Friday, July 30, 2010

Staying home to raise your kids is a career choice

When I nearing the end of my first maternity leave, my husband happened to mention to a neighbor from a few blocks away that I would be going back to work soon. She gasped, and asked, "So, who is going to raise your child?"

A new friend of mine recalls how, when she first mentioned returning to work, other new moms she met told her how sorry they were for her. And after story time at the library during my second maternity leave, someone I barely knew kept saying it was such a shame I couldn't "find a way" to "do what's best" for my children. (News flash! If your paycheck pays the mortgage, continuing to earn the income with which to pay it is, in fact, "what's best" for your children!)

We're quick to say that all moms are working moms, but if that's really the case -- and I believe that it is -- let's take things one step further: Staying home with your kids is a career choice, not a moral imperative.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Decluttering, continued: What about the old journals?

I'm in full-on decluttering mode, secure in the belief that, even if you can't tell I've gotten rid of anything, every little bit counts and eventually it'll look like I've really done something. Or so they say.

While in the basement, ruthlessly culling the piles of junk I've held on to for years, I came across a box filled with my old journals. And I mean old -- one of them dates back to when I was 12, a dramatic 7th grader who wore pink denim and turtlenecks with things printed on them and wondered whether her friend David liked her and felt bad because she broke Peter's heart at the dance. Others were written during the first years of high school, with notes passed during class pressed between the pages, documenting things I was too young to realize that I'd always remember, even without a written record.

Monday, July 26, 2010

What else can you recycle? I'm determined to declutter.

I had a housework-related epiphany of sorts a few weeks ago, and realised two things:

1.) My well-documented tendency to clutter isn't about hording but about time management. A gut-wrenching first-person story about hoarding written by my friend and former colleague Mike Rosenwald for the Washington Post Magazine, made this clear to me: It's not that I can't bear to part with things, or feel a need to own multiples of things, but that I feel like I don't have time to sort through it all and so I save it until such time that I do. And, let's face it: All working moms know that huge chunk of free time isn't coming soon, no matter what the researchers say. So I might as well get to it.

2.) The biggest thing preventing me from clearing out the clutter was the fact that our storage areas are already full of stuff I probably don't need to keep anymore. And I need to empty them out before my husband has a cleaning tantrum and does it for me.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Why 11-year-olds shouldn't have webcams in their bedrooms

The story about 11-year-old Jessica Leonhardt of Florida (a.k.a. "Jessi Slaughter" and "Kerligirl13" online) reached a new high -- or low -- late last week when the pre-teen was taken into protective custody for a few days after being harassed when her profanity-laced YouTube video "to the haters" went viral.

Gawker has that video, as well as the rant posted later on YouTube by her father, but be warned: neither are safe for work unless you've got good headphones.

"You know what? I don't give a f---. I'm happy with my life," she says in one of the first video's tamer moments. "And if you can't realize that and stop hating, I'll pop a Glock in your mouth and make a brain slushy."

It goes on for four more minutes, during which she shows off her new lip piercing ("My mom made me take it out, 'cause I'm getting new ones"), talks about how perfect she is ("Nobody else can be this pretty with no makeup on!"), boasts about her boyfriends ("I have three. Jealousy, much?"), and urges "haters" to perform certain sexual acts and "gets AIDS and die."

The video went viral. Someone posted her real name, address, and phone number online. And then, her parents say, the threatening phone calls started.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Kids and car seats: Could they be unsafe?

I'm over at In the Parenthood right now, talking about car seat safety:

When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to ride unfettered in the "way back" of the family station wagon. We rarely used seatbelts back in the '70s, let alone cushy car seats with five-point harnesses and cup holders.

We've come a long way since then, thank goodness, and today's parents are quick to make sure that their kids are strapped in before they even start the car.

But the best car seats out there still aren't secure if aren't being used properly and, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 75 percent of car seats being used today are installed incorrectly. To help answer questions and demonstrate proper installation techniques, AAA and the Dorel Juvenile Group are hosting a car seat safety check in the Target parking lot at the South Bay Plaza in Dorchester (7 Allstate Road) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, July 23 (yes, that's tomorrow). If you can't make it to the event, you can still benefit from some of the tips Kimberlee Mitchell, National Child Safety Expert and Child Passenger Safety Technician, gave me to share with you.

A recent survey from Dorel Juvenile Group -- a major car seat manufacturer -- and AAA found that the majority of parents surveyed don't know up to what age their child should ride in a car seat or booster seat (they're required in Massachusetts until your child is 8 years old and at least 4 feet 9 inches tall), the best place to install them (always in the back seat, and rear-facing car seats should be placed in the center), or what type of car seat or booster is safest for their child.
Click on over to In the Parenthood to read the tips, or to find a car seat inspection station near you.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

She must have gotten all of the recessive genes...

I'm loving this story out of the UK right now, about a black Nigerian couple who somehow produced a blonde-haired white-skinned baby. (Click through -- the story is worth a read.)

I am fascinated by genetics and race and ethnicity -- always have been, ever since I found out as a small child that my dad's family in Haiti has been mutli-ethnic for generations. My paternal grandfather had cocoa-colored skin and ice-blue eyes; one of my paternal aunts has light hair and those same blue eyes and fairer skin than my Greek-looking Persian mother. The recessive genes in my family fell to my youngest brother, who towers over all of us at 6 feet tall and has gorgeous green eyes.

So let's suspend disbelief for a moment and assume that there wasn't an in-vitro mistake, or a hospital mix-up. If this little girl is the genetic offspring of her parents, as they both swear she is, what does this mean for race issues in general? It could be really amazing proof that the differences between black and white are more cosmetic than anything else, and at a deeper level, we're all related.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Happiness is relative

This gut-wrenching post at Finding Your Voice by Jennifer Lawler really puts that New York Magazine piece about happiness and parenting ("All Joy and No Fun") into perspective.

She writes:
Only an academic would undertake a study like this, defining happiness as something along the lines of “satisfaction with life” and “feeling rewarded by your work." If there’s an occupation more likely to make you feel incompetent and unrewarded than being a parent, I have never heard of it.

If you weren’t an academic, you might define happiness as the experience of being fully alive. To know grace, and despair, and the kind of hardness you have to learn to stand against; to watch your family fail you when you need them the most, and have your ex-husband look around, shrug his shoulders, and hold out his hand to help you up again.

And then she writes:

When your daughter is nine months old, a neurosurgeon will say to you, “We believe resecting the left side of her brain will help control the seizures.”

The seizures that she has all day, every day, dozens, hundreds; she was born with a massively deformed brain, what did you expect?

You think a minute, and you realize the doctor is saying they are going to take out half your daughter’s brain, and throw it away, so much trash, and you’re supposed to sign the consent form for this.

And after the surgery, when the seizures come back, you will sit across the table from the man who is now your ex-husband, the man you adored, but life can kick the ass out of any romance, even yours, and you will order a very large glass of tequila, and you will say, “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

Read the rest. Really, go on... I'll wait here. It's a pretty stark reminder that happiness is relative -- and that people are a lot happier when they decide to be.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Is obesity a social justice issue?

Thanks to a certain conservative commentator, "social-justice" has become a code word for communism and Nazism (prompting heavy backlash from almost all corners), but the National Association of Social Workers still defines it as "the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities."

I attended "SuperSize Me: The Social Context of the Childhood Obesity Epidemic" last month at the Children's Museum of Boston; it was presented by Dr. Elizabeth Goodman and Dr. Beth DeFrino, who discussed the ways that our social and biological environments affect our health. Though the majority of weight-loss and anti-obesity initiatives emphasize exercise and healthy eating, the seminar made me wonder if childhood obesity is more than just a matter of too much junk food and TV time. Is it -- along with crime, education, and access to medical care -- a social justice issue as well?

Friday, July 16, 2010

Selena Gomez: "I think I'm fully aware of my audience"

Selena Gomez may be leaving Waverley Place, but she’s holding on to the magic for a little while longer.

With her 18th birthday coming up next week and her new film, Ramona and Beezus opening a day later on July 23, the Disney star says she doesn’t feel pressure to take on more adult roles. “No, not at all. I’m 18 years old and I play a 15 year old in this film, so I don’t feel pressure at all,” she said in an interview from Miami yesterday. “I think I’m fully aware of my audience and I’m still just a kid myself. I wouldn’t do a role I don’t feel comfortable doing or that my audience wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing.”

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Lessons on marketing and branding from Media Branding 2.0 (#branducambridge)

Earlier this week I was a panelist at Media Branding 2.0, an event hosted by personal branding guru Dan Schawbel, where we discussed personal branding, social media, and how to make yourself stand out in the crowded media landscape. It was interesting and inspiring, and I'm sure that I left having learned as much as anyone in the packed audience...

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

"I'm telling!" Is it tattling, or something more?

"He took my toy!"
"She poked me!"
"He's in my seat!"
"Mom! She's BREATHING on me!"

Tattling starts early, and is most common with 5- to 10-year-olds -- for different reasons and with different consequences, of course. (By the time your kid is in high school, you might wish he would tattle more often.) While some kids are tattle because they're frustrated or bored, others may be honestly trying to solve a problem or report a dangerous situation.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Media Branding: Learn how to make your company stand out in a crowd

Trying to figure out where you fit in the media landscape? Looking to make your company (or you!) stand out in the crowd? Join me tomorrow night (July 13) in Cambridge, where I'll be a panelist at an event organized by branding expert Dan Schawbel, Media Branding 2.0.

Dan, dubbed a “personal branding guru” by The New York Times, is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, LLC and the author of the bestselling career book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success. His blog is a must-read for anyone looking to build their brand. (You can find his 2009 interview with me there as well.)

The event is geared toward entrepreneurs and small business owners, PR/marketing/and social media experts looking to expand their influence, and journalists and producers who are hoping to learn more about building their brands. I'll be weighing in with the newspaper and blogging angles; Ted McEnroe of NECN, Mel Robbins of WTKK-FM, and Lisa Van Der Pool of the Boston Business Journal, will be on the panel to offer their perspectives. The discussion will be moderated by Barbara Quiroga of BQ+A.

For more information about the event, or to buy tickets, click here. Can't make it to Cambridge? You can follow the discussion via Twitter: #branducambridge.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Killing their strong: Why do women undermine one another?

This post by Dawn Rouse, founder of True Wife Confessions, really struck a chord with me, especially its title: Men Kill Their Weak; Women Kill Their Strong.

It sums up the Stay-at-Home-Mom vs. Work-Out-of-the-Home-Mom wars (a.k.a. "The Mommy Wars") pretty succinctly, but it also explains one reason why some women find it harder to get ahead a work: Not only do we not play the boys' game very well, we don't always help one another to succeed.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Are people less happy when they're parenting?

I'm writing about happiness at The 36-Hour Day and Boston.com's In the Parenthood this week (click through those links for both posts), inspired by a New York Magazine piece that discussed the results of several different happiness and parenting studies -- all of which showed that being a parent didn't make people happy.

In the New York Magazine article, "All Joy and No Fun," Jennifer Senior writes:
Perhaps the most oft-cited datum comes from a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize–winning behavioral economist, who surveyed 909 working Texas women and found that child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities. (Among the endeavors they preferred: preparing food, watching TV, exercising, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, housework.) This result also shows up regularly in relationship research, with children invariably reducing marital satisfaction. The economist Andrew Oswald, who’s compared tens of thousands of Britons with children to those without, is at least inclined to view his data in a more positive light: “The broad message is not that children make you less happy; it’s just that children don’t make you more happy.” That is, he tells me, unless you have more than one. “Then the studies show a more negative impact.” As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns. But some of the studies are grimmer than others. Robin Simon, a sociologist at Wake Forest University, says parents are more depressed than nonparents no matter what their circumstances—whether they’re single or married, whether they have one child or four.

She goes on to make several key points, including:

1. There's a difference between feeling happy and feeling rewarded.
2. In countries with strong support systems, like Scandinavia, parents feel happier.
3. The gulf between our familial fantasies and reality is huge.

All of which makes sense, but you know what? I think being able to consider personal happiness so carefully is a privilege afforded to those for whom the basic necessities -- food, clothing, shelter -- aren't an issue. And I also think that happiness is relative.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Do you ever feel jealous of your kids' caregiver?

One of the more difficult aspects about going back to work after having a baby is figuring out which childcare set-up will work for your family. Will you and your spouse work opposite shifts, so one of you is on kid-duty while the other is at the office? Find a small family daycare or go with a larger daycare center? Hire a babysitter or nanny?

And then there's the issue we're talking about at Boston.com's In the Parenthood this week: What if you find yourself feeling jealous of your child care provider? I'll admit it: It happened to me. And the first time I felt that way, the person taking care of my baby was my own wonderful husband.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

And another thing...

Decades of training and working as a journalist has made it difficult for me to insert my opinion into my articles -- I even automatically tend to the objective in my reviews. But this here's my blog, and so I've decided to introduce another category: Look for the tag "And another thing..." to find posts with my perspective on the news, tips, and trends that I write about elsewhere, my reactions to other people's blog posts that are too long to leave in their comments sections, and the more personal stuff I don't really write much about now (when I go there) (if I go there) (OK, when I go there).

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Teens, drugs, and creating hope out of loss

I didn't know Henry Louis Granju, who died on May 31 at the age of 18, after a horrible beating during an illegal drug transaction. I don't know his family, though I've been a fan of his mother Katie's blog, Mama Pundit, for ages. I can't fathom what his parents and step parents are going through right now -- losing their oldest son after watching him fight for his life for five weeks in the hospital, trying to help their other children cope, and also welcoming their youngest daughter, who was born just a couple of weeks ago.

But there are thousands of people who experience the nightmare of losing a child -- young or old -- to drugs. In order to wring something positive out of this pain, Katie Granju and her family have established a fund to assist others who are struggling with the costs of helping their children overcome drug and alcohol addiction.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Buying in to kids' trends: Where do you draw the line?

Silly Bandz are the baseball cards of my kids' generation. They collect and trade them like they're going out of style. My 5-year-old likes to wear hers to school -- they reach half-way up her forearm -- where she and her friends compare and discuss them as seriously as I used to stickers and matchbox cars. At some schools they've become so popular -- and such a target for theft -- that they've been banned.

My friend Nataly's daughter has just gotten into the craze, and Nataly brings up a great point on her Work It, Mom! blog:
When it comes to requests that are heavily influenced by what her friends have at school, I find that I hesitate more than at other times. I want her to understand that just because others have something doesn?t mean that she has to have it -- silly bandz today, fancy jeans/cars/houses tomorrow. But I also don?t want to overdo it: Just because her friends have something shouldn?t mean that she can?t have it.
There's a fine line between giving your child what she wants and fostering an out-sized sense of entitlement. Over at Boston.com's In the Parenthood column, I'm asking my readers: Are Silly Bandz a harmless trend, or a gateway to the gimme gimmes?