Working Mother

Archive for September, 2009

So what goes through your mind when you see a wheelchair-bound child with cerebral palsy, an adolescent with the social short-circuiting of Asbergers, or a kid whose speech isn’t as quick and facile as his peers? Few of us are as candid as my friend Dan Habib about the prejudice he once held against kids and adults with disabilities. “When I saw people who couldn’t walk or talk … It’s painful to admit, but I often saw them as less smart, less capable, and not worth getting to know.”

That was a lifetime ago. Specifically, the life of Dan’s son, Samuel, a fourth grader with cerebral palsy whose odysseys and those of four others with disabilities are chronicled in Dan’s award-winning documentary, Including Samuel. The film chronicles the efforts of Dan, his wife, Betsy, and their older son, Isaiah, to involve Samuel in every part of their lives and in the public schools in their hometown of Concord, N.H. When I first blogged about the film in May it had just been featured on the likes of Good Morning America and NPR’s All Things Considered and was catching on among advocates of inclusion, as Dan says, “giving all individuals equal opportunity to learn and engage with their peers.” The film has since spanned the globe with screenings from Iraq to Belgium and the country with showings and discussions at universities, school districts, and disability rights conferences. And Samuel, whom I first met when he was a baby at a Thanksgiving dinner shared by our two extended families, has since developed fascinations held not so long ago by my sixth-grade son: the Titanic and all things related to it, the deafening roar of a throng of boys cheering their wooden race cars over the finish line in that annual Cub Scout ritual, the pinewood derby.

With National Disability Employment Awareness Month (October) around the corner, the Habibs have taken the film and their campaign for inclusion up a few more levels: Including Samuel is about to air across the nation on PBS broadcasts supported by the National Inclusion Project and CVS Caremark All Kids Can, a CVS program to help kids with disabilities. Isaiah has helped put together a “teen movie party toolkit,” encouraging kids to set up their own screenings of the film with their friends and posing questions only an 8th grader like himself could ask: “Have you ever seen kids in wheelchairs being pushed down the hall of your school by someone that looks like they’re thinking about retirement?” And Dan, once a national award-winning photographer for the Concord Monitor and a Pulitzer Prize jurist this year, now supports his work and family as the filmmaker in residence at the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire.

But in this economy, just how much enthusiasm is Dan getting for inclusion? Not everyone is a fan—not by a long shot, judging by some of the comments on my blog last May. “Why do we even bother paying for education for these kids?,” wrote a commenter named Lilly. “Their parents chose to have kids and now their disability and special needs amount to a rise in taxes. Their parents just get a lawyer and fight and fight until the school district ends up paying for special programs. Why? Why not divert the funds for gifted and talented students instead of kids who will need societal support their whole life.”

Lilly’s anger about how taxpayers’ money is spent is not so uncommon. How many of us have heard the same complaint in our own school districts? And how many Lillys does Dan run into on his?

I pitched that question to him by e-mail, and he replied with a list of “myths and realities” about inclusion. One myth, he says, is the notion that taxpayers are throwing away money by educating kids with disabilities. His response: “How can Lilly or anyone else predict which child will contribute to our society? Would Lilly really argue that Bernie Madoff … added more to the world than the physicist Stephen Hawking (who wrote his greatest work after he was severely disabled by ALS)? How about Albert Einstein (widely thought to have had Asperger Syndrome), Helen Keller (blind, deaf, and unable to speak) and Vincent Van Gogh (mentally ill)? People are not limited by their disability, they are limited by a lack of opportunity.”

Another complaint? “Inclusion just stresses out teachers and takes away from the education of the ‘other’ kids.” Says Dan: “Nearly every teacher I have met in my travels has told me that teaching kids of varying abilities and learning styles has made them a better teacher. Inclusion has reinforced the importance of cutting-edge teaching methods.”

What about it, readers? If you attended a school that included disabled kids, what was your experience? Have your attitudes about disabled kids changed over the years? Do students with disabilities in your schools learn along with their peers? Are your schools strained or strengthened by them?

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Want to get kids interested in science? Show them how they can use it to better the world they live in. Take Jathan Kron, Justin Roth and Brennan Nelson, three middle school students from West Branch, Iowa. Jathan, age 12, was helping his father sweep out his auto repair shop, and noticed that he was throwing away all these lead wheel weights that are attached to tires for stabilization. The weights fall off cars all the time, making them one of the biggest sources of lead released into the environment.

Jathan and his two friends, under the tutelage of their science teacher, Hector Ibarra, discovered that the lead weights are completely unregulated and started measuring how much of the lead is leached into the environment.

Using this data they began a campaign to replace the lead weights with steel. Three bills banning the weights have been introduced in the Iowa legislature and the Environmental Protection Agency is considering a similar ban. To top it all off, the boys won the grand prize in the inaugural year of the We Can Change The World Challenge, sponsored by the Siemens Foundation in partnership with Discovery Education and the National Science Teachers Association.

Over 2000 middle school students from across the US entered the challenge last year; this year it has been expanded to include elementary school students, and in 2010 high schoolers can enter. The contest requires teams of two to three students under the mentorship of a teacher or other adult to identify an environmental issue in their community, research the issue using scientific investigation, and create a replicable green solution. The winners receive a $5000 savings bond, an appearance on the Planet Green cable network and the chance to present their findings to a panel of United Nations environmentalists.

Second place for the 2009 prize went to three girls from St, Philip the Apostle School in Addison, Ill., Angel Lozzio (13), Maggie O’Brien (12) and Data Gattone (13). “We started because we wanted to make a difference,” says Maggie, and their solution was to figure out how to get their town and school to recycle. The dropped off flyers and handed out recycling bins, carefully monitored the response, and discovered that recycling participation started to soar. “We were really amazed that we could make this much of a change,” says Angel.

The enthusiasm these kids feel about their projects is infectious, and makes me feel a little better about the future. For all the wailing about the state of our schools, the declining science and math skills of our students, the fixation on TV and video games over books and larger world, the fact is it seems like plenty of America’s children are engaged, industrious and full of ideas. We adults just have to figure out how to harness that energy, and keep the enthusiasm flowing. If a friendly competition is what it takes, then kudos to the Siemens Foundation (which also sponsors the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math Science and Technology).

Year two of the Siemens Change The World Challenge kicked off on Aug. 19. Entries can be downloaded at www.wecanchange.com.

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If you don’t want your kids to use drugs, have dinner with them on Monday, September 28.

Monday is National Family Day, a day when families are encouraged to sit down at the table together and enjoy dinner as a family unit. It’s a lovely idea, particularly for stressed-out employees who are working longer hours these days and have less time to focus on family.

This video will explain more about the magic of family dinners. But the idea behind it is research that shows teens who have frequent family dinners are less likely to use drugs. (The event is sponsored by the The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.)

In my home, it always feels special when we do all sit down as a family for a meal, although it’s not every week night…not even close. One resource that’s helped me become a better after-work chef is TheSixO’ClockScramble, which I’ve been using for the past year. It features healthy, kid-friendly and simple recipes. It’s helped me break out of a recipe rut. And I no longer have a fear of overcooking fish.

Do you plan to celebrate National Family Day? If so, why…and what’s on the menu?

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Frigidaire just announced Jennifer Garner as their new celebrity ambassador! This afternoon Jennifer will introduce Frigidaire’s new line of appliances, designed with features that help us Moms save time in our busy schedules, and challenge us to pledge a bit…
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So much for work-life balance…work-life fit…work-life integration.

Whatever you want to call it, it isn’t “working.”

The recession is taking a very scary toll on the health of U.S. workers. According to The State of Health in the American Workforce report from the Families & Work Institute released today (which I heavily Tweeted), U.S. workers aren’t taking good care of themselves.

In fact, work seems to be decimating their physical and mental health. Just 28% of employees report that their overall health is “excellent,” down from 34% just six years ago, the study shows.

Some other disturbing findings:

1 in 3 workers have experienced one or more symptoms of clinical depression.

1 in 5 employees has trouble falling asleep very often or fairly often while 31% awaken too early and have trouble falling back to sleep.

49% of U.S. workers haven’t exercised in the last 30 days.

1 in 4 smokes.

39% of employees don’t use all of their vacation time while just 24% take 5 or less days for “big” vacation.

Companies have been hyping so-called wellness programs for the past few years, and there have been some interesting results, but I’m personally getting stressed out reading FWI’s findings.

What do you think? How has the recession impacted you physically and mentally? And what can corporations do to improve our physical and mental health?

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This post was written by Darren Manley (pictured here), who is a blogger and author of the forthcoming book, Growing Up Old.

My father retired in 1990 from the Southern California Edison Company after thirty-nine years of service. He was 63. I was five and had just gone into kindergarten. I tugged at his bathrobe when he didn’t put on a shirt and tie that first Monday morning.

“Aren’t you going to work, daddy?”

“I’m not going to work anymore.”

“Were you fired?” I had just learned this word.

A laugh. “No, not fired. Retired…”

You might think it ironic that a 25-year-old who grew up with a retired father would be contributing to a blog called “Working Parents.” Because of his age, my dad couldn’t do many of the things other dads did; he rarely fulfilled the traditional role of the breadwinner who comes home from a long day to play a game of catch with his boy.

Yet, in their Golden Years, he and my mother still managed to give me a sound, beautiful understanding of what it takes to succeed in life – monetarily and otherwise. They sacrificed their retirement to take on the most difficult and rewarding of jobs – parenting – and crystallized for me some hard truths that our nation as a whole is just coming to grips with.

Growing up with a mother and father who had survived the Great Depression and World War II meant that we did things differently in our house, especially when it came to money. We never used a dishwasher. In the backyard, the clothes hung from the line, drying in the lazy afternoon sun. Instead of buying new clothes, mom sewed up the holes in my old ones on her ancient Singer.

And when the Tooth Fairy came around, I was always told that she had run out of money to stuff under pillows, but had tucked some away for me in “a faraway land I could not yet reach” (the bank). Not to mention the “ration stamps” I was given in second grade to teach me the art of deferred gratification. (I could never quite amass enough of them to earn a Coke every night of the week.)

Their old-world philosophy led to a pronounced and difficult rebellion as I searched for my identity during the vibrant 80s and 90s – a search very similar to the one boomers endured decades before. But as I matured and my parents’ voices became weaker, I came to see that so many of their simple truths rang true. The frugality they learned during their tough childhoods became a way of life; one that can still be lived to an extent in our modern world.

With the economy postponing so many retirements and older parenting a rising trend, I figured the time was right to use my own voice and honor my parents and all older parents who work to give their children everything they never had.

In a May 2007 post here, Lauren Young posed the question: “How old is too old” when it comes to parenting? It’s a tough issue that brings so many factors into play, but I would argue that from one angle, it’s never too late. The wisdom older parents have – far removed from the heady days of youth – is vast. The very decision to become a parent later in life illustrates the sagacity of age, because we are all called to pass down our knowledge to those who come after us.

Like the ebb and flow of an economy, older parents have long ago made their mistakes in life and finance and risen above them. They can teach their children in unique ways, and their timeless messages have the power to change society, parenting, and future generations for the better.

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Today’s Link: An intriguing podcast at Manic Mommies Why: These ladies consistently get good guests. This is with Caitlin Friedman, co-author of Happy at Work, Happy at Home: The Girls’ Guide to Being a Working Mom. A title that seems…
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This guest post was written by Fran Durekas, founder of Children’s Creative Learning Centers

As the demographics of the workforce changes, the needs of the workforce are also changing. The Society for Human Resource Management Workplace Forecast of 2004-2005 found that an increase in workers with elder care responsibilities and an increase in workers with both childcare and elder care responsibilities were the primary upcoming demographic trends in the workforce.

As I talk to my clients, this is indicative of a prominent dilemma these days – specifically the changing landscape of work-life balance for parents. Especially with the new economic environment, employees want to be visible, engaged and demonstrating value. So, employees worry, “How can I continue to show up to work every day, without worrying about my child care and/or elder care responsibilities?”

As a working mom growing my own business, I know first-hand how hard it can be to balance my work and my life at home. Employers today need to look at policies and benefits that will support the “sandwich generation” and allow them to maintain their skilled workers and their productivity.

Are You Willing to Make the Change?
Offering a spectrum of dependent care benefits that support the work/life balance of employees can produce a win-win solution resulting in loyal, satisfied employees that improve an organization’s overall productivity and reputation in the market. By supporting retention of employees, and solutions that tend to lower family-related absenteeism and subsequently increase productivity, these programs also generate a substantial return on investment.

One of my clients puts it this way:
“We know employees have lives outside of work,” says Pamela Faccone, manager, Health and Wellness at Prudential Financial. “And we’re committed to helping them succeed both professionally and personally. Our employees have access to an excellent network of in-home, on-site and near-site child care providers, adult care services, flexible work arrangements, wellness programs and a variety of other work/life programs all designed to create a highly supportive and productive workplace.”

Other employers are starting to respond to this change as well by adjusting their benefits offerings to meet current employee needs. According to the Families & Work Institute’s 2008 National Study of Employers, 79% of employers now offer employees some level of flexibility. Child care assistance benefits have remained stable over the years even through the down economy and assistance accessing information on elder care services is offered by more employers today (29%) than in previous years.

The Future of the Benefits Package
In the current economy, it is as important as ever to find and retain the best employees and to ensure that dollars spent on employee benefits are spent wisely. According to the 7th annual MetLife Annual Employee Trends Study, 54% of employers cited retention of employees as one of their top three benefits objectives for 2009 and close to a third of employers feel that offering work/life benefits is a key strategy to accomplish this goal. However, I find it concerning to see that the study reveals only 8% of employers feel the need to offer benefits that meet employees’ diverse needs, while 46% of employees would like to see this kind of customization of benefits.

As an employer, if you really want to ensure your dollars are spent effectively, you need to align your organization’s benefits offering with the specific needs of your workforce and offer your employees benefits packages that address their diverse needs.

Organizations that are willing to design this type of benefits package that will cover a range of employees’ diverse needs and simultaneously respond to the changing demographics of the workforce, such as dependent care access or financial assistance programs that cover both child care and elder care are the ones that will ride out the wave as the economy ebbs and flows. They will see direct benefits through lowering turnover and absenteeism, increasing productivity and enhancing the corporate image as an employer of choice. In addition, offering employees benefits that meet their current needs will result in a more engaged, more loyal workforce and assist employers in the consistent, primary goal of employee retention.

Steps You Can Take to Create Customized Benefits Offerings

1) My recommended first step to evaluate the potential impact of any employee benefits option is to survey your employees.

2) Once the basic needs have been identified, organizations can gather information on ways to meet identified needs and research existing resources and programs in the market or industry.

3) Organizations will likely want to look into ways that other organizations meet similar needs in their employee populations, and analyze potential return on investment statistics where available.

For example, an organization is interested in examining the potential to provide dependent care assistance, but doesn’t know where to begin. Through a dependent care needs assessment survey, you can identify challenges and needs. Do your employees need help finding convenient, quality child care or elder care centers in the community? Is there a greater need for emergency care? Do workers need help in paying for quality care for their dependents? Are there resources in the market currently that can be leveraged to support these types of demands?

Once needs have been identified, you can evaluate options such as offering access to traditional dependent care facilities, such as on-site or near-site care or non-traditional options that are becoming more in demand as backup care, access programs, financial assistance programs or resource and referral programs.

A look at best practices offered both in the market and by other organizations to meet similar needs can help the organization narrow down their options, identify key issues to consider in the evaluation process and decide whether to design a new program or develop partnerships with existing providers.

Working with a benefits consultant or other third party resource can help you evaluate and research options appropriate for your organization and ensure that you are effectively aligning your organization with current best practices and providing employees with benefits that are both meaningful and relevant in today’s workforce.

Fran Durekas is Founder and Chief Development officer for CCLC. In this capacity, she provides executive leadership and support for new center openings, long-term strategy development for centers and client relations. She also assists with center design, construction and program recommendations.

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You’d think that so-called digital natives would be smarter.

I recently heard of a twenty-something who was fired from her job. One of the reasons: She posted “My job sucks” and “I hate my job” on her Facebook and linked Twitter accounts. You see, she may have thought she was simply venting to her peers, but she forgot she was also “friends” with her boss’s boss.

It seems that she failed to extrapolate to her own situation the warnings to college applicants that admissions officials check Facebook for photos depicting unseemly behavior and the admonitions to fresh grads that some companies use alums to do an online vetting of job candidates.

“I’ve had to individually take aside staffers after a weekend and tell them that they can’t post a certain photo or comment on Facebook,” says a marketing executive whose Facebook friends include a range of ages, including some of her Gen Y employees.

I’m not sure of the reason for this lack of judgment among young workers. A disconnect seems to exist between what some young people think Facebook is and the social networking site’s evolving place in the real world, including the workplace. Says my marketing friend: “The more I think about this, the more I feel for this generation that has all these new means of expression but no filter, no judgment. They’re pioneers, charting new territories without the maturity to establish the boundaries between public and private.”

Clearly that’s a huge learning curve, and I wonder how my Facebook-using15-year-old will negotiate it. In the interest of her education and many others like her, do you have Facebook workplace stories that might teach young people how they might be a little bit smarter?

One more thing: There are advantages to the boundaries-crossing accessibility afforded by the Web. Take a young man I know, a conceptual artist and a recent graduate from Rhode Island School of Design. He’s not on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and actually has deliberately erased himself from such sites. You can call him an anti-social networker. Out of the blue, he was invited to show in galleries in Turin and Naples—and he hadn’t even heard of them until they contacted him. Ironically, they found his work on his one Web site.

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Even if the recession is over, the outlook for job seekers remains bleak.

I asked Tory Johnson (pictured here), who is chief executive officer of Women For Hire and author of Fired to Hired, to offer her career advice in an unsettled economy.

Question: Unemployment figures show that more men are out of work than women. What are your thoughts on this trend and how it is impacting workers?

Answer: The industries dominated by men have been hardest hit in this recession—manufacturing, construction, financial services, for example. The fields adding jobs—such as healthcare and education—attract women.

More importantly, however, is the strain this has put on families. If Dad loses his well-paid construction job—along with his benefits—but Mom keeps her lower-paid position as a home health aide, that’s a burden on their household.

When the man of the house loses his position and is dealt a severe blow to his ego, his spouse and children are important. This challenging job market has been an equal opportunity offender in that regard. It’s difficult on both genders.

Q: What does the recession mean for Women for Hire? Are you getting flooded with resumes now?

A: Yes, we’re bombarded with resumes and pleas for help from jobseekers. We’ve ramped up our availability on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, to offer advice to more people. And I’ve gotten involved with MomsLikeMe by creating this online job club, not only to answer members’ questions, but also to encourage members to help one another. That collective career coach can be awfully powerful and everyone has something to offer to the group.

Q: What’s the smartest way for working parents to broach work-life topics, such as job flexibility or eldercare, when they are looking for a new position?

A: This topic shouldn’t be your opening line. Research the employer online. Typically if it’s an organization that values flexibility, it’s touted on its website.

Ask simple, indirect questions such as, “Can you tell me about the culture?” Ask about your potential boss’s management style. Inquire about the turnover among employees. Typically an organization with relatively low turnover treats its people well and that likely includes flex options.

Once you receive an offer, this is the time to ask about specific benefits. You can review the company policy manual and/or ask how such issues are handled internally. Remember that it’s not only the company’s policies that matter; rather it’s the policies and management style of your boss that will matter most.

Q: Are working moms treated differently than working dads in the workforce?

A: This depends on where you work. There’s most definitely a perception that moms have special needs. This could range from denying her a promotion based on an assumption that the new position requires travel and she won’t want to leave her kids to resenting her if she leaves early to attend a soccer game with her kids.

In certain environments, dad is a hero if he leaves for two hours to coach little league, whereas mom is more devoted to her kids than her career. Fortunately, however dads are more involved in their kids’ lives today than ever before, which means dads are speaking up for flexibility too. It’s not a mom’s issue by any means. Frankly, it’s not a parenting issue either.

Given eldercare demands or the desire to pursue some kind of personal passion – i.e. you want to train for a marathon or play in organized sports – the need to flexibility is greater than ever.

Q: What’s the best job search advice anyone ever gave you?
A: People have often said, “Oh you do such good work helping people get jobs…you must sleep well at night.” While I appreciated that, the reality is I have many sleepless nights wondering and worrying about the emails that I didn’t respond to as thoroughly as was probably needed.

I worry a lot about the people who emailed for help who I knew needed hand-holding to find a job, not a few bits and pieces of advice and direction in a written response.

I asked Diane Sawyer about this since I assumed she has to had the same concerns–only magnified–about the people and issues she’s covered. She told me, “Our joy is our fuel for changing the world. We cannot let the work wear it down.”

She encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing—and to trust in a higher power that those who needed the extra dose of help would get it, and not to lose sight of the love I had for the good work I was doing. If I allowed myself to be beat down with excessive worry over things I couldn’t control, I’d stop being effective in what I was good at. Given the volume of requests today, I think about her advice so often.

Q: A reader asked about getting online resumes noticed on Job Club with Tory Johnson chat. What’s your advice for getting noticed?

A: Too many people do what I call spray and pray. They send out tons of resumes—and they pray one will get noticed. Sadly, it doesn’t usually work that way.

You have to do more than just apply online. You have to find someone with whom you can follow up. Make a cold call to the company to figure out who’s responsible for filling the role. Find an internal referral who’ll introduce you to the hiring manager. Use LinkedIn to network with people at that company. Whatever it takes to bring attention to your resume instead of hoping it’s found in the big black hole of the internet.

Tory Johnson is an award-winning job search guru, national network television contributor, popular speaker and New York Times bestselling author. She is the CEO of Women For Hire, now celebrating its 10th year producing high caliber recruiting events attended by more than 25,000 women annually. Tory is the workplace contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America and hosts a national online Job Club on MomsLikeMe.com. Dubbed the “workplace fairy godmother” by Glamour magazine, Tory speaks frequently about career advancement nationwide. Her new book, Fired to Hired, follows her 2008 New York Times bestseller, Will Work From Home.

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