not always a mother to help or people to hand the baby off to.

Does your story have a happy ending? Absolutely, my story has a happy ending in general and that my kids are all healthy. But I have a 13-year-old son who chooses not to live with me, but to live with his father and this is not one of those court cases where my son was awarded to someone else. He asked about two years ago to go live with his dad because I grew up with him instead of already knowing who I was as a person before I started mothering him. I got frustrated and when there were things that went wrong, I blamed it on him. It's hard because I was a mother doesn't mean that I was a good mother or that I was equipped to take care of him.

So did you do this, in part, to prevent that from happening to other teens? It's good for teens who might be going down that path, but it's also good for their kids that are a product of these relationships because no one is out there advocating for them and they just happen to be born in these circumstances. My kids certainly didn't ask for it and I've put some emotional scars on them and I am deeply sorry for that, but I hope that at least I can help others from making the same mistake.

“The Baby Borrowers” is moving to 9 p.m. ET on Wednesdays beginning July 2 with repeats of the prior week's episode airing before the originals at 8 p.m. ET. Check back soon for our interview with Kelsey.

First Look: The Baby Borrowers

BuzzSugar — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:30:38 PDT

Ever since I proclaimed it a Bad Idea of the Week way back in March of '07, I've been utterly fascinated with NBC's show The Baby Borrowers, which is finally set to premiere next Wednesday, June 25. The show takes teenage couples and essentially asks them to become parents overnight, as they care for babies, toddlers, preteens, teenagers, and, eventually, senior citizens. (Why not toss in a 47-year-old in the throes of a midlife crisis, while they're at it?)

The show is based on a British series of the same name, and I'm told that over there, it was a pretty educational and informative show. But from watching the previews for the NBC version, I can't tell what kind of tone the U.S. version of the show is going to have. Am I meant to laugh at these crazy kids and their predicament? Feel sorry for them? Be angry on behalf of the actual families of the kids and adults they're caring for? Take it as a poignant appreciation of the life cycle? The moral still seems to be "hey, kids, life sucks" - and watching even a single episode of that seems like it would be more harrowing than entertaining.

The show was originally supposed to air back in February, when our own LilSugar got freaked out by the concept. But the premiere got changed to the Summer, and so I'm wondering: If you've seen the previews, how do you feel about the show? To watch a trailer and a couple of shorter clips, just

Photo courtesy of NBC

Here's What We'll Be Watching on TV This Summer

BuzzSugar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:30:35 PDT

ABC, CBS, and Fox have joined NBC in releasing their Summer schedules in recent days, and while we're still waiting on The CW, this already gives us a pretty good sense of how the season will look. There's a lot of reality, of course, but at least one cool scripted series is also on the schedule. Here are some of the goodies:

Swingtown, the CBS series about '70s swinger couples, will finally see the light of day! It's scheduled to air Thursday nights at 10 starting June 5.
So You Think You Can Dance will be the centerpiece of Fox's Summer schedule again (yay!), following last year's pattern of performance shows on Wednesdays and results shows on Thursdays. The show will also have a two-night premiere starting Thursday, May 22, and continuing the following Wednesday.
NBC is touting this as its All-American Summer, thanks to the August broadcast of the Summer Olympics. Apparently, a big part of that is American Gladiators, which returns May 12.
The High School Musical reality show, now called High School Musical: Summer Session, will begin airing July 20, taking over both Sundays and Mondays for three weeks and ultimately airing on Mondays until the grand-prize winner is chosen.
ABC's two big reality franchises, The Bachelorette and The Mole, both kick off in May: The Bachelorette starts May 19, while the new edition of The Mole starts May 26.
Last Comic Standing, meanwhile, returns to NBC May 22.

As for other reality shows, there's a ridiculous-sounding crop in the works - many of which were in my spot the fake pilot quiz. To check out a list, just

CBS has Greatest American Dog (dogs and their owners competing on various tasks), Million Dollar Password (like the old-school game show but with celebrities and Regis Philbin as host), and Jingles (contestants have to write jingles pitching products, sports teams, or entertainment options).
ABC has Wipeout (the falling-down game show), I Survived a Japanese Game Show (which ships contestants to Japan and judges them on how best they adapt to the culture, which just sounds odd), and Dance Machine (which pits regular people against each other in "dance-offs" to popular songs).
NBC has two we've already talked about, but they're so crazy I have to mention them again: The Baby Borrowers (teenage couples are entrusted with raising children) and Celebrity Circus (exactly what it sounds like). Luckily, ABC has canceled its own celeb-circus show.

Photos courtesy of CBS, NBC, and ABC, Inc.

Wee TV: The Baby Borrowers

LilSugar — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:00:00 PST

There's not a chance I'd hand my babe over to teenagers so they could play house with him in front of television cameras. Call me crazy, but I'd also never sign a consent form for my kids to go to Bonanza City and start a "kids only" pioneer town, though I admit the concept made for some pretty incredible episodes of Kid Nation and I was awed at a couple of those children.

So, I'm hoping tonight's episode of The Baby Borrowers also proves me wrong. To learn more about this new reality show,

The premise of NBC's new show is to take five young couples and thrust them into the real world by giving them a house to live in, followed by babies, tots, school aged children, preteens, teens, pets and elderly people as charges, but this clip seriously scares me.

Would you lend them your baby?

Source

Bad Idea of the Week: "The Baby Borrowers"

BuzzSugar — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 07:00:57 PDT

Some ideas are so jaw-droppingly bad, they make fun of themselves, and this new reality show from NBC is one of them. Called "The Baby Borrowers" and based on a BBC series of the same name, the premise involves five teenage couples being made to take care of babies, toddlers, pre-teens, and aging grandparents over the course of a month. I can't possibly be funnier than NBC's own press release, so here are excerpts:

As the five young participating couples are asked to literally grow up overnight, their journey begins when they are given a quiet suburban home and attend pre-natal classes as the "mother" wears a simulated "empathy" belly to prepare them for the arrival of their "baby."

When a real one appears at their door - courtesy of five real mothers who each entrusts her infant to one of the five couples - the fumbling new teen parents are in for three long, arduous days that make chilling out a distant memory. They must stick to rigid routines (under supervision), handle the feeding chores, diaper duty and crying jags that might be shared by both baby and teens.

Five real mothers are going to give their babies to some teenage fools surrounded by video cameras for three days? That sounds like a surefire way to irrevocably screw up your child. Could you imagine showing your son or daughter that video later? "Look, honey! That's when your fake mommy put Sprite in your bottle!"

There's a lot more, so

Back to the press release:

After the first three days, the late-teen couples will bid bye-bye to the baby and will receive a toddler as their fast-forward adult life progresses. As a result, they will have to cope with the "Terrible Twos," pouty tantrums and other messes for three more days. One of the couples will have to care for two siblings while another will have to handle three - and all of the twosomes will be given family pets to add to their responsibilities.

Do you think the pets will be goldfish or, like, a pony? It looks like the BBC kids got stuck with a goat and a ferret.

And finally:

After the three days, the weary couples must now face the reality of parenting a sassy pre-teen - or "tweener" - thereby perhaps providing them with a mirror image of their own recent relationship with their own parents. To complete the cycle of life, the couples are graced with the opportunity to care for an elderly grandparent, who will represent what might be in store for them in the distant future.

Aside from all the legal and ethical issues here, apparently the moral is that life sucks. "Hey, kids! First you get fat and pregnant, then you deal with children who spit up and poop on everything and sass back to you. Isn't growing up great?" Yeesh.

Source

7 Money Mistakes Women Often Make

LearnVest — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:15:55 PDT

We all make mistakes - we're all human after all. LearnVest shares some of the common money mistakes that women often make so readers will learn not to make them, too.

Some of us handle our money flawlessly, perfectly, brilliantly, all of the time.

But most of us don't.

Most of us make mistakes here and there. We make some mistakes more than others, because of our personalities, or our upbringing . . . or sometimes even our gender.

It's ridiculous, but true.

We've heard it firsthand - from our readers. In fact, we went through hundreds of reader submissions and found examples of the most common stories that cross our desks every day.

Let's be clear: Not all women make these mistakes. Not all men avoid them. But in our experience, these are a few female financial problem areas that can lead to major debt and lots of stress.

RELATED: Are You a Social Shopper?

Ever bailed out an ex? Indulged in a little more retail therapy than you meant to? Or woken up one day and realized you didn't know as much as you thought you did about managing your money? You just might recognize yourself.

Of course, if you don't, good for you. We're just saying, bad money snafus happen to good people. But read on: We'll show you the top seven mistakes women make - and what to do instead.

Feeling Guilty

"When we were together, I let my ex stay with me rent-free until he found an apartment, lent him my furniture and paid for every date because I had a job and he didn't. When I lost my job, he paid for my rent for a few months and bills, etc. Now that we're broken up, he wants me to pay him back for the rent he insisted on covering. I am still on unemployment and barely getting by. I feel so guilty because we didn't end up as the forever couple and while I can't (nor would I . . . ) calculate all of my assistance getting him settled in NYC, he can quite easily."

A 2011 study from Eversave.com found that 67% of women have felt guilt about a purchase. But that's not the only opportunity for guilt: There's also staying in a job you feel guilty about abandoning, giving someone money because you feel guilty about their situation and, oh, doing the opposite of what you want when it comes to working after having children because you feel guilty about being a good mom (more on that here).

This guilt effect might not be limited to finances, either. Some studies suggest that women are more inclined than men to feel any kind of guilt. And we'd argue, more likely to bail out their exes, too.

Read on for more.

Going the Distance: 10 Tips to Getting a Job in Your Dream City

Emily Co — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:00:00 PDT

You might dream of packing your bags and running off to make it big in New York City, but the fact of the matter is, it's extremely hard to get a call back from an employer if you don't live the same city. To raise your chances of succeeding, here are some things you should do:

Move There: The best way to find a job in the city you'd love to work in is to be on the ground, networking, and interviewing in the city itself. That will save you plenty of awkward questions about where you're actually living. However, this option is not ideal for everyone since it's going to be hard to cover the cost of moving and living expenses when you're not making any income. Although this is probably your best bet for getting a job in the city you want, it's also the most costly.
Find a Company Contact: Since your location is working against you, you need an extra edge to get an "in" at the company. Network through your existing contacts or through networking sites like LinkedIn and do your best to find an employee or a friend who knows someone at the company. It'll definitely increase your chances of scoring an interview despite your zip code.
Borrow an Address: Approach a friend and ask her if you can borrow her address for your resume. I've heard from several friends that they only started hearing back from employers when they used a local address. Try not to make it a focal point during an interview, and remember if it comes up, be honest about where you live, and voice your plans to relocate.
Get a Google Voice Number: Sign up for a Google Voice phone number that has a local number so that you can list that on your resume.

For more advice on how to get a job in your dream city, read on.

7 Money Tips For Couples Starting a Family

Business Insider — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:15:00 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Business Insider story here on Savvy!

Middle-income parents will spend nearly $227,000 in 17 years for children born in 2010, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

But don't let that scare you - saving for a family can actually be fun if you know what you're doing.

"The most important thing to understand is that your priorities are going to change and your spending habits need to change to reflect those changes," says Stuart Ritter, a financial planner at T. Rowe Price.

With Ritter and other financial experts' help, we'll help you prepare.

Invest in a 529 savings plan

Saving for your child's education is crucial to his or her success, and 529 plans are tax-advantaged college savings accounts that are available in all 50 states.

Most are free to set up, while some states require a minimum of $25 to open an account, says Adam Koos, a certified financial planner with Libertas Wealth Management. Anyone can contribute and take advantage of the tax benefits.

Open the plan before your child is born, says Ritter, and name yourself the beneficiary. You can change the name on the account once your child is born.

Read on for more.

Make the Skies a Bit Friendly With These Holiday Travel Tips For Families

BabyCenter — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:33:09 PST

We're excited to share this post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we will be bringing you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Kristina Sauerwein about making holiday travel as smooth as possible.

No doubt you've noticed the tinsel, twinkle-light Christmas trees in stores and heard carols on the radio. Although it does seem early to get decked out for the holidays, the season is rapidly approaching and it is not too early to plan holiday air travel.

To help you avoid hassles and extra costs associated with holiday air travel, here are 10 tips from Christine Frietchen, Editor in Chief of ConsumerSearch.com, a site that helps consumers make informed purchasing decisions in everything from electronics to home and garden goods to health and beauty items to cars.

For booking air travel, start yesterday. This year is going to be tough for snagging the choice Christmas flights. With Christmas falling on a Sunday, there's already a scramble for Friday-to-Monday (or Tuesday) trips. Start looking and booking now.
Be as flexible as you can. It's hard during the holidays to be flexible, but if you can depart on Thursday, for example, instead of Friday, you can save $100 per ticket in some markets.
When booking flights with connections, be mindful of the connecting city. Winter weather in popular connecting cities like Chicago or Minneapolis can throw a big wrench in your plans. Though a nonstop flight might cost more, it could be worth it if the only connection options are dicey delay-prone cities.
Don't forget to check nearby airports. Although it can be a hassle to drive an extra 50 or 100 miles to a more distant airport, it can be worth checking. For a family, saving $50 per ticket will more than make up for the extra gas.
Check in at home. Most airlines now allow you to check in via computer or smartphone as well as print your boarding pass. If you don't need to check bags, that means you can head straight for the security screening line.

Keep reading for more holiday travel tips!