My brother bought an old house in Western, MA. I made him aware that there was 110% chance of there being lead through the place. At the time there was an in home day care center in a rental unit. I forbid him to buy the home with the day care center running. Ok, so I can't forbid my brother, but I was trying to make a point about the seriousness of the situation. Eventually he and his wife moved in (sans day care). He then had twins. The twins slept in a room together and had modern cribs. His son showed up at the one year appointment with extremely high levels of blood in his system - his sister's levels were normal. His mother was informed that the children could not re-enter the house or the doc would call social services. My sister-in-law found herself with one year old twins and homeless. Her son then had to go through a drug regimine that they were told could potentially damage his kidneys. They sold their house and bought a new one as fast as was humanly possible while moving from relative to relative. Every single item that came out of the house got either washed or wiped down to make sure no to track lead into the new place. It was loads of fun.

Please keep to the subject -- that is, how to keep lead away from children. It is not about being "politically correct," or about demographic correlations with "political correctness."

And it is not about whether those individuals who do have children are in any way morally better than those without children, or vice versa.

Also, please don't be distracted by Deering's irrational rants. Those who have seen Deering's past missives will know that 1) this individual is actually a woman, and 2) this individual is childless and inexplicably angry at, resentful of and hate-filled about ALL women who do have children, including her own female relatives (though I'm not sure how she reconciles that with her attitudes toward her mother). No doubt she will answer this post with some other missive about how the existence of mothers in this world is disgusting and makes her life miserable, and children are pond scum and life is so unfair because some people think motherhood is a good thing, yadda yadda.

It's irrational to use concerns about children's exposure to lead as some kind of fodder for attacking mothers, or attacking non-mothers, for that matter. It doesn't matter if 51 percent of that demographic of "married mothers" voted for Bush or 99 percent did or 1 percent did or whatever.

Actually, a lot of voters who are married mothers, like myself, absolutely cannot stand George W. Bush and worked very hard in the past to defeat him, and a lot of us were quite heartbroken at the results of the 2000 and 2004 elections. A lot of citizens who are married mothers, such as myself, are longtime environmental activists. (If you're insisting on giving rights only to individuals who happen to be in those specific demographic groups in which a majority voted in the "proper" way, and denying rights to anyone who's in a demographic group of which a majority voted in the "wrong" way, remember that single mothers tend to be strongly Democratic.)

But that's irrelevant. No child should be put at risk of lead poisoning, no matter how that child's mother voted, or even if she did not vote at all.

Our toddler loves his Thomas trains, and he possessed and played with several of the items recalled for lead. At both his one and his very recent two year well baby checks, his blood showed no trace of lead. While it is important to make sure kids are not exposed, this type of overreaction is just nuts.

If you write an insulting post, expect to be insulted.

...actually, it's incorrect.

...you proved _my_ point. What were your little words of wisdom: "One day you have children, stop naval staring, and quit wasting your energy on being outraged at the unfairness, depravity, and poverty of the world." Do you have any idea how insulting you sound? You might want to look closely at the unmarried/childless people--teachers, paramedics, clerks, librarians, doctors,social workers, etc.--you and your family will depend on at some point and tell _them_ they are wasting their lives or being immature. I will also note that you didn't answer any of the questions I posed you--you just slung insults. Guess parenting is such hard work it keeps one from even coming up with a decent debate response.

you aren't in Iraq.

you are familiar with they type....angry, poor, cranky, uneducated.

young reactionary men like you.

Do you really think all those "Security Moms" are reading Salon? I mean, come on now. Lighten up. Stop mis-directing your anger about the election. Funny how men love to blame women. Of Course it's OUR fault! It is our fault when they can't marry, it's our fault when they marry the wrong person, it's our fault when they shoot up the campus, it's our fault when they can't connect, it's our fault when they order their steak well done when we always told them to order it rare. Just shut up. Mom told you to too!

Get a grip everyone. We live in an eighty year old house, filled with lead paint painted surfaces. I've removed lots of that paint myself over the years. Fifteen years ago the water lateral to our house broke (the line that brings the water from the village main to our house). It was, a one and a half inch lead pipe, through which all water to our house had be traveling for over 60 years. Yes, that means drinking water.

Our two children lived their entire pre-college lives in this house, while I was working on it, and drinking that foul water. One is in graduate school, and the other is pre-med. Amazing, no apparent ill effects. Just like all their friends in similar housing in our village. I'm not advocating lead by the teaspoonful, but please worry about the real dangers, cigarettes, obesity. Doesn't anyone remember the supposed danger from all those cell phone towers that were sprouting everywhere a few years ago?