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Open Flexible Work

Champion Real Workplace Flexibility

April 6, 2010
The White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility has generated an energetic buzz in work family advocacy circles across the nation. As a longtime advocate for family friendly workplaces, I am thrilled by First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama's keen interest and commitment to build and...

Michelle Obama: "It doesn't have to be this way"

April 2, 2010
"Many folks don't have access to any kind of family leave policies whatsoever, no flexible working arrangements, many people don't even have a paid sick day. So they are struggling…scrambling to make things work…As we all know, here today, it just doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be...

Bring on the radical homemakers

March 12, 2010
...At some point, of course, I realized I wasn’t happy. I was trapped. I had money, but not time. It was like being surrounded by food, and dying of thirst. It turns out that there is a way out of this mess. There are people all over this country–both women and men–who have made a conscious decision to value their time more than their money. Against the formidable current of popular culture, they have decided that this may be the only life they will ever have, and they’re going to live it fully.
Katrina Alcorn's picture

When you work on a vacation, is it really a vacation?

March 3, 2010
I recently went with my family on a wonderful trip to the Mayan Riviera, a beach community about 1 hour south of Cancun. A great adventure trip with snorkeling, kayaking, cave explorations and jungle ziplines. It was a perfect week except for one challenge: my blackberry. The red light was blinking...
Sharon Meers's picture

Pick One...

March 3, 2010
So I have been pondering... which option would you choose? Enter Parenthood and: ♦ stop working/stay home and recieve a stipend from your employer or a govt. subsidy ♦ continue working and have childcare that is government owned and operated ♦ continue working and have childcare that is privatized...

When will we dictate policy to protect our future generations?

February 18, 2010
Why are other countries recognizing the need for a paid stay-at home option, yet we are not? When will we dictate policy to protect our future generations? Our country's leaders seem to be primarily concerned with the here and now, instead of maintaining a balance that satisfies the present and the...

Time to Stop Free-Riding on Families

February 10, 2010
For generations, our country has been free-riding on families. Our economy is built on the invisible and free labor of millions--many of them women--who provide essential care to their families, whether it is the education and socialization of the next generation of workers or the comfort and care...
Phoebe Taubman's picture

It's not so complicated- communicate more, assume less

January 10, 2010
As I resolve to be a better person in 2010, I think about a poignant bit of paternal wisdom -- one I received from my dad via his holiday letter. My father, a retired shrink, is now 82 and closed out 2009 by shipping 1400 pounds of psychiatric texts to an institute in Beijing. Packing up this...
Sharon Meers's picture

Paycheck Jobs, Paycheck Feminism

October 30, 2009
I’ve been on a one-woman campaign to resurrect the phrase, paycheck job , used by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique forty years ago. Friedan was referring, of course, to jobs outside the home for which people receive money. She recognized that the unpaid job of caring for children and home was...
Nanette Fondas's picture

Reality Check: Women Want Work/Home Equality and Flexibility

October 23, 2009
No doubt The Shriver Report , “A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything,” meant to stir up debate and discussion. Hoopla has surrounded the news that women have just about reached parity with men by comprising 50% of the paid workforce; and that women and men agree on much about their evolving roles as...
Nanette Fondas's picture

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