A New Work Ethic (that ends gender discrimination) for the 21st Century?

Bringing Baby to Work
(My second son at work with me in 2008)
Family friendly policy is critical, especially during the first year. 
(It helps that I own the company and set family friendly policies.)

To borrow the words of John Lennon, Imagine if...

...there was no more discrimination against women in the workplace, there was paid maternity leave for mothers and fathers, every workplace had flex-time, job sharing, compressed work schedules, the option of working from home when possible, and no child went without quality care from their parents during their first year of life...

...it's easy if you try...

Actually, these progressive workplace policies, which I believe are basic human rights, already exist - in almost every developed country except the United States.  The time to change this - to support the American family - is now.

For example, in the Netherlands, one attorney states "working part time is now the rule rather than the exception among his friends."  Fathers are taking a more active role in child rearing, which also allows mothers to continue working as well.  The difference - a flexible, progressive workplace that values the family.  In the Netherlands there are "part-time surgeons, part-time managers and part-time engineers. From Microsoft to the Dutch Economics Ministry, offices have moved into “flex-buildings,” where the number of work spaces are far fewer than the staff who come and go on schedules tailored around their needs.
"The Dutch culture of part-time work provides an advance peek at the challenges — and potential solutions — that other nations will face as well in an era of a rapidly changing work force."  Read the full article here.

Staying informed with the information below - can help you advocate for a modern workplace in your own profession. Policies such as flex-time, job sharing, telecommuting, and the Dutch concept of "flex-buildings"should be considered. At present, only 22% of American workplaces even offer telecommuting.

It's About Time

Mindy Fried, a sociologist, questions the lack of paid family leave in the US versus how common it (paid family leave) is around the world. Opponents of the recently squashed Paycheck Fairness Act argue that it is the fault of women for putting themselves in the position to have to take lower paying jobs - because they demand flexibility and more time with family. 
However, Your Wo(man) in Washington's Valerie Young disagrees, as do I.  She argues, "Women do most of the unpaid family carework in this country. Culturally and socially, it is more acceptable for women to do it than men. Is that fair? At the same time, women have to support themselves and their families. They work without the benefit of paid sick days, or family leave, or even the ability to ask for an alternative schedule. Is that fair? Is it even a good idea? Paid leave is a political issue, a gender issue, and as Dr. Fried shows below, a class issue as well." Read Mindy's full essay, It's About Time, here

What Working Women Want

A Rutger's University conference, "What Mothers Want," sponsored by the National Association of Mothers' Centers, gave this report from a recent blog post by Valerie Young.
Pamela Stone - Professional women were three times more likely than their male counterparts to interrupt their employment for "family responsibilities."  When they return, they frequently turn away from their former fields and enter lower paid, lower prestige sectors of the economy motivated by the desire to "give back" or pursue caring professions or social service.  Becoming a mother has a profound impact on a woman's values, priorities, and sense of identity.  After a career hiatus, a mother often changes both her behavior and career aspirations.  Motherhood exerts a powerful transformational effect. Read What Mothers Want here

The Glass Hammer: Shifting Gender Roles in the Workplace

From The Glass Hammer, an online community for women executives in business, law, and financial services...Director of External Affairs and the Women’s Institute at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, Carla Goldstein reports “Women have been doing double duty since WWII, but now we need to shift our focus and figure out how we can support men and women at work; how do we ensure that parents have the time to nurture happy, healthy families?” Read Shifting Gender Roles in the Workplace here

White House Report on Jobs and Economic Security for Women in America

Family support, especially for women, in the workplace, has gotten the attention of our current administration. Here is the official report and Executive Summary on how the US intends to respond to family discrimination in the workplace.  However with the recent squash of the Paycheck Fairness Act, it remains to be seen just how or even if this administration can begin the process of modernizing the American workplace. Read the Summary and Report here

Remote Working and Productivity
Opponents of modernizing the workplace, i.e. those who might argue that telecommutinghttp://www. is not productive, should read the latest report from The Glass Hammer on Remote Working and Productivity in the US.

In the UK, businesses are reporting huge savings by instituting telecommuting.  “Fifty-five per cent of businesses are seeing more home working now than before the recession,” said Mick Hegarty, Strategy and Communication Director at BT Business. Productivity is up by 20% in those who work flexibly compared with those who don’t, he went on. BT have generated a saving of between £6million and £7million as a result of improved productivity. Read more here 

Slowly but surely...To be learned, each day add something. to be enlightened, each day drop something.

...The US can be the example of family friendly work ethics, which stand to benefit every worker - not just those with children.

More Resources
How To Negotiate Better Every Day
Remote Employment
Your Wo(man) in Washington 
The Price of Motherhood

The World's Greatest Concern (what should be)

As a collective planet, our greatest concern should be our children.

Confusion from the Traffic Jam on the Super-Highway of Information

From parents to extended family to school administrators and teachers, everyone needs to be a living example for the next generation's healthy habits. As type II diabetes, obesity, and other diseases that used to be unheard of in children continue to soar, it is obvious that our examples are creating destructive behaviours and habits in our children.

However, if you are not a health care professional who specializes in health, wellness, injury prevention or other medicine, setting a good example first requires being able to wade through the plethora of information in magazines, books, on television, and the Internet as to what is the "best path" to living well. Even well educated and well read adults can get glassy eyes just trying to discern "the best path" for living.

If adults are confused about what plan, book, fitness or nutrition expert, therapist or doctor to listen to, then how can we teach our children about healthy living? Billions of dollars are made by those "experts" trying to spell out the best path for ideal health in their latest book or blog.

The Solution Exists - Ancient Wisdom, New You

I believe the definition of healthy living has always been there, remains unchanged, and is clear enough for a child to understand. The definitions are contained in ancient texts, all of which resonate with a similar message..."treat the body as the temple it is."

We should treat our body with special care. Daily maintenance, just as we would maintain our own households, is required. How can we expect our household or car to run if we do not regularly maintain it? Yet, many live their lives without maintaining their bodies and minds - and then worse yet - they are somehow surprised when adversity or illness leaves them on their knees and unable to cope. Such a small daily investment in our spirits and bodies will give us so much in return!

I believe in a message of simplicity. Being healthy does not have to be difficult or gimmicky. It does not require anyone to buy anything "special" or even spend a lot of money - as is evidenced by the effect this plethora of information has had on our glassy eyed nation.

Our children's' health & well being, despite what many self help books and products fail to recognize (or reveal), does not only encompass the physical. In order to teach our children what health is, we must show them - at home and in our schools - that true health should address social, emotional, psychological, energetic, and spiritual health - not just physical health.

Yoga does not own the market on "holistic treatment"

As a physical therapist and athletic trainer, I am the most practically suited person to focus and manage one's physical health and fitness; however before I had even completed my western medical education, I knew that the answers to "health" could not be contained in the physical realm alone.

Likewise, as a longtime student and teacher of yoga and yoga therapy, I make sure my students know that yoga does not contain the exclusive Truth to holistic health. In yoga and yoga therapy, holistic treatment starts with the "koshas" or sheaths.

However, my undergraduate exercise science and movement professor, long ago, did not know a thing about the "koshas" or yoga - and yet he fully understood (and taught his students) quite well that true health required looking past the physical. I have that professor, Dr. Bennett, to thank. He called his recognition of full health the "pentagon of wellness," I use the "pentagon" in my teachings and wellness prescription to this day.

The "pentagon of wellness" creates a balanced body and spirit. How beautiful to teach our children about the simplicity of being healthy - eating foods as close to the farm and field as possible, practicing the golden rule or karma, cultivating compassion through service, spending time improving and nurturing the Self, all in a way that is kind to the planet and people that God has created and given to us.

My Personal Lesson(s)

I gave birth to my first son in 2005, laboring from Christmas day until 2 days later. He was born a miracle, without drugs, fully alert, after 10 years of struggling. When I emerged from those ashes and met and married his father, before I knew my son would even exist, I was already determined to show my future child the beauty in the world ~ to teach him to take care of the gifts he was and is given.

Through those long struggles I had learned to stop asking "why me" and instead ask "what can I learn and how can I be better" from having struggled. Those struggles could have left me without hope and with much bitterness from comparing myself to others and all they had (and what I did not). However, I believed, deep down inside, what Paulo Coelho wrote in his book, The Alchemist, "that the universe would conspire" to help me realize my dream, my passion, my true place, in life.

Find it I did, and the dream was better than any I could have imagined. And, by no strength of my own did I find it. Through that, my mind, body, and spirit healed, I continue to help those patients and students who are suffering. But now also, I have been given a son to pass on the best of what I will teach him - a message to serve others without serving the self.

As a result of my struggles, and in the most positive way possible, I feel 103 already. I have seen and felt so much - that I will not let another day in my life pass without making sure I have truly Lived.

What You Can Do

More than ever, we must empower others. We can do that by using our adversities to support and build others up who have struggled through similar adversity.

Show others they too can overcome...they can be healthy despite their circumstances...that the multitude of information out there can be distilled to a clear message...

Only then, can we pass on that message of living by example to our children. We endure suffering I believe, for the purpose of living through and thriving from it - in order to help others who are suffering under similar circumstances.

Most people believe that the more you know, the more you realize you don't know and the more complicated your realize life is. I believe, the closer you get to God, or to realizing that a Greater Good exists and we all should be striving to work for it - the more simple you can become.

"Things you used to have", as Patty Griffin sings, "you do not care about anymore". Simplicity and gratitude in our daily lives for what we have, can allow Americans to clearly see and clearly teach our next generation to do the same. We can be better, and it is not so difficult as we think.

As a collective planet, what our greatest concern should be, is our children.

(written by Ginger on December 23, 2006; revised December 7, 2009)
*early yoga session with my 19 mo. old son, a few weeks before giving birth to my second son

Clouds of Light

When I look at my children, I feel different things. Let's be honest, we don't always feel warm and fuzzy when we see our kids, especially when they are covered in poo, magic marker, syrup, or a combination of all three - and part of that concoction is on the sofa and walls. Sometimes, when I look at my children, as cute as they are, I feel different emotions. Like a roller coaster, sometimes I look at their faces and I feel consumed, frustrated, loved, exasperated, fatigued, bewildered, humbled, confused...sometimes all at the same time! But one thing never changes. I always feel love. Despite the other surface emotions which may dictate an immediate feeling, I always do and will love them. I love them, and see a measure of Perfection, of Divine, of God, in them. Looking through the transparent innocence of their eyes is the closest I will ever get to a glimpse of Heaven while I am here on earth, because they are fresh from Heaven, delivered into my arms.
Thank goodness others see and feel that too. Unconditional love could be the title of this amazing poem by William Martin, but that would be too overt. However, unconditional love is the proverb and underlying message of what we should continually give to our children, and to each other. Let's remind ourselves as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends - we are nurturing the next responsible generation.

Clouds of Light

They look so small and frail

but they are so great and magnificent.

They are born of the same womb

that birthed the cosmos

and knitted together the galaxies.

If you could see them as they truly are,

you would be astounded.

You would see not little children

but dancing clouds of light,

energy in motion,

swimming in an ocean of love.

They are so much more

than what you see.

As are you.

By William Martin

*photo was taken just a few hours after my second son was born, 2007.