So I was reading through the BlogHer website as I’m very excited to attend my first BlogHer conference in less than a month. As I was perusing the different articles, I came across this post about how we as women try to “have it all.” I mean, yea I’m a perfectionist and I have so many interests and some talents I like to use, but in no way can I have it all.

Take my house for example, we moved in over two years ago. I still have temporary blinds, the paper ones that look like accordians. They are in all of the windows that I didn’t get blackout roller shades cut for. Beyond those two window treatments there is nothing else in my very old, beautiful house. Neglect in the utmost, but again I don’t pretend to “have it all”.

I really found the comment from the author’s 87-year old cousin to be the most dead-on advice. Read on:

“It’s all about the bumps.”

“Bumps … you know … bumps in the road. Everybody has them. Life can be hard for the luckiest among us. Everyone gets their share of bumps, some more than others. The important thing is to get over them as best you can, and let them make you a better person, not to get all upset that you had them.”

Then she got quiet. We were driving along a stretch of wooded New England country road. The summer greenery was vibrant and deep. It was cool beneath the bowers of trees that arched over the country lane. Wildflowers blossomed by the side of the road. She looked out the car window with a slight smile on her face.

“See? This is what I mean. This road is a side road. It has bumps in it. But it is so much more interesting than the superhighway. It means we have to slow down, to notice things. The bumps make us notice how beautiful it is here … Get it?”

So cheers to the bumps. I’ve had a lot and I plan on having a TON more! Strap me in, as I’m down for this ride of life and NOT having it all.

Who here was ever an unpaid intern? I’m not talking about your chore chart, but real-life, business-world worker who didn’t get compensated with money or college credit for their working? I was and I loved it. It seems the days of hiring unpaid interns is going by the wayside, especially for small business owners.

The U.S. Department of Wage and Labor Division has issued a “fact sheet” that provides general information to “help determine whether interns must be paid the minimum wage and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act for the services that they provide to ‘for-profit’ private sector employers.” You mean I was suppose to get paid for stuffing those envelopes??? That’s right! According to the new rules an internship must be similar to training given at a school AND employers must accept that their operations may be impeded because of said intern.

Wow. Hmm. I’m not sure I get how that’s suppose to encourage employers to want interns. There are a lot of small business owners out there who can’t afford to pay for interns but who non-the-less have tons of skills they can pass onto a budding entrepreneur. Now they must forgo hiring unpaid interns unless the intern agrees to take the internship as a college course (read pay the university for credits) as well as impede their employers operations. Sounds like a fantastic idea!

What are your thoughts on these new rules? Am I missing something here? Is there a benefit to these new rules for small business owners?

Parenting is hard. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “You are a mom at birth, but a parent by choice.” To say parenting is tough is an understatement and not fair to the word “parenting”. The role of parent is constantly redefined in my household. The needs of my children, my husband, and myself ebb and flow as the seconds, minutes, and hours tick on. That is why I found this article by NYMag to speak to my personal belief that the day-to-day act of parenting does not make me happy. Yet being a parent is the greatest accomplishment I have. I wouldn’t know that unless I was a parent. My children are hard to understand, hard to parent, hard to direct, hard to anticipate, and hard to please. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want them. Do I think it would be easier to live the life I had prior to them? Would I be happier? Would my life be more whimsical? Would I be wealthier? More cultured? More independent? All of the things I mourn the lose of since having children? Perhaps. But in my heart, I would be wondering what I was missing. I wouldn’t be able to put into perspective my own childhood and understand what true selflessness and love is. I know I am a much better person because I am a parent. I am a better member of society and ultimately I’m contributing to the good of mankind by teaching another human being the Christian values I hold forth as my constitution: “Do unto others; Love your neighbor as yourself; Honor father and mother; Don’t kill; Be true to your mate; Don’t lie; Believe in miracles; etc.”

I found the following statements to speak volumes about parenting, and thus the most important talking points from the article. So tell me what you think. Are you happy? Does being a parent make you more or less happy? Do any of these statements speak to you? Do you disagree with what the author found? Let’s discuss.

• “From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the perspective of the individual, however, it’s more of a mystery than one might think. Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines.”
• “As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed… Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.”
• “Not only did they find that couples’ overall marital satisfaction went down if they had kids; they found that every successive generation was more put out by having them than the last—our current one most of all. Even more surprisingly, they found that parents’ dissatisfaction only grew the more money they had, even though they had the purchasing power to buy more child care.”
• “And couples probably pay the dearest price of all. Healthy relationships definitely make people happier. But children adversely affect relationships.”
• “Most studies show that marriages improve once children enter latency, or the ages between 6 and 12, though they take another sharp dive during the war zone of adolescence.”
• My biggest take-away: ““When you pause to think what children mean to you, of course they make you feel good,” he says. “The problem is, 95 percent of the time, you’re not thinking about what they mean to you. You’re thinking that you have to take them to piano lessons. So you have to think about which kind of happiness you’ll be consuming most often. Do you want to maximize the one you experience almost all the time”—moment-to-moment happiness—“or the one you experience rarely?””

So I guess one can suffice to say, I’m banking on the joy of parenting to kick in when I’m 80;)

photo by Hillery Stone

Thanks for joining my little slice of internet heaven. It is here where I will jump into news stories that float my way and analyze them from my perspective. What just is that perspective you ask? Well here is my make-up: 30-something woman, mom of two preschool girls, wife of a PR exec, social media junkie, actor, writer, American by birth & Southern-born by the grace of God, live in NJ (miss living in NYC), baker, entertainer, friend, big sister, former teacher/PR exec/journalist, traveler, and all around creative-type.

I read and read and read everyday in every medium possible. When I find something of interest (because THAT’S hard to do) I love to share what I learn with my friends and family. So here is where I plan to do it. Depending on what tickles my fancy and what day it is, I will post at least one article link and my thoughts on it and why it matters to me. That’s it. That simple. So let it begin.