Posts Tagged parenthood

By Amy S. Choi • 11 years ago

Chart of the Day: Today’s working moms devote more time to child care than in the ’60s

In a study of modern parenthood, the Pew Research Center has found that working mothers spend more hours both at paid work and at child care than they did in 1965. They are spending significantly less time doing housework. Working fathers, on the other hand, are devoting fewer hours to paid work but far more doing housework and child care, though the number of hours is still less than that of their female counterparts. Men also tend to spend more time than women doing leisure activities.

More than half of all working parents say they have difficulty balancing work and family duties, though they don’t believe it impedes their ability to be good parents. The majority of ...

In a study of modern parenthood, the Pew Research Center has found that working mothers spend more hours both at paid work and at child care than they did in 1965. They ...
By Vanessa • 12 years ago

This is what a mother looks like

Our own Jessica Valenti wrote an incredibly brave and powerful piece for the Guardian on the premature birth of her daughter (and my niece) Layla Sorella, and the complex emotional journey that followed.

While personal, it’s one that any mother or parent could relate to around the societal pressures to love your child completely and unconditionally, when it’s just not always that simple. She says:

The truth is that relationships are nuanced. There’s no “natural” way to love a child. There’s no measurement of adoration that will gauge what’s in our hearts and minds. And yet, the expectation looms large. Even today, with Layla pudgy and happy and starting to say words such as “kitty” and ...

Our own Jessica Valenti wrote an incredibly brave and powerful piece for the Guardian on the premature birth of her daughter (and my niece) Layla Sorella, and the complex emotional journey that followed.

While personal, it’s ...
By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

Women don’t forget to have children

Despite what New York Magazine might tell you, women don’t forget to have children. Women who don’t have children often choose to remain childless after careful consideration. According to this article in Stylist, a UK magazine, women in the United Kingdom are choosing “between motherhood and solvency.” It’s not just about education eating into prime conception years anymore; job insecurity, stagnating wages and the rising cost of living have made having children financially unwise for many women who always envisioned themselves having kids:

Of course, most women could have a baby – plenty do on far lesser salaries than ours – or even no wage at all. But it seems that’s not what we want. When we imagined becoming ...

Despite what New York Magazine might tell you, women don’t forget to have children. Women who don’t have children often choose to remain childless after careful consideration. According to this article in Stylist, a UK magazine, ...
By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

Kid-free flights? How about family-friendly culture?

Ever been stuck on a plane near a screaming child? Ever wanted to give that child (or their parents) a piece of your exhausted, legroom-deprived mind? Ever wished airlines could create child-free seating sections, or even entire adults-only flights? You’re not alone. Apparently, demand for such flights has increased lately, and the NYT posits that if some enterprising airline were to capitalize on that demand, we could soon see the birth of children-free seating sections or even a children-free airline.

An article in the weekend Times assesses the demand for and likelihood of child-free seating and flights. The article focuses more on the apparently childless people who are bothered by the screaming kids than on the parents who are probably ...

Ever been stuck on a plane near a screaming child? Ever wanted to give that child (or their parents) a piece of your exhausted, legroom-deprived mind? Ever wished airlines could create child-free seating sections, or even entire ...
By Vanessa • 13 years ago

New study: Lesbian households produce a child abuse rate of 0%

The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) just released its results on its 24-year long study on families with lesbian parents, finding that not one of the 78 adolescents in the study had reported being sexually or physically abused by their parents. This compares to 26% of American adolescents overall who report parent or caregiver physical abuse. 8.3% report sexual abuse.

Additionally, only 2.8% of the adolescents in the study identified themselves as gay. Apparently the majority of them didn’t catch their parents’ gayness.

While I hate the idea of showing “proof” that lesbian and gay couples are capable of raising healthy families, these kinds of studies are critical in breaking down the myths that ...

The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) just released its results on its 24-year long study on families with lesbian parents, finding that not one of the 78 adolescents in ...