Apr 29 2013
By Alina Adams at 10:25 am
I am writing this blog post on the 5:55 a.m. train from Manhattan heading to Stamford, CT (after having taken two subways to get to Grand Central Station, first). Because, for the first time since before my daughter was born, I have a job that requires reporting to an office.
Seven years ago, pregnant with my third child and too sick and tired to keep making what, in retrospect, was a ridiculously short, five subways stops commute, I gave up my office gig for the freelancer’s life. I was, however, remarkably fortunate in that my then employer, Procter & Gamble Productions, producers of the soap operas “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light,” promptly hired me to keep on doing more or less what I’d been doing up to that point, only from home and at a lower salary–which I deemed infinitely fair. Read the rest of this entry →
Apr 5 2013
By Tova Ross at 11:56 am
I recently returned from spending Passover at a beautiful hotel in California with my two kids. One of the great perks of being married to a musician (and don’t throw a virtual shoe at me; there are negatives to being a wife in music life, too) is that so far, I get to go away for Passover, and thus bypass all the meticulous cleaning, multi-meal cooking, and various other daunting tasks that the holiday entails.
Now, I had realized that once we returned home, if we wanted to eat, we’d have to actually cook something ourselves; there would be no lavish tea room to quell hunger pangs between meals and I correctly anticipated seven loads of laundry (my baby likes to spit up on a brand-new dress approximately three seconds after I change her into it). Read the rest of this entry →
Feb 25 2013
By Jordana Horn at 1:23 pm
It’s the 50th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. I’m not sure if I’m speaking for all of us in saying this, but I haven’t even read it: I live it.
Friday morning, I shut the door in the face of my crying child who was yelling, “Mommy! Mommy! No go!” with guilt-inducing gusto. I was leaving her in order to go into New York to tape a television show which discussed, in part, feminism and work-life balance. Ah, irony: you’re so subtle.
It’s not just me, of course. The discussion on women in the workplace was kick started on the national scale this week.
On the one hand, prominent consulting group McKinsey has started quietly reaching out to female former employees who left to start families to see if they are now ready to come back to work. Goldman Sachs also runs a “returnship” program: paid short-term jobs for professionals who’ve been out of the workforce for a few years. In a 2010 report, the Wall Street Journal noted, “female senior executives cited the ‘double burden syndrome’ of balancing motherhood and work as the main obstacle to women attaining more top roles in companies.” Read the rest of this entry →
Feb 8 2013
By Adina Kay-Gross at 9:09 am
Michelle Cove is the author of I Love Mondays: And Other Confessions from Devoted Working Moms and the editor of 614: the HBI ezine, an online magazine that aims to spark conversation on hot topics for Jewish women. Michelle is also the mother of an 8-year old girl. In her free time, she writes books and gives talks around the country. She chatted with us recently about the working mom guilt, avoiding burnout, and how important it is for our kids to see us fulfilled.
What prompted you to add the word “confessions” to the title of your book? Do you really find there’s a stigma attached to mothers who enjoy working outside the home? Read the rest of this entry →
Dec 21 2012
By Tara Filowitz Arrey at 9:36 am
Well, I knew it would have to happen. I knew the date was rapidly approaching. But I didn’t expect it to feel like such a shock…
Yes, I have gone back to work. Noooooo!
While I was not working, especially in the first few weeks when Charly wasn’t doing much other than sleeping, eating, and pooping, I really couldn’t see how anyone could be a stay-at-home Mom. It seemed so boring and lackluster. But I was really being shortsighted. Now, I totally get it. Read the rest of this entry →
Dec 17 2012
By Kveller at 2:25 pm
Throughout the month of October, in conjunction with the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York, we put a special focus on women, work and money here at Kveller. This meant talking about everything from savings plans to work-life balance (or as one of our readers pointed out, imbalance) to maternity leave and childcare. And what did we learn? Well, just as there’s no one way to be a woman, there’s certainly no one way for women to handle, think, and talk about money.
At the end of the month, we asked you (our awesome readers) to take a short survey and tell us about your work and financial lives. We were very interested to learn what you had to say, and better than just a bunch of pie charts and graphs, we were able to get a better picture of the women of Kveller and how they roll. We thought you might like to know, too, so here are five interesting facts from our survey results: Read the rest of this entry →
Nov 7 2012
By Carla Naumburg at 9:55 am
Rabbi Ilana Garber is the associate rabbi of Beth El Temple in West Hartford, Connecticut. She serves on a professional advisory committee for the Hebrew Health Care Home Health and Hospice program and as co-chair of the Rabbinical Assembly Women’s Committee. Rabbi Garber was kind enough to share her experience with work/life balance with us for our month-long series on Women, Work & Money.
Who is in your family?
I have been married for five years to a wonderful man who is a professional musician. We have two sons, a 3-year-old, Noam, and a 19-month-old, Yaron. (You can read Yaron’s story here.)
What’s your work schedule? Read the rest of this entry →
Oct 24 2012
By Carla Naumburg at 12:30 pm
Claudia Gold is a pediatrician, writer, and perhaps most importantly, a mother. She took some time out of her busy writing schedule to share her experience negotiating the challenges of balancing family and work.
How many children do you have? How old are they?
I have a 14-year-old son, an 18-year-old daughter, and a 24-year-old stepdaughter.
What kind of work do you do? Read the rest of this entry →
Sep 5 2012
By Alina Adams at 3:21 pm
Confucius (allegedly) said: Do a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Who am I to argue with Confucius?
So, that’s precisely what I did. Because I loved television, I studied television in college, and then I went to work in television. I loved to watch figure skating, so I became a television figure skating producer. After my oldest son was born and the travel associated with skating competitions became unmanageable, I switched to working in soap operas–because I loved soap operas. In the meantime, because I loved to read, I also wrote books, primarily figure skating mysteries and romance novels. Read the rest of this entry →
May 17 2012
By Jordana Horn at 3:15 pm
Well, it’s not as if you’re going to be some sort of hausfrau, you know?” a friend said to me over the phone. It was just a passing remark. You know, like how a drive-by shooting is just a short visit.
We were discussing my decision to leave my job as New York correspondent of the Jerusalem Post. It was a hard decision but I felt that I needed to focus on other things–namely, my long-in-progress novel, various freelance gigs, my family, and my pregnancy. To me, the choice had felt like a deliberate choice, individuality above expectations. My friend’s remark made clear, though, that to others, my choice could easily come across as a failure. Read the rest of this entry →
