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Girl Power 2010: From the Supermarket to the Supreme Court

2010-11-09T13:47:00.001-05:00

Last week, I had the privilege of watching ABC anchor Diane Sawyer moderate a conversation between Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The extraordinary coffee klatch was part of The Women’s Conference, a mega-watt, multi-day convention hosted by Maria Shriver. With her uber Kennedy-Schwarzenegger sphere of influence, Ms. Shriver has become the George Clooney of women’s events. She can lasso some of the country’s most fascinating female leaders and celebrity role models – think Oprah and Michelle Obama – to speak at her annual festival of jacked-up Girl Power.

Sitting in an estrogen-packed auditorium with 14,000 other women (and a few token guys including NBC’s male Dream Team – Matt Lauer, Brian Williams and Al Roker), I listened as two of the most influential and extraordinary women of our time spoke about the struggles and in-your-face discrimination they experienced as they ascended the ranks from law school to the Supreme Court.

Sandra Day O’Connor’s story makes for feminist folklore. The Stanford law school graduate couldn’t get a job when she graduated in 1949. She sent out dozens of resumes only to be told, “we don’t hire women lawyers. How well do you type? ” Eventually, through a family friend, Ms. O’Connor interviewed with the county attorney’s office in San Mateo, California, where she actually offered to work for free. She got the gig, but if working for bupkis didn’t marginalize her enough, Ms. O’Connor was also forced to sit with the secretaries.

A few years later, across the country, newly married Ruth Bader Ginsburg had ambitions of going to law school. She had taken her LSATs and applied to Harvard. But then she got pregnant and thought she may have to quash her law school plans. As she agonized, it was Ms. Ginsburg’s father-in-law who set her straight and told her, “you have the best excuse in the world now not to go to law school, but if you want to go, you’ll figure it out.”

So Ms. Ginsburg chose to man-up in a man’s world and take on Harvard law school while raising a baby. She was one of nine women in a class of 500.

Like Ms. O’Connor, Ms. Ginsburg found that having a uterus was a big-time job impediment. No one wanted to interview her. And despite her credentials and a strong recommendation from the dean of Harvard law school, Ms. Ginsburg was denied a clerkship for Justice Felix Frankfurter because she was a woman.

Five decades later, the cultural landscape has significantly shifted. Today, there are more women in law school today than there are men. We have a female Secretary of State and a female Speaker of the House and dozens of women in Congress. Women are no longer a novelty in politics, but a permanent fixture – witches, Mama Grizzlies and all. And two more women, courtesy of the Obama administration, have joined the Supreme Court’s growing sorority – Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

When Diane Sawyer asked the justices, “how many women are enough on the court?” Without missing a beat, Ginsberg replied, “Nine. There have been nine men there for a long time, so why not nine women?”

Good point.

Then after a boxed lunch of couscous and chicken salad, in a cultural whiplash, the conversation swung from the Supreme Court’s judicial giants to the supermarket stardom of Jessica Simpson. The platinum blonde, best known for her Daisy Dukes, failed relationships and burgeoning clothing line, joined a panel to speak about empowering young women with self esteem.

The irony was not lost on anyone.

So while we women stand on the shoulders of Justice O’Connor and Justice Ginsburg because they broke down barriers, we also stand at the checkout line staring at Jessica Simpson’s thighs because they make headlines.

Yes, we’ve come a long way, baby.

But Simpson’s message about owning her body, ignoring the media, and living an authentic life was refreshingly honest and real, even in its Oprahesque, self-helpy way. Joined by WNBA star Lisa Leslie, self-esteem guru Jess Weiner and Maria Shriver’s 19-year-old daughter, Katherine Schwarzenegger, who recently wrote “Rock What You’ve Got” – a book about body image – the women candidly discussed the modern day dilemma of female self esteem, unattainable beauty standards, and the relentless pressure of the paparazzi.

While self-esteem is hardly frivolous, perhaps it seemed a frivolity back in the O’Connor-Ginsburg era of gross gender discrimination. Five decades ago, there were weightier issues at stake for women than their personal weight woes. But in a post Title VII era, we have the luxury of having lengthy discussions that encourage us to own our curvy hips as well as our brains.

Back in the day, Ms. Ginsburg was more troubled that there were no women’s toilets in the Harvard Law School building and that she couldn’t get a job interview. Whether the media made her feel fat or not probably seemed inconsequential.

But while we’ve made incredible progress as women and can collectively get thousands into a room to discuss everything from the need for affordable childcare to weight loss, Justice Ginsburg pointedly shows us that despite the progress, there is still serious work to be done.

“If I could design an affirmative action program, my dream for the world would be for every child to grow up with two loving parents,” Justice Ginsburg told the rapt audience. “Women will truly be liberated when men take as much responsibility for raising the next generation as women.”

From Kegels to Warts to Pee in a Quart

2010-10-11T23:05:00.001-04:00

It all started with a tinkle of pee dripping down my thigh. I first leaked mid-Jumping Jack during a kickboxing class. It was a couple of years after my second baby was born and I was finally feeling motivated to whip my tired, sagging, post-pregnancy body back into shape. But now damp and horrified that I was suddenly incontinent, I stopped jumping and dashed into the ladies’ room to dry off.

“Practice your kegels, ladies!” I remember my pre-natal yoga instructor barking at us. I occasionally would squeeze one in as I sat on the subway or the toilet. But I wasn’t kegel committed. Now I was paying the price.

If pooping on the table at delivery isn’t embarrassing enough, peeing on yourself during any bounce or jolt may be the ultimate penance of childbirth. But this was just the beginning of the traumatic changes that send shockwaves and irreversible damage throughout my body – a change that few of us realize may last forever.

My friend Johanna, mom of two, told me last month, without a hint of embarrassment, that she has Plantar Warts on the soles of her feet from pregnancy that must be painfully removed. “My podiatrist tells me that she sees tons of pregnant and post-partum moms with warts,” Johanna said matter-of-factly.

From worry warts to Plantar Warts, for moms where will the humiliation and toll of motherhood end?

One day while walking, I felt a surge of pain that I self-diagnosed as a pulled muscle shooting electrical sparks from my right butt cheek down through my leg. I thought it was random and arbitrary, only to later learn that it’s sciatica, courtesy of my second born.

Don’t even get me started about my varicose and spider veins that my dermatologist reassuringly promised he could magically zap away after I was done having kids. What he didn’t tell me was that the cost to be de-veined could put my child through a semester of pre-school. Needless to say, my legs continue to be webbed and expanding in their geometric designs at an alarmingly fast pace.

And then there are the skin tags and other growths that sadly are neither covered by insurance nor my Laura Mercier concealer.

My once perky breasts have been dragged down by gravity and literally had the life sucked out of them by my babies’ hungry mouths. And my once lovely tush, well, that too doesn’t have the spunk and lift that in high school made it legendary. And finally, we ladies who gave birth the old fashioned way, know that life down there is just not the same.

So seven years later, I can tell you that the body never fully regains its pizzazz after birthing babies. Unless that is you’re Kate Gosselin, who defies all rules of motherhood and laws of physics, with her white bikini clad bod on the cover of People magazine this month. Apparently, this mother of eight Gosselites is more taut than ever before. We know she’s had some help with a highly publicized pro bono tummy tuck captured on her once titillating TLC series “Jon and Kate Plus Eight.” And celeb watchers have also outted her chest as most likely to have been enhanced. There was also the Botox crisis that sent her eyebrows spiking in various directions... but who is keeping score?

So while the rest of us are plagued with Plantar Warts and muffin tops that won’t disappear no matter how many crunches we do, here is Kate – another touched-up magazine cover story of an unflawed celebrity mom.

“I got this body from running” she told People, all pearly smiles and highlighted hair. As perfect as she looks on the cover, I’m betting that she has pee dripping down her leg when she runs.

Snack Food Nation: Why Our Kids are Getting Fatter

2010-10-11T23:02:00.001-04:00

"I love your ponytail. It’s so silky and lovely,” my 7-year-old daughter Lexi cooed to her Malibu Barbie, in the voice of Malibu’s brunette BFF Jasmine. “Thank you. Is it snack time yet?” Malibu responded.

Apparently, even Barbie dolls need to nosh.

But snack time is not just child’s play. Now I’m not an epidemiologist or a pediatrician, but I am a mom who spends an inordinate amount of time both giving into and fending off snack requests from my kids. Now that September’s National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month has comes to an end, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/01/presidential-proclamation-national-childhood-obesity-awareness-month I think, we parents, need to collectively wage war against too many snacks.

My hunch is that our overweight nation full of overstuffed kids starts with snacks and begins with babies.

We are all guilty of thrusting a bottle or nipple into the mouth of a crying infant who has already eaten. We then use food as bribes to appease the whining and cranky toddler. From cleverly packaged organic cookies to crisp 100 Calorie chips, we offer snacks as distraction and entertainment. Desperate parents whip out the snack bag to prevent meltdowns on errand expeditions or to occupy the bored child or just simply because it’s easy.

I confess that in my house it started with Veggie Booty – or as we referred to it, Kale Crack for kids. As we hustled endlessly from car to stroller to name-that-enrichment-class, my toddlers were always packing a snack. Granted, most were “healthy,” but still they didn’t go anywhere without a stash of some thing crunchy.

And then there was the sippy cup – their cigarette. A diluted apple juice addiction that soothed them as soon as they gripped the handles As they got older, they moved on to the juice box – 6 ounces of fruit flavored heroin housed in a plastic coated box complete with precious straw. They chased the coveted juice box with abandon. So my bribe often started with something like, “if you’re good while I grocery shop, you’ll get a juice box!”

Recently, CBS Evening News’ Katie Couric tweeted that 50 percent of all 3 to 6-year-old girls think they are fat. Some may blame this statistic on the warped images little girls have of themselves from watching the iCarlys and Mileys on TV. But shockingly today, about one in three American kids and teens is overweight or obese, nearly triple the rate in 1963. And childhood obesity is the number one concern of parents trumping drug abuse and smoking.

Blame it on video games and cuts in our schools’ physical education budgets or hormones in meat and milk and toxic chemicals in plastic. All of these may be contributing to an obesity epidemic in America. But I’d argue that our snack food nation is also at least partly to blame.

We are creating a generation of socialized snackers. Every activity from infant music class to kiddie soccer comes with a treat as a “reward.” Ironically, even on the playground, kids are taking mini-snack breaks. And nursery schools that have children for a mere two hours a day still make time for snack time. Some may argue that practicing patience for your juice and how to conscientiously throw away the cup are important social skills. But seriously, do toddlers really need to eat again at 9:30 am?

What’s more absurd is that school age children who play an hour of soccer or baseball have a parent assigned to snack duty who is charged with bringing treats to the field.

Back in the pre-microwave era when families shared the same meal at the same time and moms didn’t double duty as short order cooks, there was a whole lot less snacking going on. The idea that you were going to ruin your appetite and not eat the meatloaf that your mom slaved over meant that mothers fiercely protected mealtime.

Fortunately, our First Mom-in-Chief, Michelle Obama, has made it her mission to regulate American kid consumption and reduce the expanding waistlines of our nation’s children. Her “Let’s Move” program is aimed at combating childhood obesity at every stage from introducing kids to organic Arugula to increasing cardio fitness.

Aside from upping our kids’ exercise, we need to start curbing the calories and changing our culture of snack-as-reward. I’d imagine that a parent bringing a processed food as a post-game treat to Sasha or Malia’s basketball games may be even less welcome than a Tea Party supporter. So I encourage our First Lady to join in combat against excessive extra-curricular snacks.

For a grazer like me who would prefer nibbling tapas over wolfing three squares, I totally get the desire to eat throughout the day. But the next time I hear my kids beg for a snack, an hour after lunch, I may invent a crazy game called – Let’s See if We Can Go from Lunch to Dinner without Snacking. And whoever wins, gets a juice box.

Also Visit Me Here...

2010-08-26T15:36:00.001-04:00

Come to my site at: www.wendysachs.com

Today I Feel Guilty

2010-08-26T14:42:00.002-04:00

Today I feel guilty; I’m craving my kids. It’s the limbo days between camp and school where I get a little cranky because I’m not hanging out with my kids. Instead, my nanny Peggy is. As I slogged off to work this morning in a depressing, summer downpour, Lexi, 7, and Jonah, 9, sat at the kitchen table happily playing a card game of UNO with Peggy. They had no real plans today – maybe a museum or a movie. I envied them and I envied Peggy.

It’s been awhile since I felt this way. My children are now “big kids” and their days are often overstuffed with activities. As I scoot them off to school in the morning or enthusiastically wave goodbye to the camp bus, I sometimes feel wistful but not wracked with guilt. When my kids are busy, I actually feel satisfied. My morning mommy moments, which usually involve racing around wildly searching for something critical like a missing flip-flop, barking at my kids to brush their teeth, and hoping that someone will take my dog out to pee, can sustain me until dinner time. I can trot off to work knowing that my children are out there in the world learning their fractions or the breaststroke, and all is well with the universe.

But it is during these precious weeks of my kids’ downtime – summer, winter and spring breaks – that invariably bring me back to that angst-ridden era when not being with my children gnawed ferociously at me. Back then, Jonah and Lexi had infinite hours to be filled with tummy time, trips to the playground and “Mommy and Me” classes. I could feel consumed by guilt if I was not with them. The obsessive compulsive in me kept a mental running tally about hours spent with my children versus hours away at work. I killed myself on the weekends to make the time up to them – and up to myself.

As they’ve gotten older, I’ve cut myself some slack. I sleep later on the weekends because fortunately they don’t need me at 6:30 a.m. They can turn on the TV and watch cartoons and everyone knows that mommy is MUCH happier when she’s well rested. And even though I still don’t do the school pick-ups or play date retrievals, our evening rituals have grown longer and later as they get older. So while my kids’ bedtime can cut into my “Mad Men” I love having more time together.

But today it seemed that on nearly every street corner in Manhattan, moms and their kids huddled under umbrellas making the most of one of their last summer days together. Not that I wanted to be standing in the rain with my kids whining about being wet, but I felt that familiar pang – the residual pull that I should be with my children too.

Next week we go on our summer family vacation – or family relocation as I call it – more trip than vacation. It’s that intense 24/7 family time that I both cherish and frankly fear. But when I send them to school after Labor Day, I will tear up because it’s a brand new school year, but I won’t feel so guilty to go back to work.

The End of Summer?

2010-08-26T14:37:00.002-04:00

Like many people, I am a summer romantic. I can rhapsodize about the sweetness of late summer nights sipping Chardonnay with friends as the kids frolic, flip flops flopping and chasing fireflies. I could write poetry about the beauty of a summer camp sleep out roasting marshmallows and singing ballads around a crackling camp fire. And I could feel kinship with Michelle Obama when I heard while touring camps for my own kids in Maine that First Child Malia was off to New England for a gloriously liberating month of overnight camp.

For the nostalgic me, summer smells of woods and beach air and feels ripe with possibility, adventure and a little canoodling behind the camp cabins. For the grown-up mom in me, it also means no carpooling, no homework, no nagging my kids about projects and book reports, and blissfully no after-school scheduling chaos. Let’s face it summer is now my school break too. But a recent Time magazine cover story, “The Case Against Summer Vacation”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2005654,00.html could crush the summer fun right out of all of us.

Critics argue that we’re foolishly holding on to what had started as a 19th century agrarian model and persisted into a now outdated 20th century concept of a long, summer lull. The reality, educators say, is that this hiatus is hurting our children academically. They argue that the highest performing countries in Asia and Europe keep their kids in classrooms up to a month longer than American schools. Simply, the summer vacation is a luxury that many children can’t afford, especially children of low-income families who don’t have access to the enrichment programs or summer camps that can provide growth and stimulation. So for these children, the summer months are not just endlessly idle weeks of boredom and inactivity, but seriously detrimental to future success.

We’ve always accepted that with a break in school comes a summer slide. But these days that slide is proving less acceptable, particularly as our education system continues to woefully underperform dozens of other countries around the world. This is why many schools today, including my children’s elementary school, arm the kids with packets of “summer material.” When I first reached into my kids’ backpacks on the last day of school and found lengthy calendars that plotted daily reinforcement exercises for each day of the summer, I got tense. While I was impressed by how organized my teachers seemed, I also cringed. I wanted to whine along with my kids that I just didn’t want to do the school work because didn’t everyone know…it’s SUMMER!

I am a summer slacker I suppose. I remember summer reading lists as I child and tackling the classics as I sat by the pool, but I don’t remember my mom pushing me to practice long division. I guess I just don’t have the nag in me this summer – I used up a lot of my capital on spelling and science tests last school year and frankly, it was exhausting. So truth be told, I haven’t a clue where I put those calendars since retrieving them from the backpacks in June. And aside from shouting out a few multiplication facts to my son during a drive to the beach recently, I’ve been shamefully negligent in keeping up on his “minute math.”

Do I feel guilty? Absolutely. Am I doing my children a true disservice and potentially harming their future, I hope not. But while America still hangs on to its retro idea of summer vacation, I plan to enjoy it, along with my children.

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2010-08-26T11:41:00.000-04:00

www.wendysachs.com

When Class Mom Becomes a Competitive Sport

2009-10-05T12:54:00.002-04:00

Last year when my son Jonah asked me to be the class mom, I responded “but I’m your mom sweetie,” I don’t need to be the class mom. He was temporarily disappointed, but didn’t push the point. This year Jonah was adamant. “Mommy,” he announced at the end of August, “you will be the class mom this year…you MUST.”

Having your mom as Class Mom when you’re in third grade seems to carry elite status. It’s like being a hall monitor or on safety patrol, but better because your mom is ALWAYS in the classroom for the smorgasbord of events – events that often involve food.

So midway through last year, Jonah began plotting my move to become his Class Mom – the quintessential Queen Mama School Bee. Maybe he was motivated by first choice cupcakes at the end-of-the-month collective birthday parties or maybe he simply wanted to bask in the glow of my in-class presence, who knows. But the pressure was on and I didn’t want to let him down.

So I promised that this year to volunteer as class martyr and throw myself into the minutiae of mind numbing responsibilities like collecting Scholastic book order forms. I am not knocking the importance of the administrative efforts that must happen to make a classroom run smoothly, I just have no interest in doing them. And while I swear I am at the school for pretty much everything – or certainly everything that warrants an in-person visit, the class mom literally is there for EVERYTHING. Things frankly, I’ve chosen to avoid.

So believing that Jonah would feel more pride in my being his Class Mom than if I were to say win a Nobel Prize for eradicating the Swine Flu, I decided to suck it up and sign up. After all, how much longer will my son actually want to see me in his classroom?

What I didn’t realize was that this Class Mom thing had become super competitive. In past years at Back-To-School night a paper was passed around seeking volunteers. I would always push the paper to other desks mumbling softly so the other moms could hear and not think that I was shirking my duties something like, “I really wish I could, but I work full time.”

But this year, in a PTA reorganization effort, we were asked to apply for Class Mom with a one-page application sent out along with a ream of other back to school forms. The application outlined the responsibilities of the Class Mom which included phone call chains, teacher gifts, potential mid-morning/mid-day meetings and other activities that as they noted may not be conducive to a working mother. I signed the form thinking that I’ll just work it out as we go along. Let’s be honest, how many mid-morning meetings do I really need to be at?

Jonah, assuming that I was his Class Mom after I filled out the application, was overjoyed until I received an email notifying me that I was not chosen because of “mass interest” and instead I was awarded my “second choice” to be my younger daughter Lexi’s Class Mom.

But Lexi was not my second choice – not that I wouldn’t want to be her Queen Mama School Bee, but because Jonah would KILL me. The next three days continued with me emailing the designated PTA class parent operative who clearly has the unenviable job of dealing with irate moms who don’t get their proper class assignments. I explained my dilemma and a dozen emails later, the lovely PTA lady informed me that there was “good news” because Jonah’s teacher would be thrilled for me to volunteer and help with some of the paperwork in class.

Clearly, they didn’t understand my selfish intentions. I am not looking to fill my time during the day with paperwork, I just NEEDED to be at all of these in-class events where class parents can come but regular parents aren’t invited.

So I declined both positions, as Lexi’s class mom and as Jonah’s special volunteer. I’ve promised Jonah that next year I will be his Class Mom, even if that means I have to bribe the PTA parent chair for the position. But before I take out my checkbook, I’m secretly hoping Jonah will change his mind. After all, safety patrol is way cool too.

Staring Facebook in the Face

2009-08-18T23:33:00.000-04:00

I love boys....always have. There were the two Alans and a Brad, a Noah a Scott a Chris and a slew of Mikes...I wound up even marrying one. There were also the scandalous Todd and Lance. And, of course, there was the beautiful Dutch guy, Iljan, my summer camp love. It was an exquisite romance – six weeks of intense, young passion followed by a year of heartache when he went home to the Netherlands.

I was four when I shared my first kiss with my first Alan. I fantasized about marrying him. I worshipped Alan and wanted to dress like him. It was pure and uncomplicated until he told me that he preferred Emily, a girl who looked like Pocahontas with jet black hair and bright green eyes. She wore dresses and played with Barbie dolls. I wore shorts and played with balls. I remember sleeping in Alan’s trundle bed – we were both in kindergarten when he told me about his crush on Emily. It broke my heart. I was only 5 years old.

I couldn’t tell you what I ate for dinner two nights ago or remember the names of all of my college roommates and I’ve been known to even forget my home phone number, but strangely, I can’t forget the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I played Spin-The-Bottle at my 12-year-old birthday party and landed on Noah. I leaned in to kiss him. He pulled away. I was crushed.

What is it about those first experiences, first loves, first heartbreaks that stay ingrained in you for all eternity? Thirty years can pass and I can still recall what I was doing and wearing when Brad, my fifth grade boyfriend, dumped me for Melissa. We had only gone steady for 24 hours. What could I have possibly done?

Those boys have been more than 1,000 miles away for more than two decades since I left Miami for Chicago then D.C. and now New York. But Facebook has magically reconnected me to my past and all the complicated feelings of insecurity, nostalgia and obsession that are intertwined with those boys.

Like many of my fellow over 30-something Facebookers, the addiction kicked in last summer when the novelty of FB networking kicked in. And then I took a hiatus. Facebook is a time suck and frankly, who has the time?

But now on the cusp of my 20th high school reunion, I've taken to Facebook with renewed gusto. More of those boys have recently joined but now I'm finding it sort of depressing. It's not that they look bad; it's that frankly I wouldn't be able to recognize these guys if I fell over them in a Starbucks….they just look, well, old.

For decades they’ve been captured in my memory as forever adolescent. And that’s when time stopped. It’s as if they’ve been cryogenically preserved as Peter Pans in my brain only to resurface on Facebook as unrecognizably almost 40-year-old men.

I find myself searching their photos for recognition, my eyes adjusting to their aged images. What happened to their necks, their hair, their braces? Maybe I’m projecting, because if they’re getting old, what does that mean about me?

And that cuts to the core of Facebook, high school reunions and reconnecting with your former lives. It reminds you of the passage of time. It takes you back to another era – an era in which you may not want to return.

Noah never even knew that I loved him. I’ve confirmed that now – 25 years later when one of my oldest friends in the world, Nikki, exchanged some emails with him. Noah didn’t have a clue. And after all of these years, I thought he just rejected me. So besides the somewhat queasy feeling I have connecting with old friends on Facebook, there is some closure in it after all. And by the way, Noah still looks great. I hope to see him in Miami when I go home for my reunion.

What Is A Mom Worth?

2009-07-23T12:26:00.001-04:00

I’ve always had a hunch that I am being grossly underpaid. After all, shouldn’t I be more flush given that by 9 p.m. each night I’m so wiped that my body feels like it’s been mowed down by a Mack truck and I need a triple shot of espresso just to get me moving in the morning.

Last week, Salary.com confirmed my suspicion. While I get bi-weekly direct deposits courtesy of my office gig in publicity, I’ve gotten bupkus over the past eight years for my vastly more complicated, messy, exhausting and yes, sometimes heartwarming career as Mommy.

According to Salary.com I should be earning $85,876 for the “mom job” portion of my work day while my stay-at-home mom friends deserve $134,121 for their various labors of love. Wow! Well, it’s no wonder why we moms feel so gypped. My eight years of lost wages would total a whopping $687,008. Jeez, with that kind of cash I may actually be able to afford sleep away camp, braces, college or more importantly, a long overdue spa visit for me.

Salary.com calculated the mommy paycheck based on an algorithm that took into account hours worked and the job titles that best matched a mom’s definition of her work including: housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO and psychologist. The less glam jobs like launderer and van driver yielded low hourly wages. But add up the oodles of hours worked together with the more skilled and higher paying professions of CEO and psychologist, and moms are apparently deserving of some serious cash.

While I applaud the website for putting a price on a mom’s worth even if it’s just a clever PR move, I think Salary.com’s press release must have either been written by a guy trapped in a time warp or Dr. Laura. Trying to neutralize the harsh reality that women are screwed financially in their mom job, the press release sought out to prove that moms – at least good moms – have no needs, are utterly selfless and don’t give a hoot about money.

“The rewards I have by being there all the time in spite of my own needs are priceless,” said Laura Pennington, a stay-at-home mother of three from El Paso, Texas. “My children’s well-being and education are my priority regardless of the daily marathon I face from sun up to well after sun down.”

Seriously? Maybe this is one of the reasons our society doesn’t recognize the work we do. Sisters, where is the outrage? Ok, I get it that our rewards are not financial and that the mini painted flower pots, handmade cards and foam necklaces I got for Mother’s Day from my kiddies are indeed priceless. But until society truly appreciates a mother’s value in caring and raising her children, well, frankly nothing much more will change at home or in the workforce.

Some other interesting nuggets that came out of the study include:

Moms work an average of 90 hours per week.

Working moms spend 44 hours per week at their “work job” and 49.8 hours at their “mom job” for a total of 93.8 hours a week. The stay at home moms work 91.6 hours at her mom job.

Working Moms Get Less Sleep. Working moms reported getting only 6.4 hours of sleep per night, versus 6.7 hours.

Working Moms Work 7.2 hours as housekeeper, versus 22.1 for Stay-at-Home Moms.

Working Moms, who report being more focused and efficient in their day job so they can come home and have more time for their “mom job.” Often these moms skip lunch, come in early, and give up exercise in order to save time to be with their kids for homework and other activities.

Destined for Greatness

2009-03-25T23:19:00.002-04:00

A colleague of mine recently said to me without irony, “I think that you think you are destined for greatness.” He didn’t say this as a compliment. It felt more like a zinger – an accusation along the lines of 'who the heck do you think you are, Missy, wanting so much more out of life? Isn’t this Popsicle stand good enough for you?'

Wanting to keep the peace, I bit my lip and said almost nothing. But the snarky words have been gnawing at me. Shouldn’t we all feel destined for greatness or at least want to do great things with our lives? The fact is, what motivates me are fears of failure more than the belief that my fate will be fabulous. And as it turns out, fear is a fantastic motivator. But because this comment on my character came during Women’s History Month, the few weeks set aside each year to recognize the tremendous accomplishments American women have made, I found my colleague’s statement not only condescending but ironic.

The bittersweet truth is that at one point many of us women did feel destined for Big Things. We were the “Sesame Street” and “Free to Be You and Me” generation who were told to aim high and dream large and anything was possible, even if you were as awkward as Big Bird. But as the reality and routines of life crash around us each day, it’s easy for us moms to feel that our dreams have been aborted, interrupted or at the very least deferred. Kids, mortgages and the utter exhaustion and chaos of managing the two have a way of sidetracking and dashing lots of dreams, which is perhaps why we moms need to be reminded, not belittled, about our potential for greatness.

Maybe this is why I am totally infatuated with Michelle Obama and how she is redefining the role of First Lady, sculpted arms and all. While Americans are furious with Wall Street and the greedy bums who are getting bonuses at a time when there are apparently more unemployed people in America than the entire population of Pennsylvania, there is some sunny news coming from the Beltway – coming from our nation’s First Mom – the person with no doubt, the greatest gig in Washington right now.

Today, Michelle Obama and a bunch of D.C. fifth graders started digging an organic garden on the White House lawn. Growing green produce in the backyard of the White House may be less politically charged than printing Greenbacks and organic Arugula will not exactly kick start our battered economy, but it does make for a tasty salad with a peppery kick. But hey, this is symbolism. So while our Commander-in-Chief keeps reminding us that it’s time for Americans to roll up their sleeves and dig deep – sacrifices need to be made – digging in the dirt and planting organic berries actually seems to be on message, and a heck of a lot more fun than dealing with AIG.

And, yesterday, in honor of Women’s History Month, our First Mom – our nation’s head cheerleader – spoke at a local high school and invited more than 100 high school girls to the White House for dinner. The message was simple, inspiring and very 1970s – yes, you can be anything you want to be.

“Someone in your school thought you had a lot of potential,” the First Lady said to students from Southeast Washington’s Anacostia High School, a school in one of the poorest neighborhoods in D.C. “I didn’t want to talk to kids who had already arrived; I wanted to talk to kids who are pushing to get to the next place.”

I get the feeling that Michelle Obama never believed it was her destiny to live in the White House, but I bet her husband believed he was destined for greatness or at least, like me and other neurotic high achievers, was either motivated by a great fear of failure or had something to prove to his father.

But as the First Lady reminded me this week, we can’t stop dreaming and trying to make a difference. We must each keep striving for greatness, not just for ourselves, but to show our children that yes, anything is possible.

Mommy Knows Best?

2009-03-05T13:13:00.001-05:00

One of the things I’ve always struggled with since becoming a mom is wondering if I’m doing it right. It all started at 3 a.m. after my son was born and I roamed the hospital corridors with a screaming, famished, newborn who was angrily attached to my nipple and clearly didn’t understand why his mother’s breasts were still empty. “Where’s my milk? Feed me already, damnit!” he made clear in his primal screams to me. He hadn’t been in this world more than 12 hours and I already felt like a failure because I couldn’t satiate him. Throughout my pregnancy, I had been intent on exclusively breast feeding and feared the horrors of “nipple confusion” that had been drilled into me at Lamaze. My instructor made me feel like feeding a newborn formula was the lethal equivalent to shooting them up with Crack Cocaine. So I starved my baby for the first few days thinking that I was doing the right thing.

When baby #2 came exactly two years later, I insisted that I have an emergency bottle of formula at my side. “Yes, I’m nursing but my kid needs to eat,” I confidently told the militant maternity nurses who looked scornfully at my Similac and made multiple threats that my nursing wouldn’t take. But I ignored them. After nine months of successfully nursing #1, I felt like I had a Ph.D. in the ability of the breast and was confident that my dual feeding method would work until my milk came in.

But as the cliché goes, the bigger they get, the bigger the problems. And these days, I constantly feel like I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. We know it takes a village to raise a child, particularly a complicated kid. So I have spent years consulting at great length and great fees my fellow villagers, particularly the doctors among my tribe. But ultimately, I’ve found that the buck stops with mom. Like my first night in the hospital, those BIG decisions seem to fall squarely on me. Not to completely diss my husband, but he looks to me to lead on the kid stuff.

A year ago, I decided to medicate my son for ADHD. I imagine many of you are cringing, especially if you adhere to the Tom Cruise philosophy that all of these disorders are just a bunch of hogwash or that ADHD is the most over diagnosed, over medicated, over hyped condition that has given an excuse for scores of lazy and neurotic parents to dope their kids to their detriment or to no real benefit. I get it because at one time I also thought that ADHD was just a flimsy diagnosis to label today’s ants-in-the-pants kids. But when it’s your kid who is facing a smorgasbord of fuzzy, hard-to-put-your-finger on issues without clear diagnoses, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and just want solutions.

Am I insecure about how I handling all of this? Absolutely. If your child has asthma, you give them an inhaler. If they have lice, you call in the nitpicker and de-lice your home. But if your kid has a complicated cocktail of various issues, what do you do?

I am one of those got-to-feel-it women who rely on my gut for almost all of my decisions from whom to marry to what color to paint my house. So while my maternal instincts often give me direction such as, Fruit Loops are not for dinner, you must wear a helmet to ski, and you cannot, for any reason, punch your sister, making medical and psychological decisions makes me tense, insecure and yes, defensive. Do I send my seven-year-old to therapy as some suggest or wait until he’s older and can handle it? Do I force him into yoga as a holistic remedy or jack him up on Omega-3 vitamins, as the Internet would recommend? What do I share with his school? My friends? My family? One thing that I’ve realized is once you put your kid on meds, you face judgment everywhere.

At a recent meeting with my son’s teacher, who happens to be wonderful, I was surprised by how shocked and slightly horrified she was that I was medicating her student. I immediately went into defensive mode explaining in probably too much detail how we thoroughly arrived at this remedy after consulting every expert I could meet with in the tri-state area. And still she seemed wary.

For those of us in this precarious place of trying our darndest to make sense of our kids and their needs, we can often feel that we’re steering a ship without a map, a compass or a day in nautical school. Who am I to make these decisions? I know that I am not alone and have outsourced as much professional advice as I can, but ultimately in the blurry world that is child psychology much is left to the parents to decide how to deal.

“Am I doing the right thing?” I constantly ask myself. And then I hear my friend Lauren’s words ringing in my ears, “you’re taking action and you’re doing the best that you can.” And sometimes that’s all a mom can do.

Sarah’s Spanx

2008-10-30T10:19:00.002-04:00

True Story. A friend of mine just returned from a weekend in Pittsburgh where she apparently checked into the same Marriott hotel room where Sarah Palin had just checked out. Housekeeping had not yet cleaned the room and so aside from an unmade bed, an empty can of Coke and a towel strewn bathroom, my friend made a surprising discovery – a discarded pair of black Spanx in the garbage.

“Seriously…you found Sarah’s Spanx in the trash?” I asked my friend. “Did you take them? You could’ve auctioned them on Ebay! What size was she?”

My friend – who does not want to be outted on Spanxgate – has been kicking herself that she didn’t snag the slimming control top and auction it online. She realizes she could have given the money to the Obama campaign or better yet, to charities that support women who can’t afford Spanx. No doubt, Sarah’s undergarments could have fetched some serious cash from everyone from an apolitical panty fetishist to a rabid Right Winger. And the media would have gone berserk.

You can imagine the tawdry headlines: “Sarah Palin Trashes Taxpayer Paid Spanx in Pittsburgh Hotel Room” or the inevitable “Sarah Gets Spanked in Pittsburgh!”

As the “Obama-is-a-Socialist” argument gets tired and the Palin Family Shopping Spree story has run its course, pundits would now be pontificating on whether money spent on Palin’s girdle was a good idea and how much is too much to spend on sucking in a woman’s muffin top.

Larry King would be asking pols if Spanx makes Sarah more relatable to the every woman battling cellulite or if her overpriced thigh huggers suggest a secret diva. And Elisabeth Hasselbeck, defending her new BFF, would be arguing that yes, Wal-Mart shoppers can relate to the pricey, scientifically engineered Lycra that can only be found at fancy department stores like Saks because, well, everyone knows a girl wants to look svelte. “But let’s not forget, what’s really important is that Obama has a socialist agenda!”

And inevitably, Gloria Steinem would probably pen an op-ed in The New York Times about the ongoing sexism in the media’s presidential campaign coverage titled: “A Woman is Still Measured by the Size of Her Girdle.”

So the good news is that given my friend’s discretion or sheer squeamishness about digging into the trash, (no, she never checked the size) Sarah narrowly avoided what could have been this election’s “October Surprise,” – the Sarah Spanx scandal. So fortunately for us Americans, the seriousness of the campaign can continue.

And when the post mortem on Election 2008 begins on November 5th and we reflect back on John Edwards’s $400 tarmac side haircut and whether Hillary’s laugh was too loud or forced and if McCain could have benefited from tooth whitening next to Obama and Biden’s fabulous sets of pearly whites, we’ll be relieved that at least this election we never got wrapped up in the utter silliness of a candidate’s underwear. Boxers or briefs? That’s just so 1992.

Grace for President

2008-10-10T10:31:00.001-04:00

In my local bookstore I recently discovered “Grace for President,” the most fabulous and timely book for children, particularly little girls. The story is about Grace Campbell, an African American, about 8 years old, who is incredulous when she learns that America has never had a female president. “Where are the girls?” Grace asks when her teacher unfurls a poster of our nation’s past presidents. “Our country has never had a woman president,” her teacher answers. “I’d like to be president,” Grace announces to her class. Her enthusiastic teacher thinks that’s a “star spangled idea” and decides to host a school election. The race comes down to Grace versus Thomas Cobb, the popular, blue eyed, soccer team captain and spelling bee and science fair champ – a tough challenger.

As the book goes on, Grace makes campaign promises about beautifying the school and getting rid of the bullies. She follows through on her commitments and works after school to clean up the grounds. Thomas promises to give free tutoring and soccer lessons. It’s a tough race and with the electoral votes nearly tied, the election comes down to the three remaining votes from the state of Wyoming. It is there at the podium with the whole school watching, when Sam, a little boy representing Wyoming, earnestly announces that his state is voting for Grace Campbell for president because she’s the “best person for the job.” It’s a triumphant end with Grace narrowly beating the shoe-in, Thomas. But for all of the girl power, the book which was published last year, now feels bittersweet.

With Hillary Clinton out of the race, there will be no “girl president” any time soon, unless, in the tragic event that girl is Sarah Palin.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I am still completely flummoxed that there are those in this country who are still drinking the conservative Kool-Aid and believe that McCain’s female understudy could effectively lead America during one of the most stressful and complicated times our country has ever seen. From our total economic meltdown to Bin Laden still plotting evil in an Afghan cave, to our polar bears dying, the continued threat of terrorism, an energy crisis, and an Iranian nuclear weapon, this is clearly not the time for Joe Six Pack burping in the bleachers and his Hockey Mom wife to guide our nation. Am I crazy to think that Americans should want to hire the most brilliant, informed brain and skilled politician we can find who is insane enough to take on the toughest job on the planet?

While I’ve questioned McCain’s random and pandering political choice of veep from the beginning and knew Sarah Palin never represented me, in the past few days, she has really kicked it old school to represent the worst of America – the fear mongering, racist who paints a picture of her rival as a dangerous, unknown foreigner with the funky name. She is now using her charming folksiness to become the Republican Mean Girl sliming Obama as “someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Maybe Sarah has no choice but to carry on her unofficial role of desperate VP attack dog. But this is not the role model we want for our children. A few nights ago my friend Allison was reading “Grace for President” to her 4-year-old daughter Charlotte. She was not sure Charlotte really grasped the book because it is geared for older children. But when Charlotte rolled over and clutched her blanket as Allison was kissing her goodnight, Charlotte said “mommy, I’m going to be president one day.” Hopefully, America will have our first girl president before Charlotte grows up, but doggone it for the love of our country, let’s pray that girl is not Sarah Palin.

My Ninth Nanny

2008-08-20T11:32:00.000-04:00

I just lost my ninth nanny. I go through nannies the way some women go through men. Nine nannies in seven years seems suspect. Some wonder if we’re secretly beating the nannies or keeping them chained inside the playroom. Why else would we have had such a spectacular run of bad luck in keeping childcare?

Our latest casualty is Stephanie, an attractive, athletic, marathon running Mormon who has been with us for a year. My kids adore her, she even took them camping a few weeks ago. Always anxious that I’m going to lose a good nanny, I tried to keep the love alive by throwing in job perks including free gym membership and tutoring. (I rewrote all of her English papers last semester.) I even indulged Stephanie in her various and pricey diets – from the all organic cleansing one to Weight Watchers. And this summer, knowing how Stephanie likes the outdoors, I got her a gig at my children’s day camp. After a raise and the promise of a roundtrip ticket back to Utah during Christmas, Stephanie committed to staying with us another year. We were thrilled. And then, my nightmare replayed itself, Stephanie got poached.

At 10 pm, two nights ago Stephanie announced to me that she would be leaving in a couple of weeks because a mom in a neighboring, tonier town offered her more money and THREE roundtrip tickets to Utah each year.

First I was shocked; then I got angry. Strangely I was more peeved at the mom who poached my nanny than at Stephanie herself. I see Stephanie as a kid who is being practical and is trying to put herself through school. At least this is what I tried to convince myself in between spurts of crying to my husband about how our kids are going to be crushed when Stephanie leaves. I also felt like a total sucker. I was buying her organic raspberries in November! While I felt betrayed by Stephanie and nauseated by the thought of finding someone new and integrating them into our chaotic family, I was seething that another mom – for the second time – had poached one of my nannies. About a year ago my nanny Sally was spotted on the playground by a predator mom and offered more money to leave us. But Sally didn’t even have the courage or decency to tell me she got a new job. She simply moved out on a Friday night without our knowing and never said goodbye to my kids. It was devastating.

I don’t know how moms could do this to each other. There should be a non-poaching pact among us. Stealing another woman’s nanny is like sleeping with her husband – maybe even worse. Robbing a working mother of good childcare could more quickly destroy the fabric of a family than a one night stand. I’d seriously sacrifice my husband for a fling faster than I would want to lose a good nanny to another family.

My nanny dramas are legendary. There was Vanessa, the Mexican hottie who we flew in from Mexico City and showed up dripping in Chanel. Within a few weeks, she contracted Scabies or some other itchy ailment and after three unsuccessful visits to a dermatologist, she too packed up and without warning disappeared. There was the Czech nanny who told me she didn’t like my children and after four days in my house, I deposited her in another town with garbage bags full of her clothes.

She was followed by Mercelena, the curvy Colombian graduate of the Au Pair in America system who suddenly decided to take a job at a mechanics shop three months after starting with us. Then came Natasha, the Rastafarian, vegan Yogi with dreads down to her ass who had me running to Whole Foods for soy milk the first night she arrived so she could drink her organic tea in the morning. Natasha never finished the soy milk because she never returned to us after her first week, leaving a closet full of clothes behind. Natasha caused the most alarm after we cracked into her cell phone’s voice mail and heard dozens of threatening messages from her so-called boyfriend. Alarmed that the yogi was in trouble, we contacted the police who eventually located Natasha in her apartment, apparently completely shocked that we were actually looking for her. And after two months of Natasha’s underwear and jeans sitting in a corner and never hearing from her again, we sent her stuff to Good Will.

And most recently there was Stephanie, the best friend of a friend’s nanny. We brought her in from Utah and hoped for the best. We thought we had a great thing – until two nights ago. Now with fourteen days before school, my race to find a new fabulous, warm, responsible nanny begins again. We have contacted the agencies and posted ads online. A Manny (male nanny) emailed me this morning. Maybe that’s the way to go. Mannies in New York are apparently progressive and chic. But if anyone has someone good for me, please let me know….gym membership included.

And I promise never to poach.

The Breast Pump in the White House

2008-07-21T10:39:00.002-04:00

This has been an historical election season; busting down barriers thought impossible to penetrate only a few years ago. From Hillary Clinton’s ovaries (yes, Hillary haters, she is a woman), Barack Obama’s bi-racial DNA and Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith to Mike Huckabee’s funny name, this has been perhaps the most colorful and inclusive American presidential campaign season ever. So much so that the rest of the world – at least the modern, Western, Starbucks-gulping world – has taken notice and been in awe of the progressive state of our political system. But one thing has been gnawing at me. It’s the mommy issue.

John Edwards, Barack Obama and even Fred Thompson, the aging TV star, turned blip on the presidential scene, each have really young children. Aside from seeing gorgeous photos of the genetically perfect Romneys, or the cute Edwards children, Thompson’s toddlers, and the precocious Obama girls, the kid thing has been absent in the campaign. Forget that Thompson is old enough to be his children’s grandfather and Giuliani’s kids loathe him – but you get the point. Presidential hopefuls toting their offspring along on the campaign bus make for a sweet visual. End of story.

But let’s swap the pants for the pantsuits and imagine if the candidates were moms, not dads, of young children grinding it out in Iowa and Michigan and Florida for votes? What if it were Elizabeth Edwards or Michelle Obama at the top of the ticket? How then would the media and America react?

If we think the media skewer strong, independent women like Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama for being well, strong and independent, I can only imagine the fun they would have with the “mommy candidate.” Instead of Michelle sporting a machine gun and an afro on the cover of “The New Yorker” as the magazine did this week in a distasteful attempt at satire, it could show her carrying a breast pump dangling from her briefcase, as she’s about to fumble the “football” of nuclear strike codes.

So I don’t think it would only be Rush Limbaugh and his dittoheads attacking the mommy candidate. I bet everyone from the Granola Mom to the grandmother in Middle America would take issue with a woman leaving her children to take the job as leader of the free world.

It isn’t fair. But in our society we scrutinize moms. Dads get credit for showing up. Moms get chastised if they don’t show up all of the time. We know that Michelle is a “good mom,” because she swears she won’t spend more than one night away from her girls even amidst the throes of an exhausting and rigorous campaign trail.

While Americans question whether Obama is experienced enough to be president and examine his policy positions, no one seems to be questioning his ability to parent while in the White House. It’s understood that Michelle will take care of that.

I don’t know if it is society or biology or a combination of both that makes us feel that mommies need to be around more than the daddies do, but that’s simply the way it works. With Hillary out, many doubt we’ll be electing a female president anytime soon. But a menopausal woman in the Oval Office seems much more likely than the mom with the breast pump, unless Jenna Bush now gets pregnant and pays her dad a visit sometime soon.

2008-07-04T17:41:00.000-04:00

Wendy Sachs at home in New York

Kids Say The Darndest Things... Sing Them Too

2007-10-22T12:16:00.000-04:00

They are blissfully unaware, unedited and even painfully honest. Sometimes it’s cute…like when my daughter Lexi at three years old asked my father-in-law, who has a generous midsection, if he had a baby inside his tummy. Sometimes it’s not so cute like when my son Jonah asked me why I looked different when I woke up in the morning compared to after I got dressed. (Answer – bronzer and lipstick) “You look like an old mommy in the morning,” Jonah recently said. My daughter confirmed this as well.

But when my kids came home from camp singing songs they learned on the bus – hand clapping, rhyming songs, I was shocked. “What was that you just sang?” I asked Jonah, suspiciously. When he repeated the lyrics with the hand movements to create “Chinese and Japanese eyes” I was horrified. The tunes actually sounded remotely familiar. Did I sing those at camp too? I don’t remember my mom getting tense about my tunes. But now they seemed radioactive.

The more I told my kids not to sing the songs because they were mean and hurt people’s feelings, the louder they sang them. When I tried to ignore the offensive lyrics singing hoping that the lack of my response would get them to stop, they sang even louder.

For the record, we live in a very progressive and tolerant community. My town in New Jersey is known for its social activism and diverse population of African Americans, Gays, Lesbians, Asians and Jews. It is not uncommon to see a gay couple with adopted African American children from nearby Newark. Our town population would make for a great Benetton ad – and I love that. My children are exposed to and interact with lots of people who do not look like themselves. But they had no sense that their words were in any way hurtful.

Needless to say, I was horrified when my kids broke out one of their offensive tunes in the middle of my local Starbucks. At first I nearly choked on my latte. Then I loudly reprimanded my kids. People stared. I wanted to scream out, “I swear I don’t teach them this!” But no one would believe me -- people always blame the parents. Isn’t racism taught at home?

The further we get away from summer, the less they’ve been singing the songs. But now both of my kids are extremely curious about people with what they call “brown skin.” “Carly’s nanny has brown skin,” Jonah says. He also tells me about other children in his class with brown skin. When we got a new nanny, he wanted to know if she would have brown or peach skin. (We’ve had several nannies from the Caribbean, one from Colombia and now one from Utah).

I like to write it off as simply kids’ curiosity. My daughter tells me about the girl with red hair in her class. She now wants red hair too. My son’s best friend Lilly told her mom that she likes the “brown skinned girl” in class with the “puffy hair.” But in our culturally sensitive society today, alarms go off when our kids point out differences in other people and label them. Jonah just started Hebrew school and now divides the world into Jewish and Christian. He hasn’t learned about Muslim or Hindu yet.

I give my “Everyone in the world looks different, practices different religions, believes in different things, eats different foods and that’s what makes people special” speech all of the time, but frankly it still doesn’t make me feel less embarrassed when my children publicly and very loudly point out different people in the neighborhood. And it’s not just color or weight. “Why is that man sleeping on the street with dirty clothes?” Jonah asked me the other day as we walked through New York City.

While we adults have been taught to not see color or differences and maybe even step around the homeless person on the street without even a glance, children do pay attention to everyone. And as long as they are taught sensitivity and tolerance, maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

Click Here To See Book At Amazon

2007-10-01T11:06:00.000-04:00

What to look for in stores!

Breaking All The Rules

2007-07-10T11:45:00.000-04:00

One thing, among millions of others that nobody warns you about before having kids, is how your children can ruin your friendships. Now I’m not blaming the kids themselves for being particularly offensive to grownups. (Although mine certainly can be.) But it’s the way we parent these little apple-juice-guzzling, tantrum-prone chocoholics that can create enormous tension between even the closest of girlfriends. I know – I’ve personally lost some friends due to my Slacker Mom tendencies.

Make no mistake, motherhood and how we mother is all about judgment. It’s personal. It’s delicate. And come to my house at 6 p.m. and it’s a certifiable train wreck. In my six years of parenting, I’ve realized that there are two types of Moms – those who have lots of rules and those like me and my friends who simply don’t.

I have also discerned in my years as a Mommy that the Rules have a recognizable pattern and really affect three seemingly simple, but radioactive issues: Sugar, Entertainment and Sleep. Dig deeper into these categories and you will find loads of daily conflict that can explode when Rule Moms interact with Chill Moms.

The Rule Moms, also known as The Organic Moms wouldn’t be caught dead feeding their infant cow’s milk or a regular jar of Beech Nut. As their kids get older, these Moms evolve into the snack food snubbing, Sugar Nazis who on principle would never allow juice, fruit punch or anything but purified water at dinner.

These are the moms who don’t let their babies nap in a stroller, won’t walk outside without a floppy hat on their child’s head, sterilize every nipple or binky that drops on the ground, and reject all commercial television until the age of five.

The Chill Moms, in which I proudly claim membership, simply don’t have the energy to sterilize, count sugar grams, split gumballs in thirds (which just happened to a friend who went out to brunch with an Organic Mom. The gumball splitting then boomeranged into a tantrum situation for her three year old.) reapply sunscreen every 30 minutes, and turn off the TV.

We try. We do. We love our kids and pray that we turn out compassionate, healthy, happy human beings. But bribing them with ice cream sandwiches at 5 p.m. so we adults can relax, talk and sip a glass of Sauvignon Blanc seems like smarter parenting to us. Are we not vigilant enough? Are we lazy? Are we doormats? Perhaps we are…but our style is our signature and as we collectively band together we have perspective. So the kids don’t eat their organic broccoli for a week, and scarf down only chicken nuggets and M&Ms – is this the end of the world? If you think that it is, then I highly suggest that you have a glass of wine.

Puke, Snot and Other Reasons Women are Prepared to Save the World

2007-04-09T10:51:00.000-04:00

As I was picking my son’s nose tonight, I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized why women are indeed the more capable sex. It’s not simply our patience, our innate nurturing or our ability to multi-task. It’s that we deal with the disgusting. Even the most squeamish among us rise to the occasion when confronted with the truly gross. It’s no wonder why Nancy Pelosi, mother of five and grandmother of a bunch is now Speaker of the House. Yes, apparently she’s sharp as a tack even if she recently took a congressional trip to Syria, which frankly was really dumb. But I bet she knows her way around the really yucky which is probably why she’s fared so well in Congress. She holds her nose to it all, kicks ass and prevails. God Bless America.

So back to my son’s nose. Tonight as Michael was putting my five-year-old son Jonah to bed, Jonah got a terrific nosebleed – the tissue soaking kind. My kid, who is known for his dramatic, blood curdling screams if he even gets a scratch on his pinky finger, was surprisingly brave given the pints of blood spurting from his nostrils. And for the record, as soon as the blood started pouring, Michael ran to find me and then conveniently disappeared.

So after ten minutes of my pinching, Jonah’s nosebleed slowed and he began complaining about something lodged in his right nostril. It was a stubborn piece of snot and he needed help. I don’t regularly help pick my kids’ noses, but feeling sorry for the trauma Jonah just endured, I gingerly tried to extricate the boogie. This, of course, aggravated his tender nose and the bleeding began again. After some starts and stops I convinced Jonah to live with the snot and I promised to get it out if it still presented when he woke up in the morning.

But the nosebleed/snot episode frankly pales in comparison to catching my daughter’s vomit in my bare hands as I stood in the check out line at Costco last spring. After inhaling a Costco size crate of blueberries while she sat in the shopping cart, Lexi, 3, then began to violently barf up blueberries. I am still bewildered by why my instinct was to shoot out my bare hands to literally catch the throw up. The whole scene was so vile that I think I was in a state of shock – but being a mom – I rallied. As New Jersey, bulk, discount shoppers stood aghast, I stripped Lexi down to her panties, opened the 50-pack of paper towels I was about to purchase and cleaned up.

Subconsciously, I was probably equipped to deal with the Costco crisis after years of becoming somewhat numb to all of the poop that I’ve had to handle. It starts at birth with the meconium – that foul, tar colored first dump that a newborn takes. That, of course, is followed by the familiar explosive diarrhea that somehow shoots up the back, behind the ears, into the folds of the neck and into every baby crevice and crease. We as moms, use the term, “poopie” because it’s a cuter euphemism to the reality of cleaning up another person’s shit.

I am famously known for my sensitive nose, distaste for odors, easy nausea and general squeamishness. But I’ve realized that all of the tushes I’ve wiped and unpleasant episodes I’ve experienced must have had a higher purpose. I say, if women can boldly and adeptly clean up all of those really nasty messes, damn it, we can clean up the world.

Sleep, Sex and Chardonnay

2007-03-22T10:10:00.000-04:00

Do kids kill a marriage? If you’re Ayelet Waldman who wrote the radioactive “New York Times” essay professing more love for her husband than for her own kids and then famously appeared on “Oprah” to defend her unique position; the answer is clearly no. But for the rest of us with young children who cling to our ankles like Koala Bears while whining over spilled Sippy Cups and interrupting our precious sleep, I think the honest answer is a solid, maybe.

This is a topic no one discusses before you have children. Weren’t we told that babies brought couples closer – the DNA link, the biological bond, the changing of the poopy diapers? Babies were supposed to make it official, seal the relationship, right? Wrong.

I realized this nearly six years ago on a gorgeous, spring afternoon when my first born was a few weeks old. We looked like the quintessential, idyllic, New York City family. My husband Michael walked our chocolate lab, I pushed the fancy Maclaren (it was the pre-Bugaboo era) and my beautiful baby Jonah, sporting a fabulous onesie lay peacefully inside his stroller – all for about one minute. When Jonah started crying, he didn’t stop. Thirty blocks later, with my boobs literally bursting with milk spontaneously leaking by the primordial, maternal reaction to a newborn cry, I swear I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Weeks of waking up every two hours with a colicky baby had taken its toll on both me and Michael.

“I have to nurse the baby,” I told Michael. “I’m stopping at the next bench.”

“But I’m hungry, I need to eat now!" Michael, who has an infamous short fuse when his blood sugar is low, shouted at me.

“Then get something to eat,” I said whipping out my boob and struggling to get Jonah successfully secured onto my nipple in between his frantic squeals for milk.

“Fine,” Michael said, marching off.

Small children stress a marriage. The utter exhaustion of getting through the day with little ones could drive you to drink heavily. This was apparently documented on the “Today” show recently with a controversial segment about Chardonnay playdates where moms drink and kids play. (By the way, I see nothing wrong with this, and to be fair, they weren’t getting drunk, just taking the edge off.)

And then there’s the sex. My informal surveys among moms have found unequivocally that most of us would happily trade the possibility of an orgasm for a guaranteed extra 30 minutes of delicious sleep. This, of course, is not what we imagined when we were saying our “I do’s.” Pre-kids, my husband and I vowed not to turn into one of those couples who had to schedule sex once a week just to make sure we had it. We were about romance, spontaneity, and adventure. But six years and two kids later, the truth is, all I want to do is to take a nap.

I Hate Cinderella

2006-11-16T16:53:00.000-05:00

My daughter loves princesses and fairytales and apparently all stories that end in happily ever after. Yeah, I know, don’t we all? But lately, I’ve taken a serious stance against Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and all of Disney’s damsels in distress. I vaguely remember being fascinated by the Cinderella story too. I assume it’s because I envied Cinderella’s long, blonde straight locks as I fought with my own poufy, frizzy brown hair made worse by the relentless humidity of South Florida where I grew up.

Now reading the books, 30 years later as a mommy and a grownup, I’m shocked by just how grim fairytales truly are. Everything begins with the loving daddy dying, evil stepmothers taking over, witches casting curses and jealous women poisoning pretty young girls with apples. This is a post feminist woman’s nightmare. Women are pitted against women. Beauty prevails and handsome men adore young women who make friends with rodents and can harmonize with the birds. Yikes.

Somehow these “classics” (a collection of Golden Books) made it on to my daughter’s book shelf. Neither my husband nor I know who bought them but there they sit – favorites of my three-year-old daughter Lexi. When I’m forced to read the books, I present my own sanitized version that changes each time I read it. But my daughter is catching on. “Sally reads this story differently,” Lexi says to me as I rock and read to her at night. Sally is our babysitter – the fairytale filter clearly isn’t as important to her.

Why is it that little girls are drawn to these stories? Is there something in our DNA that makes fairytales so appealing? As my feisty pre-schooler trots around my house, preening in mirrors and applying layers of lip gloss “to look pretty” my “Free to Be You and Me” instinct takes over. I see my own daughter caught by society’s competing messages of Girl Power. She’s a strong personality who believes she can do anything while slathered in makeup. “I’m so pretty,” Lexi will tell anyone who will listen and “I can do it!” She screams if you get in her way.

Personally, I love the “Olivia” books. Olivia is headstrong and curious and her mom is exasperated and exhausted but loving – a welcome and honest mix of a mom.

The last page of the first Olivia book shows a picture of Olivia dreaming. The dream is of Olivia her sitting on the Supreme Court – she is surrounded by all of the justices including Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg (granted the book is now slightly dated) Each time we read the book, Lexi asks me to go through all of the justices. It’s a fun game we play. Lexi insists that Antonin Scalia is a girl’s name – to her Scalia is definitely a feminine name and that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a man (not a flattering photograph of Ruth – poor thing).

This is exactly the kind of dream we want our daughters to take away with them. It’s not about marrying Prince Charming – because let’s face it – he’s a dangerous myth. This is about sitting front and center on your own, empowered not by a prince but because of your own accomplishments. And let’s face it, true power today is doing all that and wearing lipstick. And in Lexi’s case a tiara and a tutu.

Columbus Day - October 9th

2006-10-09T21:35:00.000-04:00

Columbus Day is the kind of pseudo-holiday that many offices for whatever reason refuse to pay tribute to. But when I learn that my office is closed in honor of the great explorer, I am ecstatic. The weekend before my Monday off, I begin idealizing and planning all of the things I can do with my kids (and for myself). My son is off from kindergarten, but my daughter has pre-school. This is perfect, I think to myself, as I strategize how I’m going to maximize the most of every hour. I can actually take my daughter, Lexi, to school, (which I haven’t done since the first day) meet her new friends, check out her classroom and even grab a few minutes of face time with her teacher. These snippets, when I can see first hand what she’s doing when I’m not with her, are priceless to me. I also plot some one-on-one time with my son Jonah and because my husband is home from work today too, I fantasize about getting an hour of exercise in as well – the makings of a glorious day. Or so I think.

The morning begins in typical fashion. When I take Lexi out of her crib she asks, “Mommy are you going to work today?” Usually the answer is yes and Lexi gets spontaneously teary. But this morning when I say “No honey, “Mommy’s not working today,” Lexi smiles brightly and then says matter-of-factly, “Well, then I don’t want to go to school.”

“But this is a special Mommy, Lexi day,” I say in my best chippery, sing-songy voice. “I get to take you to school and I’m soooo excited!” “No, I don’t want to go to school,” she shrieks. “How about we go to the bakery and buy a special treat for your lunch,” I say, hoping to appease her. “Okay” she says, wiping away some tears.

I quickly get Lexi dressed and then hustle to the town bakery to buy her an extra large cookie before heading to school. Driving to school, Lexi munches on her cookie and then suddenly puts it down and says, “But mommy I don’t want to go to school!” Her face dissolves into tears.

Doesn’t she get it? This is my rare chance to take her. It’s part of my plan of engagement today. I want to take her. I need to take her. This is also for me. But then I start feeling guilty and selfish. The truth is – I’m sending Lexi to school because I want to be able to take her for once. Also, I’d like to play tennis for an hour and I’ll feel less conflicted if she’s occupied in school for a few hours. Then we all win, right? Wrong.

I walk Lexi up to her class and she’s clutching my neck like a koala bear. I see the girls in the class who she always talks about: Jamie, Joey, Sarah – it’s good to put faces and names together. I make a mental note that I should really be setting up play dates. I see Lexi’s art projects and the hook where she hangs her backpack. But when I try to peel Lexi off of my body she starts sobbing and I feel terrible.

On my way out of the school I run into one of Lexi’s teachers. She tells me how adorable Lexi is but that “she is clearly missing her mommy.” “She hasn’t quite turned the corner in school yet,” the teacher continues. “She hasn’t really opened up to us or the other girls yet.” I’m stunned and heartbroken. Lexi is an unusually social little girl who always has acclimated easily. At least she used to. So now what’s happening? I start blaming myself. I walk out of the school choking back my own tears.

I come home for a couple of minutes before I’m supposed to play tennis. Jonah is getting ready to go out with my husband but now he only wants me. Jonah crawls into my lap and begs me not to leave him. But I have only two hours before it’s pick up time for Lexi and according to my plan Jonah and Mommy time comes later in the day. But my plan feels useless. No one is getting enough of my time, including myself. My Columbus Day is quickly turning into a disaster.

Fortunately, over the next few hours the day did improve. Lexi was so excited to see me when I picked her up from school – it was as if her entire body was smiling. She ran into my arms giggling with the happiest look on her face. The world at that moment couldn’t have been more perfect for the both of us. We then met my husband and Jonah for lunch at Jonah’s favorite restaurant. We went to a park with paddle boats and played on the playground. After ice cream, I took both kids to their gymnastics classes where I was able to wave to them as they performed on the enormous gym floor. I sat where all the “mommies and Sallies sit,” Jonah informed my husband later. Sally is my babysitter who takes the kids to their classes.

For me, today felt like I was catching up on all the stuff that I’ve been missing these past few months. But when I was putting Lexi to sleep tonight and she asked, “Mommy are you going to work tomorrow?” my heart sank again. “Yes, sweetie I am,” I said softly. “I love you mommy,” Lexi said as I was leaving her room. “I love you too sweetie.” Even with an extra day like today, it just never feels like enough time.

Avoiding The Crackberry

2006-07-06T10:38:00.000-04:00

My husband, Michael, is addicted to his BlackBerry and is in denial. Because it's also used as his cell phone, he literally won't even walk our dog unless he's carrying it. For obvious reasons, it's become an issue in our marriage.

My loathing of Michael's black, pudgy PDA reached epic levels when he subconsciously took it out and scrolled through some email a few weeks ago when we were out to dinner with friends.

"That was beyond rude," I scolded him in the car ride home after dinner.
"What are you talking about?" He said.
"It's not acceptable to read your BlackBerry at dinner," I shrieked, in my most shrill wifey/maternal tone.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't even realize it."
"That's the point," I said.

I actually believe my husband can't help himself. The BlackBerry has become an extension of his being. It's the parasitic creature that he feeds by the endless tapping of his fingertips. He cradles it in his palm moments after he wakes up and checks on it right before he goes to sleep. I'm convinced he spends more time with it than he does our own children.

Being slow to embrace technology and a bit retro in my desire to chat on my cell rather than communicate through email, I swore that I would never succumb to the BlackBerry. But I've just started a new job where a Blackberry is as much a part of the culture as reading The New York Post.

It's not that I don't see its benefits. As a commuter who wants to be able to see my children before they go to sleep at night, a BlackBerry will make it possible for me to work on the train ride home. I'll be more accessible to everyone. But that's also what scares me. It's liberating not to be a slave to your email. The buzzing of an email alert that causes my husband to jump and grab his BlackBerry is an annoying interruption in our lives. As with everyone who I know who owns a BlackBerry, he clearly has a hard time creating boundaries between work and home.

Since I started my job a month ago, my three-year-old daughter, Lexi, now pretends that she is "going to work." She picks up her purse, keys and cell phone and says, "Bye sweetie, I've got to go to work now." For her, my working happens outside of the house in "the city." But when I walk through the door and change into my "play clothes" I'm mommy again and ready to play "Ring Around the Rosy." I know that it's just a matter of days before I sign up for my BlackBerry service. But I dread Lexi or my son Jonah seeing me on the Blackberry, at home but still "at work." It's just not fair to anyone.

Goodbye Starbucks Hello Park Avenue

2006-06-09T07:56:00.000-04:00

So as of last week, I have officially joined the gainfully employed putting an end to my romantic status as the struggling writer. Goodbye Starbucks, my office for the past three years, hello Park Avenue South. My friends feared for my own adjustment. I feared for the adjustment of my kids. But so far I can report that everyone has survived.

After a four-year sabbatical from corporate America, I admit it’s really nice to put on a great suit and cute shoes and go to work. Maybe it’s the accessories and the reason to wear mascara again, or maybe it’s the regular paycheck, but it does feel good to be back at work in a real environment again – the kind that has other employees aside from the barista behind the espresso bar.

The most surreal thing about being back is how everyone seems so much younger than when I left. After I left “Dateline NBC” I spent a couple of years working from home for a San Francisco-based Internet company. Back then I was still a fresh faced, childless, not quite 30-year-old. Now, well, I’m solidly on the other side of that number. And wherever I turn, it’s obvious that many more women are much younger than me. Their lack of dark circles makes them easy to spot. Don’t know if that really reflects their age or their not having small children.

I guess I imagined myself cryogenically preserved in the workforce, a pleasantly seasoned but still spry 29-year-old. And yet I’ve returned as a 30-something mommy of two. My first day at work, my assistant instantly made me feel old. Of course she didn’t mean to. But when we met and chatted about her background, I realized that a college friend of mine had coincidentally taught at the same private school she had attended in NYC. And our conversation went something like this:

“What’s your friend’s name? Maybe I know her,” my assistant asked sweetly.
“You wouldn’t know her, I’m sure you were long gone when she taught there,” I said.
“Well what’s her name?” she asked again.
“Abby Katz,” I said.
“Oh my God, she taught me eighth grade science and I think seventh grade science too.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said in denial.

But then I did the math. And she was right.
A college friend of mine was old enough to have taught my assistant science when she was twelve years old. Wow, now I really felt old.

But aside from my age shock, everything else is moving along nicely. Although, I do find myself missing that comforting buzz of the espresso machine.

Getting Back In

2006-04-28T10:35:00.000-04:00

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and author who studies issues about keeping mothers in the workforce, says that at any given time two-thirds of all stay-at-home moms are trying to re-enter the workforce but having a tough time getting back in.

I know first hand what she's talking about.

For three years I researched, wrote and then promoted my book about working mothers and how to successfully integrate career and family. Then in December, once the book tour died down, I started looking for a real job. I always thought I would go back into television news, because that was my real passion. But after being out of TV news for several years my options seemed increasingly bleak. I started to refocus my search by emphasizing my other skills and background in public relations.

Perhaps I was overconfident. Believing that my resume was diverse and rich, I wrongly assumed getting a job would be a cinch. After all, I had worked as a Capitol Hill press secretary, network TV producer, a PR executive and I was a published author. It didn't make sense to me that getting a job would be difficult.

Ironically, I warn women in my book about the dangers of stepping out of the workforce and here I was living my own grim words. If I'm having a hard time finding a satisfying and well paying job, I can't imagine what the millions of other women out there are facing when they try to re-enter the workforce, I thought to myself.

Yesterday, I spoke to a group of women at Citigroup, several of whom told me about how they took years off from their careers and what they had to do to re-enter. The road getting back in was bumpy, but they had successfully navigated the path. Interestingly, the group who invited me to speak was part of their female "retention" committee. Citigroup, like other big companies, is looking to bring former employees who became at-home moms back into the workforce. They've realized there's a huge pool of talent at home that would like to come back to work, at least in some capacity.

It's become a cliche, but as they say cliches are true. There are lots of off-ramps for women, but very few on-ramps. I did find a fantastic job. But strangely, I feel very grateful to have found one. I just never imagined it would be so difficult to do.

Getting Sick at Costco

2006-03-30T22:09:00.000-05:00

For the record, I've never liked Costco. Yes, I know they've got killer prices on bulk diapers, tushy wipes and gallon size bottles of ketchup -- and yes, I've gleefully taken advantage of these benefits But on principle alone, I've never been a Costco fan. To me, it represents the worst of America -- strip malls and suburban sprawl, super sized, gluttonous packages of food that no single family can or should possibly consume.

So why you may ask, did I go to Costco this afternoon if it represents all that is evil about American consumption? I like their Rotisserie Chicken. For $4.99 it happens to be the bargain of the decade and it tastes really good. Also, I had a hankering for blueberries and mango. And somehow in March, Costco miraculously manages to provide crates of blueberries and cut up mango at bargain basement prices. So after taking my four-year-old son Jonah to karate today, my daughter Lexi and I all made a pilgrimage to Costco.

Sitting in the oversized shopping cart side by side, my kids had already consumed an obscene amount of unwashed blueberries before we walked the additional two miles from produce to the checkout line. Once we settled into line with 10,000 other Costco shoppers, Lexi, my two and a half year old, violently vomited half a crate of blueberries. Don't ask what compelled me to reach out with my bare hands to try to catch my daughter's vomit, but I did. Women watched me. I heard some gasp. I saw others turn away.

As I ran for paper towels, leaving my two kids in the cart, not one person said a word to me or even glanced sympathetically in my direction. Was it the sterility of Costco, the massive size and generic feel of the place that makes these shoppers complete strangers and intentionally oblivious to a mom in obvious need of help? I couldn't imagine this happening in a mom and pop shop.

After I stripped my daughter down to her underwear the only person who even acknowledged me and my kids was a security woman who as we were walking out looked my daughter up and down and then sniffed, "your daughter's going to be cold outside."

When Work Isn't Working

2006-03-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, a national news show invited me to participate in a taped panel discussion about some of the issues confronting Stay-at-Work and Stay-at-Home moms. This was another segment in the ongoing "Mommy Wars" debate. But this time, instead of discussing the issues of conflict, we were asked to come up with solutions.

At the end of our half hour taping, one of the women on the panel, who I'll call Susan, was downright angry. Susan was a single, full time working mother of a twelve year old. She supported herself and her daughter on $27,000 a year. Because she didn't have a college education, she didn't have a lot of career options. She was currently working as a bookkeeper in Florida.

"I'm so upset with everything that was said today," Susan announced to us as we began to gather around her. "None of what you all said has anything to do with me. You talk about going to your boss and asking for flexibility. If I did that, I'd be fired. If I take a sick day, I'll be fired. I live in fear of being fired," Susan said.

"My daughter broke her arm two weeks into my current job and my boss let me take care of my daughter for a couple of days, but I got a warning that this could never happen again. I go from job to job because when my daughter gets sick, I get fired. Her father is not in our life. I have no support system. I am so stressed out all of the time. I feel like a terrible mother and I think my daughter hates me because I am never around. You talk about legislation to make the lives of working moms easier. Maybe in twenty years that will make a difference, but what do I do today?" Susan demanded.

We all fell silent. Not one of the dozen or so women circled around Susan had any real solutions for her. Some women in the group tried to empower Susan and reassure her that she was doing the best she could under her undeniably difficult circumstances. But when it came to real, practical steps to relieve her anxiety, there were no concrete answers.

What's most disturbing is that Susan represents millions of women who also feel that they have few options and no reasonable answers. Flexibility and lofty goals of work/life balance legislation don't help a low wage, struggling, working mother who is simply trying to survive.

Nearly 15 million women in the United States earn less than $25,000 a year despite working in full time, year-round jobs. Only 1 in 3 workers has paid sick leave to care for their children. And 77 percent of the lowest paid workers have no paid sick leave at all.

Stories about the mommy wars and the exodus of high powered women leaving the workforce make sexy headlines and bring in ratings. But these women represent a small segment of the population. After meeting Susan last week, I haven't been able to get her out of my mind. She made me realize that we must turn our attention to the millions of working moms who have no legal protection and no safety net. We, who are educated and therefore have access to more power, have an obligation to make the lives of other women with less opportunities better. It is unconscionable that millions of American women are living in dire fear of what will happen to them if their child is sick or if God forbid they get sick.

Something is clearly wrong in this country when work isn't working.

Driving Happily Down The Middle

2006-02-22T20:34:00.000-05:00

Last week, I spoke to the happiest working moms I've ever found -- and I found them in a most unlikely place. The women, all mothers, worked for a New York based fashion designer. But they didn't work in the glamorous, high powered, perk filled jobs at the fashion company on 7th avenue. Instead, they worked on the other side of the river, tucked away in a very unglam warehouse-filled town in New Jersey. The women held the company's nuts and bolts positions: human resources, pay roll, distribution etc. Unlike their New York colleagues, not one of these women carried a BlackBerry. A few had cell phones, but that was so they could reach their families, not their bosses or clients. The women started their workdays at 8 am or 9 am and ended them between 4 PM and 5 PM. No one mentioned taking work home with them, staying late or working weekends.

One woman was married to a truck driver. Another was married to a teacher. And still another woman's husband, a former construction worker, currently held the job of Stay-at-Home dad, choosing to stay home after his daughter was born last year. The truck driver dad was also the resident chef, cooking dinner as well as coaching every team sport imaginable (the couple had three kids.) The former construction worker reveled in his parenting and also prepared dinner (he and his wife also alternated teaching spinning classes at the local gym at night). The schoolteacher did the daycare pick-ups at 4 PM and managed to do a couple loads of laundry once a week as well.

These men defied conventional stereotypes. They had traditional blue collar jobs and yet were the most renaissance and evolved of husbands. Of all of the women whom I've spoken to in the past few years, these women were the happiest and most balanced. Because their husbands really split the household and childcare responsibilities, these women were not stressed and exhausted as they tried to negotiate a career and family. And because their careers allowed them the time to have a life, they were fully enjoying their lives.

The topic of career and family is often discussed as an elitist one because the issue simply turns into a lightning rod for choice -- that is, women choosing to be at home or choosing to be at work. Choice is not the reality for most women. But the issue of balancing career and family is a reality, one that's not elitist but entirely middle class.

Create A Life, Open A Void

2006-01-20T15:50:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was speaking to my friend Cathy who has an enviously successful and accomplished career in film production. Her husband is even more successful. As we discussed our kids, careers, husbands, potential job moves, and the challenges of motherhood, she declared the utter unfairness of it all. "Even early on, you can see the paths of men and women going in different directions at work," she said spreading open her fingers to visually demonstrate the divergent paths of the genders.

"That's why when women take a break from their careers after they become moms, they can really never get back in and catch up," Cathy said. "Or if moms quit entirely they are feeding into old, workplace stereotypes about mothers. I think this is really dangerous for all women."

Yes, I agree it is dangerous. But sadly most mothers really don't feel as if they have many options. Last night, at a dinner with my girlfriends, a similar conversation was taking place. Everyone was in agreement that one parent's career had to slow down after they had children -- after all, someone has to be around for the kids. Of course, this someone is usually the mother.

Many women thrive in this arrangement. (At least for awhile.) They embrace the career of motherhood and are challenged in their role of Woman of the House. Others, by default, get used to this situation -- and make the best of it -- sometimes enjoying it, other times resenting it. And many women who financially need to and want to work after they have kids switch their careers altogether to something more "family friendly" and flexible.

I know women who left Wall Street to become realtors and women who left television production to become teachers and I know women who started small businesses of their own. Sometimes these moves prove to be fantastic and satisfying. But many other times it seems women feel as if they are compromising themselves. They feel forced by motherhood into a job that falls flat. They miss their old lives. They miss the rush, the chase, and the excitement of their former careers. They've become practical but sometimes bitter. They are desperate to find something to satisfy their personal cravings for creativity and stimulation. The irony is that by creating a life, many have also created a void. Why is it that in becoming mothers, we often lose ourselves?

Death & Disney

2006-01-12T17:05:00.000-05:00

“Mommy, where is Chicken Little’s mother?” my four-year-old son, Jonah, asked me as we watched the “Chicken Little” movie last week. Jonah noticed the mother’s absence in an early scene as the camera panned to a family photo hanging in Chicken Little’s house. The portrait showed a smiling Mama chicken, Papa chicken, and young Chicken Little. At the heart of this famous “sky is falling” tale lies the strained relationship between Chicken Little and his father. Mom is not mentioned or seen (aside from the photo). So I think it’s safe to assume that she’s in chicken heaven.

“Chicken Little’s mother is at work,” I cheerfully answered, giving Jonah a little squeeze. “I wonder where his mommy works,” he said earnestly before taking a slurp from his apple juice box.

When I read to my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter her favorite "princess" bedtime stories, I deliberately skip over the multiple mentions of death. Have the romantic tales of Cinderella, Snow White and the Princess and the Pea always been so grim? Mommies and daddies die. Evil witches plot death. As a mother now, Disney suddenly feels danergerously dark, so I revise the stories as I read, keeping things relatively upbeat.

Disney aside, children are affected by real-life death. Recently, my husband attended a funeral for a friend’s father. Jonah and his best friend, Lilly, have now incorporated this event into their imaginative play.

“We’re going to a funeral,” the kids happily announce to us when they meet for play dates. They say this as if they’re skipping off to the playground.

Lately, Jonah and his friends seem almost obsessed with death. It started around Halloween this year with their attempt to understand skeletons. Jonah wants to know if he will be hungry when he's a skeleton. He is also afraid that he will be cold since he never sees a skeleton wearing a coat -- and after all it is winter. My friend Allison's son announced the other day that he will think about and love his grandmother even after he's dead. "Let's hope that doesn't happen anytime soon," Allison sweetly told her son.

When and how should we talk to our kids about dying? If movies made for young children discuss the subject, should we? How much do we need to explain to them and when? Do we let our kids play out a funeral in their imaginations or do we gently tell them what a funeral is and insist that they not use it in their play?

These are all questions that my friends and I talk about. I'm looking for the answers, and when I have them I will report back. Until then, Cinderella's mommy is on vacation and will soon be home to kick her ugly stepmother's butt.

Women's Conventions: A Close Shave?

2005-12-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

Last week I spoke at the Massachusetts Governor's Conference for Women. It seems sort of retro that even today we still need conferences that are devoted just for women. But considering that we have plenty of unresolved issues, gathering thousands of women together en masse does seem to be a good thing.

I thought it was telling of how far we've come since our sisters a generation ago took the cause public. Those hairy-legged, bra burners demonstrating outside of courthouses have been replaced by women in suits at convention centers collecting goodie bags filled with fancy disposable razors that vibrate. Now that's female empowerment! (And the Venus razor did give me a nice, close shave this morning.)

As I've been on the governor's conference circuit, a tour that has taken me to red, blue, and purple states (this is my own political designation for those states that swing both ways), I realize more and more that all of us women want the same thing.

Women need to feel that whatever they do, whatever "choice" they make in motherhood, career and life, they are doing the right thing. We are all looking for validation. As I've traveled around the country, the stories I hear are powerful, and filled with plenty of "Oprah" moments where audience members often crumble in tears. These universal issues about how to be true to ourselves and 'present' for our families strike a nerve with all women regardless of age, ethnicity or voting record. It cuts to the core of who we are -- as women, mothers and daughters.

Last week, a young mom with a one year old stood up in front of fifty women and announced as she choked back tears, that she felt like a failure. She said she was in a job she adored and had a child whom she adored, but why then was it so hard, she asked. Why did she feel so guilty all of the time? Why did she constantly feel as if she was in conflict?

The truth is that there isn't a lot of support for mothers. For those who work outside of the home, the workforce is not structured to let you have a life. And for those who are at home - which by the way, is often not really by choice but by necessity (many moms can't work because their husbands are never home and someone needs to be there for the kids) - they also don't feel like they have lots of options. Why is it so hard? Lots of us are trying to answer this gazillion dollar question and come up with solutions. But the solutions are more complicated than we'd like to think. So I guess these conferences for women aren't nearly as obsolete as I had first thought. We still have a lot of work to do and as we do it, we might as well get a smooth shave.

Mommy Are You Happy When You’re Not With Me?

2005-12-05T16:29:00.000-05:00

About a half a dozen times yesterday my 4-year-old son Jonah asked me the same question: "Mommy are you happy when you're not with me?" This wasn't the first time he posed this question. About a month ago, out of the blue, he asked the same thing. In a knee jerk, sing-songy mommy voice, I cheerfully answered "No honey I'm not happy when I can't be with you, I always want to be with you." I punctuated my answer with a big hug and a quick kiss. But four weeks ago, his question didn't feel as loaded as it does now.

Now I figured Jonah couldn't help but feel my stress over having no childcare and household help over the past two months. I was doing little to hide my tension and clearly it was taking its toll. A highly sensitive and perceptive child, Jonah was feeling my brewing resentment toward the world and in particular to the mounting piles of dirty laundry.

The cliche "a happy mother is a happy child" has never felt more appropriate. As I struggle to do a bare minimum of work, begin looking for a real job, the kind that comes with a 401 K and a dental plan, research a potential new book, make plans for the holidays, and clean my house including a pile of dog vomit I found on my white living room carpet this morning, I realize my sour mood is affecting my kids.

So yesterday when Jonah asked again if I were happy when I wasn't with him, the question stung. This time as I truly considered what he was asking I decided to re-jigger my answer by turning the question around. "Are you happy when you go to school and have playdates," I asked Jonah. "Yes," he answered. "Are you happy when you go to karate?" "Yes," he said. "Well, I'm happy when I play with my friends and I go to work and I get to exercise my brain. That makes me happy. But it doesn't mean I don't love you."

When I repeated this story to a bunch of my girlfriends desperately searching for some mommy soul support and an interpretation of Jonah's emotional state, my friend Kerry, a mother of a one-year-old thought I scored an ace parenting move. "Brilliant!" she declared when I told her how I shifted the question. "It really is easier when your kids aren't old enough to truly talk to you," Kerry laughed and I agreed.

Jessica, also a mother of a four-year-old boy who is well read on positive parenting strategies seemed to think Jonah's question wasn't as heartbreaking as most of my other friends did. She reassured me that four-year-olds can't imagine a world outside of their own and therefore Jonah's question was just a legitimate inquiry into what I do and how I feel when he's not around.

Ultimately, it did seem that Jonah was finally satisfied after I explained that yes, I can be happy when I'm doing things for myself just as he does for himself and my love for him is always there. Today he hasn't asked me that seemingly awful question. But he did tell me that he loved me. So far so good.

I Need a Village

2005-11-08T14:12:00.000-05:00

My nanny woes continue. I know it sounds grossly elitist to whine about nanny problems. And that's why I resist publicly drawing attention to my perpetual problem of hiring a decent and reasonably priced nanny. But I've decided to out myself because maybe someone out there in cyberspace can help me. I admit that my bar for childcare has dropped to an embarrassing all time low -- bordering on the irresponsible. But my minimal requirements are rather straight forward -- if you have a valid driver's license, no criminal record and don't mind reading "Dora the Explorer" books 10,000 times a day, you're hired!

For several months as my part-time sitters have called in sick, simply failed to show, or suddenly quit, I've struggled to get to meetings, join conference calls, produce stories and travel to promote my book while also squeezing in carpool, karate and soccer for my kids. Last month when I left for a business trip, I cobbled together a schedule of three babysitters to consecutively piggyback over a 48-hour period. That, of course, was not only expensive but stressful, not just for me but for my kids. (My husband did come home in between sitter #2 and #3.)

So today, after nearly spraining my ankle tripping over my son's Buzz Lightyear amidst the clutter that is his playroom and in between the 200 loads of laundry I swear I did, I channeled Lynette from Desperate Housewives (before she went back to work and wore suits again) and had an epiphany. This is not just my problem, it's the problem of virtually all moms out there. Sisters we need help and we must unite! We know it takes a village to raise our children, Hillary Clinton told us so. But if the village has only one resident (as mine does for the better part of Monday thru Friday) then we need to recruit some more people to work in our village -- at a reasonable cost.

Last weekend I was speaking at a conference for women and on my panel another author of motherhood books confided in me that she was completely losing it because she also had no childcare. She told me that between 9 am and 3 pm when her kids were in school, she frantically tried to get all of her work done. After 3 pm she was a stress case because she still had tons more to do and simply couldn't get it finished because she didn't have an affordable babysitter.

So here we were, two motherhood "experts" who lacked the essential help we needed to be both happy moms and productive career women. Why is it so hard? Because it's so ridiculously expensive. In New Jersey where I live, the going rate for a full time nanny who drives averages $550-$600 per week. So unless you're making a lot of coin it's hard to foot the bill for the cost of a capable sitter. This is why so many women don't work. It's not because they don't want a career but unless they are taking home a huge salary it often makes no financial sense to have a real job. In fact, many families realize it often costs too much for both parents to work.

I'm not an economist and I'm not a politician, I'm just a mother who is trying to nurture a career, raise two children and supply my family with clean underwear. Is that too much to ask?

Isn't Anything Sacred?

2005-10-18T16:10:00.000-04:00

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude. I wear low-rise pants and yes I'm aware that my thong is often on display for the world to examine. (This of course is better than seeing crack.) I like sexy, semi-revealing clothes and I can curse like a truck driver after a few drinks. I also publicly breast fed, whipping out my boob everywhere from Starbucks and Central Park to a neighbor's house in the middle of Rosh Hashanah dinner.

But when a friend told me about her recovery experience after delivering her second daughter last week, I thought we've just gone too far. Apparently, these days giving birth has become a very open spectacle. The New York Times ran an article a few weeks ago describing just how public this once private experience has become. Now when women give birth they're inviting professional videographers, photographers, massage therapists, yoga instructors, the butcher, the dry cleaner and any one else who wants in. Distant relatives and neighbors often have a close-up view of perhaps the most intimate moment in a woman's life.

But my friend Sharon is a relatively private person and had no intention to make her delivery a spectacle. Because she had a planned C-Section in a sterile operating room, not a hotel suite type of birthing room, the delivery was not open to the public.

But soon after her organs were put back into place and she was recovering from what is major abdominal surgery, the visitors began arriving in droves. There was a sister-in-law and her nephews, an elderly aunt and her boyfriend, step-cousins, friends, teenage children of friends. So as Sharon was bleeding on her bed, pulling her engorged, cantaloupe-sized breasts out of her gown and trying to shove her tender nipples into her newborn's mouth, she faced a room full of spectators.

"We were all uncomfortable in there," she told me on the phone from her hospital room. (I decided to meet the baby when they returned home.) "I was sharing a room and we had a tiny space and all of these men were in the room watching me and then looking away as I was trying to breast feed Ava. They seemed fascinated and disgusted. It was awful, but I thought they would feel insulted if I asked them to leave. So there I was trying to entertain and nurse. It was totally out-of-control."

Does everyone have to bear witness to mother and baby minutes after delivery? Shouldn't there be some down time? I think I read that Scientologists have a week-long quiet period where no one talks after the birth of their babies. Well, that sounds a little extreme. (Tom Cruise may be preparing Katie Holmes for this ritual.) But a little quiet, bonding time I think is a good thing. Let the relatives and friends bring their gifts and curiosity to your house not your hospital room.

Motherhood In Vogue

2005-10-10T18:15:00.000-04:00

Britney, Madonna, Gwyneth, Sarah Jessica, Reese, Kate Hudson, Brooke Shields... they're all doing it -- having babies and making motherhood look fabulous. Babies are the hottest accessory for the successful woman who has everything. Even though many pregnant ladies are barfing on our way to brush their teeth in the morning, the media has done an extreme makeover on pregnancy -- declaring it one of the sexiest and most chic nine months in a woman's life.

The media embraces pregnant celebrity moms-to-be showing off their bumps and bosoms busting out of sexy evening wear (Britney). And two days after delivering, the celebrity moms emerge from the hospital looking even more fabulous than before. Somehow despite arduous labor and delivering a baby the size of a watermelon (Gwyneth), their bodies miraculously contract back into their pre-pregnancy, Pilates-tight size.

On the cover of the October issue of Vogue, Gwyneth Paltrow - long blonde hair flowing - shines in a gorgeous, backlit, peaceful state, taunting us mere mortal moms about how motherhood and marriage had centered her, "I have something so real," reads her quote on the cover. because she now has something real. Yes, I too have something real -- a real two year old and a real four year old, who when they wake me up in the middle of the night (which they almost always still do) can also be a real pain in the butt. But Gwyneth, of course, says nothing about any of motherhood's woes. No celebrity moms do. In fact, all Gwyneth discloses about her daughter Apple is that she wakes up at 7:30 am, eats lunch at 11:30 am and naps for two hours a day. No wonder why Gwyneth looks so well rested!

It always amazes me how reporters depict these celebrity moms not only as glowing with the sheen of motherhood but also as always putting their children before their careers. The Vogue reporter who interviewed Gwyneth in Paris (of course) spent the day with her having lunch and shopping. He made it clear that Gwyneth doesn't have a real nanny, only a housekeeper who watches Apple when Gwyneth does things like have lunches with reporters and shop. He also explained that Gwyneth has found inner peace with her marriage to rock star Chris Martin and that's given her the happiness that Hollywood alone never could. He reports that Gwyneth, after taking a sabbatical from her career to spend time with Apple, has decided to work again, but only in roles that she finds interesting and that will make her a more fascinating person.

Let me say, I have nothing against Gwyneth. I think she's chic and talented and who wouldn't want her life? But these articles always make me cringe. Gwyneth is fortunate to be able to pick and choose when she works -- most of us can't. And depicting motherhood as the be all and end all where women emerge sexier, more beautiful and happier than ever before perpetuates a warped and dangerous image that's impossible to achieve, and frankly it makes the rest of us feel bad.

Aside from Brooke Shields who had the courage to speak honestly about her ordeal with post-partum depression, no other celebrity moms have come forward to speak candidly about pregnancy and motherhood.

I wish someone would.

The New York Times Ignites The Debate Yet Again

2005-09-24T07:58:00.000-04:00

A front page story in The New York Times this week has moms taking sides again in the on-going, emotionally charged "Have it All" debate. The story described a so-called new trend among many female co-eds who have apparently concluded that they'll forfeit their careers once they become mothers. To be fair, not everyone planned to quit work entirely. Some said they plan to work part-time and others said they would take a temporary sabbatical and return once their children were in school.

What most people found shocking about the Times' article, however, was that the women surveyed are attending some of the most elite colleges in our country. These are the women who we can assume were (at least until they entered college) some of our nation's most ambitious and driven. They are the ones who had obviously achieved academic excellence and had been hyper-involved in extra-curricular activities to land them in their Ivy League towers today.

So the irony, of course, is if these young women have already surrendered themselves to the idea that you can't simultaneously have a career and be a mother, then what message does that send to all of the other women of their generation? And what does it tell future employers? Are we turning back the clock re-enforcing retro stereotypes that women are bad investments since they'll quit work as soon as they get married and have babies?

Over the past few days many of the moms I know -- both Stay-at-Work moms and Stay-at-Home moms have been passionately discussing this article. Most feel depressed that the next generation of young women seem to have relinquished their own dreams for an idealized version of motherhood before they've even graduated from college.

Others are concerned at the naivete and unrealistic expectations these young women have for themselves. They're believing in Prince Charming at a time when still about half of all marriages end in divorce. And what will these women do if their husbands lose their jobs? An Ivy League education alone is not a safety net.

A couple of years ago Lisa Belkin wrote an article in The New York Times Magazine that also created plenty of controversy and conversation. The article described women who graduated from some of the best universities in the country who were "opting out" of the workforce after they had children. Unlike this week's article, the women Belkin interviewed were in their 30s, 40s and 50s. All had delayed motherhood to have careers first -- many for ten to twenty years before they ever had children. A lot of the women Belkin described quit their big careers because they found that they just weren't compatible with children.

We all know that many careers simply don't mesh with motherhood. But that doesn't mean young women shouldn't plan to work or even to fight for better ways to integrate career and family. If the best and the brightest are exiting the workforce or mentally preparing to leave before they've even begun, then that means that the workforce is in desperate need of an extreme makeover. And we need the next generation of women and men not to withdraw and accept the status quo but to stand with us and help make the change we all desire.

Dads are from Mars, Moms are From Venus

2005-09-12T09:42:00.000-04:00

Last night feeling pre-menstrual, cranky and bloated, I suddenly found myself bickering with my husband, Michael, defending the importance of the first day of school and defining yet again the fundamental differences between moms and dads.

I know it's silly, but even as a grown up, I get excited about the start of the school year. I want to buy new shoes, get my hair cut, and I still feel oddly compelled to buy new paper products at the drugstore. Perhaps the inevitable consequence of attending school for sixteen years is that the start of the academic year just seems like the natural time for fresh beginnings.

So last night, the eve of my son Jonah's first day of Pre-K, as I lay in bed next to Michael reading the Sunday New York Times, I asked him if he was disappointed that he wouldn't be taking Jonah to school, picking him up or even seeing Jonah at the end of the day because he would be out of town on a business trip. "Why would I be sad?" Michael asked me matter-of-factly. "It's not such a big deal."

"Of course it's a big deal," I said feeling even more irritable than ever. "Our baby is growing up. It's Pre-K! Next year he'll be in kindergarten. Jonah has a new teacher and it's a whole new crop of kids. How bigger does it get than that?" I asked incredulously, though not quite believing my own dramatic words.

I, of course, am the one who would be dropping off and picking up Jonah from school. And for the past two weeks I have already begun fretting about missing my 2-year-old daughter's second day of school because I will be en route to Milwaukee on a business trip. Coincidentally, I am traveling to speak to a working mothers group who most probably are also not available to pick up their children from school.

Time and again I realize that moms experience these types of life events more intensely than dads. My husband simply doesn't feel the guilt that I do -- and he's not alone. Yes, most dads say they want to be present, but if they are not available they usually don't beat themselves up over it. I think moms want more and expect more than dads do. Is it society that conditions us to feel guilty if we miss certain events, or is it biology that makes our stomachs churn when we're away from our kids for too long? It's probably both. I know my daughter will be happy to see our babysitter on Thursday after school, but I will make sure I'm carrying my tissues on the plane. Logically, I know it's not such a big deal, but then why do I feel so sad?

Today Show Appearance

2005-09-03T08:01:00.000-04:00

Click Title To See Author On Today Show and Read Book Excerpt

From Poop to Nuts

2005-08-31T15:50:00.000-04:00

I think I'm finally getting over the stigma of working from home and the fear that somehow I'll be found out. But it's taken several years of insecurity to get to this point. When I was researching my book, interviewing experts and arranging for interviews on the phone, I was always terrified that my children would cry, howl, or somehow loudly make themselves known while I was trying to sound professional even as I was secretly making calls from my bedroom. In fact, because of this legitimate fear, I wound up conducting most my business from my cell phone at Starbucks. I preferred the roar of the espresso machine to the seemingly embarrassing shrieks of small children.

This summer while I've been freelance producing and on a flexible schedule I've been taking work calls at home. Last week, in the middle of a conference call with a client who happens to be one of the largest financial institutions in the country, my 4-year-old son, Jonah, started shouting from the living room, where he had been quietly watching "Blues Clues," that he had to poop on the potty. This would not necessarily be a big deal except that my son, who is a rigid creature of habit, insists that he can only poop if I'm telling him a story while he sits on the potty.

So in the middle of the conference call chatter, I press MUTE on my phone praying that the button actually works, and I quietly start telling Jonah the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" as he noisily grunts and groans and poops. This, of course, is the genius of telecommuting and working virtually. I can be on the phone with a Fortune 500 executive in Seattle while helping my son on his potty in New Jersey.

It seems lots of people are catching on to this technological phenomenon -- especially moms. This morning as I was sitting in my OB/GYN's office waiting to be seen for a general check-up so I can refill my birth control, my cell phone rings. It's a business reporter from a Milwaukee paper who wants to set up an interview with me to discuss a working mom event I'll be speaking at next week. "Let's talk in 45 minutes," I say assuming my exam will be over and my babysitter will still be on the clock so I can have an uninterrupted phone call. "Hmm, that's actually not going to work for me because I'm calling you from the beauty salon and I think I'll be under a hair drier then," she says without a hint of embarrassment. When we start strategizing other times we can talk (she writes from home and also has two children) we both agree that 9 pm is probably the best time for an interview after my kids go to sleep and she has picked up her kids from soccer practice.

Maybe because it's the dog days of summer and many parents find themselves at home with their kids between camp, school and vacation that I'm starting to feel less embarrassed about acknowledging that I may not be able to talk or focus because my children are with me. Or maybe it's because I have no other choice. But either way, it's starting to feel liberating.

Take This Job

2005-08-08T08:15:00.000-04:00

Last week I interviewed for a new job. A big full time job with a media organization. It's been awhile since I was employed by someone other than myself. For the past few years I have been writing a book and freelance TV producing. For most of that time I have been working my tail off, but working on my own hours, late nights, early mornings and in between carpool pick-up and drop off. This is a dreamy work schedule for many moms -- but the unfortunate truth is, now I need a real job, a permanent type that pays me every two weeks and comes with a 401K. Unfortunately, those types of gigs usually have no flexibility -- especially for a new hire.

So as the recruiter of this media organization was questioning me, trying to assess where or how I would fit into their mix, I tried desperately to put on a happy face and say that I was willing to do just about anything. (You do this, when you really need a job) But the more she probed, I suddenly realized I couldn't lie -- I had to confess. "The truth is," I said, "I'm really looking for a position where I can have some degree of control over my schedule because I have two small children." The recruiter looked at me like I had two heads. "Do you have kids?" I asked sweetly. "No," she answered curtly.

Having spent years interviewing working moms about the gamut of issues we face, I have found that women can be our worst enemies when it comes to work/life balance. Some women if they have children and are working 100-hour weeks resent other women who work any less or feel entitled to work less. Women without children usually have absolutely no sympathy or understanding for the moms who race out the door at 5:30 pm to get home in time to relieve their babysitter or pick their kids up from daycare. And frankly why should they?

So as I looked around the newsroom on the way out of the door, I had an epiphany. I don't want this type of life or job anymore. I used to crave this and live this -- but not now. The room was filled with men and women who looked too young to have kids. Clearly this was not a good fit.

I knew I probably sabotaged my chances of getting hired when I discussed my need for some control over my life. But who am I trying to fool. My stomach was in knots when I thought about all of the time I would be away from my kids if I took this type of position. So again I'm trying to reassess what I want and what would work. My credit card bills are mounting and I really do need to have a consistent income -- freelance doesn't quite pay the bills. But what I discovered last week is that along with finding a job, I have to find something that blends into my life. And that's my biggest challenge.

Lacking Outrageous-ness

2005-06-27T12:03:00.000-04:00

Where's the Outrage?

Over the past couple of weeks I have been interviewed by a couple of British publications about my book. The story both times was about how professional career women in London were having upwards of seven babies. Yes, seven! Apparently there is a "trend" of successful women having huge families. The British reporters called me to ask what we in America would consider a large family, especially if the mom is working. When I told them three or four kids would be a large family for us Yanks, they nearly fell out of their chairs laughing. That's nothing compared to what these high flying women in the U.K. are doing they told me.

When the conversation turned to our maternity leave policies and the fact that we're one of the only industrialized nations without federally mandatory paid leave, the reporters were horrified. "You're telling me that the average maternity leave is between six and twelve weeks and its often not even paid?" they asked incredulously. "Where's the outrage? Why aren't American women up in arms over this?" Good question.

We have one of the skimpiest maternity leave policies in the world. I'm not even talking about Sweden where the dreamy combined maternity and paternity leave totals about eighteen months and most of that is paid. Even in Russia and the former Czech Republic women receive between twenty and twenty eight weeks of paid leave. And in the U.K. the average maternity leave is six months but many women take up to a year off.

I was always rather amazed in my interviewing for my book that more women weren't enraged about their short and often unpaid maternity leaves. I did, however, recently meet one woman who is angered by the lack of adequate leave. She works in DC for a small agency that oversees judicial nominations. She told me that when she was pregnant a couple of years ago there was no maternity leave policy in place at all. "Here I was working for one of the most progressive organizations in Washington and they had no paid maternity leave of any kind. I couldn't believe it. I basically drafted the policy and it was a real battle to even get six weeks paid."

Longer paid maternity leaves shouldn't just be a woman's issue. This really is a family issue. And for all of our talk in this nation about "family values," and so few families able to afford one-income households, moms and babies are still being ignored. So where IS our outrage?

Wendy Sachs on Radio

2005-06-08T13:23:00.000-04:00

Click on Section Title to Visit the Business Shrink Web Site

It comes as a bit of a surprise to me - I guess because it wasn't my intent to serve the business community with my book but working moms - but I'm finding that companies are excited by HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT. I've been asked to speak to business groups and on business talk radio and have been thrilled by the hunger for ways to make moms' work lifes more fulfilling.

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable - and relaxing, if that's possible - summer. Please check back for more blogs from me!

-Wendy

My Nanny Diaries

2005-06-07T14:32:00.000-04:00

Fabulous childcare is essential for the Stay-at-Work mom. This is the one truism that's been repeated to me at least a zillion times from nearly every Stay-at-Work mom whom I've interviewed. Maybe that's why I'm always feeling so stressed.

While I think my babysitter is great with my kids, the fact that she doesn't drive - and that I live in the suburbs - is frankly a nightmare. I wrote my book, How She Really Does It, in between my son's carpool schedule. But now that I'm producing again, and working an erratic and busy schedule, nearly every day I'm either trying to mooch a ride for my son to get to school or I'm hiring a taxi. And given that he's only four years old and still requires a car seat and the accompaniment of an adult, and inevitably the company of his two-year-old sister, well, the whole situation is not only expensive but incredibly annoying. (Yes, I know I should have worked out a carpool schedule earlier in the year, but it's June now and a little late for that.)

So today I finally Interviewed a new babysitter for my kids. I'll call her Kate. Kate I think would prefer to be called a nanny because that's how she refers to herself, but I find the term a little too "upper crusty" and uptight and my family is frankly neither.

When I first chatted with my potential new sitter, we spoke on the phone and it felt like I was being set up on a blind date. Someone had told me that she was available and someone told her that I was in search of a driving babysitter. So in the first few minutes on the phone as we were gingerly feeling each other out, I had the weird sensation that I was trying to woo her. I found myself putting on the charm -- acting cool yet sweet, laid back yet in control, sympathetic yet decisive. Knowing that Kate had already been offered a couple of jobs and was still interviewing, I needed to win her over immediately. As all moms know, good sitters are hard to come by, even harder than finding a rent-controlled apartment in New York City.

So this afternoon when I met Kate my courting kicked into high gear. It started when I hugged her as soon as she walked through the door. (I'm not a big hugger, but she seemed like the hugging type.) Then as our conversation progressed I found myself not just trying to show her that I would be the hippest boss in the 'hood, and yes she would have access to my Jeep Cherokee anytime, I was also trying to persuade her that my kids were just as fabulous. So instead of talking about how my two-year-old daughter torments her older brother - by hiding his toys and stealing his blanket, driving him to a virtual nervous breakdown in which he retaliates by pinching and body slamming her - I mentioned that my children have a lot of "energy" but that they LOVE quiet time and reading books. Did I feel guilty for sort of lying? Perhaps a little.

Then Kate tells me that she belongs to the same overpriced gym that I do and that she's as committed to working out as she is about going to church every Sunday. The irony is that I'm quitting my gym this week so I can afford to pay for the car insurance and extra car I need for Kate to drive my kids. So while my sitter can afford to work out, I'm working so that I can afford to have a sitter who works out. This irony makes me a little bitter. But I'll get over it, I tell myself. There is no victory, after all, without sacrifice.

But then today, Kate called to tell me she was taking another job. Perhaps the other mom was more aggressive in her courting -- maybe she even offered to pay Kate's monthly gym fees as a bonus. Or maybe Kate saw through me. But while I still don't have a driving babysitter, I still have my gym membership -- at least for now.

Multi-Taskers In Training Pants

2005-05-09T17:24:00.000-04:00

Like all busy moms, I multi-task. I don't think I do this necessarily well, but I do it simply to survive. For instance, I live on my cell phone. It's permanently attached to my head probably wreaking extraordinary havoc on my overworked and under-rested brain cells, but it's my essential instrument in which I conduct business with the outside world. So while I'm in carpool lane I can usually be found talking to my editor, making doctor's appointments for my kids, strategizing with my babysitter about all my kids' activities that will transpire over the next six hours, or commiserating with a girlfriend about how exhausted I am because my son is still sleeping in bed with us (he's 4) which means no one is getting any sleep. (For the record he starts out in his own bed and inevitably ends up in ours)

Because I work from home or at Starbucks where the bulk of my book was written, (because I couldn't get any real work done at home) along with being attached to my cell 24/7 I am also always on email. No, sadly I don't own a BlackBerry, but I cart around a laptop wherever I go and obsessively check my email. My children are highly aware of this, and this morning I realized just how much my multi-tasking can trickle down into my children's lives.

My daughter, who is not quite 2 years old loves to crawl into my lap when I turn on the computer and race the mouse all over my desk. This morning when my AOL came on she repeated in unison with the mechanical computer voice: "You've Got Mail." Now this may not sound exceptional, but given that her only other two phrases are, "I Want It" and "Pick My Nose" this AOL welcome phrase feels well, sort of incredible or incredibly sad.

I'd like to think that I'm somehow teaching my toddler computer skills as she squirms on my lap punching all of the keys as I desperately try to restrain her from crashing my computer. But I can't help to feel kind of guilty that "You've Got Mail" has become implanted in her new repertoire of expressions.

My son, on the other hand, seems to know exactly what it is that I'm doing when I'm on the computer. Last week he said to me sweetly, "Mommy now that you're book is done, you don't have to work anymore, right?"

The Nerve Center

2005-05-06T17:16:00.000-04:00

The topic of Stay-at-Work Mom vs. Stay-at-Home Moms is explosive. It strikes at the very nerve center of who we are as women and as mothers. It taps into our insecurities and unfairly forces us to respond to society's expectations both in the workplace and at home.

I knew this when I was writing the book and I'm feeling it even more now as I go on the road to publicize the book. This week I spoke to a group of professional women in Washington, D.C., and when the topic of the "mommy wars" came up, women could hardly contain themselves. Almost every woman had a story to tell of how they've been either ostracized, ignored, snubbed or judged by stay-at-home moms.

"There really are two camps in my town," one mother told me. "The lines are divided and you really feel as if you're taking sides." Some women swore that the mommy wars got even more heated as their children got older. Great, something to look forward to, I thought (since my kids are only 4 and 2 years old). When I was writing my book an at-home mom said to me that she has to feel that she is doing a better job mothering than working moms, because why should she have surrendered her career if her kids didn't turn out better.

It is that kind of feeling that has made mothering into a competitive sport. The research shows that children of working moms do just as well as the children of at-home mothers. We have to do what's right for ourselves and our families. Working, not working, even the decision to have children at all is extremely personal and individual. We should stop judging one another. Stoking the mommy wars hurts all of us. Women need to work together for more flexibility at work and more time at home. After all, isn't that what we all want?

The Peculiar Pain Called Guilt

2005-04-25T20:48:00.000-04:00

"I feel guilty for not working," a mom said to me on the train today as I was heading into New York City to see a doctor to evaluate a very peculiar and disturbing pain pulsating from my right foot apparently for no real reason. We started talking because she noticed several of my books (soon to be released) that I was toting along with me to eventually mail off to friends, family and women who debuted in my book. Then she added, "I feel guilty even now while I'm on the train going to my dentist because I'm not with my kids. I always feel guilty when I'm not with them."

Yikes! Guilt and motherhood feel brutally entwined. Whatever we do, working or not working, women somehow feel guilty. When did it get this bad? I understand there is good reason for mother nature to make sure that we will never stray far from our young. And I do believe we have a chemical, physiological reaction if we believe our children are in harm's way. God knows I get knots in my stomach plenty of times when it comes to my children, but when did leaving our kids to go to the dentist make us feel guilty?

There is so much pressure on moms today to be perfect, selfless beings whose lives revolve around their children. Today moms shuttle their kids to a whole host of "stimulating" classes and we're made to feel inadequate if we are not prepping our toddlers with the latest and hottest activities -- Mandarin is the apparent must-know language in NYC these days for babies.

I admit, I always feel guilty too. If my children aren't doing well at home or at school I blame myself that I could or should be doing more. I think we need to collectively revolt against the guilt. Maybe we should banish all of these expensive classes that make us crazy. Let's admit, we all look and sound like idiots harmonizing while waving scarves in Music Together. We do these things because everyone else is doing it. Let's end the guilt. Motherhood would be a lot more fun if we didn't have to worry so much.

The Momentum Builds

2005-04-07T11:06:00.000-04:00

At a time when all of the other books and news reports about staying at work versus staying at home make us feel insecure, unsure and guilty, this book is meant to inspire women that we can succeed at work AND family.

Click title to see book at Amazon.

Bad Moms?

2005-04-05T11:24:00.000-04:00

My friend Rebecca surprised me the other day. Here is a woman with a toddler who financially is in a position where she doesn't have to work. In fact, she had taken a leave from her job because she had become burnt out from the commute, long hours and travel. But after a few months of staying home with her son, she realized she needed more. She missed work, she missed the interaction with other adults. She's now returned to her job but has scored an amazing deal of working three days a week.

"It's perfect," she tells me. "Just the right amount of time at home and in the city." So I was genuinely shocked when she said to me over coffee a couple of days ago, "I really wish I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom." "Why?" I asked. I've heard the opposite from women (and even from some men) who say they wish they didn't have to work and that they fantasized about being at home with their kids, but never from someone who chose to work and wished they liked being at home better. "Well I guess it would be simpler, I wouldn't have to commute," she said.

Rebecca also admitted that she feels a little bit guilty and a little bit like a failure because she realized she didn't enjoy being a stay-at-home mom as much as she thought she would and should. In fact, she had always figured she would be an at-home mommy -- because that's what she assumed good, devoted moms did. So she was genuinely surprised when after a few months she became restless at home with her son. After spending her days toting her son around to parks and playdates, Target, Costco and the various grocery stores, she knew she needed to get back to work to keep herself from going stir crazy.

"I think at the end of the day you just want to feel like you've done something smart, you've used your brain and that's what I missed when I wasn't working," Rebecca told me.

I agree with Rebecca. It doesn't matter what field you're in or what exactly it is you're doing, many of us need “outside” stimulus, a very personal professional experience – not one so selfless as mothering - to feel “smart” and engaged and invested in something. Are we selfish or self-absorbed? Some may say so. But I think the reality is that many women are wired like Rebecca and I. And the reality is that some women who have chosen to stay at home, are also yearning for some other area in which to engage , but aren't quite sure how or what to do about it.

We shouldn't feel guilty about this -- we shouldn't feel like we're bad moms if we can't find total satisfaction in fulltime mothering. It's healthy and normal to try to satisfy that deep, uncomfortable churning that tells you that you’re hungry for more.

Author & Family

2005-03-29T13:06:00.000-05:00

Michael, Jonah, Wendy & Alexandra - A family vacation

The Noble Profession

2005-03-28T16:51:00.000-05:00

March 28, 2005

My friend Brooke, a mother of two and a senior vice president at a boutique private banking firm in New York City told me a story recently that epitomizes how much we are defined by our careers. When Brooke's lifelong friend, Kate, a stay-at-home mom came to visit Brooke and her children, Brooke's precocious three-year-old daughter Lilly, all of a sudden, asked her mom's friend earnestly, "So what do you do?" Kate, was stunned. "I'm a mommy," Kate said sweetly. Lilly didn't quite accept that answer. After all, having spent three years in daycare, all of the mommies Lilly knew did something else besides just being a mommy.

I don't personally know Brooke's friend, but I wonder if Lilly's comment struck a nerve. I know it would with me. About two years ago my husband and I were in the arduous process of buying a house. At the time, I was seven and a half months pregnant with my second child, and the Internet company I had been working for had just imploded when the dot com bubble burst and at the same time I was working on a proposal for my book, How She Really Does It." In other words, I thought of myself as a quite busy working mom. In fact, in showing that we were house worthy, I had explained to our mortgage broker in great detail all of my jobs over the past few years, Capitol Hill press secretary, associate producer at Dateline NBC and now an unpublished, but determined, first-time author.

But the bank where we were getting our mortgage from didn't see me that way. When our papers came back, next to my profession in bold letters, it read "Homemaker." I had a radioactive reaction to this label. I know that motherhood is a noble profession, but to have no other identity other than the retro career of "homemaker" frankly makes me break out in a cold sweat.

Our careers are completely entwined with our identities. It's partly a cultural thing, and probably not an entirely healthy situation. But nonetheless, we tend to define ourselves by what we do. Many stay-at-home moms tell me that having surrendered themselves to fulltime motherhood and given up their careers they now feel uninteresting not only in social situations outside of mommy events, but sometimes even at home with their husbands. They tell me that having given up their careers they feel a sense of loss. A loss of who they once were, how they were seen in the eyes of the world, and how they saw themselves. I'm sensitive to this as well. Up until I had children, I had always had Big Careers. So even while I have been working on a book for several years, but working from home, I often found myself defensive about what it is that I was doing. I was quick to tell people that I'm not just a mom; I'm writing a book. That gave me worth, an identity other than mom. And frankly, the work gave me stimulation I desperately needed outside of raising my kids.

Studies show that having a career is important to our overall self-esteem and worth. Having a career is also important for a woman's marriage and relationship with her spouse and children.

In this "age of anxiety" where motherhood has taken on almost religious fervor, the least anxious mothers I've met are those who have careers separate from that of only raising their children. They don't have time to overparent the way some at-home moms do. They are putting their energy and time not just into their children but into something separate from their family -- and this is a good thing. We should be encouraging moms to stay in the workforce --- making it work for them, so they are happier mothers with healthier homelives.

(Reminder: You can see the book at Amazon by clicking this message's title.)

Author & Daughter

2005-03-25T13:08:00.000-05:00

Wendy & Lexi

Resisting The Cult Of Mommyhood

2005-03-24T18:18:00.000-05:00

Upon giving birth to my son three and a half years ago, I was quickly initiated into the cult of mommyhood. Part of the rite of passage in this post-partum society, is to enter a parallel universe, a highly social and active world where moms and babies spend their days hustling around to a wide array of classes, lunches and playgroup gatherings. It was here where I met my first mommy friends – a lactating sorority of out-of-shape, exhausted women who like me, were simply looking for sisterly support as we all struggled to survive those brutal first few months of motherhood.

The women I met had an impressive collective resume. They were lawyers, psychologists, engineers, financial analysts, social workers, marketing and advertising executives. Many had graduated from some of the elite universities in this country. So when talk turned to life after maternity leave, I was surprised to discover that only two women were returning to work. I had been a TV producer who left television to dabble in the dot com world on the cusp of the bust. I was eager to get back into television again but unsure how to go back to a Big Career and also be a very present mother. But many of the other women I met had made peace with their decisions to stay home and were getting settled into their routines of fulltime at-home mommyhood. As I became more antsy, they seemed more content.

Part of me envied them for being so thrilled with motherhood and not appearing to need more. And part of me was simply bothered by their satisfaction. I just didn't get it. I found myself getting sucked into traditional stereotypes of what defines a "Good Mother" and I began fearing that I simply wasn't good enough. If I were good enough, I figured, I should be relishing motherhood, not feeling a relentless churning for something more.

It was at this time that the inspiration for this book evolved. I was shocked to discover that so many smart, talented women were dropping out of the work force or “opting out” as New York Times writer Lisa Belkin called it. We’re the women who were raised in an environment where anything was supposed to be possible. We’re the ones who had the doors to advancement jimmied open for us to waltz through, so why were so many women turning on their heels and leaving once they become mothers? Had all of these women embraced their inner Marthas and discovered domestic bliss and fulfillment in baking the perfect linzer tortes as some headlines suggest? I felt desperate to find moms who weren’t dropping out but who were staying in – and I was equally desperate to discover how were they doing it all.

So I decided to interview famous and regular working moms about how they were doing it. What are the tradeoffs? How do they handle the inevitable conflicts? How do they reconcile the guilt? How do they come to terms with their own ambition? Are they happy? Is there anything they regret? What are the options out there?

The topic of Stay-at-Work moms vs. Stay-at-Home moms is an explosive one. It strikes at the very nerve center of who we are as women and as mothers. It taps into our personal insecurities and unfairly forces us to respond to society's expectations both in the workforce and at home. It challenges our priorities and identities and it sometimes leaves us feeling as if we simply can't win. While much has been made about our generation expecting and wanting to "have it all," women today are redefining what "all" means. For women today, definitions of "success" have more to do with job satisfaction and flexibility than with prestige and position. Women want to be respected and compensated fairly in our jobs even if we work three or four days a week at the office. We want flex-time, part-time and job-share to be viewed not as a privilege but as an integral part of the work culture. We want the freedom to amp up when we are ready and to cut back if we need to slow things down.

My book isn't about Having it All, because we know better -- it's impossible to really have it all. It's about having some of it, all of the time.

(Reminder: You can click this message's title to see the book at Amazon.)

Judging By Its Cover

2005-03-22T13:39:00.000-05:00

Hot off the presses - the new book jacket.