Let’s Hear It From the Kids: Your Money or Your, um, Life?

So, on Monday I posted a rant in response to Lamar Alexander’s Newsweek argument in favor of a three-year college degree. Got some good responses, including this one from tk: The three year concept completely baffles me. Especially when Alexander makes reference to no summer breaks. Let’s see, three years plus three summer breaks. Hmmm! [...]

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The Office Mom

And then, reader, there’s this. Allow me to reference a piece titled “The Office Mom,” which ran on Forbes‘ web site Tuesday with the slug: Women are ditching the stereotype of the imperious, tyrannical boss in favor of the nurturing “office mom.” Is that a good thing? According to writer Laura Sinberg, it is a good [...]

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Work and Life, Balanced: Just play cards?

The fix is in, at least according to a piece in the Guardian entitled “If you only do one thing this week, stop talking about work at home.” So simple. And yet. From the piece: Sharing your working life with your partner can give you perspective, reassurance and a chance to offload, but banging on [...]

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The Mismeasure of a Woman, Redux

Okay. So, in an op-ed that ran in Saturday’s New York Times, former Portfolio (the now defunct biz title from Conde Nast) editor Joanne Lipman lamented the place of women in society today. Sort of. After reading it several times, the best way I can describe it is not especially well thought-out. (With an impossible [...]

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Oh, Grow Up. And Could You Please Do it in Three Years?

One of the problems with decisions is we sometimes make them before we’re ready. Sometimes we’ve forced ourselves into a box. Sometimes we entered that box with a skip and a smile. Sometimes it’s been a full-court press to please the iconic self. But as the saying goes (or did I make this up?): Decide [...]

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Too Many Choices… In Bed

As it is in fortune cookies, so it is in women’s lives and the choices they face… which is to say that, while the greatest measurable strides we’ve made have been in the realm of work–even, perhaps, as a result of those strides–we’ve found ourselves stumped when it comes to the choices we face over [...]

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In Our Shoes: Women’s Trek Through 50 Years of Change

Just when you’re ready to drop an F-bomb, there’s this: Lesley Stahl’s interview of New York Times columnist Gail Collins, whose new book “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of Women from 1960 to the Present” reminds us of how far we’ve come in the past 50 years. And makes us smile along the route. [...]

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Who Says You Can’t Go Home Again?

We’ve all seen the headlines: college students are increasingly entertaining the idea of moving back in with mom and dad. According to the U.S. Census in 2008, 5 million Americans aged 25 to 35 are living with their parents. A CollegeGrad.com survey found that: Among 2009 U.S. college graduates, 80 percent moved back home with [...]

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Juxtaposition: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Maria Shriver and, Well, Me

A funny thing happened on the way to the internet today. First I ran across Time Magazine’s special report on the “State of the American Women”. And then I read an LA Times interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the controversial author of Infidel: My Life. Ali was born into a Somali Muslim family and sought [...]

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Zen and the Art of Multitasking

There’s this charming story, about a Zen student and his teacher, trying to impart the lesson of mindfulness. “When drinking tea,” the teacher told his student, ”just drink tea.” How often do you just drink tea? Such a beautifully simple idea. Be Here Now. Focus. Breathe. So quaint… and yet, so hopelessly impossible. At the moment, [...]

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