Parenting

9/11: Digging myself out of the debris

I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. At each anniversary that passes I write my story, and each year it changes a little. This year, I have been thinking about that moment when I accepted death.
I was at the corner of Liberty and Broadway when the first tower fell. I was too …

Read More...

Taking good care of a family is relative

In response to my musings about what it means to be a blogger who is just a blogger, Alexandra Levit sent me an article about bloggers who support themselves blogging. I read it twice. Then I started checking out all the blogs, trying to uncover the secret of the million-dollar blog.
Here is what I uncovered: …

Read More...

The new stay-at-home dad paves new paths for moms

As more men call themselves stay-at-home dads, they redefine for both men and women what it means to stay home with kids. Men have learned a lot from watching women struggle with home life. The super-woman syndrome of the 1980s has squashed the desire to juggle committed parenting with a sixty-hour workweek, and Rolling Stones …

Read More...

Your family would be better off with a housewife (so would mine)

Men should not marry women who have careers, according to an opinion piece at Forbes.com. The statistics are clear:
“Marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money …

Read More...

I’m moving out of New York City

It used to be that people moved to where their job was. But where you live has a lot of impact on how happy you are. So it makes sense that today people pick a city first and then find a job, and cities maven Wendy Waters thinks this trend will increase. I will be …

Read More...

The measures of our success

It's very hard to tell how you’re doing in the blogosphere. I am, by nature, competitive, so I am always looking for ways to measure success. To this end, I’ve been using Technorati, the grand ranker of all blogs.
So let me just take a moment to say that I made it into the top 100,000 …

Read More...

When it comes to office politics, consider the sibling factor

Time magazine’s cover story is How Your Siblings Make You Who You Are. There are a few good tidbits about how your sibling experience affects how you are at work.
Adult life is made up of relationships – at work, in marriage, among friends — and we learn the skills for these relationships through siblings because …

Read More...

The Wall Street Journal tries to guilt women into giving up maternity leave

The Wall Street Journal gives terrible advice this week on “going from maternity leave to permanent resignation.”
Columnist Sue Shellenbarger writes, “Once a mother is absolutely sure she isn’t going to return to work after maternity leave, I believe she’s obligated to reveal her intentions to her employer.”
WHY? There is no description in the column about …

Read More...

Hold CEOs accountable for their parenting

Fortune magazine ran an article titled “The Welshman, the Walkman, and the salarymen,” which asked if the CEO, Howard Stringer, can fix Sony. At the end of the article, Stringer, who is married with two children is quoted as saying at company meeting, “I don’t see my family much. My family is you.”
GIVE ME A …

Read More...

Get married first, then focus on career

Women who want to have kids should make it a high priority in their early twenties to find a partner. This week’s Newsweek cover story, Marriage by the Numbers, says is okay to wait until after 35 to get married. Newsweek is revising the saying that a woman has more chance of getting hit by …

Read More...

Stay-at-home parent worth six-figure salary

In a moment of publicity genius, Salary.com compiled research to determine the value of a stay-at-home mom. The verdict: $134,121 a year.
And then the arrows started flying. The economists complained that the math is sloppy. (By the way, one of my brothers is an economist so I know that economists think everyone’s math is bad …

Read More...

Expand your opportunities by finding a specialty

I spent two hours this week writing an article about autism. My son was diagnosed with autism and I could write five hundred pages about dealing with the diagnosis. But then I reminded myself about specializing. About focus. Specialists get a lot of good things in this world, and people who dabble in everything get …

Read More...

My adventures in shared-care parenting

My husband and I both want to be home with our kids while they are young, and we downsized our standard of living enormously to do that.
I made a career change from software company executive to writer. This has been great for me. It’s a career that can grow big, but there is lots of …

Read More...

Interview mistakes you shouldn’t make

I interviewed for a job. I haven't interviewed for the last three years. Since my first son was born. I felt that awkward feeling that people describe when they break up with their long-term significant other and have to date again.
It was a writing job. Most writing jobs don't require an interview. You just send …

Read More...

You need an entourage

Anyone who owns a small business knows that if you don't reinvest in the business, the business dies. So why do so many people fail to reinvest in themselves? Even if you work for someone else, you are running a small business: The business of you. You provide a product and you have to market …

Read More...

Status symbols for a new generation

Hey all you women! Looking for a way to look good at a party? Forget bragging rights to house with a picket fence. Forget a plastic-surgeried body that defies gravity. Here are the status symbols for a new generation:
1. A flexible job. This is practically a pre-requisite for being able to successfully balance work and …

Read More...
Comments off

Managing during labor

I had my baby last week. I'm tired. But not too tired to recognize management issues during labor. There were three management styles among the people who were in the delivery room:
1. The micromanager
That was me, ordering my husband around, even when the contractions were so strong that I couldn't stand up. I'm sure he …

Read More...
Comments off

How to job hunt when you’re pregnant

I am pregnant. Due on June 21.
The last time I had a baby was not a great moment in the history of gender discrimination in America. For one thing, as soon as I announced I was pregnant, my editor at a business magazine fired me and recommended that I “try writing for women's magazines.”
I also …

Read More...

In search of the stay-at-home spouse

I am on a campaign to make my husband a stay-at-home parent. I am convinced that this is a precondition for me having a huge career, but also, it's a precondition for the sanity of our family.
After a generation of two-income families, there is little anecdotal evidence to show that a family can survive with …

Read More...

Where women stand: An analysis of The Apprentice

I have never seen such an honest, unabashed portrait of the difficulties women face in corporate America as I have seen in The Apprentice.
Unabashed truth #1: Men hire people who are like them.
It's the men who set the tone for corporate life, the same men who win The Apprentice. For those of you who do …

Read More...