A new study has found that having a child can make a couple less happy with each other. Researchers from the University of Denver conducted an eight-year study of 218 sets of parents. Their report is called “The effect of the transition to parenthood on relationship quality”. It is published in the March 2009 edition of the ‘Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’. The psychologists examined how happy couples were in the eight years after the birth of their first child. They concluded that the first baby put a lot of stress and pressure on a marriage. Ninety percent of couples experienced a decrease in marital bliss immediately following the birth of their first child. Unmarried couples experienced bigger problems.

       It’s not all bad news for would-be parents. Some couples in the research said their relationship was stronger after their baby was born. Parents who were married for a long time before starting a family were happier. Couples on higher incomes also seemed to have fewer problems. Researcher Scott Stanley said his team’s findings did not mean children bring unhappiness in life. He said that parents may be happier as part of a family than as a childless couple. He noted that “this type of happiness can be powerful and positive”. Stanley also pointed out that couples who did not have children also became unhappier with each other over time. However, he said parenthood accelerated levels of unhappiness.

          这是一篇三月份发表在“Journal of Personality and Social Psychology”的文章，tittle: No Kids The Secret To A Happier Marriage。今天，很流行的“丁克家庭”不知你怎么看，就是没有孩子的家庭。我个人认为，有孩子的家庭才是完整的。但是，老公不想要小孩，不知道在不远的将来我的想法会不会像这篇文章第一段所描述的parent那样，觉得没有小孩的两个人才是快乐的呢……，阅读完这篇文章，你又有何感想呢？ 

美国及国际上一些国家正在努力抨击贫困，但是这些努力有何成效呢？让我们来看看纽约时报的实况报导：

Pregnant(Again) and Poor                                  

For all the American and international efforts to fight global poverty, one thing is clear: Those efforts won’t get far as long as women like Nahomie Nercure continue to have 10 children. [...] As we walked through Cité Soleil, the Haitian slum where she lives, her elementary-school-age children ran stark naked around her. The $6-a-month rental shack that they live in — four sleep on the bed, six on the floor beside it — has no food of any kind in it. The family has difficulty paying the fees to keep the children in school. There’s simply no way to elevate Nahomie’s family, and millions like it around the world, unless we help such women have fewer children.

      There are campaign buttons, jewellery, teddy bears and even women’s g-string underpants–and academics and vendors tell the items are being sold  at unprecedented levels.

      “Young people take it as some kind of revolution. He’s in demand right now. He’s selling better than everybody,” said Union Square vendor Edwin Shan, who sells T-shirts hand-painted with images of Mr Obama.

       Another Union Square vendor, Maria Khomenko, explained: “Obama is like a trademark now.” She said she planned to add him to her line of T-shirts depicting James Brown, Jimi,Hendrix, and Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon.

       “We just try to sell products that attract our customers. We’re not making any kind of political statement at all,” Urban Outfitters Chief Financial Officer John Kyees said.

       Penn State political science professor Eric Plutzer, who studies youth voting trends, said America’s young see Mr Obama’s candidacy as “more than politics as usual,” and that the craze for Obama items gets high numbers of young supporters.

      ”Obama,a fashion icon?”  “ Hardly” , say his daughters.

      In an interview with entertainment channel Access Hollywood, Malia, aged 10, and Sasha, seven, laughed at the idea that their father has become a fashion pin-up, pointing to his 10-year old trousers, his worn-out shoes and “that belt”.

      Malia then tells as a recent shopping trip when he bought “three pairs of black pants and the same jacket in green, brown and black”.

       Mr Obama tells viewers he is “baffled by this whole thing myself, because I hate to shop”.

       Michelle Obama also become First Lady of Fashion

       Recently, a fund-raiser held in Michelle Obama’s honor attended by a giant fashion crowd. Tickets to the cocktail reception cost $1,000 to $2,300, and tickets to the dinner following at Calvin Klein’s house cost $10,000. Normally such events allow reporters and famous people who draw the reporters in for free. But Michelle’s fund-raiser, it seems, was so exclusive everyone had to pay to attend. They were all “pumped” to meet her–even though the room was uncomfortably warm–and she dazzled with charm and a chic Isabela Toledo gown and Tom Binns necklace she picked out herself.

     Francisco Costa called her a “star”; Behnaz Sarafpour said she had never seen a couple like the Obamas in politics in her lifetime and called Michelle’s style “refreshing.” Nicole Miller was struck by her height and called her “pretty fabulous,” “gracious,” and “very intelligent.”

     But the most interesting part about the whole thing is that on the next day when Michelle went on The View she wore a black-and-white dress from White House Black Market. After that, women started pouring into the retail chain’s stores, clamoring for the $148 dress.