Church leader sparks Georgian baby boom

By Tom Esslemont
BBC News, Tbilisi

The patriarch is revered by many in Georgia

Two years after having one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Georgia is enjoying something of a baby boom, following an intervention from the country's most senior cleric.

At the end of 2007, in a move to reverse the Caucasian country's dwindling birth figures, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, came up with an incentive. He promised to personally baptise any baby born to parents of more than two children.

There was only one catch: the baby had to be born after the initiative was launched.

The results are, in the words of the Georgian Orthodox Church, "a miracle".

Easy decision

The country's birth rate increased by nearly 20% during 2008 - a rate four times faster than the previous year.

Many parents say they took the decision to have another child on the basis of the Patriarch's incentive...

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Why Have Kids When You Can Have Monkeys?

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

filed under: kid

Women are adopting what's being called "monkids:" Monkeys raised as kids.

Empty nesters are filling the void of a childless house by adopting baby monkeys as child surrogates. Currently, there are an estimated 15,000 monkeys who live in homes and are treated exactly like small children by their adoptive "parents." They sit in high chairs, have their diapers changed, wear baby clothes and even have their own rooms. ABC Primetime's latest "Outsider" series profiles Lori Johnson, a mother of six who adopted a monkey when her last kid left home. "I was really depressed, and I wanted something that was going to take over for my kids," Lori says.

Lori dresses her simian daughter named Jesse in homemade fussy dresses, feeds her in a high chair and takes her along everywhere she goes, including trips to the local fast food drive-thru. Although Lori says Jesse acts more human than monkey, she did have Jesse's teeth removed as a precaution. We're guessing animal rights activists are not invited over for dinner at the Johnson house.

This is crazy, right? Or is it no different than putting a sweater on a dog? Or declawing the beloved family cat?

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