Self-Made Mom

Ok, I’m a day late to this story about the “maternal “side of politics, but I’ve been busy.  Business Week and The Boston Herald have already chimed in and now I want to join the discussion too.  My gut reaction to the article and the commentary?  DUH, of course politicians like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi should play up their roles as mothers.  Why you ask? Well, I’ve been saying over and over that moms bring great skills to the workforce.  And in this case?  I actually think being a politician is VERY much like being a mother (ok, ok, I can only speak for being a mother, but I have a good guess about the political stuff too).

For instance, who knows how to “spin” a story better than a mother?  Yes, Santa is real AND he hand picked for you that Sony PSP.  Yes, the tooth fairy dropped off $1 under your pillow last night.  No, there are no more Oreos left in the box.  See?  Great practice.

Or, who better knows how to end major conflicts?  I’d rather debate campaign finance reform than tell my son that bath time is ending.  Really, he enjoys bath time that much.

Lastly, I know we have serious issues with the cost of health care in our country.  I will not debate the ins and outs of the flaws in our system here.  However, I will say that being a mother has caused me to get really good at getting every last penny out of the ointments, balms, shampoos, drops, lotions and salves I buy for my son.  I’ve gotten so cheap I can make a tube of A&D last two months (just keep rolling and rolling the ends, there’s more there than you think.)  So I’m pretty sure I could figure out a way to give affordable health care to everyone. 

Anyone going to vote for me in ‘08?

 Tags: Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, politics,

One of the benefits of working part-time is that I have Fridays off.  One of the benefits of visiting my family in Detroit is that my favorite hairdresser works there.  As luck would have it, last Friday I was in Detroit AND my hairdresser had an opening.  This made the idea of traveling alone with my son on a plane a lot easier to digest.

My Friday in Detroit started out perfect.  The flight was on time, and my kid didn’t scream his head off on the plane (he didn’t sleep either, but that’s another story).  And even though my roots were starting to take on a life of their own, I knew a better coiffure was in my near future.  

Then the inevitable happened.  Just as I landed, I got a meeting request at the exact time when my hairdresser would be putting the finishing touches on my new ‘do.  

Some women have to make hard choices between their work and their family.  My tough decision was more like this: cancel my hair appointment or ditch the conference call.

So I did what every Type A mother in a beauty crisis would do.  I told myself I could do both.  I figured my stylist could speed up his work and I could listen to the call on mute as they were putting the finishing touches on my hair.  It was a lofty goal indeed.

From the moment I checked in at the front desk of the salon I set forth my edict: I need to leave here at 4:15 on the dot.  The receptionist and staff seemed on board with my plan.  Seconds after I put on the gown I was in the chair, my stylist at the ready.  Everyone understood my need for speed.

They were an efficient team.  Twenty-five minutes into the process my color was setting.  One hour-and-a-half to go before my conference call.  Things were looking good.  The foils came off, I got a great shampoo massage, and the cutting began.  But as my hair was being dried, disaster struck.  Somewhere between my obsessive BlackBerry checking and impatient foot tapping the highlights became overprocessed. My hair was too light.  A bad hair day was imminent.

What to do?  I now only had 40 minutes to fix the color, finish the cut and get a blow-out.  I started to panic.

“The semipermanent color only needs to sit on your hair for 15 minutes to tone down the highlights,” I was told.

Great.  Twenty-five minutes to go.  I got my Bluetooth headset ready.  The hairdresser paged his assistant to come help.  Fifteen minutes to go.  This was not looking good.

“I really need you to take off that earpiece so I can finish cutting your hair,” I was told.

But, but, I only have 5 minutes until my VERY important meeting!  Obviously my plan wasn’t working out.  My headset was now covered in hair dye and my hair was starting to look like something out of the Muppets.  So I had to make an executive decision.  I needed to get out of the conference call.

Two e-mails later and I was able to concentrate on the day’s top assignment - getting the perfect haircut.  It was so worth it.  My Friday afternoon worked out after all.

What would YOU have done?

Tags: bad hair day, beauty tips, work-life balance

Dear Katie Kate (sorry!),

First, let me congratulate you on the birth of your daughter (how bad did labor SUCK, by the way?).  I wanted to write you about this article I read in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.  I hear you’re having some of difficulty trying to get back into the acting thing now that you’re a mom.

As a new working mom myself, I thought you might appreciate my perspective on the topic.  There are some people out there who read what I have to say, and others that actually like it.  But, if you’re not that interested in this note, you can just close the screen now and I won’t bug you again. I’ll understand.

Anyway, I hear you want to “get back into the game” and “map out a new career plan.”  These are all great goals to have. I’m so proud of you!  I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.  See, you never really know what you want to do with your career after you’ve had baby until you actually start DOING it.  One week back at work you may decide that the whole thing isn’t for you and you want to quit.  And, well, then you’ve spent all that time creating a plan that isn’t going to work out.  If I were you, I’d sit by the pool and drink margaritas I’d just take a small role to start out just to test the waters.  You’re not all about the money, anyway, right?

Second, it’s NOT going to be easy to remember what you’re supposed to do when you get back to work.  How you’re going to memorize your lines is beyond me.  I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast.  Please, Katie Kate (ugh!) don’t be so hard on yourself if it doesn’t come back to you right away.  Baby steps. (Speaking of which, is Suri walking yet!?? I need to babyproof my house, annoying!)

Next, I know the media’s been tough on you.  You’ve got a lot of eyes watching to see if you mess up.  Thing is, you’re going to make mistakes every day.  Probably way more mistakes than when you showed up at work hungover (oh wait, sorry, that was me a looong time ago).  But over time, you get a lot better and don’t err nearly as often (or get drunk anymore, for that matter).

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling now.  I hope this note helps you as you get back into the working thing.  It’s definitely tough at first, but if you love your job and your freedom, you’ll be just fine. I promise!  Say hi to your hubby for me.

Xoxo
 
Tags: Katie Holmes, working mom, going back to work after baby

MomsRising.org is starting a petition for ABC, CBS and NBC to stop the rhetoric of the Mommy Wars.  This is a cause I believe in.  Let’s help get it signed and move forward real issues instead of fighting with each other!

[Edit 1/28: whoops, I forgot to thank Charlene for the head’s up about the petition. And Monica too.  My brain is totally fried.]

 Tags: mommy wars, Moms Rising

Chalk up another reason for me to feel bad about the fact that I chose to be a working mom. First, I learned that by having kids early in life, I risked decreasing my earning potential.  Now, my stress level from work could be negatively affecting my child, according to a recent article.  I’m starting to think there is a media conspiracy out there against working mothers, and all parents for that matter.

The article, provided by some company called LiveScience.com, explores how kids can pick up on parents’ cues if they’ve had a bad day.  It’s an interesting topic recently discussed at the American Psychoanalytic Association meeting in New York and also at The Juggle and Blogging Baby.

I know I might be a little late to this discussion, but after reading the article tonight (late), which cites a few psychoanalysts, I decided to go to straight to a legitimate source - Dr. Dale Boesky, M.D. - psychoanalyst (and also my mother-in-law’s husband).  Dr. Dale, as we call him, is a bit of a celebrity in his field and he and my MIL are always jetting off to conferences where he is speaking.  Dr. Dale has a great view of life, current events and why the media portrays things the way they do.  So I knew he’d have a rational perspective on why I decided to ruin my child’s life by working.  While visiting my family in Detroit this weekend, I was able to steal Dr. Dale away for a quick chat.

An excerpt from our conversation:

Me: “Dr. Dale, am I ruining junior’s life by working? This article makes feel bad about my choice.”
Dr. Dale: “Hmm… we do underestimate how perceptive our children are and how they read our negative cues.  However, working also has a positive effect. When a mother is enhanced by the stimulation of working, it is good for the child. Just as kids read off of negative stress cues, they also feed off of the positive effects a mother or parent gets from working.”

Me: “Oh really? Then why is it every time I read a parenting article about working parents, I always end up with a pit in my stomach? Why aren’t there any stories out there about people like me who actually enjoy being a working mom?”
Dr. Dale: “It’s true, all we hear about from the media is the negatives.  I just don’t trust global generalizations on the topic.”

Me: “I’m so glad we talked. I feel better now. Can I blog about this?”
Dr. Dale: “Of course.  Just make sure to tell everybody that my mother said I was a genius.”

P.S. If you have a comment or question for Dr. Dale, just let me know…Tags: work-life balance, working parents, working mom

I’ve always been a bit hyper.  I guess it’s just in my DNA.  Lately, though, and especially since I started working again, it seems that I’m going through some sort of chromosomal revolution.  All day, every day, I’m a crazed woman.  My brain is a twisted ladder of to-do lists, meeting requests, PowerPoint slides, solid food introduction and sleep rituals - all revolving around each other at the same time.  At least I know I’m in good company (thanks, Susan).  Problem is, my attempt to multitask my life has made me a terrible driver.

I’m here to tell you that multitasking while driving doesn’t mix. (I’m in no way making light of M.A.D.D. here. There’s nothing funny about drunk driving.)  See, in the five months I’ve been back at work I’ve been in two, count ‘em two, car accidents.  Luckily, neither were terribly serious, although I did have to call the pesky insurance agent about accident number two.  How did these happen you ask? Well, admittedly, in one of the incidents, I was chatting on my cell phone and trying to merge onto one of Chicago’s busiest streets while checking my BlackBerry (I may have an illness,  but don’t tell me you’ve never done this before.). 

What about the other incident, you ask?  Well, I was hit in an intersection. Maybe it could have been prevented if I hadn’t been chatting away to a friend, again.  But it’s really hard to just “sit there” in the car on the way to work, especially when you’re hyper like me.  I hate being idle.  Oh, the things I could do with 30 minutes to myself every day. Driving is definitely not on that list. 

I’m not alone out there, am I?  I don’t think so. Another working mom (and preggo) friend of mine totalled her car after a really hard day at work.  She was driving home, thinking about the fact that she only had 10 minutes to get home to put her daughter to bed, while handling a call for work.  And boom, she hit a ditch and that was it. Her car was done.  Again, luckilly, she and the baby were fine.  But still.

So after her incident and mine I’ve made a deal with myself.  No more phone while driving unless it’s an emergency.  Definitely no more BlackBerry checking, as much as it kills me.  No more multitasking while driving.  It’s just getting a little too scary out there.  And I’d rather not mess up my DNA any further.  Or someone else’s for that matter.

Tags: multitasking, working mom, driving to work

I wish I could tell you this was the score of a Bulls vs. Pistons basketball game.  Unfortunately (as a Pistons fan), I can’t.  Rather, it’s where my two hometowns (current and past, respectively) rank on the recent Fit Pregnancy list of Best Cities in America to have a baby.  While I was sad that Detroit, which also has the distinction along with Chicago as one of the “fattest” cities in America, ranked last, I was actually angry to read that Chicago ranked so low.  Apparently I chose to live in a city that is now known for the fourth lowest amount of OB-GYNs, 44 percent fewer public parks, and higher than average hospital costs.  Woo-hoo! I’m so glad I just bought a house here.  Seriously, why do they come out with these studies anyway? To make us feel worse about the choices we’ve already made? It’s not like I’m about to pick up and move to Omaha (although I hear it’s nice).

Anyway, I could probably sit here and argue about the criteria they used to come up with the rankings.  But I won’t.  Instead, I’m hoping that maybe next year they’ll include some ciriteria of what I looked for in a city when I decided to have a kid:

1) The proximity of my house to Starbucks (i.e. can I throw a baseball to it?) and how early it opens (5:30 a.m. is preferable).

2) The hours of the nearest Target so that I could easily swing by there after work and avoid the lines on a Saturday.

3) The cost of parking at my son’s pediatrician’s office.  Free works.

4) The amount of time it would take me to get back to my house during rush hour after forgetting my office building I.D. (No, this doesn’t count for the “commuting” criteria they use).

5) The ability for my son to avoid the preschool enrollment rush because there are actually other viable options outside of spending an arm and a leg on private preschool in a big city.

You? Any criteria to add to the list? Where did your city rank and why is it better than mine?

Tags: Chicago, Fit Pregnancy, best cities to have a baby

Thank goodness for my DVR.  For without it, I would not have been able to watch today’s episode of the Oprah show on the topic, “Can Women Have It All?” (see representative sample of “women” to the right). The episode discussed the issues between being a working mother or an SAHM.  However, because I have a short attention span, and because Oprah isn’t exactly my favorite TV personality, I’ve decided to split my thoughts about the show into two sections: the serious and the catty.

Skip the next 2 paragraphs if you’re not interested in my really interesting, insightful and very lucid (I’m running on 6 hours of sleep) thoughts about the topic. I promise it will be worth it.  But, since I’m in the business of blogging about working motherhood, I can’t stay completely out of the work-life balance/ SAHM fray that has become my new existence. So here goes.

The show started out with working mother example-extraordinaire Elizabeth Vargas. I actually kind of feel bad for her now, as she’s had to go on the record several times to defend her position for leaving her post at ABC’s “World News Tonight.” Well, on today’s Oprah, she did a terrific job doing just that.  I blogged about her 20/20 piece on the “Mommy Wars” awhile back and found that segment to be boring and a little self-serving.  I take it back.  On today’s show, ”Tin Lizzie” (a dependable spokeswoman for all of us working mothers) was eloquent, and brutally honest in her reasoning for making the choices she did.  When she said that on “90% of her days I feel I’m never doing anything quite right” I could totally relate.  Unfortunately, Tin Lizzie was only on the show for a mere 10 minutes or so (excluding commercials which I happily fast-forwarded through).

The rest of the show was left for the “lay” women, both working and not working.  Here, we covered familiar territory: judging others, fear that if you work your kids will be screwed up adults, fear that if you stay home you lose a sense of “self.”  The debate “raged” on (on Oprah’s terms) but, unfortunately, Dr. Robin got in the way of some really good fights.  I wish we could have heard more about why these women made the choices they did and less about how we find “the gift” in each choice we make.  To me, a gift is something that comes in a small blue box with a white ribbon.  But I digress.  The debate pointed out a few insecurities I have about myself as a working mother - I’m not doing a good job of what Dr. Robin calls “being attuned” to yourself and your kids whether you’re at work or at home.  I promise, Doc, no more checking BlackBerry when junior is awake and whining. I seriously promise.

Ok, now onto the catty.

First, can somebody out there please tell me why on God’s green Earth Oprah and Dr. Robin wore matching outfits? I’m just not digging the shiny pink shirt/ brown combo enough to see it twice on my TV screen.  But Oprah’s earrings were fabulous.

And, I really liked Tin Lizzie’s hair cut.  Where does she get it done? And do you think that ‘do would look good on me?

Finally, why did all the moms on the show who were profiled look constipated?  Do I look constipated like that all the time?
 

 See, I told you it’d be worth it.

Oh, and if you care about what I think about whether or not a woman can have it all, here’s my answer. NO. Why? Because we all define “all” differently, so I don’t think we’ll ever come to a consensus.  I feel that I have everything I could ask for, but maybe other moms think I’m missing out on something.  Frankly, I’m kind of “over” this debate at the moment.  But, I’ll throw it out there, what do you think?

Tags: working mom, mommy wars, Oprah

Thanks to my friend Lori for tipping me off to what looks like a great new company, On-Ramps. On-Ramps, by its description, helps companies create a more flexible work environment for their employees and matches candidates up with flexible work arrangements.

It sounds so simple, it actually might work! Let me know what you think if you try it…

Tags: work-life balance, flexible work arrangements, mom friendly companies 

Unfortunately, for me, a new article about being a single American is saying I should have waited to have kids if I wanted to make more money at work. This is all in the context of recent news stating that 51% of women now live without a spouse. Why is number so high, you ask? Well, according to the article, which quotes professor of social policy at Harvard, Christopher Jencks, part of the number could be attributed to the following:

Women are saying, ‘I’m not ready, I want to work for a while, the guys I hang around with don’t make enough money and they don’t want a commitment,’ Mr. Jencks said…Women of all education levels figure their earning power will flatten out after they have children, he said. “The longer you wait, the higher the level it flattens out at,” he [Jencks] said.

Well, tell me something I didn’t know. I could have stayed in the workforce longer and made more money. But then my ovaries could have dried up and I would be rich, but without my little smiley man. I could have found a new job that might have paid me more, but then I maybe wouldn’t have a part-time gig that keeps me sane and allows for some balance. See, there’s more to being a working mom than just the money.

Unfortunately, as my friend Kitty Time points out, the discussion on this topic stops.  And because of that, it becomes just another soundbite to scare women that they can’t balance work and family.  That if they stop working and have children, they won’t make more money.

And, well, that just pissed me off. So I’m here to tell you that I’m glad I didn’t wait to have my son, even if it meant all the riches in the world. Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me?

Tags: working mom, work-life balance