I love reading Cathy Arnst’s posts on BusinessWeek’s Working Parents Blog.  If you are a regular reader of mine, you know I am constantly tagging her and her posts.  Her most recent post talks about the freedom we have in the U.S.  She also talks about birth rates, in the U.S. and abroad.  One tid-bit I found most interesting:

“Researchers have discovered that, in societies where women do 75% or more of the housework and childcare, they are less likely to have another child than in countries where fathers share the load.”

I think that makes sense.  But even when fathers do share the load, I don’t think that alone is enough to make a decision about how many children one has.

Another interesting fact:

“The flexibility guaranteed to American women is likely one reason the U.S. ranks 16th on the Happiness index, above some 80 other nations. The index is a periodic survey officially known as the World Values Survey conducted by a global network of social scientists. The latest was released last week, and revealed that people kept getting happier from 1981 to 2007 in 42 of 52 countries polled. Interestingly, a country’s happiness level did not relate to economic prosperity so much as greater democracy and social tolerance. In other word, choices.”

So, overall, things are good.  But, as with most things, it can be better.  Cathy points to Denmark and their AMAZING laws on maternity leave.

So, I have not called out the use of Twitter in PR on my blog.  For a few reasons, but mainly because I think we needed to see how it would shake out.  Well, in an article on Ragan.com today, there is a great piece on HOW to use it.  Please read through if this is of any interest to you at all.  Also check out the video as well.  Good stuff in here.

What a great read…so far.  I find it refreshing that I am not the only one in the world with lists.  This New York Times Magazine article by Lisa Belkin is captivating, comfortable and real.  I particularly like this sentence:

“Gender should not determine the division of labor at home.”

Novel idea?  No.  But dividing tasks by gender seems to be the template that we all fall into in performing our daily rituals.

Another good paragraph:

Where the housework ratio is two to one, the wife-to-husband ratio for child care in the United States is close to five to one. As with housework, that ratio does not change as much as you would expect when you account for who brings home a paycheck. In a family where Mom stays home and Dad goes to work, she spends 15 hours a week caring for children and he spends 2. In families in which both parents are wage earners, Mom’s average drops to 11 and Dad’s goes up to 3. Lest you think this is at least a significant improvement over our parents and grandparents, not so fast. “The most striking part,” Blair says, “is that none of this is all that different, in terms of ratio, from 90 years ago.”

The article itself is ten web pages long and I have not gone through it all yet, but I will.  I find this topic fascinating.

I am constantly on the prowl for ways to make the world more equal and FAIR and this sounds like a good start.

Chris Brogan has an informative quick read here on how to grow your audience for your blog.  I like this post.  It’s easy to read and offers some good tips.  His first point is key about audience - who is it that you are trying to reach and why do you blog? For me, it started as a way to get out information that I think people in PR and people who are parents, would want to know.  So, I am happy with my current audience, but of course am interested in hearing about ways to grow it.  So, read his post if you are also interested.

For anyone interested in how to optimize LinkedIn for PR purposes, check out this quick clip featuring Jeff Glasson of PerkettPR on MyRagan TV. Good stuff - and only ONE of the social media tools out there to help you get your message across.

All, Cathy posted a follow-up post to her post regarding working mothers, etc.  Check it out when you can and comment.  I agree with her here and hope you do too.

Today’s post on BusinessWeek’s Working Parent blog had me in stitches.  If I had only one child, I would probably not think some of these things are funny, but now that I have two so close in age and work full time, it’s all humorous! Cathy refers to a site called Mommy Track’d, the moments section, which I think is the best comic relief.

Hi All - sorry to be out of touch.  Busy with work and life.  But, I wanted to give props out to a new site, a very cool site. Check out This Mommy Gig when you get a chance!

Right - we have heard it before and here it is again.  Our great country of the United States is one of 4 countries that does NOT offer paid maternity leave.  Great, isn’t it?  Follow the thread on this recent BusinessWeek post.

Ok, so we all know how I feel about Comcast.  If you have ever been the slightest bit annoyed with  your provider, you truly must check this out.  This is hysterical.