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:

Item #1: Acupressure

I took  The Girl to visit a medical acupuncturist today. Instead of using the acupuncture needles, he used acupressure — pressure applied to the acupuncture points sans a needle – and other techniques, like cupping . . . which was a good thing, given how apprehensive the 10-year-old was. I did the best that I could to calm her and soothe her worries. The staff put in a great effort to try to alleviate her fears by talking to her and affording her the chance to feel the hair-thin, flexible needle so she’d see that they weren’t some metal behemoths waiting to be jammed into her arms and legs. But every time a staff member left the room, The Girl’s eyes filled with tears and she told me she wanted to leave. NOW!

For those who’ve been following this saga, The Girl has had persistent ankle problems since January 2008 when she first twisted it during a basketball practice. Since then, she’s missed half of several seasons of soccer and hoop because of flare-ups. This spring we finally saw a youth sports specialist in Boston who recommended water therapy (which she’s been doing for a few weeks), TENS therapy (we just got the unit this week) and acupuncture.

The Girl had been dreading this acupuncture appointment ever since the orthopaedist first mentioned it. For weeks she’s told me there was no way that she was going to let anyone put the acupuncture needles into her, no matter how thin they were.

So, did the alternative techniques the doctor used today work? We’ll have to wait and see. (*fingers crossed*)

(more…)

Now that the dust has settled, folks have returned from their July 4 holidays and Sarah Palin has attempted to clarify why she’s quitting her post as Alaska’s governor midstream, I’ve deconstructed her resignation in my Pop Culture column this week, arguing that what you think about her and her decision largely depends upon your political perspective and life’s experiences. From where I sit, I view Palin’s tale as a “meta-working mom” story.

Ten days after her initial announcement, Palin’s bombshell is still making news. The New York Times has a page one story today which also seeks to explain Palin decision, saying that she’s become so stressed out lately that her friends are worried that her hair’s thinning and she’s becoming underweight.

At the risk of inviting your ire (*putting on my flak jacket and ducking*) I invite you to weigh in on Palin and her decision to quit.

Image credit: Jim Wilson/New York Times.

Every year it’s the same. In the days surrounding Mother’s Day, the media start producing all manner of stories and news segments about moms, their work (paid and unpaid) and their value, on many levels.

A group called Salary.com has, for several years, been releasing an estimate of the dollar value of the work done by at-home moms for free. The way they figure it is that they estimate how much it would cost to outsource the tasks done by the at-home parents, everything from child care, cooking, housecleaning, laundry, transportation, etc.

 This year’s figure for the average at-home mom is $122,732. For the average mom with a paid job outside the home — EXCLUDING her salary — Salary.com said the unpaid work she does for her family is worth an average of $76,185 a year.

NBC’s Nightly News even ran a segment this week about the worth of a mother’s work, calling it “Mom Inc.:”