Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Anxious Kids

Do you have a child who seems tentative, bothered or frightened by new things? Are you worried that the child will grow up to be an anxious adult?

The recent New York Times Magazine cover story about anxiety said that some people are born worriers. While many nervous children are able to successfully channel their nervous energy productively as they grow older, others deftly cover up the anxiety roiling beneath the surface. “. . . [W]hile temperament persists, the behavior associated with it doesn’t always,” the Times reported. It’s a long piece, but if you have a child who you think might be considered “anxious,” it’s worth the read.

Item #2: Mommy Penalty

If you’re a woman and you have a kid, there’s a good chance that in the workplace you may suffer from what researchers have dubbed, “the mommy penalty.” The Boston CBS affiliate, WBZ ran a segment this week based on a Cornell University study which found that “mothers suffer a substantial wage penalty” while “. . . [m]en were not penalized for, and sometimes benefited from, being a parent,” the study reported.

What kind of penalty? Five percent less pay per child than a childless woman receives, WBZ reported:

“A recent ruling handed down by the First Circuit of Appeals in Boston, could have an impact on the way working mothers are treated. The case involves a mother from Maine who says she was denied a promotion and told ‘You have the kids, and you just have enough on your plate right now.’

The ruling stated, ‘. . . the assumption that a woman will do her job less well due to her personal family obligations is a form of sex stereotyping . . . and that adverse job actions on that basis constitute sex discrimination.”

Here’s the link to the video segment.

Item #3: The Puppy Cut

I finally relented and agreed to bring the puppy to get his hair trimmed. I’d been fretting that the groomers would make him look like a rat if his hair were trimmed too closely, that he’d lose his fluffy cuteness. But he doesn’t look like a rat. Other than the fact that you can now see that his legs aren’t as stocky as they appeared when his hair was longer, he looks pretty much the same. Look at the “before” photo followed by the “after” photo: