My Domestic Clippings

1. Is maternity leave fair if you don’t go back to work? This writer doesn’t think so. At least he thinks moms who go back should be rewarded somehow. I was one of those moms who needed maternity leave to discover for sure and for certain that I could not put my 6-week-old in day care. I never went back and never looked back either. Within five years my company was sold and everyone in my department was out of work so in hindsight, I made a good call.

2. Alexa shared the story of her marriage, dealing with disability and loss on Sister Mary Martha’s blog last month. If you haven’t read it before, this is a good place to bookmark it. The story of love, respect and loss is very moving and inspirational.

3. My annual Pre-Cana talk is coming up next month, so I read Mark Mallett’s posting on the evolution of his marriage and thoughts on contraception to be a very worthwhile read. I might share excerpts from it in my talk and put the address on the handout. Every year I hope I’m reaching some consciences and opening some hearts, but the truth is, I just don’t know.

4.
Maureen Whittmann has a new book out bout literature and she generously shares her LoveLiteratureIndex.pdf (application/pdf Object)“>book list for free!

5. A very good article on using technology to be organized in 08! I found that I use 3 of the things on the list already!

6. Homehearts had some interesting links about organizing homeschool – which I find is always a challenge even as the kids get bigger!

7. A visitor shared with me her article on teaching music even if you are not a musician. Some of this I have tried with Rosie and it’s a lot of fun!

8. This was an interesting article on miscarriage from the husband’s perspective.

It was interesting to me that he wrote:

People have asked us if we named the baby we lost. We did not, since God did not permit us to be his or her parents.

As a mother who lost a child I felt that I indeed HAD been a mother to my child while he was in my womb. In fact I still believe that parents are parents from the instant they conceive. Mr. Pete said that he understood how this gentleman might feel though because pregnancy is so abstract to the male until the baby actually arrives. Still, I am glad that we named our baby and a lot of unexpected blessings have come from that.

9. Celebrity Moms had a little interview with Marcia Cross of Desperate Housewives fame. Miss Cross and her husband just had twin girls this year. I think she is refreshingly frank about having a baby in her 40s – something that I don’t see many magazines and media talk about. In fact, I saw a piece on E-news about how “inspiring” these older, over 40 Hollywood moms were to the rest of us, in that they proved that you really can have it all! From the article:

Although she has been credited as a role model for women hoping to have children in their 40’s having conceived via in vitro fertilization, Marcia has taken a realistic view of her position. She advises women to “have your children as young as you can and don’t be fooled by (older) women having babies, because it’s very expensive and (requires) a lot of needles and shots.”

Despite her joy at getting to experience life as a mother, Cross admits that she is saddened by the realization that she may not enjoy the same amount of time as her own parents (now in their 70’s) with her own children. “I wish I were younger,” she says. “We’re all in denial here, especially in L.A., and we want to pretend that we’re not in the middle of our lives. There’s not that much time left. … In 20 years, I’m going to be in my late 60s and they’re going to be 20. I hate that I’m not going to be there for my kids forever.”

10. Lastly, I am dying to see Ricki Lake’s new documentary, the Business of Being Born. It’s out about 20 years too late for me, but I really hope that this film starts a movement back towards some sense of sanity in birthing women to reclaim natural childbirth!

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