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A mom asked me this week, "What can parents do to raise great kids, given that babies and even older kids need us so much, but we need to work?"
There’s no perfect solution, but many
parents are navigating a way through the maze of options, putting
together a life that works for them and for their children.
1. Choose professions that offer more flexibility, even if less money.
2. Arrange for both partners work part-time while children are under six so that both
share in early child raising. Later, more flexibility and fewer hours
than most fulltime jobs.
3. Use technology as a servant, not a master. Carve out protected family time.
4. Pay conscious attention to who does the work at home. Share it.
5.
Prioritize relationship and ritual. (Choose dinner with friends the
first Friday night of each month over the latest movie opening.)
6. Space children three years or more apart to maximize individual parent-child relationships.
7. Consciously create home as a calm, safe, warm refuge. (Resist over-scheduling, over-stimulation and stress.)
8. Live stated values. (No grand theft auto or shoot-em-up computer/video games.)
9. Embrace individuality and nurture individual passions, which are protective for kids in the face of cultural and peer pressure.
10. Nurture the family as a whole (do things together as the default.) READ POST
Ever wonder what that decision to get pregnant will cost you financially?
“Social-science research is often equivocal, but on the cost of
parenthood to mothers in particular a truckload of research exists to
establish how it limits economic options in every class. Mothers work
less, earn less, and achieve less in the marketplace than fathers and
than childless women.
Child-rearing takes up enormous amounts of
time—especially mothers' time. Taking into account child care,
housework, and paid work, mothers work more hours than any other group.
Even when both parents hold paid jobs, the mother usually takes primary
responsibility for arranging child care, caring for the children during
non-work hours and taking time off when children are sick or day-care
arrangements fall through.
Mothers also shoulder the greater burden
among single-parent families. More than 80 percent of single- parent
households are headed by mothers, and more than two thirds of children
of divorced parents live primarily with their mothers.
When
mothers do remain in the work force, they earn less than other women.
This gap persists even after controlling for age, education, work
experience, and other attributes. Over a lifetime, mothers earn about
five percent less per child than they would have earned otherwise.
Mothers' economic disadvantage during their working years has
repercussions into old age. Job interruptions and lower lifetime
earnings reduce their private pensions and their Social Security
benefits.
Although this situation reflects continuing gender
discrimination, the economics of parenthood are not simply a byproduct
of gender inequality. The fundamental problem is that child-rearing
requires an irreducible minimum amount of work. Whatever the division
of labor between mothers and fathers, continuity demands intensive time
and energy from someone."
Wow! This incisive analysis is from: What We Owe to Parents by Anne Alstott, Yale Law School. Well worth reading. READ POST



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