Only in France. As anyone who follows "work-family" issues knows, France offers among the best family-friendly benefits of any industrialized nation. Subsidized, quality child care. Free health care. A nanny who will come to your house after the baby is born and help you out.

But what book is on the best seller lists in France? A book called No Kid: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children. Written somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the book by French economist/psychoanalyst (and mother!!) Corinne Maier is meant to poke fun at France's child-centered culture. (Maier's last best seller was another humorous little tract called Bonjour Panesse (Hello Laziness), which advocated a slacker work ethic.)

Of course, the US is in the grips of one of the most intense child-centered cultures--and a backlash is coming too. Remember the flight attendant who threw the mother and her talkative toddler off the plane because the baby's constant chatter annoyed her? Take a look online, and you'll find plenty of people who are sympathetic to the flight attendant, having spent far too much time around parents who think everyone finds their little darlings as darling as they do.

The only difference, though, is France has generous benefits for parents. Here, it's every man and mom for themselves. Maybe that's why so many of us expect and demand others to treat our children like special gems. Stumble It!

One of the perks of being a journalist is that I get review copies of new books. And yesterday, I got one that I couldn't put down. Bad Girls: 25 Writers Misbehave is an anthology--yes, I know, there are way too many anthologies, and this anthology, edited by Ellen Sussman and published by Norton, contains many of the familiar names: Susan Cheever, Roxanne Robinson, and Daphne Merkin.

But, they happen to be wonderful writers, and this anthology is a little different. For one, it's not about whining about how hard it is to be a mother and a woman (says the author of her own share of complaining essays in anthologies).

What made me stay up late to finish reading Bad Girls is the celebration of the outrageous screw ups and screws. There is something refreshing and liberating about reading stories of women who don't try to live up to some ideal--they're criticized and even reviled, but they don't scamper away in shame.

Joyce Maynard defends her memoir about Salinger (way to go Joyce; I'm looking to reading that book next); Laura Lippman proudly recounts how she turned the tables on her bosses, who tried to gaslight her; and Maggie Estep writes a fascinating story about being the best friend of a slut.

Some of the other essays I did not love. A few I forgot two seconds after reading. But overall, this book was an engrossing read, and I hope it, like all those anthologies out there, finds an audience. Stumble It!

This is bound to become one of my favorite academic treatises tin a very long while. According to an article in the Boston Globe, a Utah State professor, David Lancy, argues that American push for parent-child play is misguided elitism run amok.

It's become conventional wisdom that a "good" parent spends a lot of time on the floor, playing with his or her kids. This helps develop their language and intellectual skills and prevents them from falling behind in this global economy, so the experts say. That has led to frantic middle and upper middle class parents buying all sorts of "learning" toys and feeling guilty that they aren't doing enough "floor time." And it's also led to a movement to prod states to fund programs that would teach low-income families how to play with their kids. (Studies have shown that low-income parents spend less time engaged in one-on-one play with their kids.)

In the Globe article, Lancy notes:

"In most cultures, 'adults think it is silly to play with children.'....[He also points out] that specialists behind the movement, who promote intense interventionist parenting styles to low-income parents, are too quick to claim that adult child play is crucial for human development....In much of the world, parents are unlikely to be the main caregivers, and Americans go overboard with structured parent-child play...

There are all kinds of social and cultural reasons for this impossible and silly standard of American parenting. We tend to have smaller families today so there are fewer kids to keep kids occupied. We're worried about safety so kids have less freedom to run around and tend to be supervised more. And there is more economic uncertainty and instability as the American economy has transitioned into a global, knowledge-based economy. Yup, I get all that.

But I'm hoping that Lancy's insights will some how filter into the mainstream and give American parents a bit of break from this impossible and nutty standard we've adopted. After all, most of us were not raised by parents who played Barbies with us. Turns out rest of the world wasn't either. Stumble It!

The first time my hair cutter told me that she had customers, who were nine or ten years old, getting their hair lightened, I was shocked. But now, three years later, it's become commonplace to see young girls getting "mani/pedis," eyebrow waxing, massages, and other beauty "maintenance" measures.

Some mothers believe this is all harmless fun, a little pampering and a way to bond with their daughters. (Read an article in which some mothers make this case.)

There are so many reasons why I think this trend is dangerous, but let's start with the obvious: Remember the Beauty Myth, that early 1990s feminist tract on the beauty industry's pernicious effect on women? It's bad enough that we adult women have internalized the beauty industry's message so thoroughly that we no longer even notice it, but now we are passing it on to our young daughters? Stumble It!

We often hear about how 40 or 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. I've often marvelled at that since I know so few people who have divorced. I wondered if it was because of the suburb I live in.

Turns out my town is somewhat typical. The divorce rate among college-educated couples is declining, while divorces among those with high school educations or less is growing.

Buried in an otherwise unimpressive essay from the Economist (which was reprinted in Dallas paper):

There is a widening gulf between how the best- and least-educated Americans approach marriage and child-rearing. Among the [college-educated] elite,... the nuclear family is holding up quite well....Of those who first tied the knot between 1975 and 1979, 29 percent were divorced within 10 years. Among those who first married between 1990 and 1994, only 16.5 percent were.

At the bottom of the education scale, the picture is reversed. Among high school dropouts, the divorce rate rose from 38 percent for those who first married in 1975-79 to 46 percent for those who first married in 1990-94. Among those with a high school diploma but no college, it rose from 35 to 38 percent.

The implications are far-reaching: Divorce tends to impoverish women and children. So this "marriage gap" is tending to aggravate socioeconomic differences. But also, I wonder why we're seeing more marriage stability among the college-educated. I'd like to break these numbers down further: are married women with jobs outside the homes even less likely to divorce? In other words, does equality in marriages breed more happiness and stability?
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What makes for a successful marriage? Sharing children or housework? In a new study, having children ranked quite low in importance (8th out of 9th), while splitting the household chores moved up to third place.

Chore-sharing was cited as very important by 62 percent of respondents, up from 47 percent in 1990. Learn more about the study here.

I know that some pundits see these results as a sign of the deterioration of marriage (not to mention the hedonism and pure selfishness of Generation X). I view the results differently. To me, this study says the ideals of the women's movement have become mainstream, as more women and men are desiring 50-50 marriages.

Also, there is a probably a dose of reality here. Studies consistently show that marital satisfaction drops after having children. Maybe if couples divvied up the household chores more equally, their appreciation for their mates would grow?




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