For a while after our daughter was born I used to stress about the fact that we rarely ate dinner as a family during the week. Our nanny or babysitter would feed our daughter before my husband and I got home and then he and I would grab some food later at night. On weekends we’d sit down for lunch or dinner together, but during the week the schedules just didn’t work out. But since I read study after study about how having family dinners has a positive impact on kids — better nutrition, less involvement with alcohol and drugs, etc. — I felt quite guilty that our family dinners were so few and far between.

Eventually, I learned to let it go. Well, maybe not completely, but for the most part, I figure there are enough real things to stress about than not being able to be the Leave It to Beaver perfect family. I also came up with an alternative — a family breakfast. Most mornings, even if just for a few minutes, the three of us all sit down for a warm breakfast together and catch our breath before the daily hectic pace begins. I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t matter what meal it is and what the family dinner is really about is spending some focused time together as a family.
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We’ve just come back from a wonderful brunch at our friends’ house. They have two girls, one of whom is the same age as our daughter (who is five) and of course there was lots of conversation about them starting kindergarten this year (both seem to like it a lot) and the after-school activities juggle. My friend had signed up her daughter for a few things, including gymnastics. But since going there several times her daughter keeps telling her that she doesn’t like it and wants to stop going. “What should I do?” she asked us, “have her keep going and trying or drop it and find another activity?”

I think this is a really tough question with, obviously, lots of variables. We talked about maybe trying a different gymnastics class (maybe another teacher would be a better match?) or switching her to our daughter’s class (where she would have a friend and could have more fun?) But for me it brought to mind a bigger question of finding balance between what our kids say they want to do and what we might want them to do, when it comes to extracurricular activities.

As we all probably do, I think back to my growing up experience.
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When I read about a new study showing that working mothers and fathers often resort to unhealthy eating because juggling work and family leaves them little time and energy to prepare healthy meals I wasn’t going to write about it. At first glance it read to me like another indictment of working families — i.e. here is one more thing we’re not perfect at.

But then I changed my mind because I think this is a really really really really — did I write enough reallys? — to address. Just like you always hear the advice that a happy mom (and dad, but we usually tend to talk about moms here) leads to a happier family I firmly believe (and I am sure there are tons of studies that show this, although it’s kind of common sense) that a healthy mom leads to a healthier family. So if we skip meals, resort to unhealthy snacks instead of nutritional meals, and constantly eat on the go — all things that this study found that working parents do — our kids are more likely to pick up these habits. Not a good thing.
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I was completely blown away when I read recently about a ruling by an Ohio court that the state’s law that protects pregnant women from workplace discrimination does not protect them from being punished for breastfeeding at work during unauthorized times. At the center of the case was a woman who was fired by her company for pumping at work during an unauthorized break. Her son was 5-month old at the time.

(Many other moms and bloggers are reacting to this — check out Leah’s awesome post over at Working (on) Motherhood.)

I am not a lawyer and won’t go into dissecting the actual case. I am sure the core of the case revolved around the fact that this woman took an unauthorized break and what she did during it has nothing to do with it — she broke the rules and there were implications. But I can’t help but think that in this case, the employer should have shown some more flexibility. After all, it’s not like she went shopping during the break.

The issue that this raises in my mind is the fact that while the government strongly promotes the benefits of breastfeeding and advocates for women to breastfeed as long as possible, we don’t have federal regulation that sets standards that companies have to follow when it comes to new moms. For example, new moms could be allotted more regular breaks during the day, so that if they are choosing to pump at work they have plenty of opportunities to do it. Or perhaps new moms can be allowed to take several unplanned breaks during the day so they could pump. Whatever it is, I am fairly certain that the government can do more to actually help moms who want to pump at work do it and the fact that it’s not the case makes me really angry.
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Our daughter starts kindergarten next week and I am not sure who is more excited and nervous - she or her parents. Last week we received the monthly parent events schedule - orientation, PTO meeting, curriculum review, after school program teacher meeting, etc. We knew that there would be a lot going on during the beginning of the academic year but I couldn’t help but not get annoyed at one thing as I read through the schedule:

Most of these events and meetings take place in the middle of the day.
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We met with a financial advisor the other day to get our finances organized. Nothing fancy, but we wanted to make sure we had enough (and the right kind) of life insurance, were maximizing our savings and had a solid plan to save for our daughter’s college.

According to our financial advisor, a year at a private college is projected to cost almost $100,000 by the time our daughter turns 18, which is in 13 years. (I’ll just pause a bit here as we all stare at this INSANE number. My husband and I both went to the same liberal arts college, which seemed insanely expensive at $30,000 per year. Wow.)

This means that a four year private college education will cost nearly $400,000 for one child. (And this is on top of the $200,000+ that it costs to raise a child during his or her first 18 years of life.) The only question that comes to mind when I see this number is how in the world will most non-ultra-rich families be able to cover this? Of course there are scholarships and loans and work study jobs, all of which can reduce this number, but what remains will likely still be scary.
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We were home this past Saturday night, after a fun day at the beach (sun, finally!), and ended up watching a movie on TV. It’s called 48 Hours a Day and while it wasn’t all that great as a movie, it touched on all the juggling work and family issues we talk about here at Work It, Mom!.

The movie is about a French family with two kids and two ambitious working parents. Mom is in advertising, dad is in finance of some kinds — two fields that demand long hours and lots of wooing of clients with fancy dinners and outings. In other words, anything but family friendly. But while both parents have demanding careers, the mom does the majority of taking care of the family, cooking, doing homework with the kids, grocery shopping, and so on. She can’t stay late at work or put in extra hours because she has to get home to the kids, and as the result, her career stalls. It’s a situation which, unfortunately, won’t be unfamiliar to many of you.
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My husband and I have one daughter, who just turned five a few weeks ago. (I’m still in partial denial, but she reminds me frequently, so it’s hard to forget.) For a long while since she was born we both thought that we’d just have her and that’s it. But lately — say, in the past year — we’ve been talking a lot about whether or not we’ll have another kiddo. Maybe it’s the fact that our daughter is a delight and things are relatively easy at this age. Maybe it’s because most of our friends have now gone on to have more than one child and it’s giving us food for thought. Or perhaps it’s just that while we’re still fairly young (early 30s), life does seem to be flying by and we’re starting to think of those BIG fundamental life questions, like, say, how big of a family we’d really like to have.

This decision about how many kids to have is ranking fairly high on the-really-tough-parenting-decisions scale, at least in my book. So naturally, I’ve been talking about it a lot. And here’s what’s struck me:

By a huge margin, the most popular reason people give me for having more kids is so that our daughter has a sibling. (It’s also one of the most popular reasons listed in the comments on my Why is it such a crime to have an only child post.)
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A few Fridays a month I try to leave work a little early to pick up my daughter from school. We spend a little time together and then I bring her to gymnastics class, and catch up on work while she learns to climb rope or do backwards rolls.  But it’s the summer, gymnastics is over, and this past Friday I needed to get back to the office for a late afternoon meeting. So, I brought my daughter with me.

I work for an extremely family-friendly company and consider myself pretty freaking lucky. The benefits are great, we have a lot of flexibility, and there is this general sense of trying to help employees blend their work and family life a little bit easier. And it’s not uncommon to see a kid or two at the office if the parents need to get something done but for some reason don’t have childcare for that period of time. When I told my daughter we were going to mommy’s work, she seemed excited and I was relieved that I didn’t have to perform some insane juggling act to be a mom and get some work done.
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We are friends with another couple whose daughter’s regular bedtime is 9pm or later. She is five, the same age as our kiddo, who goes to bed at 7-7:30pm. Both of our friends work pretty long hours and get home around 7:30 at night or even later and to spend some time together as a family they moved their daughter’s bedtime later from the time she was pretty little. Obviously you can’t do this with all kids, but she is great about it and sleeps a bit later in the morning than most kids I know, until about 8am or so.

I’ve thought about doing this. On a really great day, I get home at 5:45 and hang out with my daughter until she goes to bed. It’s not a ton of time, but it works, especially when we do something fun, like dance around in the living room or play a game together. But on less-than-great days, when there is a ton of traffic or I am late getting out of the office, the time we spend together feels too short. If her bedtime were later, we’d have more time together.
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