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Ridiculous question but one that I answered, obviously with a loud NO and with some logical arguments over at Opposing Views. It’s site where they choose an issue and invite “experts” to argue both sides of it. I thought of about 1000 better questions they should have asked about working moms, but following the Sarah Palin story line is hard to resist, I know.
The woman who argued the “yes” side of whether working moms put their kids at a disadvantage is Suzanne Venker, the author of several books, including 7 Myths of Working Mothers: Why Children and (Most) Careers Just Don’t Mix. Here are some titles of her arguments that she posted on Opposing Views:
- Children’s physical health suffers when mothers are absent
- Full-time daycare causes health and behavioral problems in children
- Families are better economically when one parent stays home
If you haven’t yet clicked over to the site from reading the above, here’s the link:
www.opposingviews.com/questions/do-working-moms-put-their-kids-at-a-disadvantage
Go, go, comment, vote, comment some more. Really, go now!
So you know, I’m not just a bad wife. I’m now a very bad daughter and grand-daughter because I forgot that tonight was the first night of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
I am not at all religious and neither is my husband, but as legions of other non-religious Jews, we generally observe major holidays. This usually involves a big family meal of some kind, with an accompanying service (long, if we’re at his parent’s house, short if we’re at home or with my non-observant side of the family.) On the most sacred of holidays we make it to temple. So yes, we’re high holiday Jews, if you’ve heard the term. Read the rest of this entry »
I love my husband very much. We’ve been married for seven years and have been together for twelve, having met back in college. We were an unlikely pair but when people meet us now they like to tell us how we fit together.
OK, now that the basics are out of the way…
In the car yesterday I heard a bit of the NPR interview with Diahann Caroll. The radio host must have asked her something about her personal life because just as I’d tuned in she said that while her career was great and she achieved a lot, she could have been much better as a wife. “I guess I needed my work a lot more than I needed a good marriage,” she said. Read the rest of this entry »
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I pick up our daughter from preschool at 3pm or so, take her home and hang out with her for a bit (usually discussing whose turn it was to play monster on the playground or why red and blue make purple.) Then our babysitter comes and they spend a few hours together while I get back to work. In the summer or when the weather is decent they are outside or at the playground for most of the time, but now that it’s getting chillier I find myself working with my daughter and babysitter playing/eating/reading/singing just outside my office door. (And then we have the occasional knock and “Mommy, how are you doing in there?”)
And this my friends is NOT my favorite thing, however cute it might seem. Read the rest of this entry »
… drink this amazing green tea with pomegranate. (In ideal conditions, I drink it from a glass cup - the green color is calming, I am sure.)
… go for a walk, listening to NPR.
… put on some lip gloss and my current most favorite perfume.
… eat some dark chocolate bits.
There are many indicators that show how the economy is doing and how we all feel about it. You know, GDP growth, national debt, consumer spending and confidence, and so on. But I think one of the ways to easily tell how our economy is doing is by watching what happens after the check comes for a group work lunch. Read the rest of this entry »
My daughter is four years old. Well, four and a little bit, as she prefers me to say. As of right now, she goes to gymnastics (Friday afternoon after school, which is the one afternoon a week that I take off from work to be with her), music (Saturday morning), and ballet (Sunday morning). I’d love for her to take karate (I think it’s great for strength and positive body image for girls, in particular), go to few hours of Russian weekend school (I grew up there and it’s important to me that she speak the language and know how to read and write) and oh, play a team sport (probably soccer, since they offer it at the elementary school where she will go next year).
I think it’s great to expose kids to all sorts of activities early on. At the same time, I think what I wrote above is slightly insane and leaves our daughter no down time and us no family time on weekends since as working parents, we can’t take her to most of the activities during the week. Read the rest of this entry »
My grandparents called me the other day to ask what they should do with the bit of money they have in the bank. At first I wasn’t sure what they were asking, but then my grandma clarified that because I am a financial whiz (really? I guess all those years I spent in the mysterious-to-them world of venture capital somehow means that I know how to weather the current financial storm) she wants my opinion about whether they should pull their savings out and keep them home.
I calmly explained that their deposits are protected by the government, up to $100,000, and that they shouldn’t worry. After I hung up the phone I was pretty proud of myself for not letting on about how FREAKED OUT I AM ABOUT THE ECONOMY.
When I saw an article in the New York Times titled 6 Food Mistakes Parents Make I got a little giddy. I was having an annoying day and needed some shallow feel-good material, so I figured, great, I am going to read this article and feel good about myself for not making the mistakes other parents make when they try to get kids to eat.
Well, turns out I’ve made them all. Yep, all six. Read the rest of this entry »
What is it about working moms that makes us so appealing to study and judge?
The latest, about which I just read in Newsweek, found that kids from families of high socioeconomic status perform worse on cognitive tests and are more likely to be overweight by age of 10 or 11 when their moms work outside the home while kids from low-status families (their definition) whose mothers work “don’t seem to suffer as much.” Read the rest of this entry »