I read this interesting article today about a study by Monster.com and the Human Capital Institute indicating that bosses are overestimating their employees’ morale. The study indicates that while employers think their employees are happy just to have any job in this economy, the employees themselves see it very differently – by a factor of 30%. The employees resent losing perks and benefits to the point that many are prepared to leave their companies as soon as the economy rebounds. And it got me thinking, if some of the things I treasure most about my job… my child care, my flexibility, the generally nice and friendly atmosphere… changed, would I be satisfied just to be in the job if the alternative was no job at all with little prospect of finding one any time soon? I have to say that despite the fact that my family depends critically on my income and that I personally prefer being a working mom than the prospect of being a stay-at-home mom, for the first time ever in my life, I know the answer is an “unequivocal no.” For me, the fulfillment, value and satisfaction I need to derive from my work have changed, not just as I’ve become a parent, but as I’ve learned more about spectrum of workplace environments. But I know that’s not true for everyone. What about you? Do you feel fortunate to have any job at all during the recession or do you need something more than a paycheck to get by?
Looking for a nice family night out? Or maybe you and your spouse would like to call the babysitter and have a night out on the town? Urban Spoon will help you find the perfect restaurant based on your needs. Simply select your area of interest, the type(s) of food you crave, and a price range. Finding the perfect spot (with directions and contact information) is just a shake of the phone away. Who said planning had to take more than five minutes?
This week, Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary. For the next two years, the curriculum on Sesame Street will be environmentally based. Children will learn about birds, hibernation, and sustainable living among other things. I love this trend of characters children can identify with teaching them about the environment. For his birthday, my son was given a Curious George DVD where Curious George goes green. In each short episode, we watched George learn things like how to make compost and what and when to recycle. Speaking of which, I wonder if back on Sesame Street Oscar the Grouch will move from his garbage can to a recycle bin.
If you’re a regular visitor to CNN.com, like I am, you might have noticed this strange t-shirt offering they have. You can buy t-shirts from CNN emblazoned with real CNN.com news headlines (headlines available for t-shirt printing are marked with a special t-shirt icon). I’ve always thought it was odd, and sometimes distasteful. I mean, as interesting as the story may have been, who wants a t-shirt that says “Use toilet before boarding, airline asks?” So I did a little research to find out if anyone is buying these shirts, and this is what I found out: Of the twelve most popular headlines purchased on a t-shirt, 11 have to do with Obama being elected president. The twelfth is this: “Help, I’m turning into my mother.” Talk amongst yourselves…
My daughter is a little princess-crazy. I’m doing all I can to encourage her to love other things too, and not to live in fairy tales. She didn't dress up as a princess or fairy for Halloween – she was Ladybug Girl, and she has safari and doctor clothes in her dress up box along with the wings, glitter and tulle. But, she always defaults to the long dress, fancy shoes and tiara.
We recently spent the weekend at my aunt and uncle’s house. They have a grandfather clock that chimes every half-hour (although it seemed like it was every 15 minutes!). My daughter would be coloring, playing a game, or reading a book and when the clock would chime she would drop whatever she was doing, put her hand to her face in shock and go racing off – just like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight. Sometimes, she would even leave her shoe.
I’m not overly thrilled about her “waiting for her prince” and assuming that love conquers all. But, yesterday, she was pretending to fix something and told me that her prince couldn’t help her, so she was doing it by herself. I’m happy she’s a self-sufficient princess who doesn’t need a man. Where was her prince? “He’s busy on his work computer.”
Curious about whether your preschooler should play with your iPhone? Check out this article (and cute video) by Neil Swidey in the Boston Globe Magazine.
I was floored by this article about a woman from Page, Arizona who has to move 300 miles from home in her last month of pregnancy in order to deliver at a hospital where they’ll allow her to deliver her baby vaginally. Her husband, who will have to stay home to care for their three young sons, won’t be able to be there, and she won’t be able to have her familiar comfort and support systems nearby. The reason? Her local hospital, where she delivered all three of her other children, will no longer allow VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Caesarean section). But the story gets even crazier. This woman, who had to have an emergency c-section with the birth of her second child, has already delivered successfully via VBAC at the very same hospital that now refuses to allow her to avoid surgery. I was even more flabbergasted to read that nearly half of all hospitals refuse to do VBACs because of their “higher than usual risk for complications” even though the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists says that risk is less than 1%. It seems that liability insurance is getting in the way not only of good medical practice (not to mention a good practice that actually drives DOWN the cost of care), but also the most basic, longstanding human event in history. I didn’t have a c-section with the birth of my daughter, but I wouldn’t hesitate to if my doctor recommended I needed it. And I’m not the home birthing type, though I applaud my friends who are. And, hey, when push comes to shove, who really wants to have any type of medical care at a place or with a person who doesn’t want to do it. But still and all, this just seems so wrong.
Who ever knew I had so much in common with Maria Shriver? We’re both interested in politics, news media, and now I know we both talk on the cell phone – with our hands – in the car while driving. Maria was outed by the gossip Web site TMZ and has since apologized for breaking California’s hands-free cell phone requirement that was signed into law by her husband, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. I haven’t been outed by any celeb gossip sites, and don’t live in a state with such a law, but I still know it’s wrong. My car and my cell phone are both Bluetooth enabled, and I still use the hand set. I mean, have you ever tried talking via your Bluetooth with a very chatty 2-year-old in the back seat? Not exactly practical. I used to have a head set, but it didn’t work very well, kept falling out of my ear, and has long since been lost. But, enough excuses already. I got an e-mail from a friend of a friend promoting the Mom Sends the Msg campaign to hang up the phone and “keep your mind on the wheel.” I’m signing the petition now, and I urge you, and Maria Shriver, to do it too.
It’s a sad day for foodies, newsies and families alike – and those are all my passions in one basket. Conde Nast announced they are shuttering the nearly 70-year-old Gourmet magazine as well as the newer and hipper Cookie magazine for families.
In related but decidedly less traumatic news, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride have also been chopped from the Conde Nast block. I am in mourning.
By now you must be aware of the case of Lisa Snyder, the Michigan woman who has been called on the carpet by Michigan’s Department of Human Services for running an unlicensed child care because she has been watching three of her neighbors’ children, helping them get on the school bus so that those children’s parents can go to work. Absurd? Well, I saw a TV interview with Lisa Snyder last night, and personally, I have my doubts that she was not accepting money from these neighbors. She just didn’t quite seem credible to me on that point. Of course, she couldn’t admit that she was taking money, because if that were the case, she’d be in double trouble, as she is undoubtedly not reporting the income. In my mind, once you and others are paying someone to regularly care for your children, that’s fair game for the licensing department to look into. But let’s suspend my skepticism for a moment and believe that there was no financial arrangement involved. Where do we draw the line?
Surely states need to protect the best interests of children, but surely they also need to let communities be communities. I don’t think “it takes a village to raise a child” anticipated a major bureaucracy to manage the process. I just look out my window in the morning, and I see parents taking turns walking a group of neighborhood children to the elementary school down the road. I don’t think any of us expect child services to keep an eye on that. And what if it’s the same parent walking those children to school every day because she is a SAHM or WAHM and her neighbors return the favor in other ways – maybe one shovels all the sidewalks when it snows and another organizes the biannual block party? What about the woman who, as a favor and out of the goodness of her heart, regularly watches her friend’s child after school while the mom goes through prolonged medical treatment, or is trying to figure out life as a newly single parent, or is caring for her aging parents? Surely reasonable people can support good strong licensing rules for child care centers and at the same time keep it out of our personal relationships.
Myself, I’ve never been terribly afraid of the flu. What I am more afraid of is trying to tough it out only to later realize that I’ve infected others along the way. So I have to say, I think all the attention around H1N1 is great education for me and people like me. I want to be more cautious now than ever before, especially with my daughter in a child care setting. That said, I also don’t want to keep her home for every little sniffle and cough. We’d be home until next spring if I did that. This CNN story was helpful to me in telling the difference between the common cold and the flu. It’s not rocket science, but it is helpful to hear in plain English.
To be honest, I’m not sure what to say about the twisted relationship Mackenzie Phillips and her father, the Mamas and the Papas singer John Phillips, had with each other. I understand that everyone has a different notion of where to draw the line on moral depravity, but this is off the charts by any measure. And yet, somehow there seems to be as much disdain for Mackenzie Phillips herself as for her father in all this sordid mess. Now, I understand that he is no longer alive and that serious drug abuse by both of them contributed to a sick and twisted life, but does the fact that Mackenzie was an older teen and young adult when much of this occurred make John Phillips any less culpable in the whole situation? I mean, a father is always a father after all, no matter how old his daughter may be, isn’t he? --NewsMom
Yet another Apple iPhone application that will help to make the world of parenting easier for Moms (and Dads) everywhere!
Scribble
Cost: Free!
The Scribble app is a perfect way to keep your child (or you!) entertained during a trip in the car or a wait in line at the grocery store. With a simple interface, this app allows users to make a drawing on the iPhone simply by moving their fingers around the screen. Changes in color and line width are just a tap away. Once the masterpiece is complete, simply shake to erase or save it to your phone and set it as a background. Who said finger painting had to be confined to the refrigerator door?
I just wanted to use today to encourage everyone to take a moment today to think about the children and families impacted by 9/11. On a personal note, my heart today is with my sister who worked in the World Trade Center but had not yet reached the office when the planes hit, my high school classmate who lost her husband and her children who lost their father, two friends who worked in management at Boston’s Logan Airport where two of the planes departed and whose lives and careers were forever changed, my former intern who was working for the President that day and whose face I see over and over again in one of that day’s most ubiquitous TV clips. But my heart also aches for the children who lost their own lives, and for the thousands more who lost a parent in the one of the four fated flights, the twin towers, or the Pentagon, and of course, the many more who have lost parents in the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many, today is a day of remembrance; for the children, today is just one more day in a lifelong journey to overcome the loss, pain, and fear.
If you are the parent, caregiver, teacher or friend of a child who is working through this or any other tragedy, you might find this site to be of some help.
For any parent who plans to drive any considerable distance (or any distance at all!) with their child, there is no question: this app is essential. The Sit or Squat app is a brilliantly simple concept: just enter your location, and the app will point out all of the nearest bathrooms to where you are. With thousands of registered bathrooms, the search against time for the nearest restroom just became a lot simpler. Simply choose a location from the list and map it out. The app will also tell you information on changing table availability, handicap access, and if the location is open at the moment you are searching. You will also find cleanliness ratings by other users (determining whether it is a “sit” or “squat” location), and some locations even have images of their facilities.
I would like to be able to write something more uplifting today, but my mind keeps coming back to one thing. A 7-year-old New York girl died this weekend at Acadia National Park in Maine this weekend when she and her parents were among many others who were swept off the rocks by a “rogue” wave as they watched the unusually high surf caused by Hurricane Bill that was raging off shore.
I can’t keep it off my mind because I too was in Maine (albeit further South) with my husband and daughter watching those same waves, and we saw two boys, ages 7 and 9, nearly get swept away by an unusually high wave. My 2-year-old daughter, who is too young to understand the danger, was jealous and threw a tantrum because I wouldn’t allow her to stand on the stairs where those boys had been and allow her to “take her shirt off and get wet.” She is by nature quite fearless, which I admire, and I work quite hard not to create fears where she has none.
But this time I not only explained to her that what she wanted to do wasn’t safe, I actually took her over to the boys and asked them to tell her whether what happened on those stairs was fun or scary. I hoped that their mother would at least prompt them to give the answer I was looking for, but they needed no prompting. “That was really scary!” one of them yelled. “I almost drowned,” said the other. “You see,” I told my daughter, “look how big those boys are, and it was scary for them.” It had the desired effect, but I felt guilty for using scare tactics to educate her. Then I read this morning’s paper. I can’t stop thinking about that little girl from New York, and I think maybe it’s not so bad to scare lessons into your little ones every now and again.
The Apple iPhone has helped countless individuals make their lives easier and far more efficient, and busy parents are no exception. Moms (and Dads) everywhere now have the ability to use the iPhone to make the world of parenting easier. Take a look at just some of these iPhone applications past generations of parents must wish they had had available to them:
The Baby Brain app has recently been seeing a large increase in popularity, and for good reason. This app takes a large load off of any new parent’s mind by helping to keep track of just about everything your baby does. Using this app, moms can keep detailed records of feedings (breast feeding or bottles), diaper changes, naps, etc. This is an easy way to keep current records for the early months of your child’s life, and at any moment reports can be e-mailed to doctors or spouses. If need be, you can even keep track of multiple children at one time. Well worth the $4.99, this app is considered groundbreaking by many recent users.
Finally – in this time of economic recession, housing depression and a media industry addicted to horror, gore and extreme everything, there’s a story of survival, success and inspiration built from good old motherly ingenuity.
Angela Logan, mother of three, struggling actress found herself ditched by a contractor who left her with a construction job half done, a studio owing her money for acting work still unpaid and now she’s facing foreclosure. She what did she do? She baked an apple cake – simple as that.
Actually, she baked 100 of them, called them Mortgage Apple Cake and sold them for $40 a piece to friends, family and acquaintances to raise the money she needed to pay down her bills and qualify for a government program to lower her mortgage payments. It worked. Not only that, an internet retailer heard her story and is selling her cakes online and will launch a whole line of Angela Logan Cakes.
Now, while it does take some chutzpah to charge $40 for a cake, the only other thing that makes her success story so extraordinary is that it’s so darn ordinary. All she had to do was dig into her motherly survival skill instinct, remember what it was that she did well, share her story, and value herself – and her cake. I for one find it incredibly refreshing and inspirational.
Why am I obsessed with Michael Jackson’s kids and what happens to them? Unlike many of my fellow teenagers of the ‘80s, I didn’t personally mourn Michael Jackson’s passing. He didn’t play a huge role in my pop culture life. I like some of his music and am awed by his dancing, but I don’t feel any great loss in my life now that he’s gone. As to whether he was a miscreant or just misunderstood, my opinion changes daily. So why do I find myself obsessed with what happens to his kids?
First, I actually cried when I first saw the news clip of Paris speaking at his memorial service. Since then I’ve been entranced by the beauty of his kids. And now I check several times a day to see if there’s new news about their future. Perhaps it’s just the unfathomably bizarre nature of their lives. Maybe it’s the completely incomprehensible role Deborah Rowe chose to play in the life of Michael Jackson and not in the lives of the children. Or maybe it’s that he willed guardianship to his very elderly mother or alternatively to Diana Ross despite having legions of siblings.
It’s all so strange and so foreign and so governed by extraordinary circumstances. It is all at once a soap opera, a circus, a theater show, and at the same time just three little kids’ lives, plain and simple. I feel slimy peering into their lives via TV, magazines and Web sites, and at the same time, I simply can’t stop.
We just bought a Flip video camera. I love it. It is so small – I can throw it in my jacket pocket when we go for a walk on the beach. It is easy – it doesn’t have a lot of fancy options, but I never used the “fade” button on our regular video camera anyway. The best part is that it is really easy to share videos via e-mail – no tapes to convert or fancy software to master. You plug the camera into your computer (the USB pops right out of the camera…no cords needed) and the software opens up so that you can download your files. Then, with the click of the mouse, you can publish online/e-mail/edit & create/save & organize.
Last weekend my husband took our daughter to ballet class. It was the last class before the big recital this weekend and my daughter insisted she didn’t know the dance – turns out she wasn’t kidding, she couldn’t even show me one step! Enter, the Flip. We videotaped the class and have been rehearsing in front of the computer ever since. If my daughter actually dances on Saturday, I owe it all to the Flip.
We are a group of colleagues, friends and working mothers who wanted to find a way to share our experiences as parents with others and to seek the advice of those who have encountered and successfully overcome some of the ordinary and not-so-ordinary challenges of working motherhood. Among ourselves we have 10 children: boys and girls, babies through school-agers, children who are adopted and not-adopted, have special needs and those who don’t, and each of whom is precious in their own right.
As professionals, our experiences range from child care to politics, writing to retail. In the interest of full disclosure, we all work for Bright Horizons, and some of us are beneficiaries of the company’s child care services. But this blog is meant to provide a community of support and discussion for all working mothers (fathers welcome too!), and you need no affiliation with Bright Horizons to be a part of the conversation.
RSS
