My mother-in-law has a wonderful stash of magazines. She keeps issues for a number of years and I enjoy looking through her collection when I visit during the holidays. This past weekend, her stack included Country Life, Southern Living, and Better Homes and Gardens.

I copied down a dozen or so interesting recipes this time, but after reading Amy Laura Hall’s Better Homes and Children a few weeks ago, my admiration for the well-decorated “country” and “southern” homes faded. Instead of seeing well-coordinated living rooms, I saw child unfriendly environments. In place of comfortable throw pillows and impressive collections, I saw stainables and breakables. Most of all, I noticed the phrase “partner” all too often in the copy describing the owner(s) of the abode. It is no wonder that homes are not ready to receive children when child-hostile groups provide the inspiration for home decoration.

My mother-in-law, by the way, has a beautiful home which was very ready to receive my son. She is tidy (much tidier than I am!) and, besides the magazines, very few things were low to the ground. Her well-waxed wood floor ensured that John couldn’t travel far enough to get into trouble (not that he's very fast yet!) before someone caught up with him. Besides checking the plants for dropped petals every few hours, letting John explore her living room was much less work than letting him explore mine.