families

Girl w/ Pen is excited to present this guest post from Laurel Wider, a psychotherapist with a speciality in gender, relationships and identity.  She’s also a mom and Founder of Wonder Crew, a new line of toys that brings connection and kindness into boys’ play.   

Play is how children learn, which means toys have the power to create change. As I began to pay more attention to toys marketed to boys, it occurred to me that so many of them emphasized muscles and aggression and NONE offered a play experience that encouraged connection or even friendship.  Thrilled by the surge of toys that encourage  STEM and positive body images for girls, I want to help expand the way boys see themselves and the world around them.

I’m a mom, psychotherapist and now founder of Wonder Crew, a line of dolls that bring connection and feelings into boys’ play.  In my therapy practice, I’ve worked with several boys and men who have painfully grappled with impossible stereotypes of masculinity. Boys are raised to prioritize toughness and self-reliance – in my work with clients I’ve seen this lead to isolation, depression and sometimes aggression.

And then about a year ago, my son came home from preschool with the idea that “boys aren’t supposed to cry.”  I was floored that my own son had gotten a hold of this message. These stereotypes impact and harm everyone.  This is how I ended up a toy inventor.

Change is generally something that happens gradually. With this in mind, I thought long and hard about how to create a “hybrid” toy, one that still resembled familiar play scenarios for boys, but also offered the opportunity to connect and nurture.  So I came up with action figure meets favorite stuffed animal.  This morphed into Wonder Crew:  a line of Crewmates (aka dolls) that come with a matching piece of adventure gear (dress-up) plus mini open-ended comic book.  The formula:  Child + Crewmate = Wonder Crew.

Right now we have one Crewmate, his name is Will and he comes in three adventures with a fourth in the pipeline:  Superhero, Rockstar, Builder and Chef.  These adventures were based on interviews with over 150 parents, educators and kids that spoke to me about play that they’ve observed/ kids’ favorite play scenarios.

At first I thought that these adventures were too stereotypical, but I’ve come to realize that it’s important to show that nurturing fits in with all kinds of play, even the kind that’s stereotypically masculine.  And really the big picture idea is that anyone can be a connected, empathetic, nurturing person.

Wonder Crew is all about friendship and adventure and clearly this is not just a boy thing!  I plan to incorporate a girl Crewmate, while keeping with the same adventures. This would have been my preferred doll growing up.

While inspired by boys, Wonder Crew will be an interest-based brand, not gender based.  And the plan is for Crewmates to represent all kids (race, gender, ability).

Wonder Crew’s Kickstarter launched last week. We’re already over 40% funded, but we’ve got a ways to go. Please check it out and help spread the word!  It’s our goal to not only fund first production, but also to show public interest.  A large toy company told me that dolls for boys will never work; help Wonder Crew enlighten them!

Workplace consultant, coach and work-life advocate Rachael Ellison penned an excellent post chock full of qualitative data at HuffPo Parents last week, “Why Caregiver Discrimination Is Bad for Business.”

Too good not to share.

Remember Catalyst’s Bottom Line series? That groundbreaking research series that first explored the link between gender diversity and corporate financial performance? Well, this is of that flavor, but focused on the bottom-line benefits of retaining working parents, and based on stories from accomplished, successful professionals in their thirties and forties in dozens of industries. As Ellison notes, “In order to create or sustain family friendly workplaces, you need buy-in from organizational leadership, effective manager training, and employee accountability. Most companies don’t have all three, and as a result they lose their top talent. And, it’s costing them a fortune.”

Ellison is working on a book, REworking Parenthood, for which she is currently collecting stories from parents in the trenches, that will help us understand how companies are succeeding and failing in supporting employees’ lives.

Read on, share away, and follow her at her blog and Twitter (@REworkingparent) as she goes.

Last week while discussing Equal Pay Day with a friend, she commented, “Why all these special designations? Black History Month, then Women’s History Month, now a day for Equal Pay. I don’t see the point.  Do you?”  Many share her perspective, but I am not among them.

This year Equal Pay Day fell on April 8^th.  All month the airwaves, print media  and blogosphere have been filled with commentary of one sort or another: Data documenting the continuing wage gap for female and minority workers; analyses disputing the size of the gaps, conservatives insisting they support equal pay but not government regulations; advice for women on speaking up on our own behalf, often as if women’s lack of negotiating skills were the root of the gender wage gap.  For me, this heightened coverage is exactly the point.

Special months, weeks or days provide “news hooks”, important opportunities to recall forgotten history and celebrate hard won gains.  They are also reminders of how much work remains undone in the struggle for equity and justice.  Forty years ago as one of the thousands who wore little green ‘59 cents’ buttons, I understood it would take years before equal pay for equal work was a reality.  I recall telling friends we needed to be realistic. After all, we’d need good childcare, shared household responsibilities and more career options for women in addition to fair pay laws. It might take thirty years to do away with unfair wage disparities.

How foolishly optimistic of me!

The White House cites U.S. Census Bureau figures on full time workers revealing that on average women are paid 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. In the Wall Street Journal economists Mark Perry and Andrew Biggs argued that this gender wage gap is a myth when variables such as career choice, marital status and education are factored in. Disagreements over the size of female/male earnings differentials can obscure the debate but they cannot deny reality. No amount of disaggregation of the data by region, race, education or occupation changes the basic picture. The wage gap differs depending on the variables used in each analysis, but economists at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research report that women in almost every line of work are paid less than their male colleagues.

Those who insist the wage gap is tiny and that a few cents on the dollar is of no major importance live in a protected world of savings accounts and salaries that leave extra dollars at the end of each pay period.  It is a world unknown to most of those in households struggling to shelter, clothe, feed and educate families with earnings at or below the median annual income of  $50,000; And it is a world unimaginable to the  one quarter of U.S. households with annual incomes below $25,000.

But what about governmental regulation so feared by those opposing the Paycheck Fairness Act?  The Act, first introduced in  2009, would require employers to show that wage differences are based on factors other than sex and contains a provision prohibiting retaliation against employees who discuss their salaries with co-workers.  But how can anyone determine whether she or he is being paid equitably without knowing the compensation others in similar positions receive?  Shouldn’t each of us be able to speak freely about our own salaries without fear of retribution?  Isn’t that called freedom of speech?

We’ve made progress.  Pay gaps have narrowed. But we’re already a decade beyond my 1970s estimate of the years it might take to achieve full pay equity.   We need effective legal redress for employees whose paychecks are unfairly shortchanged. But as Frank Bruni wrote in the New York Times this past Sunday, and many feminists have argued for decades, legislation on equal pay is necessary but not sufficient.  Gendered expectations influence women and men, employers and employees. A broader and more widespread understanding of the ways gender roles and status differentials are maintained and reproduced is essential if women from all socio economic levels are to move forward.  (See for example the analysis in  C.J. Pascoe and Tristan Bridges recent Girl w/Pen post.)

Carrie Chapman Catt, an important strategist in the movement for suffrage and women’s rights once noted,  “No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by public opinion.”  Public opinion polls show significant changes in the views of both men and women on a wide range of gender roles, including the importance of pay equity. But for the moment, ‘unwritten custom’ holds sway much of the time.

Equal Pay Day is not simply a single day.  Attention to the wage gap continues throughout the month, spreads across a wide range of media outlets and seeds conversations around the country. Widening the audience, increasing public awareness and broadening debate on issues of equity and justice help to shift, shape and strengthen public opinion.  Equal Pay Day is well worth the bother.

Just when I manage to climb out of the depressing pit so much of the news plunges me into these days, some new outrageous incident pushes me back down.  My latest ‘back in the dumps’ experience is the news coverage of the young mother fired by Whole Foods in Chicago.  Rhiannon Broschat didn’t come in to work because city schools were closed due to frigid temperatures and she could not find care for her special needs son.  She called in ahead of her shift to alert the store management.

My reaction to the first news about Rhiannon was disbelief.  There had to be more to the story.  Whole Foods cultivates such a wholesome, ‘we-care- about-your-health-and-well-being’ corporate image. They tout their charitable contributions. They refer to their workforce as ‘team members’. Why would they jeopardize their brand  so cavalierly?

I looked for other new coverage, for statements from company officials. Perhaps Rhiannon had been a problem employee? Perhaps the termination had nothing to do with this particular absence? Maybe there were other, more serious offenses?

The answer?  “Well, not really.”

Whole Foods has a point system at stores in the Midwest. An employee is allowed to accumulate five points every six months. ‘Unexcused absences’, (a slippery term at Whole foods, it seems), equal a point and incidences of tardiness equate to varying fractions of a point.  Anyone accumulating more than five points within a six-month period is fired. Rhiannon had accumulated five points prior to the closing of schools that exceptionally cold day. According to Whole Foods they simply followed the policy.  Rhiannon and her supporters insist her shift manager told her she understood Rhiannon’s situation and that the young mother should stay home with her son. Rhiannon assumed her situation fit the definition of ‘excused absence’.

But the real issue is not who said what, but the policy itself and the appalling lack of security and flexibility low income workers confront in the workplace.

Feminists have fought for decades for family friendly policies that reflect the realities of women’s lives. But success in areas of paid family and medical leave is dismal. Two thirds of workers receiving the minimum wage are women, but  is rare for such jobs to offer a even a single paid sick day.  Only three states, Rhode Island, New Jersey and California have legislated paid leave policies. Of course, the higher your salary, the greater your chances of working in a setting where paid leave for family emergencies is employer-provided or negotiable. Rhiannon’s story is illustrative of the larger issue. No wonder over 60,000 people across the country signed a petition demanding that Whole Foods reconsider their decision to terminate her employment.

Last December Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro introduced the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act. The legislation would set up a national paid leave insurance program funded by contributions from both workers and employers—each contributing 0.2 percent of wages. It is legislation that ought to command enthusiastic, bipartisan support. As numerous studies have shown, family friendly policies are not only good for workers, they can have positive effects for employers and the economy. For example, see here,  here,  here and here.

Women are the vast majority of primary caregivers for families and children. Thus it is women who pay the highest price when forced to choose between a paycheck and people we love who need our care. Whether through lost income, or fewer promotions or increased stress, women experience a large proportion of the negative effects a lack of family friendly policies produces. None of this is new news.

The United States is the only nation in the developed world that does not guarantee any type of paid leave. It is also a nation where ‘family values’ receive lots of airtime and political spin. There is no spin that can hide the reality: either many of those in positions of power are terribly ignorant of how the majority of Americans live or they simply don’t care about anyone outside their immediate social circle. Either way, it’s pretty discouraging.  But action can be a good antidote for discouragement. To use language Whole Foods is comfortable with, let’s get on the team—the one working for passage of the FAMILY Act.

.

A new book, The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-partner Relationships and Families (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers), takes readers beyond the myths to explore the true lives of real families.  For this month’s column, I had the chance to find out more from the author, sociologist Elisabeth Sheff, Ph.D., an expert witness, educator, speaker, and consultant on polyamorous families with children who also writes for Psychology Today.

Adina Nack: When I think of non-monogamy I think of pop culture portrayals of polygamy or men with some sort harem. Is it a common assumption that non-monogamy is simply an excuse for one man to have many female sexual partners?

Elisabeth Sheff: The media rarely portrays the full variety of non-monogamy. I study polyamory, a style of openly conducted non-monogamy that emphasizes emotional intimacy, honesty, and negotiation. In polyamory, both women and men can have access to other partners, which is very different from polygyny, the most common form of polygamy in which one man can have several wives. In contrast, polyamorists, with intentions of creating emotionally intimate relationships, differ from mainstream swingers who emphasize sexual variety with emotional exclusivity. In fact, many couples who swing set boundaries that expressly prohibit people from developing strong feelings for someone outside of the committed couple. Then, cheaters have non-monogamous relationships but lie about them or keep them secret, which runs counter to the polyamorous emphasis on honesty and negotiation.

AN: It sounds like polyamory is a very different experience, especially for the women?

ES: Yes, poly women say that they relish the opportunity to have multiple partners. The equality of allowing everyone access to multiple partners, regardless of gender, means that polyamory has a significantly different impact on women than polygyny. Women in poly relationships tend to be highly-educated and able to be financially independent if circumstances require – a significant departure from women in polygynous marriages who are typically denied education and access to paid work. Poly women generally chose the relationship style as adults, rather than entering arranged marriages as adolescents who may not have even been consulted about their wishes. Results of this gender parity are evident at the community level, in which most of the high-visibility leaders, activists, writers, and researchers are women.

AN: With more gender equality among poly people, how does this impact the division of labor in households?

ES: Even though poly people are often liberals who try to avoid sexism, their families tend to be surprisingly traditional when it comes to the division of household, paid, and emotional labor. Some of this is because the gendered wage gap that makes it easier for men to earn enough money to support a lower or non-paid worker.

AN: What are the experiences of children in polyamorous families?

ES: Children in the poly families who participated in my 15-year study are generally in great shape: they were articulate and intelligent, precocious and thoughtful, poised and self-confident. Not that kids from poly families are perfect – they can be just as obnoxious, defiant, and irritating as children in other families. Even so, kids from poly families are a strikingly robust group, in part because their parents’ racial and class privileges give them advantages in life. Having all of the extra attention and resources that come with multiple-adult families helps as well.

AN: During different ages, what are some of the experiences that tend to be common for children growing up in poly families?

ES: Young kids, up to 7 or 8 years old, who are growing up in poly families often don’t even question their family form, partially because little kids generally take their families for granted as the norm anyway, and also because the adults save the sexual interaction until the kids are in bed. In families with openly polyamorous parents, tweens from 9 to 12 are often more aware that their families are different and will frequently ask their parents what is happening. Parents who are divorced or fear losing custody of their children for some other reason (surveillance from in-laws or authorities) if they are outed as polyamorists tend to either dodge their children’s questions or hide their sexual interactions so the kids think their partners are “just” friends. Poly parents who are not worried about legal threats generally respond to their kids’ questions with truthful and age-appropriate answers, avoiding oversharing by waiting until the children ask for clarification before providing more information.  Teens are generally aware that their families are polyamorous and, in true teenager fashion, tend to be defiant against outsiders who scorn the family style. Very few of the teens I interviewed had decided to be polyamorous themselves, most often because they felt they were too young and inexperienced to make that kind of decision.

AN: How do kids in poly families talk to their peers and other people about their families?

ES:  Because divorce and serial monogamy are so common, many kids have multiple parents which allows kids from poly families to simply blend in. If children from poly families did not correct their peers’ and other adults’ assumptions, then they could pass as “normals” fairly easily. When the kids from poly families have close friends they can trust, they will often tell their friends about their poly families. Sometimes poly kids would use ‘filter’ questions — asking friends what they thought about same-sex marriage or some other issue pertaining to sexual minorities — to gauge the safety of disclosing their poly family status on the basis of friends’ reactions to these questions.

AN: Thanks for taking the time to share more about your research. During the holidays, there’s a lot of focus on “the family,” and your book is an important addition for those who want to better understand and support healthy families who may deviate from mainstream norms.

Thanksgiving is a week away.  The holiday is uniquely American, grounded in our history rather than our various religions, in a sense of family and community rather than military victories. Increasingly, commercial aspects have intruded on family priorities, but it remains a time when we gather to give thanks for what we have, and hopefully, to recognize and support those less fortunate. I wish it could also be a time for many of us to do more than feel good about spending a few hours serving turkey dinners at a shelter for battered women or homeless families. I wish it could be a time to consider the steps needed to eliminate the poverty, violence and hopelessness that create the need for such places.

But as the holiday approaches our nation confronts the largest levels of income inequality in close to a century. A college education remains a key to economic success but is less affordable every year. These realities are coupled with unrelenting, well-funded efforts that disproportionately effect the poorest among us: women and children; the elderly; those with disabilities.

Attacks against health care reform and the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), fierce opposition to an increase in the minimum wage, measures to cut off access to safe abortion, are all in the news and on the political playing field. And for some it appears that is exactly what these critical issues are—political play things. Play it right; insure your privileged position.  The idea that actual individuals—mothers, grandparents, children, war veterans, caregivers—will suffer and that those most affected are powerless to change the dynamics of the political game seem lost in allegiance to one’s group or one’s ambition, or both.

Political differences are important ingredients in any democracy, but robust measures of compassion and compromise are required as well.  Empathy for those living in less fortunate circumstances appears missing from the calculations of some of the most powerful players–those inside as well as outside political office.

How can this be?

Two recent studies offer clues. Research conducted at the University of California, Berkeley revealed that the economically advantaged are less likely to express compassion for others than are people with lower incomes. Jennifer Stellar, the lead author of the study said, “It’s not that the upper classes are cold hearted. They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of the suffering because they haven’t had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives.”

A second study by Canadian researchers found that a sense of power can influence how people respond to others by changing the way the brain functions. Feeling powerful tends to diminish brain signals that foster empathy.

Yet obviously many powerful, affluent people are deeply compassionate and emphatic. These research studies are not about inevitable outcomes, they simply point to danger signals.

We live in a country where economic disparities foster experiences that enhance a sense of power among the affluent. These same economic divisions result in communities segregated by income, communities where few personal encounters of any depth take place across socio-economic lines. Understanding the circumstances of others becomes more difficult for everyone.

My wish this Thanksgiving is for time to consider the dangers extreme income inequality, an absence of empathy and failures of compassion pose for our country.  Feminists have long pointed out that there are no individual solutions to society-wide problems. Every one of us, politicians included, must find ways to work together if democracy is to flourish.

In my latest incarnation as a thought leadership coach, I’m often on the hunt for excellent examples of “thinking in public”—TED talks, reports, articles, blog posts, even tweets—to share with clients.  So, I figured, why not share them, when I find them, with GWP readers, too?

I’m experimenting with a new column format here (and please, please, tell me what you think!).  I envision highlighting from time to time a piece of public thought leadership that I come upon in my travels, one that translates academic or industry-specific knowledge for a broad audience in a stand-out way.  I’ll let you know why I love it, what’s surprising about it, and what’s fresh.

To start us off, I bring you Judith Warner’s first report as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.  I’ve long been enamored of Judith’s deft ability to bring a structural lens to the public debate around “domestic disturbances,” as her popular New York Times column so famously phrased it.  In this new report, Warner melds journalism and policy paper to tackle domestic disturbances writ large.

Who:

Judith Warner is a Senior Fellow at American Progress. She is also a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Time.com. She is best known for her New York Times bestseller, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, and her former New York Times column, “Domestic Disturbances.” Her latest book, We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication, received numerous awards, and she is currently a recipient of a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. A former special correspondent for Newsweek in Paris, she hosted “The Judith Warner Show” on XM satellite radio from 2005 to 2007 and wrote the 1993 New York Times bestseller Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story, as well as several other books.

What:

Lessons Learned: Reflections on 4 Decades of Fighting for Families, a report for the Center for American Progress

Why I Like It:

The topic is a tough one – and well traveled.  Yet I like how Warner gets in there, challenges perceived wisdom, and works to change the frame:

“It’s long been accepted wisdom that Americans view family matters as purely private concerns and that public policy solutions for families—other than the very poorest—have no place in our culture. Yet polls consistently show that support for family-friendly policies is, in fact, overwhelming.”

Based on interviews with more than three dozen veterans of the fight for family-friendly policy in America representing a variety of perspectives, generations, and stake- holder groups, she quotes all my favorite experts.

She pays close attention to language and narrative:

“Personal responsibility” plus “opportunity” was a winning message combination.  Stressing “equality” or the ending of disparities was a nonstarter for conservatives, but talk of “fairness,” “opportunities,” “choices,” and “tools” were acceptable.

And she links the issue she’s writing about to others:

“The power of the personal played a strong role in building support for the Family and Medical Leave Act, and in recent years such narratives have been essential to shifting public and political opinion on marriage equality.”

But what I like most of all is the sense of possibility Warner invokes.

Much has been written about why progress has been slow in this arena, and so paltry.  What feels different here is the emphasis on the seismic internal shift that must take place in order for the outward change to occur.  We need to “replace the belief that ‘this is just how it is’ with the argument that ‘it doesn’t have to be this way.’”

The report takes a close look at public policies promoting caretaking—through paid family leave, paid sick days, and high-quality public pre-K—that already exist in some states and cities. Warner looks at why they are proving to be highly popular and successful, and how we might replicate what works.

Refreshingly, she leaves us with hope:

“Bleak though the legislative outlook now seems in our bitterly divided Congress, this is potentially a very fruitful time for thinking creatively and productively about creating a better future for our families.”

Since I’m already interested in the unfinished business of feminism, and how the issues travel and repeat across generations, Warner had me at “lessons learned.”  But the optimism in the report made me want to share it.  Warner brings a much-needed burst of energy to a topic that can easily deflate readers—especially those of us living this fight.

By Roxana Cazan*

When the Russian court rejected Pussy Riot member, Maria Alyokhina’s request for a deferral in her prison term so that she can raise her son, I was shocked. Alyokhina pleaded that her son is too young for her to be removed from his side at this point, and that a sentence of years in prison would destroy the mother/son bond. She asked the court to defer her term until her son turns 14. The Pussy Riot punk team was arrested as a result of disseminating anti-establishment and feminist slogans and performing their politics in a Moscow cathedral. What drew my attention was the way in which the state handled Aliokhina’s request to mother, especially in a country where motherhood was upheld as one of women’s most important duties via Soviet propaganda.

This ideological and geographical site extends to Russia’s neighboring country, Romania, where the Communist regime that ended its totalitarian rule in 1989, imposed an intensive politics of reproduction to the detriment of women. Particularly during the last decade of Communism in Romania, the pro-natalist political program prohibited birth control, required women to procreate within patriarchal family structures, and employed women to labor outside the home, as Gail Kligman deftly argues in her 1998 book The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania.

The Pussy Riot court case received great attention in the US as did the Romanian rejection of Ceausescu’s pro-reproductive ideology right after 1989. In a way, this attention projected the two moments as standing in stark opposition. more...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post for The Forward titled “Occupy (Working) Motherhood, Anyone?“, which generated a, shall we say, interesting comment.  The post began like this:

Susan B. Anthony was born 192 years ago today; we share a birthday. I am 43. The late great suffragist once said: “Our job is not to make young women grateful. It’s to make them ungrateful so they keep going.” Much of my Jewish practice these days is about gratitude. But in light of our shared birthday this week, I’ve decided to dwell on some serious ingratitude.

I grew up in the 1970s listening to “Free to Be You and Me,” and singing joyfully that “Mommies Are People.” Who would have guessed, now that I’m one of those people, that the dilemmas my own working mother struggled with would become mine? In middle school, when I’d call home sick my mom would try to talk me into returning to class, so that she wouldn’t have to leave work or find a sitter. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’d do, too….

The post ends with the following birthday wishes:

1). Affordable quality childcare, paired with a change in the cultural expectation that women’s careers are expendable. That ingratitude is owed to President Nixon, who vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Bill. That piece of legislation would have provided a multibillion-dollar national daycare system that would have circumvented much of our struggle.

2). Workplace structures and a society transformed to allow for the fact that workers have families, too. Though we’ve made progress, we’ve still got a ways to go. Ingratitude to employers who put paternity on the books but support a culture that makes The Daddy Track anathema to all but the bravest men. And why does it have to be a track, after all? Haven’t we learned that the women who opt out eventually, in various ways, opt back in?

3). A future so bright on the work/life satisfaction front that neither my daughter nor my son will have to write this kind of post.

(You can read the full post here.)

The comment in question was in response to the wish for more affordable (meaning, yes, subsidized) childcare.  It went like this:

“By ‘affordable,’ I assume you mean ‘subsidized by others outside my family.’ Thanks, I’m spending enough on my own kids (and my wife chooses not to work outside the home) without having to subsidize your parenting choices.” -morganfrost

Now, there’s nothing I appreciate more than when, just as I’m considering a response, the perfect retort pops up in my Inbox.  In this case, a number of folks emailed me comments directly, though they experienced technical trouble posting them on The Forward’s site. Here’s what some of them said:

“‘Affordable’ means ‘subsidized by all of us.’  We need to have a society where people can have children AND careers without having to face too many impossible choices.  My career isn’t optional–it’s what pays the bills in my family.  The same is true for my husband’s career.  So we must have childcare, and we’d prefer that it be quality childcare, because our child–like EVERY child–deserves to be well cared for.  This should be a value that our entire country embraces and will help to support.” -Alison Piepmeier

“Susan B. Anthony did her job well. I’m glad you make the point that childcare should be subtracted from parental income, not maternal income, one of my pet peeves.  what matters most in a relationship, I think, is not necessarily that domestic/parental tasks be divided evenly but that each partner respect the other’s contributions, whatever form they take.  That’s harder in a society that, for all its talk of ‘family values,’ makes childcare the responsibility of individual familes.@morganfrost, relax. We’d like fewer predator drones and bank bailouts, not a crack at your piggybank. And keep in mind that your wife has a choice that many do not.” -Ashton Applewhite

YEAH.

And hey, morganfrost’s comment also inspired a wonderful post by Cali Yost over at Forbes, titled “Think You Don’t Benefit Directly from Childcare? ‘WIIFMs’ That Will Change Your Mind”.

So thank you, morganfrost.  You inspired some great stuff.

And thanks Alison, Ashton, and Cali.  I get by with a little help from my friends.