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"  HEATHER ARMSTRONG, 35, SALT LAKE CITY She shares her kids&amp;#039; personal details with millions Ten years ago, Heather Armstrong started her blog, dooce.com, as a place to talk about music, movies, and her (then) single life. But as she became a wife to husband Jon, and mother to daughters Leta, 7, and Marlo, 20 months, her posts shifted. Frank entries about labor, poop (enough to merit its own category on the site), and her battle with postpartum depression earned her a devoted following. Today, dooce.com employs both Armstrongs full-time, and logged over 18 million visits in the last year.  WHY I MADE THE CHOICE I DID: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always been the kind of person who&amp;#039;d tell you anything you wanted to know about me. So my site was a natural extension of that. Throughout my first pregnancy and afterward, I told it all: the good, the bad, and the gory \u2014 including pictures. When I wrote about the struggles I had in the first few months after my daughter was born, my audience reached out and helped me. I found my community online. But that said, I have started writing less about Leta as she gets older, out of respect for her privacy.&amp;quot;  MY ONLY REGRET: &amp;quot;At the very beginning, I wrote some very unflattering things about my family, thinking they&amp;#039;d never read it. Then my brother Googled my name. But we got through it, and the experience made us all closer.&amp;quot;  THE WORST THING SOMEONE HAS SAID: &amp;quot;Leta had sensory issues when she was little. She was very late to walk, and needed occupational therapy. A reader accused me of having Munchausen syndrome by proxy; in other words, I was making her sick so I&amp;#039;d have something to write about. It made me feel like s--t, but it just wasn&amp;#039;t worth it to respond.&amp;quot;  A SURPRISING SOURCE OF SUPPORT: &amp;quot;My parents are conservative Mormons, and I&amp;#039;m\u2026 not. On top of that, I tend to use lots of four-letter words. So I didn&amp;#039;t think they&amp;#039;d be fans of my blog. But I&amp;#039;m very much like my mother in my ambition and my father in my sense of humor, and I think the blog has helped them recognize that. Amazingly, they read it every day.&amp;quot; THE UNEXPECTED REWARD: &amp;quot;First, it pays our mortgage. Second, I posted a newsletter about Leta on the blog every month for five years; they&amp;#039;re such a treasure to have. I&amp;#039;d love to print them all and make them into a scrapbook for her when she&amp;#039;s older.&amp;quot; NAME WITHHELD, 25 She was raped and kept her baby  On her 21st birthday, J. was drugged and raped by a man she was casually dating. She woke up the next morning underneath him and scrambled to get dressed and leave. Unsure of what had happened, she avoided her attacker. Three months later, she realized she was pregnant with her rapist&amp;#039;s child. Today, that daughter is almost 4 years old. WHY I MADE THE CHOICE I DID: &amp;quot;When I realized I was pregnant, at first I just cried. I already had an 8-month-old little girl and had no idea how I&amp;#039;d care for another child. But I wasn&amp;#039;t open to abortion. My mother was actually encouraged to have an abortion when she was pregnant with me, and of course, I wouldn&amp;#039;t be here if she had. And even with all of the fears I was experiencing, I also felt an instant connection and love for this child. She was a baby, she was defenseless, and she was mine to protect and love. I&amp;#039;m not a religious person, but I always felt that she came to me for a reason.&amp;quot; MY ONLY REGRET: &amp;quot;Never reporting the crime. I know it sounds terrible, but I didn&amp;#039;t want society to think I was stupid. So I did nothing.&amp;quot; THE WORST THING SOMEONE HAS SAID: &amp;quot;Someone who I was close to said she wasn&amp;#039;t sure she could love this baby the way she loved my first daughter. I was so mad, I wanted her out of our lives completely. But she later apologized.&amp;quot;  THE UNEXPECTED REWARD: &amp;quot;Of course it&amp;#039;s my daughter! Before she was born, I secretly wondered if I might resent her, but I definitely don&amp;#039;t. As soon as I held her, any thought of resentment was gone forever. And I&amp;#039;ve never looked back.&amp;quot; CARIN YATES, 40, SUFFIELD, CT She put her kids to work!  It&amp;#039;s only been three years since Carin Yates first took her daughter Sydney to a Gap print ad audition. But since then, the now 9-year-old and her sister, Jordan, 5, have modeled for many more companies, including DKNY and the Children&amp;#039;s Place; both girls have even inspired dolls. &amp;quot;They do miss school on occasion,&amp;quot; Carin says. &amp;quot;But if the work ever starts to affect them academically, or stress them out, we will stop. And if an audition conflicts with something that is important to them, I&amp;#039;ll cancel it. I can always see it in their faces when something really matters.&amp;quot;  WHY I MADE THE CHOICE I DID: &amp;quot;People always said my kids should be models or actors \u2014 they&amp;#039;re both total hams \u2014 but I blew it off. Then a friend whose child modeled finally talked me into taking Sydney to meet an agent. When we went on that first audition, for Gap, she got a callback, but it was Jordan [then 2] who booked it. The girls have auditioned ever since. Their earnings go straight into college funds, except for a small amount that we use to cover their modeling expenses. I don&amp;#039;t want to say how much they&amp;#039;ve made, but they&amp;#039;ll have no trouble paying for school. My husband teaches, and I work part time, so we wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to save much otherwise.&amp;quot;  ONE MAJOR DOWNSIDE: &amp;quot;When Sydney walked the runway in New York City&amp;#039;s fashion week, she saw the adult models and said, &amp;#039;I don&amp;#039;t want to be that skinny!&amp;#039; I told her the models&amp;#039; weight was unrealistic for most everyone, but her reaction made me nervous. She&amp;#039;s athletic, she&amp;#039;s not a twig. So as soon as she&amp;#039;s expected to weigh something that isn&amp;#039;t natural for her, we&amp;#039;ll quit modeling. I don&amp;#039;t want her to have that pressure.&amp;quot; THE WORST THING SOMEONE HAS SAID: &amp;quot;&amp;#039;You have a biracial child missing her two front teeth, so you better be happy with whatever auditions you get.&amp;#039; Of course, just a few days later, my toothless child booked a job that&amp;#039;s going to pay for a year of college.&amp;quot;  THE UNEXPECTED REWARD: &amp;quot;This work seems to have only strengthened my daughters&amp;#039; sense that they can do anything. Sydney wants to sing, dance, do it all. I have to rein her back a little because the reality is, very few kids are successful for any significant period, and I don&amp;#039;t want either of the girls to pin all of their dreams on this.&amp;quot; ILKA BAILEY, 37, AND BETH KLUENDER, 41, PORTLAND, OR They&amp;#039;re two moms, two kids, and a very special uncle  In 2003, Ilka Bailey and Beth Kluender had just moved to Portland and needed a place to stay while they looked for a house. Ilka&amp;#039;s cousin Jill Whittaker, her husband, James, and their 2-year-old daughter, Wiley, welcomed them in. &amp;quot;One night at dinner, we were talking about how Beth and I wanted a family and what our options were,&amp;quot; Ilka says. &amp;quot;Out of the blue, James said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ll give you my sperm.&amp;#039; We were like, &amp;#039;Really?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; The women had researched sperm donors at a cryobank, but it was both impersonal and very expensive. So they took James up on his offer (with Jill&amp;#039;s blessing), and Ilka gave birth to Ripley in July 2004. A few years later, they repeated the process with their daughter Prue, now 3. &amp;quot;Our kids know the whole story,&amp;quot; Ilka says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s very clear that we&amp;#039;re the parents, but James is in our children&amp;#039;s lives \u2014 we see him at least once a week. He is Uncle James.&amp;quot;  WHY WE MADE THE CHOICE WE DID: &amp;quot;The idea of choosing an anonymous sperm donor felt so arbitrary,&amp;quot; explains Ilka. &amp;quot;Should we pick one based on our looks? Or how well the donor was educated? And personality was so important, something we&amp;#039;d have no way of knowing with an anonymous donor. When James offered to donate, we were all surprised. Beth and I spent a few weeks talking about it, privately. Would it be too weird? Our kids would be both cousins and half-siblings. Beth wondered if, by having James in our lives, he would take on that second parent role instead of her. But we talked it all out and approached James and his wife again a few weeks later. They had also been talking and had decided that they were both totally okay with it. James was fine leaving the parenting to us and being an uncle, not a dad.&amp;quot; Then she adds with a laugh: &amp;quot;A funny benefit of knowing James is that if the kids do something we don&amp;#039;t understand, we just blame it on him.&amp;quot;  WHAT THE KIDS THINK: &amp;quot;One day, I was driving Ripley and two friends to the pumpkin patch,&amp;quot; Ilka says, &amp;quot;and one of them said to her, &amp;#039;You know, two moms can&amp;#039;t have a baby.&amp;#039; And I sort of braced myself, thinking I was going to have to jump in. But Ripley piped up and said, &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;re right, here&amp;#039;s what happened \u2014 you know my cousins? Their dad gave my moms a gift so that they could have me.&amp;#039; Then I think the other kid interrupted and was like, &amp;#039;Look, a cow.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; THE WORST THING SOMEONE HAS SAID: &amp;quot;While they aren&amp;#039;t directly negative, people ask so many questions,&amp;quot; Beth says. &amp;quot;&amp;#039;Okay, wait \u2014 you had kids with Ilka&amp;#039;s cousin? Was Jill okay with it? Who&amp;#039;s the mom? Is James in their lives?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; &amp;quot;One woman told Jill that she was crazy to have gone along with it,&amp;quot; says Ilka. &amp;quot;She said she&amp;#039;d feel like they were her kids.&amp;quot;  THE UNEXPECTED REWARD: &amp;quot;This has definitely made us all closer as a family,&amp;quot; Ilka says. &amp;quot;James&amp;#039;s mother sent the kids Christmas gifts and put our kids on her family tree. She was acknowledging that they are part of her family \u2014 that his family embraces them. I appreciate that.&amp;quot; ANNA NEISTAT, 34, PARIS She&amp;#039;s chosen a job that could kill her While working to expose and prevent human rights violations, Anna Neistat regularly travels to the most dangerous parts of the globe. She is part of an Emergencies Unit at Human Rights Watch \u2014 and the only team member who is also a mother; her son, Daniil, is 11. &amp;quot;I have been detained before, and there&amp;#039;s sometimes a risk that I&amp;#039;ll be shot at,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I can be home on Monday, doing errands, helping Daniil with his homework. And the next day I&amp;#039;m packing my bag and leaving for a war zone on the other side of the world.&amp;quot; She says that the only way she can deal with the dangers of her job or the terrifying prospect of not returning home to her son is simply not to dwell on it. &amp;quot;I just can&amp;#039;t go there. It would make me incapable of doing my work and helping the people I need to help,&amp;quot; she explains. When Anna&amp;#039;s gone, Daniil stays with his father (he and Anna are divorced), or Anna&amp;#039;s partner, Ole, or Anna&amp;#039;s parents. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s always difficult to be away from him, but we&amp;#039;ve both gotten used to it, even though you really don&amp;#039;t want to get used to something like that.&amp;quot;  WHY I MADE THE CHOICE I DID: &amp;quot;Growing up in Moscow under a totalitarian state, I had no hope that the system would ever change \u2014 but it crumbled right in front of my eyes. So that has allowed me to have hope for countries ruled by even the worst dictatorships. I don&amp;#039;t think Daniil realizes that I face real danger. I don&amp;#039;t talk about that with him. It&amp;#039;s important to me that he understand what I do and why, but I still want him to feel safe. In some ways, it is a little bit fictional for him: He believes that in the adventure that&amp;#039;s my job, nothing bad happens to the main characters. So do I, actually.&amp;quot;  THE UNEXPECTED REWARD: &amp;quot;That my son thinks I&amp;#039;m cool. He&amp;#039;ll tell me that though other moms may be around more, &amp;#039;they don&amp;#039;t go around saving the world.&amp;#039; He really does think that I&amp;#039;m some kind secret agent who has weapons hidden somewhere, and no amount of discussion can change his mind about that. His pride in me helps me feel so much better about having to be away.&amp;quot; NAME WITHHELD, 40 She wanted a girl \u2014 and turned to science to get one  A. was a very happy mom of two boys, but she had always wanted a girl as well. &amp;quot;My mom and I are really close, and I wanted to experience that mother-daughter bond,&amp;quot; she says. And so, when her sons were 3 and 6 years old, A. and her husband decided to use MicroSorting, which separates male from female sperm, to have a daughter. Any effort to influence a child&amp;#039;s biology ignites controversy, so A. decided to keep her story quiet (it&amp;#039;s why she wanted to maintain anonymity here). &amp;quot;We only shared our decision with a few friends and no family, because I worried that people would think we were trying to play God.&amp;quot; After two tries for a daughter and $10,000 in medical bills, they were successful. A.&amp;#039;s little girl is now 2. WHY I MADE THE CHOICE I DID: &amp;quot;As women, we&amp;#039;re encouraged to go after our dreams, but I had this one huge lifelong dream that wasn&amp;#039;t supposed to count. You&amp;#039;re supposed to take what you get. But a daughter was more important to me than a job, or my degree, or any of those other big goals.&amp;quot;  MY ONLY REGRET: &amp;quot;That I feel like I can&amp;#039;t talk about it. I don&amp;#039;t often think about how my daughter \u2014 or my sons \u2014 got here. But when I meet a woman who I sense could benefit from knowing about what I did, that&amp;#039;s when I wish I could be open. People have such strong opinions about gender selection, though, that it&amp;#039;s easier not to say anything. Friends who&amp;#039;ve also done this have gotten comments like, &amp;#039;You are lucky just to have kids&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;So many people want what you have, you should be grateful.&amp;#039; Those kind of statements can cause a lot of suffering.&amp;quot;  THE UNEXPECTED REWARD: &amp;quot;Watching my boys with their sister. She brings out a sweet side in them that I hadn&amp;#039;t seen before. They play so gently and beautifully with her.&amp;quot; TERRI LISH MOORE, 44, LONG BEACH, CA She built a family of adopted children instead of having her own When Terri Moore and her husband, John, 48, got married, they thought they&amp;#039;d adopt two children and have two biological ones, in that order. Today they have six children \u2014 Ashley, 19, Christopher, 16, Anthony, 15, Aruna, 11, Hallie, 4 and Emme, 1 \u2014 all adopted through foster care. The couple never tried to get pregnant.  WHY I MADE THE CHOICE I DID: &amp;quot;As soon as we met Christopher and Anthony, our first two kids, we instantly connected with them. They were so funny and sweet. And once we saw how they were treated by the system \u2014 they were 5 and 4 at the time and considered &amp;#039;hard to place&amp;#039; because they were older \u2014 we decided to adopt more instead of trying to have our own. We figured, if we had our own baby, that would mean one less chance to help a kid already out in the world. There have been heartbreaking moments: Once when Chris was out with my husband, he asked, &amp;#039;Do you think people think you&amp;#039;re my real dad?&amp;#039; John replied, &amp;#039;I don&amp;#039;t know,&amp;#039; and Chris said, &amp;#039;I hope they do.&amp;#039; We&amp;#039;ve also kept the birth families in the kids&amp;#039; lives when possible, which is unusual. People are afraid of foster care because they&amp;#039;re afraid to fall in love with a child only to have them returned to the birth parent. But nothing in adoption is risk-free.&amp;quot;  MY ONLY REGRET: &amp;quot;Thinking that a good home and love would fix all of a child&amp;#039;s problems. The reality is, some kids need more, like specialized therapy. You have to get over the idea that if you&amp;#039;re a perfect enough parent you can solve anything. Sometimes you just need to be their advocate and get them the right help.&amp;quot; THE WORST THING ANYONE HAS SAID: &amp;quot;During one of our adoptions of an older child, a coworker said, &amp;#039;Why are you doing this?&amp;#039; The look on her face said it all: She thought I was crazy to get involved. But we felt it was right, and we did it.&amp;quot;  THE UNEXPECTED REWARD: &amp;quot;The relationships we&amp;#039;ve built with the birth families. There have been really sweet times, like when we visited Chris and Anthony&amp;#039;s grandmother at Christmas. She had little gifts for all of us \u2014 and this is a woman who didn&amp;#039;t have much \u2014 but she went out of her way to make us feel welcome.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/advice/a11688/what-is-a-good-mom/>