Wednesday, November 29, 2006
4 Months and We're Rolling
Monday, November 27, 2006
Oops I Dropped It Again
It was so cute and fun when Hailey finally learned how to grab things. Unfortunately, that also meant that she learned to drop things. Drop her plastic keys, drop her rattle, drop her stuffed toy...you get the picture. Luckily, she hasn't realized that if she screams, Mommy will pick it up. I just pick it up out of generosity now. We'll see how long this lasts.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Family Leave
Some of you may have seen the 20/20 report the other night by Elizabeth Vargas on working motherhood in America. One of the most shocking statistic in the report was that only 4 out of 168 countries do not have a national maternity leave program. Those countries are Papua New Guinea, LeSotho, Swaziland and the United States. Yes, our friends in North Korea and Iran offer more support to working moms than our own country. She also interviewed Senator Christopher Dodd who has been a diehard supporter of maternity leave, but has been consistently thwarted by both Democrats and Republicans.
Since I've joined the millions of other working Moms in America, I'd like to contribute my two cents on the issue of government support for families. First, I think that there will never be any government-backed maternity leave until we reframe the issue as "family leave." We have to stop pitting men against women, those with children against those without, working moms against stay-at-home moms, etc.
Believe it or not, paid family leave is really a family value, not a hand out to women who choose to work and have a family. Don't get me wrong, the promise of paid family leave would certainly help working mothers, but it would also help single people adopting children, fathers expecting children, childless people with sick mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, etc.
It's not about giving me a handout because I choose to have kids. It's about deciding as a society that we are going to value family members caring for each other. That we are going to give sons and daughters the flexibility to take care of ailing parents, and foster parents time to adjust to caring for another human being, and fathers a chance to bond with their newborns. It's so vitally important and yet the "family values conservatives" are more worried about gay people marrying than how millions of American families are going to juggle raising kids, taking care of ailing parents, maintaining work responsibilities, and last (and always least), finding time for themelves. How 'bout them family values!
At the very least, I wish that there was a little more informed debate/discussion on the issue. We spend so much time arguing about much less important things. Here's something that affects everyone that we completely ignore.
If you want to read more on the topic you can read Leslie Morgan Steiner's blog on the subject at http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/mt/mtb.cgi/13176
PS: Now that my ranting is done, I will tell you that Hailey Marie will be 4 months old on Sunday! She's giggling, grabbing things, and jumping in her johnny jumper. I can't believe it myself.
Since I've joined the millions of other working Moms in America, I'd like to contribute my two cents on the issue of government support for families. First, I think that there will never be any government-backed maternity leave until we reframe the issue as "family leave." We have to stop pitting men against women, those with children against those without, working moms against stay-at-home moms, etc.
Believe it or not, paid family leave is really a family value, not a hand out to women who choose to work and have a family. Don't get me wrong, the promise of paid family leave would certainly help working mothers, but it would also help single people adopting children, fathers expecting children, childless people with sick mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, etc.
It's not about giving me a handout because I choose to have kids. It's about deciding as a society that we are going to value family members caring for each other. That we are going to give sons and daughters the flexibility to take care of ailing parents, and foster parents time to adjust to caring for another human being, and fathers a chance to bond with their newborns. It's so vitally important and yet the "family values conservatives" are more worried about gay people marrying than how millions of American families are going to juggle raising kids, taking care of ailing parents, maintaining work responsibilities, and last (and always least), finding time for themelves. How 'bout them family values!
At the very least, I wish that there was a little more informed debate/discussion on the issue. We spend so much time arguing about much less important things. Here's something that affects everyone that we completely ignore.
If you want to read more on the topic you can read Leslie Morgan Steiner's blog on the subject at http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/mt/mtb.cgi/13176
PS: Now that my ranting is done, I will tell you that Hailey Marie will be 4 months old on Sunday! She's giggling, grabbing things, and jumping in her johnny jumper. I can't believe it myself.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Happy Halloween
Hailey's first Halloween was both fun and low key. We didn't go trick or treating, but she did help us answer the door for all of the kids. We went through 6 bags of candy if that gives you any idea of the number of trick or treaters we had. I think that she really enjoyed seeing all of the new faces, even if they were kind of scary! At one point, these younger kids arrived and she let out this loud squeal. I thought that she was upset, but when I looked down at her, she was just overjoyed. It was pretty funny to hear her make all that noise. Here are some pictures that we took to commemorate the event. Luke calls the second picture Countess Droolcula! There are some additional pictures available on the Flickr account http://flickr.com/photos/lukehamilton/.
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