http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/ en Copyright 2008 Thu, 15 May 2008 07:00:52 -0400 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.36 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss In trolling for good pumping stories on mommy blogs for Privacy, Pumping and Protection, I stumbled across a section on Mommy Track'd (The Working Mother's Guide to Managed Chaos) devoted to the dumbest, funniest, most cringe-inspiring things we've done as moms. It is amazing and has changed my life. Bye-bye, Prozac! Because next time I do something terrible (probably within the next two hours before I go pick up the kids from school) I'm heading to The Worst Working Mom Moments. Seriously, it's better for your self-esteem than watching Desperate Housewives -- because these moms are real. And to the right of each horrible, hilarious story of the time Mommy X leaked breast milk during a presentation to the company sales force or Mommy Z got called out by her toddler for farting during a conference call, there's a "Been There, Done That" button you can click to out yourself. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/why_youre_not_the_worst_workin_1.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/why_youre_not_the_worst_workin_1.html Conflicts Thu, 15 May 2008 07:00:52 -0400 Virginia Woolf made famous women's need for A Room of One's Own. We've come a long way since 1929 when the book came out. Now we're all getting a room of our own -- to pump breastmilk at work. And it's about time; reading comments on Mommy Track'd about bosses barging in or co-workers wondering what you're doing in the bathroom for an hour is enough to show you why. According to yesterday's Washington Post Health section, a new D.C. law joins Maryland, Virginia and federal laws that protect a woman's right to breastfeed and pump at work. The Child's Right to Nurse Act requires employers to provide a private, clean space, presumably with an electrical outlet, for pumping breastmilk. The room must be located outside a restroom; anyone who has pumped on a toilet seat understands why this clause is critical. If your company doesn't comply, tell them what http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/privacy_pumping_and_protection_1.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/privacy_pumping_and_protection_1.html Workplaces Wed, 14 May 2008 07:00:59 -0400 By Rebeldad Brian Reid Last week, oil prices hit another record high, topping $126 a barrel and leading to a new rash of stories about gasoline spurting over $4 a gallon. Coincidently, my company opened a DC office last week, meaning that I'll be commuting (by car, rail and bike) at least part-time from now on. And that gave me plenty of time to think - while I sat in my car - about the green side of telecommuting. I've spent time in this space talking about the selfish reasons why telecommuting works from a business point of view and enables better work-life balance, but the time has come to talk the trend seriously from an environmental perspective. The folks at undress4success.com, a site focused on working from home, estimated that getting the 40 percent of Americans who could work from home off of the roads and into a home http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/the_green_argument_for_telecom.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/the_green_argument_for_telecom.html Workplaces Tue, 13 May 2008 06:45:15 -0400 Ahhh ... those blissful early days of motherhood. My boobs looked large enough to feed half of Detroit. Flaps of fat swung around my belly like leftover gefilte fish. I was afraid to look down below; a simple trip to the potty required an inflatable donut, a sitz bottle of warm water, and endless courage. I cried like a wild animal when dusk fell. I screamed at my husband when he brought me a fax from work. A glance at the baby's umbilical cord brought me to tears. And then there was the Village, who days before had treated me like the Pregnancy Goddess of the Planet. My mother-in-law admonished us, after three days, that she didn't feel "involved" in her grandson's life. My excited younger sister drove six hours to meet her nephew -- but she had Strep throat so I wouldn't let her into the house. Hordes of http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/keeping_your_sanity_as_a_new_m.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/keeping_your_sanity_as_a_new_m.html Top Ten Tips Mon, 12 May 2008 10:00:26 -0400 I recently had the pleasure of joining the Mocha Moms on National Public Radio's Tell Me More program to discuss how our moms shape us as mothers and what gifts we'd like to pass on to our children, in honor of the upcoming 100th Mother's Day on Sunday. I talked about an epiphany I had when I started my anthology Mommy Wars, which explores the challenges women face in juggling work and family, I didn't ask any of the 26 contributors to write about their own mothers. But all 26 did anyway. I learned a good lesson: Our stories of motherhood start with our own moms. Sometimes we replicate what our moms did right; at times we rebel against their mistakes. But our mothers imprint upon us a template of motherhood that sticks with most women for our entire lives. I was lucky that my mom took to motherhood easily, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/mothers_day_1.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/mothers_day_1.html You Go Girl! Thu, 08 May 2008 07:00:44 -0400 According to The Wall Street Journal in How Stay-at-Home Moms Are Filling an Executive Niche: "Lots of employers would like to be able to hire cheap, temporary teams of seasoned pros with experience managing $2 billion investment portfolios, running ad campaigns or earning Ph.D.s in neuroscience," I agree -- although I'm stupified that corporate America has been so slow to locate these ideal teams of temp employees, since all of us know where to find them: the local playground. Welcome to a new acronym, the mommy "SWAT team": Smart Women With Available Time. This moniker describes just about every stay-at-home mom I know, high voltage, seasoned employees who are taking time off to raise our kids. "What's different about these teams is that they're available on short notice because the women are usually at home; they tend to work cheap because their main motive is to keep their skills fresh; http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/swat_moms_1.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/swat_moms_1.html Workplaces Wed, 07 May 2008 07:00:15 -0400 By Rebeldad Brian Reid The usually spot-on "Brazen Careerist" Penelope Trunk dropped a bomb on my little corner of the blogosphere last week, putting up an anonymous guest post from an at-home dad who she said was "more honest with me about his life than any other stay-at-home dad I know." The honesty in the guest post that followed was mostly in the form of a confession of sorts about the time he cheated (or almost cheated ... it's not entirely clear). Trunk ends the piece by asking "Why do women hit on stay-at-home dads?" That question alone is more intriguing than the answer, which is that at-home dads -- in the experience of the many, many fathers I know -- don't get propositioned at all. They don't even end up in uncomfortable situations. But a quick glance at pop culture suggests the opposite: At-home dads must either be on http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/athome_dads_not_kissing_under.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/athome_dads_not_kissing_under.html Tue, 06 May 2008 07:00:29 -0400 In 12 years raising three kids, I've sent my children to four different day-care centers in three states and hired at least 25 babysitters. I used full-time day care when my children were infants, as well as a patchwork of relatives, friends and paid in-home care. Our primary babysitter moved from Minnesota to D.C. with us, staying for seven years total. Finding -- and keeping -- good child care is one of the hardest, most critical, least understood components to working parenthood. You simply cannot go to work, or do a good job once you get there, without it. Here are my (and On Balance readers') top 10 tips for finding -- and maintaining -- high quality child care. 1. Spend the time to figure out what kind of care you need. The costs, advantages and disadvantages vary: day care, home-based center, live-in nanny, live-out nanny, nanny share, au pair, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/top_10_tips_for_finding_the_ri.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/top_10_tips_for_finding_the_ri.html Top Ten Tips Mon, 05 May 2008 07:15:15 -0400 Oh, the joys of Friday. No serious teeth-gnashing topics today. Let's talk about...bumper stickers and balance. Driving my kids around D.C., to and from doctors' appointments, school and play dates, I've been reading the bumper stickers on cars, imagining the drivers inside. "Soccer mom," one sticker said in deadpan black and white type. "Soccer dad -- and proud of it!" a truck cheerfully declared in fire engine red. My favorite, sure to slow my blood pressure: a cool blue and white Co-Exist, with each letter depicting a different religious symbol. My car doesn't say anything. The closest I've gotten to a bumper sticker were two McDonald's Happy Meal Brats with pink and orange hair that I superglued onto my old Ford Expedition in the spot where luxury cars show off their elegant metal symbols. The Brats made a lot of bystanders laugh before they fell off in a snowstorm last http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/whats_your_bumper_sticker_1.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/whats_your_bumper_sticker_1.html Free-for-All Fri, 02 May 2008 07:00:31 -0400 By Rebeldad Brian Reid This is apparently the season for at-home dads to consider returning to work. First, M.P. Dunleavey penned a piece for the New York Times about her at-home husband's impending move to go back to work full time. Then, The Washington Post Health Section, Mark Trainer raised the question of when his stint at home would end. Both Dunleavey and Trainer make similar points by the end of their respective pieces: At-home dads rarely see their gig as open-ended. There is a point at which almost every at-home dad decides that re-entry back into the workforce is inevitable. Dunleavey even goes one step further, suggesting that perhaps the eventual return to the workforce is taken more seriously if you're an at-home dad than an at-home mom: In all my musings about the difference between the lives of male and female breadwinners, this is one I hadn't considered. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/do_dads_and_mom_have_the_same.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/05/do_dads_and_mom_have_the_same.html Thu, 01 May 2008 07:00:35 -0400 My Southern Baptist father and WASP mom raised us kids with exposure to many religions -- I went to Catholic, Presbyterian and Jewish services with relatives and family friends -- but they invoked little religious influence. I'm technically Presbyterian and I married someone Jewish; our kids are "half and half," which so far has worked out fine in our non-denominational urban universe. So I guess I am naturally baffled by parents who feel it is their right to "force" children to abide by their religious choices, such as an Oregon case earlier this year that attracted national attention when the Oregon Supreme Court blocked a divorced former Southern Oregon man from circumcising his 12-year-old son against the wishes of the boy's mother. According to the Oregonian, the court ruled that the trial judge failed to determine whether the boy wanted to have the procedure -- a voice of reason here http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/do_parents_have_the_right_to_f_1.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/do_parents_have_the_right_to_f_1.html Raising Great Kids Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:00:56 -0400 Welcome to the "On Balance" guest blog. Every Tuesday, "On Balance" features the views of a guest writer. It could be your neighbor, your boss, your most loved or hated poster from the blog, or you! Send me your original, unpublished entry (300 words or fewer) for consideration. Writers need to use their full names. Obviously, the topic should be something related to balancing your life. By A.A. Camp Four years ago, I had thyroid cancer. Breast cancer is my second journey with the disease. Now I follow the same painful path my mother and grandmother trod for many years. My thoughts have turned inward the past few months as I continue through cancer diagnosis and treatment. I would like to know many things that can't be found out. I think of many things that I can find out but do not really want to know. My thyroid cancer was http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/breast_cancer_survivor.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/breast_cancer_survivor.html Guest Blogs Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:05:14 -0400 If your boss treats you unfairly, you've got options: You can quit, file a lawsuit, call in sick, or, at the very least, complain incessantly to co-workers. When your home life feels unfair, your options are more limited and more complicated. It's harder to find and maintain equality at home amidst the chaos of working, tending a marriage, raising children and managing a semi-sane household. Unequal division of chores and child care tends to creep up on a couple, and resentment (okay, fury) can build before you realize it. So, achieving a balanced division of labor at home seemed a worthy topic for On Balance. Here are readers' Top Ten Tips: 1. Find a partner with similar values when it comes to home life. If you marry someone whose mother waited on him (or her) hand and foot, it shouldn't surprise you when your beloved expects all compromises to come http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/top_10_tips_for_equality_at_ho_1.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/top_10_tips_for_equality_at_ho_1.html Top Ten Tips Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:00:25 -0400 At a recent conference, I met a young woman who didn't have kids. She works at a public relations company and her card indicated she was an expert in "social media," a fancy word for...blogging, Twittering, IM-ing and chatting online. "When I have kids," she said. "It will be so different from my mom's experience. I'll just be able to Google 'how to get rid of diaper rash' at 1 a.m. and have thousands of other moms' advice at my fingertips." How right she is. The Internet has radically changed parenthood. Access to health information, practical advice and emotional support has dramatically reduced the isolation that most new mothers and fathers, whether we work or stay home, often feel. For me, of course, my favorite online support site is right here. In addition to regular doses of criticism (not necessarily a bad thing), On Balance has given me dozens, and http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/using_the_internet_to_find_bal.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/using_the_internet_to_find_bal.html Free-for-All Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:00:02 -0400 By Rebeldad Brian Reid So the fates, after reading my post last week on my to-and-fro travel schedule this year, decided to turn the tables on me. My wife is out this week on business. She now has the business-trip-gift dilemma, and I am reminded of how much more tricky work-family balance is when you don't have a partner. It has been a fortunate aspect of my life that she hasn't had to travel that much in the past couple of years, and I'm re-learning how to make the transition from tag-team parent to short-term solo operator. Though it's going to take a few more trips before I really get the hang of this, I'm trying to follow a few basic strategies: Structure, Structure, Structure: Every parent knows that a certain amount of rigidity is needed to keep a household on track. Kids have to be up, fed and out http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/by_rebeldad_brian_reid_so.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/onbalance/2008/04/by_rebeldad_brian_reid_so.html Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:00:46 -0400