Moms+Part Time Jobs = Healthier Kids

A friend passed me a very interesting article today published on themedguru.com by Neharika Sabharwal detailing the lasting findings on research conducted by the University of New England (UNE). The study, led byJan Nicholson, principal research fellow at Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, found that women with flexible work schedules raised healthier kids.

The study, titled "Do Working Mothers Raise Couch Potato Kids?,"cites findings that show no great difference in health (measured by TV time, height/weight, amount of exercise) among working and non-working mothers. In fact, the healthiest combination was with mothers working part-time and flexible solutions.

Nicholson states several theories, from "quality vs. quantity" of time of working mothers to the way mothers working part-time run their households. What do our friends down under know that we don't?

I know from my own personal experience that I plan and prepare better meals and snacks when I'm busy, working and running an efficient household. I get laziest around the holidays and in August when work slows down and schedules grind to a halt. Of course, the study concludes with "more research is required."

And You Thought WE Had it Rough

I'm coming off a lovely week-long Florida vacation where I stayed (mostly) unplugged and did lots of great family things like biking, walking and reading and dove head-long into work yesterday. I was just having that return-from-vacation panic attack that results from a giant InBox, unreturned calls and more work coming in when I spied an interesting article in the Washington Post. Blaine Harden's article, With High Pressures, South Korean Women Put Off Marriage and Childbirth.

What a giant dose of perspective! Whereas on paper America has less comprehensive working mother benefits, after all we have FMLA (unpaid, after 1 year of employment, only for companies with more than 50 employees) South Korea provides a year of subsidized parental leave. South Korean culture, as described by Harden, shows a culture war of the traditional role of the wife and mother against the demands of working mothers.

Not all husbands, parents and in laws are perfect - not by a stretch- but for the most part I'm seeing working families pull together in a giant team effort. Pickups at my youngest son's noon dismissal preschool show scores of retired grandparents lining the halls. I strategically plan "Camp Grammy" during the last week in August when there are no summer camps to be found. Most fathers I know in the area do either pick-up or drop-off and the waiting room of my pediatrician's office, conveniently downstairs from our new Momentum Resources Washington, DC office, is about 50-50 women/men.

We have a long, long way to go in terms of women in the C-suite, supportive legislation and the Chore War going on at home, but I feel very thankful this morning for the women the blazed trails before us, facing the same cultural wars as South Korean women today, to make what I have possible. In honor of Women's History Month, thank you.