There's a scam with an orphan theme going around at the moment according to the Modesto Bee in California.

A variation on the Nigeria scam, this one touts a job offer that will help poor orphans in the process, but ends up getting your money and your bank details.

Because it uses appeals to emotion and the thought of an easy financial windfall, this scam is particularly clever. Still, it has all the warning signs: overseas wire transfers, mysterious transactions, "checks" you have to deposit and send back. Those are flashing warning signs. If you're going to help orphans, do it through an established organization.

Wise words.

A study out of the UK is suggesting that people with older brothers have fewer children than those with older sisters.

A story from the BBC highlights research from the University of Sheffield that looked at data on 18th and 19th century families and determined that giving birth to boys takes more out of a mother and leaves less in her for additional children.

They found that both men and women, whose mother had previously produced a son, produced and raised fewer children than those born to mothers who had previously produced a daughter. Children with an older sister had 12% more children.

Although the thought seems to be that in the modern developed world compensation is made for the extra investment boys require from their mothers, the developing world may still be impacted by reduced immune response and such mothers might suffer when carrying males.

This study follows on at the same university that found that a having a twin brother can reduce a female twin's chances of having children by 25%.

A tribute to foster mothers is in the news as Victoria Rowell was the featured speaker during the Inside the Writer's Studio gathering in Chicago yesterday.

A well-known author, actor and model, Rowell is seeing amazing success with her book, "The Women Who Raised Me", now in it's 7th printing after release only six months ago having made it to both the New York Times and Essence magazine best seller lists.

The biracial daughter of a Mayflower descendant with mental problems, she was raised in foster homes and didn't meet her biological mother until she was seven-year-old. She now heads an organization called Rowell Foster Children's Positive Plan.

"What I try to impart is that their passion must be honored and not be discouraged in pursuing that passion," Rowell said. "I let them know there is one person out there who can be your mentor but it is our responsibility to find that person and it requires communication and trust, as difficult as that may be as foster youth."

And in the "what does make a family" theme, how about this story from the Czech Republic that would seem to suggest it could be nothing more than a mistake?

Seems a little blond girl born to two dark-haired parents started dad getting all accusatory and such with his wife, thinking that perhaps there was reason to question the child's paternity. Wife, of course, gets all defensive ... apparently because there was nothing in her past to cause such aspersions to be cast on her integrity ... so drags the family in for DNA tests to prove to her dear and suspicious hubby that there had been no messing around.

End result, the child is NOT his. But she is also NOT hers. In fact, they have no idea who might actually be the biological parents of this little flaxen-haired darling.

At 10-months-old, I'll assume that the child has no clue as to her status, and although I understand a curiosity I can't imagine doing a swap at this point.

What a mess.

It puts me in mind of an old "Dick Van Dyke Show" episode when Rob is convinced that Richie was switched at birth ... please someone tell me I'm not the only person left alive who remembers Dick Van Dyke Show episodes --- Rosebud ... and also how I dodged that bullet myself.