By Sarah Elizabeth Richards in The Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2013
Between the ages of 36 and 38, I spent nearly $50,000 to freeze 70 eggs in the hope that they would help me have a family in my mid-40s, when my natural fertility is gone. For this baby insurance, I obliterated my savings and used up the money my parents had set aside for a wedding. It was the best investment I ever made.
Egg freezing stopped the sadness that I was feeling at losing my chance to have the child I had dreamed about my entire life. It soothed my pangs of regret for frittering away my 20s with a man I didn't want to have children with, and for wasting more years in my 30s with a man who wasn't sure he even wanted children. It took away the punishing pressure to seek a new mate and helped me find love again at age 42.
I decided to freeze on the afternoon of my 36th birthday, when I did a fresh round of baby math on the back of a business card at Starbucks. Even if the man I was dating at the time agreed to start a family in the near future, I was cutting it close to have one baby, let alone a second. Several months later, after injecting myself for nearly two weeks with hormone shots, I was in surgery at a Manhattan fertility clinic as my doctor pierced my ovaries, suctioned out nine eggs and handed them to the embryologist to freeze until I was ready to use them. As soon as I woke up in the recovery room, I no longer felt as though I were watching my window to have a baby close by the month. My future seemed full of possibility again.
Amid all the talk about women "leaning in" and "having it all," the conversation has left out perhaps the most powerful gender equalizer of all—the ability to control when we have children. The idea is tantalizing: Once you land the job and man you want, you can have your frozen eggs shipped to your fertility clinic, hand him a semen collection cup and be on your way to parenthood. You mitigate the risk of birth defects by using younger eggs, and you can carry a baby well into middle age. At a time when one in five American women between the ages of 40 and 44 is childless—and half say they would still like to have children—egg freezing offers a once-unimaginable reprieve.
Up until now, a woman who bumped up against her baby deadline could visit a sperm bank, make peace with being "child-free" or eventually break her heart and bank pursuing futile fertility treatments in an attempt to "snatch a child from the jaws of menopause," as the economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett so famously warned a decade ago while encouraging women to plan their families as carefully as their careers.
I spent the majority of my 30s alternately panicked about my love life or feeling kicked in the gut every time I saw an adorable child. Fertility anxiety isn't exactly helpful when you're trying to snag the locker next to Sheryl Sandberg in the executive gym. And it's a buzz kill on dates when you feel compelled to ask the guy sitting across from you, clutching his craft beer, "So do you think you might want kids someday?"
Although egg freezing has been available in the U.S. for nearly a decade, it has only recently entered the mainstream. Last fall, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine removed the procedure's experimental label, citing improved success rates with a new flash-freezing technology known as vitrification. Several trials showed little difference in in-vitro-fertilization success rates using frozen rather than fresh eggs. That rate is 30% to 50% per try, depending on the age of eggs and expertise of the doctor. Despite early fears of how freezing could damage eggs' chromosomes, a recent review of 900 babies born from frozen eggs found they had no more risk of birth defects than those conceived naturally.
Perhaps, you would agree that "only Superwoman can juggle it all"....because in her fictional world she does not encounter the same challenges that career women face today.
These books are excellent resources for any working woman going through a shift in her career, adaptable to almost any lifestyle change and allows the reader to work at their own pace, gather facts and define goals.
Investigating a career change affects everyone in a family. Even if a job change is a short-term situation, the impact on the family can color the way members interact with one another. Life can become stressful and relationships strained unless everyone makes an effort to pull together and move through this period.
As you know, career women struggle with countless expectations, too much to do in too little time, and the fact that they receive little of the support or recognition they want and deserve. In an effort to squeeze even more into their nightmarish schedules, these women continue to make choices that actually undermine their health, family life, careers and important relationships.
Women are dancing to a frenzied beat, believing just because they can, they should. They have been taught, if they are capable of doing something, it shouldn't be necessary to look for help. This has led women to become frustrated by experiencing long days and frantic schedules. Many working women are exhausted. Isn't it time that career women reclaimed their time and life?
On the other hand, this situation can be positive. This may be the opportunity you and other family members have been waiting for. This could be the chance to look at a different career for yourself or others in the family. Perhaps evaluating other options will be the action that will change the family dynamics in a positive way.
Let's be clear, these books aren't just for the dissatisfied. They are a prescription for identifying the various aspects of your life that make you unique, without which, you may never be able to understand why you behave or react the way you do. These books are neither relaxing nor a break from reality where the reader just rides along. They are a vehicle where the reader is in the driver's seat and sets the GPS to get to where she wants to be in her career and personal life.
Catherine Rampell happens to be an educated young woman who loves her job, sometimes gushingly, occasionally annoyingly.
And yet, even in this enlightened age, she had two relationships end — at least in large part — thanks to that clammy-palmed discussion in which couples plot hypothetical milestones and life goals. The gentlemen in question said that, somewhere in their semicharted future, they expected her to quit her job. At least for a couple of years, anyway, in order to be the kind of hypothetical mother they wanted to raise their hypothetical kids, if that hypothetical day ever came.
Rampell doesn’t pretend to know how common this situation is, and how many other young women have found themselves in it. But it clarified not only the choices that future mothers must make about their careers, but also how early in their careers they must begin to think about them. And while fairness and feminism may urge us to find better ways for women to balance work and life — Sheryl Sandberg and Anne-Marie Slaughter have certainly made impassioned cries — the most convincing argument seems to be an economic one.
In the United States, women represent not only a majority of college graduates but also a majority of advanced-degree holders. But the lack of policies facilitating the work-life balance — like paid maternity leave and flexible work hours — has millions of them underemployed. It’s hard to quantify exactly how much human capital is being wasted, but one clue lies in a study by economists at the University of Chicago and Stanford. It estimates that 15 to 20 percent of American productivity growth over the last five decades has come from more efficient allocation of underrepresented groups, like women, into occupations that were largely off-limits, like doctors or lawyers. Even more efficient allocation of women’s talents would, presumably, drive further growth, which will become even more critical in the years ahead. By 2050, there are projected to be just 2.6 working-age Americans for every American of retirement age. (In 2008, it was 4.7.)
Other rich countries have figured out ways to keep women in the labor force. The European Union has issued a directive that all member countries must allow parents — men and women — to request part-time, flexible or home-based work arrangements in addition to paid leave. Other developed countries also have affordable, high-quality public childcare.
Such policies contribute to these countries’ swollen welfare states and higher tax burdens, but they do keep women at work.
Source: "Lean In, Dad" The New York Times, April 7, 2013
Is it dawning on you just how much power women have to change the whole romance picture?
More than likely, you live with a motivated man who wants more romantic closeness but who is holding back or frustrated. Which means you often hold the key to the quality of romance.
If you've been disappointed with your romantic relationship and have pushed and prodded to no effect, you've probably realized that nagging doesn't work. So how do you start? Encourage him.
One man was blunt: "Encourage me and affirm my efforts, and I'll run through a brick wall to please you. But don't just assume that I know you're pleased. I'm way outside my comfort zone. I'm willing to be a fool for you, but just tell me that I did good. And give me sex. That helps too."
Many men view taking romantic initiative as a huge risk--a risk of being humiliated or feeling inadequate. So prove to your man that it's not a risk! When he makes an effort, it's your responsibility--and your joy--to demonstrate that it was worth it.
Keep it fresh---give him something new to pursue. Go hiking with him. Play golf with him. Give him space when he needs it, and intimate attention when he needs that. Make yourself the kind of friend and lover he constantly wants to pursue.
So next time he suggests something, don't tell him you really need to vacuum the house. Give him his version of a candlelight dinner, and enjoy your romantic time together!
"For Women Only: Revised and Updated Edition" by Shaunti Feldhahn delivers eye-opening surprises for women about how the men in their lives actually think and feel--and what they deeply need.
Drawing on groundbreaking national research corroborated by hundreds of interviews, Shaunti Feldhahn's landmark book has helped thousands of women experience "light bulb on" moments when they finally get what makes their husband, boyfriend or boss tick. The revelations in For Women Only are always fresh, often shocking, and packed with promise for a woman's relationships with the most important man (or men) in her life.
The hapless, bumbling father is a stock character in product marketing. He makes breakfast for dinner and is incapable of handling, or sometimes even noticing, a soggy diaper. He tries desperately to hide the crumb-strewn, dirt-streaked evidence of his poor parenting before the mother gets home.
This is an image that many fathers who attended the Dad 2.0 Summit — a meeting of so-called daddy bloggers and the marketers who want to reach them — have come to revile. They are proud to be involved in domestic life and do not want to serve as the comic foil to the supercompetent mother.
In the past, consumer-product marketers weren’t all that concerned with what fathers thought — women, after all, make the majority of purchasing decisions for households. But men are catching up: In 2012 men spent an average of $36.26 at the grocery store per trip, compared with $27.49 in 2004, according to data from Nielsen. Companies see an opportunity to reach a new demographic.
The dad bloggers, for their part, are using their influence to change the way marketers portray them. To put it another way, while the mom space is crowded with players, the dad space has room for more. So there is big money to be made, both by companies looking at fathers as consumers and by daddy bloggers looking to ride a wave of brand sponsorship just as mommy bloggers have.
"Men look at themselves in mirrors while women look for themselves."*
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (February 11, 2013) -
From Sleeping Beauty's looking glass, to the middle school bathroom, to the department store dressing room, we are surrounded by mirrors, images and reflections.
The Mirror Monologues (TheMirrorMonologues.com) seeks submissions from women of all ages about the role mirrors play in their lives. The best and most representative stories will be woven into a 90-minute script that will be presented in New York City in the spring of 2014.
The Mirror Monologues was created by four women -- Judith Estrine, Nancy Gall-Clayton, Donna Guthrie and Linda Rathkopf. The women met when Gall-Clayton and Guthrie put together a short play festival called "6 Women Turning 60" in 2006 after they met at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
"We want both serious and humorous pieces about a time when you looked in a mirror and felt a strong emotion. Examples include: your first eyeglasses, braces, graduation, wedding day, pregnancy, important job interview and your changing self-image on milestone birthdays," says Donna Guthrie, co-creator of The Mirror Monologues.
The founders of The Mirror Monologues agree that the final script will inevitably include both painful as well as celebratory stories; they intend for the overall message to be positive, life-affirming, and inspiring. They also hope this project will lead to collaborations with theatrical communities across the country.
The Mirror Monologues competition is open to women ages 16 years and older. Submissions will be accepted between February 1 and March 31, 2013. Playwrights may submit only one monologue. Monologues must be unpublished, unproduced, and between one and three pages in length. For more information on The Mirror Monologues, submission guidelines and mailing instructions, please visit http://www.themirrormonologues.com/.
*Quote from Elissa Melamed, author of "Mirror, Mirror: The Terror of Not Being Young."
Mr. Mom is dead. In his place, research shows, is emerging a new model of at-home fatherhood that puts a distinctly masculine stamp on child-rearing and home life.
At-home dads aren't trying to be perfect moms, says a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Instead, they take pride in letting their children take more risks on the playground, compared with their spouses. They tend to jettison daily routines in favor of spontaneous adventures with the kids. And many use technology or DIY skills to squeeze household budgets, or find shortcuts through projects and chores, says the study, based on interviews, observation of father-child outings and an analysis of thousands of pages of at-home dads' blogs and online commentary.
"Just as we saw a feminization of the workplace in the past few decades, with more emphasis on such skills as empathy and listening, we are seeing the opposite at home—a masculinization of domestic tasks and routines," says Gokcen Coskuner-Balli, an assistant professor of marketing at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and lead author of the study. "Many men are building this alternative model of home life that is outdoorsy, playful and more technology-oriented."
Over the long term, having an involved father is linked in research to better self-control in children, less risky behavior and better grades, says Dr. Pruett, a clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine.
In the first five months of 2012, there were 20 times as many Google searches on "inflation" as there were on "deflation." This is down from a ratio of 50 times in June 2008. If any theme has been overdone over the past six years, it is the theme of inevitable inflation if not hyperinflation.
Inflation reigned for 75 years, from 1933 to 2008. People are so used to it that they cannot imagine the opposite monetary environment. Bullish economists have been calling for recovery, which means more inflation, and bearish advisors have been calling for a crash in the dollar, which means hyperinflation. No wonder those are the terms on which most people have been searching.
But only one word allows you to make sense of what's going on in the world, and inflation is not it. The secret word is deflation.
why interest rates on highly rated bonds are at their lowest levels in the history of the country;
why the velocity of money is the lowest since the 1930s;
why huge sectors among investment markets are down over 40%;
why the Consumer Price Index (CPI) just had its biggest down month since 2008;
why Europe is in turmoil.
Here are some details: Ten-year Treasury notes pay out less than 1.5% annually, their lowest rate since the founding of the Republic. Treasury bills yield essentially zero, their lowest level ever. The velocity of money failed to rise during the past three years of partial economic recovery, and it recently made new lows. Real estate prices have fallen 45% in the past six years. Commodity prices -- as measured by the CRB Index -- are down 39% over four years. This group includes oil and silver, two of the most hyped investments of the past decade. Remember in March when articles quoted analysts calling for $5, $6 and $8-per-gallon gasoline? In just three months since then, gas prices have fallen 15%, knocking the CPI into negative territory.
Deflation also explains why European loans are at risk, why Germany is tapped out, why Greeks are protesting in the streets, and why U.S. corporations' overseas profits are down. Deflation lets you make sense of the world.
What is deflation? Economists define it three different ways, but I find only one definition useful: Deflation is a contraction in the overall supply of money and credit.
Why must deflation occur? Answer: There is too much unpayable debt in the world.
As argued in Conquer the Crash, it ultimately does not matter what the authorities do; they can't stop deflation. This prediction is being borne out. Since 2007, the Fed has monetized $2 trillion worth of debt; the federal government has borrowed another $7 trillion; and it has pumped out $1 trillion worth of student-loan credit. Yet real estate and commodities slumped 40% anyway.
These drunken-sailor-type policies have indeed succeeded in nearly maintaining the overall volume of money and credit. But in the long run you can't fight a systemic debt overload by piling on more debt. The Fed and the government are shifting the burden of trillions of dollars' worth of debt obligations from reckless creditors onto innocent savers and hapless taxpayers. The ploy might work if the public's resources were infinite, but they aren't. Perhaps this policy temporarily prevented a series of big institutional disasters, but it was only at the ultimate price of a gigantic public disaster.
Such actions have become politically less palatable. Some observers realize that the student-loan program of lending at below-market rates is exactly the model the government used for housing loans, which ended in a spectacular bust. Others know that the government cannot continue to borrow at the current pace and expect to stay solvent. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are tired of the Fed's bailing out of highly leveraged financial-speculation institutions. But whether these policies continue or are curtailed is irrelevant to the outcome. If the government slows its borrowing, the overall value of debt will fall. If the government maintains or increases its present pace of borrowing, interest rates will eventually turn up, and the overall value of debt will fall. There is no escape from deflation.
Ironically, investors in the past decade have been doing exactly the opposite of preparing for deflation. Convinced of perpetually rising prices, they have bought every major investment. They chased real estate up to a peak in 2006. They bought blue chip stocks into the high of 2007. They pushed commodities up to a peak in 2008. They chased gold and silver up to highs in 2011. And through spring 2012, they continued to buy stocks and commodities on any rumor that promised inflation: European bank bailouts, Operation Twist, the Greek election, Group-of-8 summits, Fed meetings, Bernanke press conferences, improved economic numbers, predictions of QE3, central-bank interest-rate cuts, you name it. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index hasn't made a new low for four years. During deflationary times, cash is king, and by far most investors have chosen to own anything but cash.
Deflation is still not obvious to the majority. Even now, most economists expect continued recovery, mild inflation and a rising stock market. But the essays on deflation.com are 180 degrees apart from conventional thinking. It may be too late for you to get out at the top, but there's still time to learn how to sidestep the worst of the crunch.
People will be using the secret "d" word much more often over the next five years. By the end of that time, they will also be using its cousin "d" word, depression.
Robert Prechter is the founder and president of Elliott Wave International, the world's largest financial forecasting firm. The rest of EWI's 40-page report, The State of the Global Markets - 2013 Edition: The Most Important Investment Report You'll Read This Year, is available for download. Follow this link to download the full report - for free.
This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline . EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.
Judging from her songs, Aimee Mann doesn't seem like the happiest girl in the U.S.A.
Therefore, it was something of a surprise to find Mann a few weeks ago, offering her views on how to be happy, in a conversation with the playwright Neil LaBute, whose own work isn't noted for its high spirits, either.
Consider what the founders meant by "pursuit of happiness:" Was it conditional happiness, predicted on good fortune, or was it an unconditional, Buddhist sort of state?
Mann thought that happiness was only possible if you didn't pursue it. "You have to be in acceptance," she said. "Events of life are mostly not personal, and you can't take it personally." She added there was no point in asking why certain things happen. "We don't get to know why."
Is there a place where you find yourself happier?
Mann said that happiness had to be internal. "Looking to outside sources to make you happy is just a disaster," she said. For instance, "It's perfectly possible to play a show and have it go well and be miserable." She mentioned something she had heard at a twelve-step meeting: "I'm not going to make being cool my higher power anymore."
She also said, "If I have an impulse to help someone, it's usually in some kind of obsessive way that is rescue-y and is probably not very helpful and probably has more to do with me wanting to feel a certain way about myself."
Mann's last word on the subject came in response to a question from the audience: What is the biggest barrier to happiness?
"Lack of self-awareness," Mann replied. Even if you're aware that you're depressed? "It's a start."
Source: John Seabrook, The New Yorker, December 3, 2012
Privacy Policy We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
For example, Google, as a third party vendor, uses a DART cookie to serve ads on this site based upon your visit to our sites and other sites on the Internet. You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting Google ad and content network privacy policy at: www.google.com/privacy_ads.html.
If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please contact the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) at (207) 467-3500 or www.networkadvertising.org.
