At the BlogHer Conference in NYC on August 7 at 1:30, MamaBee and I will be hosting a session to plot how women in social media can aid the grassroots effort to push for broader adoption of family friendly workplace practices. Like most social change efforts, legislative, corporate interests and grassroots pressure must combine to instill family friendly — I say human friendly — practices. It is crucial that both legislators and corporate leaders know how much we the people want and need flexible workplace practices, so we’ll talk about how to support such efforts using our blogs and online influence. This is a non-partisan issue. If you’re going to BlogHer, I hope you can join us, and below I’ll lay out the basics of the work life movement. If you are not attending the Conference, follow the hashtag #goodwork for updates and to get involved.

Why it is so urgent
For dual-earner couples with children, combined work hours are now 91 hours per week, up from 81 hours per week in 1977. For the first time, the 2007 census recorded more American households headed by singles rather than married people. According to the Labor Project for Working Families, 40% of people caring for elders also have childcare responsibilities.
Only 20% of the actual workforce has the luxury of a stay at home parent. National data shows that over 80% of workers polled would prefer more flexible work options and would use them if there were no negative consequences at work. And there’s the rub: if there were no negative consequences.

The good news is that many employers are more flexible about implementing flexibility, but the majority of smaller firms, where most Americans now work, don’t offer such benefits to all employees. Terms are negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Without public policy mandates, many companies are confused about how to implement change. In the 2008 National Study of Employers, those most likely to have implemented flexibility include employers with a large percentage of female senior management, companies in the nonprofit, finance, real estate and insurance industries, and those companies without union representation.

What companies are doing
Most large American companies have initiatives to lure and retain great employees by providing “work-life” benefits. These are often couched in “Women’s Initiatives” but men certainly benefit. The big accounting firms have traditionally led the way with flex, joined by Pharma companies and other professional service firms. I have a friend who is a senior manager at Deloitte who works entirely at home. Her job is global, and no one cares where she is. It’s much easier for white collar professionals to negotiate flexible work arrangements than it is for hourly workers and those who work for small businesses. Still, companies are ad hoc about programs. This is why standards are so key.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, today’s top five “family-friendly” benefits are dependent-care flexible spending accounts, flextime, family leave, telecommuting on a part-time basis and compressed workweeks. Today’s work-life initiatives also include elder-care assistance, child-care services, management training, adoption assistance, community outreach and many other forms of workplace flexibility and redesign.

Many people consider work more flexible when it is possible to take time off during the day for personal matters. But this is not the same as exercising family friendly policies. Fearing repercussions, most Americans choose not to exercise the full extent of such benefits, and men use them far less than women (think of the difference between maternity and paternity leave norms). But a growing portion of the American workforce is “dual-centric,” in the words of MSU’s Ellen Kossek: seeing work and home as complementary activities, and feeling they can be successful in both.

Although it is often aligned with women’s needs, flexibility is not just for women.
For a great summary of companies who get it, visit whenworkworks.org. You should also check out the Working Mother Best Companies Guide, the Sloan Work Family Research Network at Boston College, and Katharine Lewis’ About.com guide for working mothers.

Federal legislation on the horizon (there is more, but to be brief…)
FMLA
While more than 100 million leaves have been taken under the FMLA since 1993, many workers can’t take full advantage of its provisions because they cannot afford to take unpaid leave. Being paid for your maternity leave, however, is discretionary and based on your employer and state of residence. Only 8% of American workers have paid family leave.

Discrimination based on pregnancy is a form of sex discrimination.

But maternity leave is usually created from a variety of benefits that include sick leave, vacation, holiday time, personal days, short-term disability (aka SDI, or STD) and unpaid family leave time. Most companies allow you to use your sick, vacation and holiday time towards your maternity leave. Some companies require that you use these benefits first before using any disability or unpaid time.
FMLA does not require employers to provide paid leave, but it does guarantee job protection while out on maternity leave. The FMLA was updated in January 2009 and the latest provisions are here. As strange as it seems, many employers consider maternity leave as a disability. Many paid leave terms are funded by short-term disability insurance (SDI).

Flexible Work Arrangements
“Family Responsibilities Discrimination” is currently illegal under many laws, but only two states prohibit employers discriminating against those with caregiver responsibilities. The Center for Work life Law at UC Hastings has an excellent account of public policy that prevents this discrimination. However, in practice, we all know the discrimination is hardly black and white but sort of nefarious and creeping.
One model that is gaining steam is called a “right to request” law. As Phoebe Taubman puts it: “Originating in the UK, this law would give employees the right to request a flexible work arrangement. Their employer would have to consider the request and give them a written response. They are free to deny it, but they have to explain why formally. The idea would be, especially in an economy like this one, people who may need a flexible work arrangement may be afraid to ask for it because of all the stigma around flexibility, and they don’t want to be seen as a disposable person or not committed to their work. It’s a nice idea for any time, but particularly in a recession because there’s not a huge cost element. But we’ve sort of dabbled in that in a few places but it hasn’t taken off yet. And there’s a federal bill, a Carolyn Maloney bill, modeled on the UK version. [Working Families Flexibility Act, HR 1274]”

Telecommuting
Working for the Federal Government is one of the best ways to ensure flexible work. Recently, the Office of Personnel Management, led by John Berry, announced several innovative flex pilots. After a massive snowstorm shut down DC, leadership realized in this day and age it is simply stupid to miss a week of work because people can’t come to the office. And they took action.
Recently the Senate and House passed legislation called the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, “designed to expand telecommuting opportunities governmentwide by making employees presumptively eligible and requiring agencies to take a number of actions to expand their telework programs.” The final bill is nearing readiness for the President’s desk, which is great news. I actually believe the Federal Government, very deliberately, wants to become a model employer. Obama has been open about this: the Feds may never pay Wall St. salaries he says, but to get the best and brightest they may be able to compete on quality of life. So if you’re interested in what’s new in work life policy, follow what Federal employees do.

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) proposed The Paid Vacation Act requiring at least one week of paid vacation for employees at companies with at least 100 employees. Full- and part-time (25 hours per week/1250 hours per year) workers will be eligible after one year of service. Right wing blogs promptly called him “French” even though study after study shows taking vacation increases worker productivity.

I’ll close with this: what we really need is mandated paid sick leave, and paid family leave (See MomsRising.org for great summaries WHY). Again: Out of 168 nations, 163 have some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

If paid leave on a federal level happens I’ll eat my hat. But if it did, we’d be a better country for it.
What the White House is doing

On March 31, 2010 the White House held its first forum to discuss workplace flexibility. I sat there in awe as President Obama shouted, “workplace flexibility is not a woman’s issue!” Dr. Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers touted her excellent new report about the benefits of flex. Then, in July, the Administration followed up with Vice President Biden’s Middle Class Task Force Event on Work and Family which was co-hosted by the White House Council on Women and Girls. This focused on two areas: equal pay for women and men; and implementing the workplace flexibility that we all need to meet the demands of our home life while also meeting the demands of our work life.

According to the Families and Work Institute blog, “Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, announced that the Department of Labor will be conducting a new Family and Medical Leave Act survey in 2011. They will also be sponsoring a supplement to the American Time Use Survey to include questions on parental leave, child care responsibilities, family leave insurance program usage, and other work and family issues. In addition to the surveying they will be doing, the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau- headed by Sara Manzano-Diaz will be holding forums across the country called the “National Dialogue on Workplace Flexibility” where business and community leaders will come together and share ideas to make workplace flexibility a reality, and eventually, the standard in business practices.”

So, the Administration supports flexibility in a real way. However, they are very much in the “softening” stage: feeling out business and Congress in attempts to make the issue more pressing. My bet: November elections will push this issue even further to the back burner. Depending on how things turn out, the issue may surface as a priority in 2014.

But they’ll never go to bat for it like they would for say, health care. That’s why grassroots pressure is so crucial here. On that note, if you blog about anything related to family friend work, flexible work, or anything related to this issue, please use the tag #goodwork.

See you Saturday!

More great bloggers on this issue:
PunditMom
Work Life Nation
Leanne Chase
Chrysula Winegar
Cali Yost

President Obama said that how we treat our employees and each other at work “reflects our priorities as a society…raising the next generation and caring for our loved ones is the most important job you have. ” Sometimes I think we don’t care very much.

Jamie Oliver echoed this point, but through food. Last Friday night, like much of America it seems, I watched Oliver’s Food Revolution. The program was simply stunning. One of the most moving moments was Jamie’s sheer shock that kids at elementary school aren’t allowed to eat with knives and forks. Everything served was finger or spoon food- almost as if the kids are in jail. There is something sub-human about not teaching 6 year olds how to eat like civilized people. Do we really expect so little from them?

The message from the elementary school on Oliver’s show was “we don’t trust kids enough,” and so they remove the tools kids need to manage eating. This must hold them back and it doesn’t let them think critically.

In the adult world, many workplaces don’t trust employees enough, and so they don’t provide the tools people need to manage their lives. It seems ridiculous that managers might not trust an employee (who daily manages profit and loss, product launches, or company property) to manage home life and work life, but there it is. Take this comment from a blog reader on the topic:

Ninety percent of my work could be done remotely if it were acceptable at my company. But face time is still important here. We use Web conferencing all the time to talk to employees in other offices, so why can’t we use them to conference wherever we are? Currently they get 8 hours of work out of me because it is 50 min commute (5 min to drop at daycare) – work – 45 min commute timed to get there before daycare closes. How great would it be to do 5 min walk – work – 5 min walk back to home office?

At the White House yesterday, ROWE’s Jody Thompson said simply, we need to give people their lives back. A flexible schedule is an oxymoron: let people structure their own time at work. It’s a radical idea but the notion underlying it is simple.

Most people think of schedule flexibility as a perk- but journalist Claire Shipman said, based on the results it produces, “we should call work life balance ‘make more money.’” Firms often think about it as a cost- but the Council of Economic Advisers‘ new report finds 1/3 of workers say workplace flexibility is the no. 1 thing they think about when getting a job. It helps workers, boosts the bottom line, and it helps the whole economy.

CEO Jim Turley at Ernst & Young agrees that trust is critical. At his firm there was too much discussion of flexibility, too much dissection of policy. He said, we changed it to flex being a right for everyone. You need to separate workplace flexibility or the right to manage your own time from having a Flexible Work Arrangement, such as working part time. When the two are confused, flexibility can become too gendered. Indeed, many people think flexibility is a one-way ticket to the mommy track.

Challenging teams to manage their schedules and home lives can incubate creative thinking. Managers and teams who empower their employees to get work done on their own time create, in the words of Campbell’s Soup CEO Doug Conant, “a high engagement, high trust culture.” 85% of Campbell’s employees, he said, are comfortable enough to have a conversation around flexibility. Earnings and sales have increased each year- even in this recession.

It is challenging to implement flex for shift-based or manufacturing employees. But Campbell’s Conant noted his Campbell’s soup supply chain fulfillment team came up with a flexible teleworking schedule that allowed them to fulfill international orders around the clock, and manage home responsibilities. They come together on Wednesday, and at month’s end to close the month.

A representative from the White House said telework during the recent blizzards saved $30 million a day in productivity costs at the economic offices. Inc. Magazine just published a whole magazine without anyone coming into the office.

Everyone deserves flexibility, but being a working parent demands flexible and nimble thinking. The First Lady relayed her own hairy job search as a new mother. She was on maternity leave with Sasha- and got a call for an interview. She couldn’t find a babysitter, so she brought the newborn on the interview! I was lucky, the First Lady said, that Sasha slept through the interview. She was also lucky that she was interviewing with the president of the Hospitals who had just had a baby and was open-minded.

Many people aren’t that lucky, she noted. Many people don’t even have a paid sick day. Most are struggling every day- to find childcare. Public policy must be amended to provide a baseline for employers to follow. Like in most American innovations, policy provides the floor and sets employers on a course. The rest demands culture change and trust in employees to both do a good job and do what is right for their family.

I was impressed that the CEOs’ overall attitude was “let people figure it out.” This is what changes culture.

Arianna Huffington worries about the loss of innovation in America. If we don’t expose our children to the tools they need to mature, and don’t encourage adult workers to successfully juggle home and work demands, how can we possibly innovate?

Also see Dan Froomkin’s piece on the Forum; Ellen Galinsky’s piece on the Forum.

She starts working freelance, from home. This suits her schedule as a mom. But “I was treated like crap, too. Bossed around, degraded, condescended to, with jibes made about my having to work from home. I quickly learned not to mention I had kids. I quickly learned not to mention I worked from my kitchen table.” But she gets the hang of things, and it starts to work. She earns more money as a freelance writer, gets steady work.

And yet, “…I was still having a hard time landing jobs. I was being turned down for gigs I should’ve gotten, for reasons I couldn’t put a finger on. My pay rate had hit a plateau, too. I knew I should be earning more. Others were, and I soaked up everything they could teach me, but still, there was something strange about it . . .

“It wasn’t my skills, it wasn’t my work. So what were those others doing that I wasn’t?”

She found out when she decided to adopt a male pen name and things got so much better fast. She became James Chartrand.

This is an old story. But it’s also a story of the Internet age, of a prominent blogger who “came out” today online to tell her story. That this is a story of a digitally proficient, virtual knowledge worker somehow surprised me.

If women still need to take men’s names to earn as much as men do, then surely we need a new woman’s movement. And not one centered solely around reproduction and abortion politics, which I fear is what people think of instinctually when they hear the word “feminist,” now.

As if to provide us with new reasons to organize into a new women’s movement, in yesterday’s Washington Post historian Dorothy Sue Cobble wrote this call to arms, “Feminism today should concentrate on the economy and the workplace — and on the huge transformations that are needed there to get greater equality and security. These are issues that can unite women across class and culture and allow feminism to speak to the fears and concerns of everyone.”

Cobble’s article, which draws from a recent report, details the movement of the thirties, forties, fifties and beyond, including the fight for equal pay, good jobs for women workers, and flexible schedule options.

Cobble writes, “In 1945, New Deal feminists introduced the first equal-pay bill into Congress; they reintroduced it in each of the next 18 years until the Equal Pay Act finally passed in 1963. Three years later, New Deal feminists joined forces with the civil rights, labor and poor people’s movements and succeeded in amending the FLSA [Fair Labor Standards Act], raising the minimums and gaining coverage for the majority of American workers for the first time. The phrase “working poor” should be an oxymoron, they thought, and few believed it would be tolerated for long in a society so wealthy and so dedicated to the work ethic. They would have been astounded by today’s low and falling wages.”

Most people I know snicker when we talk about a building a new women’s movement today. The world is too fragmented, they say. Feminism is a dirty word.

But perhaps for everyone who questions whether we can coalesce today into a new women’s movement, first perhaps we need to think hard about what such a movement would be for. What better cause can we gather around than creating work that works? And it’s not for ourselves alone, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, but for all Americans, for men, children, and for families. Sign me up.

I’m throwing it out there to you, because the numbers speak to a huge need to keep us. Sharon Klun from Accenture noted that the touch point for women is three for five months after they return from maternity leave. That’s when women are often in crisis, thinking, maybe I should just quit. So the question is, what should companies do? The companies at the Working Mother Conference have gone farther in figuring out this issue than most American employers. As someone who is self-employed, I often wish I worked at a large company that offers great benefits. But because most women work in small businesses, we can all learn from the best practices of large firms.

Keeping women at work is big money for these firms. As Joanne McDonough from Price Waterhouse Coopers explained, when they ran the numbers, losing new mothers was a cost. So they set about wanting to devise programs that increase the quality of the maternity transition, increase parents’ productivity, and increase knowledge and education of those who manage moms. They wanted to challenge assumptions of what happens to work when you become a mom.

I’d like to clear up one myth: it’s not that new mothers don’t want to work. A recent survey of 1,200 new mothers found that 20% actually reported being more ambitious after having their baby. A survey of 2,775 American employees conducted by WFD Consulting found throughout the career life cycle, women are more engaged at work than men. Engagement is lower for women in their thirties than it is for women in their twenties (who are the most ambitious and highly career-engaged group in this study), probably because work and family demands converge at this time. Employee resilience, defined as the ability to adapt to change, is higher for women than men. However, in their thirties, exempt men and women each become less resilient, again, I think, because it’s hard to manage work and family. Women get much more resilient as they head into their forties and fifties, while men’s resilience drops. This is crucial because resilience is highly correlated with schedule control and workplace relationships, which predict turnover.

The discussions I participated in really tried to think about new ways companies can engage moms of young kids. Now, there are meta, public policy changes that would probably help more than anything else. For example, paid sick leave would be huge. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) predicted Congress would pass paid sick leave in 2009. The Healthy Families Act requires seven days of paid sick leave annually for companies with 15 or more employees. Well, it’s November and that hasn’t happened so I’m not holding my breath.

I was left with the takeaway that absent public policy changes (paid sick leave, affordable quality childcare) the best solution companies can help with is to change paradigms of working. This means changing schedules and expectations that being in the office is the only way to be effective.

But companies are taking crucial steps to support new moms, often by providing information and resource and referral services, or by modeling behavior that works.

I liked this model, at accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, because not only does it provide new mothers with support, it connects them to more senior women executives who can offer career coaching and sponsorship. Young and new moms connect with experienced moms at Price Waterhouse Coopers to help them figure out how to do it- they call it Mentor Moms. They started with a pilot program in NY and LA, and started doing it “by hand.” As women requested maternity leave, they’d get a form to fill out, noting their line of service and their interest, and PWC would match the expecting mom up with a “mentor.”

In the second year they built a database and microsite around it and got to about 350 mentors in the US. All mentors have a profile with photos of their kids, and mentees can select who they want, and email a request. There is a guidebook for mentors, some icebreakers, and some guides on how to build the relationship. PWC has found that mentors want training, and they want to learn how to be coaches to help their mentees figure out the tough stuff! Not just how do you travel and manage workload, but how do you leave your baby? How do you deal with mommy guilt?

The mentor is responsible for an 18-month commitment, and they are expected to meet once a month. The relationship starts during the second trimester. And when the mentee is out on leave, she can choose what kind of support she wants while she is out on leave.

One discussion point arose- what if a mentee chooses a different path than her mentor? What if a mentee doesn’t want to make partner at the firm, but wants a career track that gives her more time with family, or to pursue other interests? Is her mentor going to try to steer her another way? Joanne McDonough and Jennifer Demirdjian, who oversee the Mentoring program noted they work with mentors to stress: you have to understand that a woman might choose a different path than you, and that’s ok!

The best part is that mentoring can lead to sponsorship. For example, a Director who helped begin the mentoring program mentored a woman who was the single mom of a young baby. This woman was a high performer but she was placed on a client more than two hours from her home. She was in danger of quitting. So her mentor mom advocated to get the mom put onto a new client that wasn’t two hours away.

Another company in the room, Working Mother Media, has identified employees who are “expert moms” and will make themselves known throughout the company as available for counsel on topics. For example if an employee asks….”my kid has ADHD and I need advice and I’m sick of Googling for information,” the expert mom will step forward.

Lots of firms have informal brown bag lunches for new parents, new parents networks, and online information sources. I’m curious if you have used these, and if they help fix the essential challenges of being a working mother? Or, do we need public policy and meta change to really make a difference?

Perhaps the most powerful idea around mentorship came from an idea to shift the mentorship model: What if more experienced mothers mentored new Dads?

A recent conversation I had got me thinking, though, that maybe the classic three or four month maternity leave isn’t for everyone- no matter what the financial circumstances are.

My friend Lisa Witter is Chief Operating Officer of Fenton Communications, a leading progressive communications and branding firm. Lisa is also the author of The SheSpot, which is the book on why women are key to achieving social change.

Lisa has two little boys, one just turned two, and one is three months old. She told me recently of her novel approach to maternity leave and flexible working. Lisa brings insight about what works for her as a mom, but also what works for her business as COO. Here’s what she did for her second leave:

“I found taking three and a half months off was isolating and didn’t work for me the first time.

“With the second baby, I took 6 weeks formal leave, during which I checked in on email and sat in on conference calls. My parents and in-laws stayed with us during that time.

“After six weeks, I worked five days in the office- I don’t have to, I choose to. I work better at the office. I’d bring the baby in whenever I felt like it. My older son would stay with the nanny, sometimes I’d meet them both in the park and she would take the baby home with her and I would go back to the office.

“Now, I’m taking two weeks in August off, and all of December. At first I felt guilt about not taking a longer leave but I thought, ‘If I’m not happy my child isn’t happy.’

“This arrangement is a really good option for an employer too, if you can work out where your slower times are. It works better for me in my business because August tends to be slower, as does December.”

For me, I’m self-employed and need to engage in both business development and client services. A long maternity leave was out of the question, but I structure my life at work to fit my parenting needs by working a flexible schedule year round. I took about two months and then started to jump in slowly to work.

What other non-traditional—but satisfying— maternity leaves have you seen?

Christine Heenan, who spent her twenties in the Clinton White House and later, time with little kids running her own small business, notes that even after jumping off the corporate ladder, “You can absolutely come out on top. I had a period of time I thought, I’ll never be back in those circles…” She’s now back in a demanding new leadership role at a global institution, a role that requires the whole family’s cooperation, but “After a decade of really balancing work with my kids, we approach this new challenge as a team. I couldn’t have considered this career move if I hadn’t taken that time to be with my kids more ’til now.”

Heenan got her start on the Clinton White House policy team, and in 1995 became the head of government and community relations at Brown University, where she also taught. When Christine was recovering from delivering her first baby, her boss from Brown called Christine in the maternity ward: there was a crisis at work. After Christine had her second baby, she left Brown to start her own business, the Clarendon Group. The Clarendon Group won a Sloan Foundation Award in 2006, for “business excellence in workplace flexibility.” Obviously Christine made flexible working a priority when she ran the Clarendon Group. Indeed, she told me a fond memory of first starting her company and preparing a presentation with her first employee, also a mother. Christine took all the kids to the local park while her colleague hammered out the pages on the ink jet printer. Heenan noted that she would be curious to measure her employees’ children’s impressions of what work looks like, since the kids spent so much time in the office with their mothers, and felt like they had the run of the place. To them, kids and work were comfortably intermingled.

As I read Christine’s story in the book Womenomics I thought, great, another “success” story about a high-powered woman who jumps off the corporate ladder to start her own business and get a life. But, Christine’s story doesn’t end with Clarendon. She jumped back on the ladder, in a major way.

In July 2008, Christine became Harvard University’s Vice President for Government, Community, and Public Affairs. I was curious, how did her ten years in a flexible work environment–her own–affect her return to a corporate role?

I asked her how she decided to return.

She said,

“My kids are now at an age where we could make the decision as a family.” She said that because so much of her time during the past decade was spent “as a mother and a professional had been considering those needs I thought it was the right time” to take her own career goals into account again.

Still, “It’s been an adjustment of a year- but it’s been more of a team spirited discussion because of how the decision was made.” Christine told me that recently she was walking the dog with her ten year-old son and complained to him, “‘I have 100 emails- I don’t want to work any more today!’ And my son said, “‘Mom, we talked about this.’”

I asked her if she actually worked harder running her own business than for someone else?

She said,

“I restructured my relationship with Brown into a consultant role after her second son was born. Two years into that, I hired my first employee who was actually my neighbor, whose background was banking and non-profits, but was home with her three young children at the time. She and I, and our next employee – also a career professional now home with a new child — and our moved into a sublet office, then gradually grew.

“As your own boss, it’s not so much working harder as much as work always being with you. It’s your name on the door. But for me it was an easy trade off for being able to do what I wanted. No one could tell me I couldn’t.”

“Our flex policy was fairly organic. When it was just me and my neighbor we traded off aspects of work and time with the kids. The way we ended up having so many moms working flexibly was that’s what we became known for. At any given time at the firm, there was at least 50% of the staff working flex schedules. It wasn’t always women- for example we had a male colleague whose new wife was beginning a brutal schedule as a resident in Boston, and he worked two days a week [from his home] in Boston.”

Q: Could you describe a little how you negotiated when considering the Harvard job? Was flex on the table?

A: I did raise it in my first meeting with the search firm. I had nothing to lose; I wasn’t looking for a job. If they had explained that this was where [considering me] would have ended, fine. I was prepared to be out of the running due to my family demands. But it was actually the two women at the search – one pregnant with twins – convinced me to interview for the job. They argued: why not at least have that conversation?. So I did go forward with the search process, and I did raise it in my first meeting with the search committee. The most honest and important piece of advice I got in that first meeting was from a senior level colleague at Harvard who said, “It’s pretty safe to say everyone at this level is 24-7, and no one much cares where you are at 3 in the afternoon….”

Since taking the post, Christine has noted that both men and women model that attitude. Christine noted she has a colleague who is general counsel whose son is a very competitive high school wrestler. “There have been times that Jeff’s wrestling matches meant tied up evenings or weekends, and that is not hidden from view – everyone shares in and endorses those priorities here. It is really nice.”

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“The U.S. health care system is the most expensive and least cost-effective in the advanced world mainly because private insurance companies waste about 25 cents on the premium dollar on claims, profits, administration, and marketing. They have no serious financial incentives to emphasize prevention, and every possible incentive to avoid sick people. Doctors and hospitals, meanwhile, make their money from increasing costs.”

Some sort of “public option”–a public health insurance plan (a la Medicare) that competes with private plans– is on the table, but whose version? See here for details. And visit Montanansforsinglepayer.org to see how Montanans are influencing their very influential Senator, Max Baucus.

Bill Moyers Journal has an excellent episode featuring Physicians for a National Health Program’s Himmelstein and Dr. Sidney Wolfe

Atul Gawande in the New Yorker on McAllen, TX, the country’s most expensive place for health care. Why?

CJR: Single Payer Advocates Finally Get Their Say

Robert Reich: How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option, And What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do

Lessons from Massachusetts: CJR

However, the “Dutch Model” of reform, which combined private and public options, is appealing to those who oppose single payer but demand reform. Maggie Mahar covers it here. I like this part, “Insurers Must Take All Applicants: Individuals Must Buy Insurance: But it would be wrong to say that the Dutch health care system is some sort of conservative utopia where the invisible hand of the market reigns.  Just as in Dr. Emanuel’s plan, insurers operate under many regulations and restrictions. Most importantly, “they are legally obliged to accept each applicant for basic insurance” and they cannot charge someone more because of pre-existing conditions.”

Health reform is overwhelming in its details. I’m no wonk, but I’m trying to learn as much as I can about this hugely important change. Where do you go for information about health reform and how it affects your family?

You can join Obama’s Health Care Reform organizing team here

The Children’s Health Insurance Program is designed to ensure that uninsured and lower-income children receive the health care they need. Advocates are excellent at invoking the true face of children who need, receive, and benefit from CHIP and SCHIP. Who doesn’t want to help children, especially sick children?

Governor Rick Perry and the Texas state representatives, that’s who.

Alleging that this, “is not what I consider to be a piece of legislation that has the vast support of the people of the state of Texas,” Perry was clear that he did not support the bi-partisan twice-passed Senate plan to get up to 80,000 more children into the government-subsidized Children’s Health Insurance Program.

He is likely to veto the measure, if it manages to make it to his desk. Unfortunately, even that is in question after the antics this week in the Texas Legislature when House Democrats halted action to kill the controversial voter ID bill. As a result, unfortunately, the CHIP bill, among others, was endangered. With the session close on the horizon, the Texas Senate worked late to pass the Senate version of the CHIP expansion bill by a vote of 29-2. They attached the bill to a newborn screening bill and returned it to the House.

The House simply needed to pass the bill. This seemed possible, since earlier they had approved Rep Garnet Coleman’s version of the bill 87-55.

However, on Thursday evening, Speaker Joe Strauss ruled that the Senate’s CHIP amendment was not germane to the bill it was attached to, and that, as they say, was that.

We can question and speculate for days about why the Senate attached the bill to the newborn screening bill instead of to Coleman’s CHIP bill, whether Strauss was right, or even if this is moot since Perry would veto the bill on its own or as an amendment.

I think it’s more important, though, to talk about the bottom line and why it’s essential that all Texans contact their elected representatives, as well as the Governor and Speaker, to express support for CHIP. That means talking about the myths versus facts of CHIP.

Unfortunately, 80,000 uninsured children in Texas who could have benefited from the CHIP bill and amendment are instead once again at risk.

Anne Dunkelberg of the Center for Public Policy Priorities said, “Right now, affordable health insurance for 80,000 uninsured children is in jeopardy because state leaders think it’s not a priority–for you. We were all tremendously disappointed – though not surprised – when the House returned the bill onto which the Senate had amended the CHIP bill to the Senate for technical reasons.  There are very few options left to pass the CHIP bill again – even though the bipartisan bill already passed both chambers with solid majorities.  This bill has been held up by politics, not its merits!”

The Center for Public Policy Priorities, the CHIP Coalition, and the Children’s Defense Fund have asked concerned citizens to contact Governor Perry and Speaker Strauss to express their support of CHIP.

To reach Speaker Strauss, call 1.888.327.2086. To reach Governor Perry, call 1.888.746.9714. To find your local legislator, check this Web site.

Kids loving TV is a reality for parents, and it can be a positive force. But a SurveyUSA poll of 1000 parents finds that more children are spending time with media at a much younger age and for much longer periods of time than what is recommended by experts. According to the survey, 62% of preschoolers spend two or more hours with media per day while 69% of children seven years or older spend two or more hours with media per day. Little girls today are more sexualized than ever, and maybe because they idolize kids TV stars like Miley Cyrus or the Jonas brothers’ girlfriends. Little girls are “girlier” than ever, more princessy and glittery than ever. “Every girl goes through a princess phase,” says my mom, and yes, when I was five, I only wore pink for a whole year. But today’s princesses now have a scary sexy edge. I have a little boy- his little onesies are already mostly sports-themed and he can’t even walk! And when he starts to watch TV, I’ll have an even harder time letting him wear colors besides blue and camouflage.

Research from a new non-profit called TrueChild.org confirms my fears. “we know that narrow and extreme images and messages, including the hypersexualization of girls and emphasis on war-ready toughness for boys, is causing a lot of harm to children,” says Tammy Palazzo, who heads research for TrueChild.  These limiting and unrealistic “ideals” are strongly linked to eating disorders, bullying, early sexual activity and other problems that surface in the tween and teen years as children struggle to conform.

The survey of 1000 parents finds kids are watching more shows, and parents are worried about the shows’ effects. Parents with daughters under the age of six were three times more likely to worry about their daughters becoming sexually active at a young age as a result of the images they see than parents with school-age and tween daughters (who I guess are already indoctrinated?). Parents with sons under the age of six were five times more likely to worry about their sons becoming bullies as a result of the images they see than parents with school-aged and tween sons. The children’s TV analysis of popular shows from Jonas to iCarly, Higglytown Heroes to Go Diego Go revealed that:

•    24 school-aged programs reviewed, only six (25%) had exclusive girl leads.
•    Of the major and minor characters, girls represented 28% to boy’s 72% and 60% to boy’s 40% of the minor characters, respectively.
•    In general, the major and minor girl characters fell into three main archetypes: the boy-crazy beauty queen, the nagging and annoying friend or sister of the male lead, or the nerdy girl.  In contrast, when leading girl characters were created, the networks got it right.
•    The top scoring show in the school-aged category was iCarly on Nickelodeon, a show that features strong, confident girls who are technologically savvy, creative and bright.  That’s so Raven on the Disney Network also received high marks.

The shows’ stereotypes harm boys and girls.

“While boys have the lion’s share of roles, in fact, the creativity surrounding their characters is stagnant.  Most of those characters fall into two categories: the central lead boy who the girls love or the sidekick goofy boy who loves girls, but is chronically tongue-tied.

There are some bright spots, Go Diego Go (Noggin) edged out Dora the Explorer (Noggin) for the highest grade– the original Dora creators (new, thinner, urban tween Dora aside) did just that much better in creating a more expansive boy character when they created Diego.  Another breakout character is Josh from Drake and Josh on Nickelodeon.  He is far more vulnerable and emotional than most boy characters on television.  He also breaks out of the typical body type. “

And, although his recent escapade into Burger King land was a scandal, SpongeBob of SpongeBob SquarePants, also on Nickelodeon, is “another refreshing breakout male character.”  SpongeBob exhibits a broad range of emotional and is exceedingly vulnerable.  He is willing to talk about his fears and readily asks for help.

Go Spongebob! Who knew.

Both MomsRising and TrueChild want to provide our kids with good role models on TV.  This isn’t about isolating our kids from pop culture, it’s about bringing about positive culture change.

What would you tell the producers of popular children’s shows?

You can join TrueChild founder Eliabeth Birch and Tammy Palazzo tonight at 7:30 Eastern for a Twittercast to talk about Tween/kids TV and stereotypes and how to fix it
On Twitter, use #TrueChild and visit tweetchat.com/room/TrueChild

Hochschild writes of the “stalled revolution,” in which women assume more traditionally male roles as breadwinners and workers, but manage to work on average an extra month a year at home. The book is moving and sometimes nauseating in its intensity. She writes of the stories we tell ourselves, how we craft the narratives of our home lives to suit the self-images we create to maintain peace at home.

As I read a raft of Mother’s Day stories, I was struck at how, over the past twenty years, our culture has seemed to absorb the second shift as natural for most moms. Sure enough, when I was about to become a working mother, I summoned the mental image of the “woman with the flying hair” and told myself, sure, I’ll be frazzled, but it’s how things are. Who can blame me? Check out these headlines from Mother’s Day coverage:

“Want to Make Mom Happy? Clean Her Car!”
“Burned out on Mother’s Day”
“Busy Working Mother Still Finds Time to Work Out”
“First National Moms Night Out” (cause mom needs a break)
“Why Time is Such a Welcome Gift”
“Working Moms Wish List: More Flexibility Would Make It All Work”
Jennifer Garner: “I’m as Frazzled as Any Working Mother”

Is the second shift and the ensuing stress it creates a permamnent fixture of our  world? Even as men report more work life conflict, frazzled supermom seems here to stay. It makes me exhausted just to think about this archetype. I don’t think she’s doing anyone any favors.  I think many mothers are tired just reading about the chaos of our lives. Here’s working mother management guru Jamie Woolf:

“Like most holidays, Mother’s Day is full of expectations and good intentions. It’s meant to be a day of respite, a chance to put your feet up and bask in the glow of your family’s appreciation and adoration. Unfortunately, that idealized vision of Mother’s Day rarely bears any resemblance to its reality. Your “special day” might start well with flowers, gifts, cards, and maybe even breakfast in bed, but it quickly morphs into “business as usual.” You spend the rest of the day breaking up sibling fights, preparing kids for the school week, and going to bed early before your own workweek begins.”

I’m curious: are you conscious of a “second shift” mentality? Is it a given in your mind and that of your partner’s that as a working mother, you’ll be frazzled, overloaded at home and work, and could use a lot more help from your husband than you get? Is the “Second Shift” your life? Do you think sometimes you play into the archetype because it’s such a familiar one?

Even in the feminist Women’s eNews, Rivers and Barnett write,

“thanks to a raging recession, women are more worried than ever that their husbands’ or partners’ jobs might be at risk. Could this mean women that will be more reticent to negotiate who does the housework and the child care?

Men have long worried that being too involved with their families will cost them at work. The ambitious male bosses are supposed to love the guy who’s the last one out the office door at night and who volunteers to work on weekends.

An overburdened working woman might bite her lip instead of speaking out, because if her partner takes on more at home, maybe he will be more vulnerable at work. This fear could put women behind the 8-ball, feeling increased stress and fearful of negotiating for a better deal at home.”

The authors conclude this is not true, but their article and its headline feeds into the Second Shift mentality.