Credit Clutter

I just invested five minutes in another great way to stem the avalanche of junk mail at our house. You can opt out of receiving pre-screened credit card offers by calling 1-888-567-8688 (1-888-5OPTOUT).

Call from your home phone, as the computer matches it with your address. You will need to provide your social security number to the automated system, too. You can repeat the process to cover offers in your spouse's or kids' names. For more info, the web site is https://www.optoutprescreen.com/.

In addition to cutting down on the paper we must sort and throw away, this simple step also helps protect against identity theft. (Not that long ago, I read that criminals have been able to open lines of credit even with torn-up credit offers!)

If you haven't already, you can also stop catalogs from piling up for the small price of $1.

Cuter Scooter

Though American Apparel’s skin-tight, come-hither sensibility generally makes me feel I became an old prude somewhere along the way, the idea of dressing in knits can be fabulously practical (and appropriately sexy) for the mommy set. I've been a big fan of their t-shirts ever since our babysitter suggested I check them out last summer. (Should I worry that I am shopping in the same stores as a bright young thing who is 16 years younger than I am? I choose not to.)

Last weekend, I found a soft, kicky skort there that I know I’m going to live in this summer. It has shorts built in, so it’s great for the pool or running errands. My only advice: Buy a size larger than you normally would, unless you are going for the booty-mama look. (Oh, and wear a shirt, unlike the "serving suggestion" above.)

Opting Out, Opting Back In

Mothers returning to work has been a hot topic this week, with articles popping up in both the New York Times and Newsweek, provoked by a bunch of new books. The consensus seems to be that, with some perseverance, women can get back on a professional career track, but they may not be all that happy with what they get.

According to Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of the just-released “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success,” three-quarters of women are at successful at breaking back in, but fewer than half find “satisfying” work. Some are accepting salaries as much as 40% lower than their previous pay.

And, of course, they have to be willing to go back full-time. There’s the rub. While everyone seems to agree that part-time work is a great option for keeping women in the workforce and keeping professional skills sharp -- while providing much-needed family flexibility -- those jobs simply aren’t out there, for the most part, except for the lucky women who already work full-time and negotiate their way into it. I am one of those lucky women.

I work part-time (three eight-hour days weekly), and for me it really is the best of both worlds: I get adult time and intellectual challenge, but I still get to spend most of my time with my kids (and go to the pool with them all summer).

Even this great arrangement has its downsides. For one thing, while I am lucky still to get interesting projects and responsibilities, my career is essentially stalled. No promotions, no jumping ship for big raises or advancement. This has been harder for me to accept than I would have expected. My career was my life before I had kids, and I still have all the ambition and brains I had before I breastfed babies.

On the bottom line, I have given up 40% of my income, which is understandable, since I work 40% less. However, I have also given up my bonuses, paid vacation time and my company benefits because I don’t qualify for those as a PT employee. This makes working part-time less than ideal – and, for many women, even impossible.

There are very few places with institutionalized part-time positions, and much of this work is second-tier. Certainly, I never see high-level, professional work advertised as “part-time OK!” This is exactly why Pamela Stone, author of "Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home," argues that mothers are essentially forced out of the workplace -- by inflexible schedules and demanding workloads.

More and more, I see my friends reach a point where they have a good family income and interesting work, but they never have any TIME… At a certain point, time becomes the valuable commodity -- not another raise, a better title and even MORE work to do. And that’s one thing companies can’t seem to accommodate in their "one-size-fits-all" career tracks.

I foresee a day (hopefully before my daughters are grown) when companies will offer a menu of options for every position, and the employee (male or female, with kids or without) can choose the combination of salary, work hours, work days, bonuses, vacation time and benefits that best fit them. Part-time workers can be full contributors to a company's bottom line, and they should not be treated as second-class citizens.

A great book offering advice on flexible work arrangements (and how to pitch them to your boss) is “This Is How We Do It: The Working Mothers' Manifesto” by Carol Evans, the CEO of Working Mother Magazine. (I especially love her suggestion that managers should be reviewed by their employees on "work-life balance." Any company that professes work-life balance as a goal should be doing this, or they are just blowing hot air, especially since almost all flexible work arrangements that exist today are "at manager's discretion.")

In short, employees can’t wait for their companies to come up with policies or systems to address these problems. If you have a reasonable proposal for adjusting your work hours or responsibilities – one that works for both you AND the company -- you should pursue it with your employer.

New books on the topic of women and work (mentioned in the NYT and Newsweek articles):

• "Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home" by Pamela Stone
  
• "Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families" by Leslie Morgan Steiner
  
• "The Feminine Mistake" by Leslie Bennetts
  
• "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World" by Linda R. Hirshman
  
• "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success" by Sylvia Ann Hewlett
  

(Hormone) Free Milk at Publix

Publix wins big points with GreenMama for going hormone-free on ALL of their store-brand milk. As of May 1st, the full line of Publix milk is free of the synthetic hormone rbST. (You can read more about it here.) Whole Foods also produces a store brand that is free of synthetic hormones, and notably cheaper than organic. With the money we save going back to the store brands, we might actually be able to pay for college!