baby-boom

The Duggars Introduce Their 17 Children to a Dangerously Underpopulated Times Square

Kyle Buchanan · 09/30/08 07:30PM

Where some see New York City's Times Square as a monument to overpopulation, the Duggar family of TLC sees only parents who aren't trying hard enough. On last night's premiere of 17 and Counting, the Duggar parents and their brood of 17 children (not counting number 18, currently nestled in the ransacked waiting room of his mother's belly) visited Manhattan, and like the Muppets before them, they caused a sensation! As the Duggars shielded their children's eyes from the more lascivious images flitting across Times Square's plasma screens, the NYC residents around them felt their freakshow radar go off and swarmed the family for pictures. For the Duggars, it was a staggering display of their newfound celebrity — so who could blame them for accidentally losing two children to the crowds, replacing them with a midget manning the falafel stand and a friendly cabbie named "Mohammed"? [TLC]

Amazon.com, Facebook join grandparents in pressuring my bride to make babies

Nicholas Carlson · 01/30/08 02:20PM

Not three hours after I got married earlier this month, my wife's grandfather pulled her aside. "By this time next year," he said, "I'll hope you'll bring a new baby to visit us." It's the kind of pressure you might expect from grandparents. But Jeff Bezos, too? Get off our backs, Amazon dude, wouldya? We most certainly did not set up a baby registry. And you too, Mark Zuckerberg. I'm sure she matches some sort of ad-triggering demographic criteria being under-30 and married, but Anna would like you to relax with the maternity-clothing ads.

Megan McCarthy · 07/12/07 08:18PM

Flickr's Heather Champ wants the world to know that she is not the pregnant A-List blogger. We'll drink to that. [Flickr]

Silicon Valley's baby boom

Owen Thomas · 07/12/07 09:45AM

I never intended for the blogger-baby story, which began with the birth of Ollie Kottke to A-list bloggers Jason Kottke and Meg Hourihan, to become quite such a saga, but news has a way of happening. Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield are no longer expecting a baby — they have a daughter, Sonnet Beatrice Butterfield, according to fellow Yahoo executive Bradley Horowitz. Here's the rundown on the rest of the couples mentioned in yesterday's baby poll, which — well done, readers — you guessed correctly.

What to expect when you're an executive who's expecting

Owen Thomas · 07/12/07 09:29AM

Why make such a fuss over who's disclosing their pregnancies? I worked at Wired Ventures, then the publisher of Wired magazine, in 1996 and 1997, in the midst of the agony of its failed IPO attempt. One controversy at the time was the disclosure that cofounder Jane Metcalfe, the magazine's publisher, was pregnant and planned to take maternity leave shortly after the planned IPO. For the record, no one I know believes that Metcalfe's pregnancy had anything to do with Wired's troubles. But for a top executive to take a leave is always a strain on a young, growing company, and is a fact best disclosed, as Wired Ventures did. Hence my surprise that Mena Trott waited until now to talk about her news. Caterina Fake, the cofounder of Flickr and an executive at Yahoo, has, by contrast, written publicly and often about her pregnancy. More on the status of Fake's pregnancy, and the rest of the couples mentioned in our poll, shortly.