This morning I was watching CNN's "American Morning" and caught a segment they did on Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise's potential plans for a "silent birth." Apparently Scientologists believe that a birth should be a somewhat quiet event, so that it may be more "natural" for the mother and child. I learned from the story that they don't so much mean that the mother should be quiet, but that the doctors, and others in the room should be quiet. I learned this from a Scientologist who shared her thoughts on the practice, which she had experienced herself when giving birth to her son a few years ago. If a "moan is done" by the mother, that's ok, she said. But she didn't want a doctor yelling "push, push!" to her while she was in labor, because, as she explained very practically, she didn't want her son, when he was learning to ride a bike years later, to hear her saying "push, push!" and for him to become inexplicably stressed and have a headache. Some might say the crazy part is that these Scientologists believe that some baby is going to have even the slightest memory of their birth. But what I want to know is who the hell yells "push!" when they're teaching their kid to ride a bike?

You can watch the story here.