Happy marriage cuts fatal stroke risk for men

Happy marriage cuts fatal stroke risk for men - If you are a man, marriage can cut your risk of stroke, unless you are in an unhappy one, say researchers.

A study of 10,000 Israelis found both bachelors and those in loveless marriages had a far higher risk of fatal stroke than happily married men.

Experts said the work, presented at the American Stroke Association's International Conference, showed the power of loving relationships.

But they said a healthy lifestyle was the best way to avoid a stroke.

A happy marriage could bring health benefits

Marital satisfaction

The study, carried out by Uri Goldbourt from Tel Aviv University, analysed questionnaires filled out in the early 1960s by male civil servants and municipal employees.

The participants, who had an average age of 49, were asked to rate the success of their marriage.

The quality of people's relationships has a real knock-on effect on many aspects of their lives including their health. Mel Merritt , Relate

The researchers looked at those who died from strokes during the subsequent 34 years and compared it with the questionnaire findings.

After adjusting for factors like socio-economic status and taking into account stroke factors like blood pressure and smoking, the researchers found a striking link between fatal stroke risk and marital status.

Single men had a 64% higher risk of fatal stroke than men who were married.

But when the researchers delved further, they found the quality of the marriage was important.

Men in unhappy marriages also had a 64% higher risk when compared with those happily married.

"I had not expected that unsuccessful marriage would be of this statistical importance," said Professor Goldbourt.

The research is a snapshot of Israel from more than four decades ago, he said.

I had not expected that unsuccessful marriage would be of this statistical importance Professor Uri Goldbourt, Tel Aviv University

"How much this reflects associations between being happily or relatively happily married and stroke-free survival in other populations, at later times, is not readily deduced."

But previous research has suggested the quality of relationships can impact on health.

Studies have shown that stressful relationships can boost the risk of heart problems, and that being happy can reduce the risk of heart disease.

Knock-on effect

The findings of the Israeli study are not surprising, according to Mel Merritt of the relationship charity Relate.

She said: "This research reaffirms what we already know that the quality of people's relationships has a real knock-on effect on many aspects of their lives including their health.

"As a society we should invest in relationship support because happy relationships benefit us all by contributing to people's wellbeing, increasing productivity at work and improving people's health."

Lifestyle matters

Strokes cause many deaths each year. Experts say there are many contributory factors besides marital status.

Dr Peter Coleman, Deputy Director of Research at the Stroke Association said: "Around 50,000 men will have a first stroke in the UK every year and out of all people who have a stroke about a third are likely to die, a third will make a recovery within one month and a third will be left with a severe disability.

"No matter what your marital status, leading a healthy lifestyle, taking regular exercise, consuming a diet low in saturated fat and salt and having your blood pressure checked regularly are all ways to significantly reduce your risk of having a stroke." ( bbc.co.uk )

READ MORE - Happy marriage cuts fatal stroke risk for men

Want to be happy? have two daughters

Want to be happy? have two daughters - Having two daughters is the key to a happy and harmonious family life, according to a study.

Researchers came to the conclusion after examining the lives of families with different combinations of children, both male and female.

The results show of all the variations, two girls make for the most harmonious family life as they are unlikely to fight, will play nicely and are generally a pleasure to be around.

It also emerged two girls rarely annoy their parents, make limited noise, often confide in their parents and are unlikely to wind each other up or ignore each other.

By contrast, doubling the number of daughters is likely to lead to a whole world of pain, the report found.

Mums and dads with four girls turned out to be the least happy with family life overall, with one in four of those admitting they were not 100 per cent happy with their lot - and one in three finding it hard to cope on a daily basis.

Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, should be the happiest parents with their two daughters Beatrice and Eugenie

Parents of four girls also admitted to having to cope with an average of four fights or arguments a day, the study of 2,116 parents of children aged 16 and under revealed.

Faye Mingo, spokeswoman for www.bounty.com, said: ''The mums and dads we polled obviously dearly love their children, but those with bigger families find it much harder to keep the peace on a daily basis.

''The findings were absolutely fascinating - we often assume little girls behave like angels, and if you have two this certainly seems to be the case.

''But the more girls you have the more of a handful they become - more so than boys in fact.

''In fact, going from two to four girls seem to take parents from one extreme to the other - whilst doubling the amount of boys has much less impact.

''We expected two, three or four boys to come out as the most difficult combination of children to have, purely because of their energetic and boisterous personalities.''

The study looked into families with twelve different combinations of children, excluding only children but including everything from a brother and sister to four of the same sex.

Mums and dads were asked to rank their children's behaviour within the family unit based on a string of categories including ease of care, compatibility and overall behaviour.

Two girls scored highly in every category. They were 'easy to reason' with, 'helped around the house' and generally 'liked each other'.

But parents of four girls ranked them at the lower end of the spectrum in most sectors due in no small measure to the sheer workload managing four youngsters who regularly squabble and know how to wind each other up.

Two thirds of mums and dads of four girls have had to buy a bigger house and car.

They also find it impossible dealing with everyone when they're ill and spend most of the time encouraging the girls to get on.

In fact, mums and dads with four children of any gender found it harder, the results showed.

And meal times, mornings and the bedtime routine emerged as key areas which become difficult with four children.

Parents with four children also admitted neglecting one or more of their children on occasion, and find it harder to share their attention equally amongst everyone.

Other difficult combinations of children include two boys and two girls, three girls and one boy, and three boys and one girl - although 62 per cent of parents with this combination would have exactly the same number of children if they had their time again.

After two girls, the second most satisfactory combination of children was one boy and one girl.

Eighty six per cent of parents with one of each gender said they would honestly say their children were friends.

Parents of one girl and one boy also commented that they rarely argue over toys, belongings and who can have what.

The report found one of each gender can also be reasoned with easily, making it easy for mums and dads to quickly sort out problems.

The only downside of having a boy and a girl was a lack of shared interest as they grow up.

The third easiest combination of children was two boys.

Parents of two boys revealed they frequently pay each other lots of attention day to day, and are often best of friends throughout their childhood.

But while having two boys can be something of a pleasure when the children are little - parents can find the boys rarely confide in them as they grow up.

Faye Mingo added: ''Rightly or wrongly, many parents have a set idea about the combination of children that would make up their ideal family unit.

''But of course nature doesn't allow us to choose what we actually end up with or even what personalities our children will have.

''Every child is a blessing and there are lots of things parents can do to ensure family life is as harmonious as possible.

"Making sure quality time is spent with all children, reminding them how lucky they are to have siblings and creating family rituals such as eating and playing together can all help everyone to get the most out of family life together.''

'BEST' TO 'WORST' COMBINATIONS OF CHILDREN:

1. Two girls
2. One boy and one girl
3. Two boys
4. Three girls
5. Three boys
6. Four boys
7. Two girls and one boy
8. Two boys and one girl
9. Three boys and one girl
10. Three girls and one boy
11. Two boys and two girls
12. Four girls

BENEFITS OF HAVING TWO GIRLS:

1. Rarely noisy
2. Help around the house
3. Very few fights and arguments
4. Quite easy to reason with
5. Play together nicely
6. Rarely ignore each other
7. They confide in you
8. Very well behaved
9. Rarely try to wind each other up
10. Really like each other

]
NEGATIVES OF HAVING FOUR GIRLS:

1. Fight and argue all the time
2. Difficult to reason with
3. Ignore and dislike each other
4. Bedtime routine is a nightmare
5. Create a lot of noise around the house
6. Rarely confide in you
7. Hard to deal with when ill
8. Takes ages getting ready for school
9. Had to buy a bigger house and car
10. Hard to cope with on a daily basis

( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Want to be happy? have two daughters

Why holidays can be hell for families

Why holidays can be hell for families - The Easter holiday is in full swing and children are looking forward to their Easter eggs. But most parents dread the thought of their sons and daughters moping about the house, complaining of being bored.

However, the break won’t be cheap or easy for many families this year. A late Easter and an extra bank holiday for the Royal Wedding mean many children will have been in school for only as few as six days in April.

The Federation of Small Businesses fears the abnormal amount of school and bank holidays will leave many firms short-staffed. It’s a hot issue on internet forums.

Testing parents' patience: This month's exceptionally long holidays can be costly and stressful as parents struggle to stop children getting bored

A mother, writing on Netmums, said: ‘I work nights, so my partner is having to book three weeks off work to look after my daughter so I can sleep. I can’t believe how long they’re
having off. It’s completely ridiculous. It’ll be expensive, too.’

New research by insurer and financial services provider LV= confirms many parents’ fears. It estimates the Royal Wedding bank holiday alone has added £206 million to the cost of looking after and entertaining children this year.

Families are likely to spend £76 a week just keeping children busy with things to do over Easter, along with £84 for childcare.

The company surveyed more than 2,000 adults and found that 51 per cent were excited at the prospect of two bank holidays in quick succession after the Easter break — for the Royal Wedding and May Day — as they will have more time to spend with their family.

However, one in ten was concerned about how they were going to afford the extra costs, and 12 per cent were worried about how they were going to keep their children entertained over the longer break.

Mark Jones, of LV=, says: ‘All parents know days out aren’t cheap, especially once you add travel costs, food and drink to the entrance fee for many attractions.’ Some parents are also concerned at the sheer volume of homework their children have brought home over Easter.

Many pupils have been given folders full of work to stop them falling behind over the long break. One 39-year-old mother, whose six-year-old son attends a London primary school, says: ‘The amount of homework he’s brought back is totally ridiculous.

‘Not only does he have reading, spelling and times tables, he has to write stories and complete a geography project on something he’s not even been taught yet.

‘It’s as if the school is expecting parents to do the job of the teachers just because of the way the bank holidays have fallen this year.

‘It’s unreasonable, particularly for families who want to go away over Easter. Why should we be doing the job of teachers when they get to have time off?’

Margaret Morrissey, of family pressure group Parents Out Loud, agrees. She insists young children need a break from the grind of studying. She says: ‘It’s a major issue if schools are giving children so much work that they’re effectively expecting the same lessons to carry on over Easter at home, with the parents doing the work for the teachers.

‘It causes tremendous pressure on children and defeats the object of having a break from school. This is a particular problem this year. We seem to have a national obsession with having children sitting and learning every single day of the year.

It just isn’t necessary. Children need a rest.’ Some parents also worry about the impact of the longer break on teenagers studying for GCSEs. Away from the structure of lessons, some teenagers may struggle to knuckle down to vital revision.

George Turnbull, Ofqual’s exam expert, points out that recreation should be part of the revision programme, but it must be earned — and some sacrifices made, such as getting up an hour earlier each day to study.

A spokesman for the Department for Education says: ‘It’s unfortunate that all of these holidays have fallen so lose together, but it could not have been avoided.’ ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Why holidays can be hell for families

Nearly a third of mothers are now working full-time

Nearly a third of mothers are now working full-time - The number of mothers working full-time has increased from less than a quarter to almost a third over the past 15 years, official figures revealed yesterday.

The Office for National Statistics said 29 per cent of mothers worked full-time at the end of last year, up from 23 per cent in 1996, driven by a growth in full-time working generally.

A higher proportion of mothers worked part-time rather than full-time, while there was also a narrowing of the gap between employment rates for mothers and for women with no dependent children.

New figures show 29 per cent of mothers were working full-time at the end of last year

In 1996 the employment rate for mothers was 61 per cent, while for women without children it was 67 per cent. By the end of last year the gap had almost gone, with 66 per cent of mothers and 67 per cent of women without children in employment, the figures showed.

Since the onset of the recession, the employment rate for women without children has fallen back from its peak of 70 per cent in 2006, driven mainly by a fall in employment for those aged 16 to 24.

ONS statistician Jamie Jenkins said: 'Over 15 years the proportion of mothers working part-time hasn't changed much but the number of full-timers has risen markedly, which is what's driving the increase in working mothers.'

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: 'The rising proportion of mothers in work over the last 15 years is a ringing endorsement of family-friendly working practices such as better parental leave and pay, and the right to request flexible working.

'The expansion of quality, affordable childcare through Sure Start centres, now under threat due to local government cuts, has also helped parents find work.

'It is deeply worrying that the Government is about to turn the clock back by abandoning plans to extend family-friendly working, cutting childcare tax credits and forcing hundreds of thousands of women out of work through mass public sector job cuts.' ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Nearly a third of mothers are now working full-time

Optimism Protects Teens From Depression, Health Risks

Optimism Protects Teens From Depression, Health Risks - Parents are always telling kids they need to be optimistic, but there hasn't been much evidence that optimism really does them any good. Looking on the bright side may even hurt teenagers, say some experts, because it can make them downplay the risks posed by smoking and drug abuse. That's in stark contrast to older adults, who are generally healthier and happier the more optimistic they are.

But researchers in Australia say that optimism may help protect teenagers against depression. That news, reported in the journal Pediatrics, could matter to many teens, since 10 to 15 percent of adolescents have symptoms of depression at any given time. Depression is a huge risk factor for suicide and increases the risk of substance abuse, trouble in school and relationships, and physical illness.

The researchers followed 5,634 Australian 12- and 13-year-olds for 18 months, asking them about their psychological state, substance abuse, and antisocial behavior. The more optimistic the students were, the less likely they were to become depressed. But there was just a modest effect on other common teen problems. For instance, optimistic teenagers were only slightly less likely to be involved in criminal activity or heavy substance abuse.

What makes optimism work? An optimist believes the good things that happen in life will keep happening, and that they happen because she or he made them happen. Optimists also figure that bad things happen occasionally, and by chance, not because of one's own mistakes; and they believe those bad things are unlikely to happen again.

But for glass-half-empty types, there's good news: Optimism can be learned and it can help parents and teens deal more effectively with everyday adversity, says Martin Seligman, a psychologist who leads the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. And learning to be more optimistic is as easy as ABCDE, says Seligman. (To see where you fall on the optimism/pessimism scale, take his optimism test.) He describes our usual response to life's bumps and bruises as a three-step process, or ABC:

• Adversity. Recognizing a problem.
• Belief. What you believe about the problem. For example, the guy who cut you off in traffic is a jerk and an idiot.
• Consequences. You get mad at that jerk, and it ruins your day.

To avoid that bad consequence and increase optimism, Seligman recommends adding in two more steps, D and E:

• Disputation. Question your belief in what happened. What else could have caused the problem? Does your belief in what happened do you any good? Apply that to the jerk-in-traffic example, and it's easy to see how you can start rewriting the scenario to a happier outcome.
• Energization. This one sounds a bit woo-woo, but it just means figuring out how you can improve the situation, and jumping on it. For road rage, it could be as simple as laughing over the craziness of rush-hour traffic. In other situations, it could be asking others to help with a challenging project, seeking forgiveness from someone you've wronged, or distracting yourself from brooding over the bad things in life.

Our world is full of news that could turn us all into pessimists, and teenagers are experts at ruminating over the world's injustices. Optimism, whether born or learned, may make the travails of teenagerhood a bit less painful for us all. ( usnews.com)

READ MORE - Optimism Protects Teens From Depression, Health Risks

The idiocy of text-message adultery

The idiocy of text-message adultery - Stop me if you've heard this one before: A woman says Tiger Woods had sex with her. No, really. Her name is Raychel Coudriet. It's the same story we've heard from other women: She liked Woods, he wanted her, he propositioned her, she said yes. He was sitting next to her at a party when he made his move. Did he touch her? Raise an eyebrow? Whisper in her ear? Nope. He texted her.

Woods may go down in history as the greatest golfer of all time. But he'll also be remembered as the king of sexting. He takes his place in a pantheon of lechers who have sated the world's oldest urge through the latest communications technology. Bill Clinton used the phone; Mark Foley used online chats; Mark Sanford used e-mail; Woods used text messages. Sitting right next to Coudriet, Woods went for his phone. He "texted her constantly," says the National Enquirer, echoing reports by other women. He was more addicted to texting than he was to sex.

Tiger Woods

The picture of Woods sitting there with Coudriet, discreetly sending her messages that would show up later in the Enquirer, captures the bottomless folly of extramarital sexting. Cheaters seem to think their phones send secret mating signals only their girlfriends can pick up. They couldn't be more wrong.

In the months since Woods' adultery was discovered, scores of his messages to various girlfriends have been leaked. So have the texts of Jesse James, the philandering husband of Sandra Bullock. If those aren't raw enough for your taste, try the X-rated pager messages between former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his then-chief of staff, Christine Beatty. No detail is spared. You can find out exactly how Beatty debriefed Kilpatrick and which holes Woods liked to play.

But that's only half of what makes these messages creepy. The other half is the cheaters' constant worry about being caught. Their thumbs work the keypads, pleading for secrecy. "Don't text me back till tomorrow morning. I have [too] many people around me right now," Woods told Jaimee Grubbs, a cocktail waitress. To Joslyn James, a porn actress, he texted: "Don't come down here yet. Lots of people in the hall. I will let you know when it clears." Later, he chastised her: "You almost just ruined my whole life. If my agent and these guys would have seen you there, Fuck."

Fuck, indeed. Everyone with an Internet connection now knows plenty about Woods' sex life. But we don't know it from a bimbo getting caught in a hallway. We know it from his texts. His comments to Coudriet—"Are you touching yourself? I want to f--- you"—are reprinted verbatim in the Enquirer. He treated his phone as a private channel, a place where he could hide his darkest thoughts from the world. Instead, the phone manifested and published them. His trysts are gone. His marriage is on the rocks. But his texts? They're immortal.

Bullock's husband, Jesse James, made the same mistake. "I'm texting you in secret," he told one of his girlfriends. That message, along with 194 others, is now in her possession and is among several, "many of them extremely graphic," that she has reportedly shown to TMZ, the celebrity gossip site. Too late, he has learned that there's no such thing as texting in secret.

So has Kilpatrick. "THEY WERE RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR. THEY HAD TO HAVE HEARD EVERYTHING," he told Beatty after a night together. When she joked that they'd been "busted," he replied, "DAMN THAT. NEVER BUSTED. BUSTED IS WHAT YOU SEE! LOL."

That's the folly of the cheating sexter. He thinks that to be busted, he has to be seen with his girlfriend. He has it backward. A physical encounter can be broken up in seconds, leaving only the uncorroborated memory of a putative eyewitness. But a text is objective and self-incriminating. Busted isn't being seen. It's being read.

In hindsight, the exposed sexters seem almost poignantly naive. James' electronic attempt at just-between-us intimacy—"*wink*"—has been pasted all over the Internet. Kilpatrick's and Beatty's frequent reminder to each other—"ERASE!"—has been preserved as a warning to all who think their messages were purged. And Woods' leaked promise to Grubbs—"secretively we will always be together"—has become a self-refuting joke. The promise was a fantasy. So was the secrecy.

Remember that the next time you wander off the fairway of marriage. Lust isn't love, and texting isn't whispering. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The cell phone knows. Soon, the rest of us will know, too. ( slate.com )

READ MORE - The idiocy of text-message adultery

Working mothers spend 81 minutes a day looking after their children

Working mothers spend 81 minutes a day looking after their children - Working mothers in Britain spend just 81 minutes each day looking after their children - including mealtimes - a report has found.

It is the dilemma facing every working mother - how to devote enough time to their children, while juggling career demands with household chores.

Now, a new study has disclosed that in Britain, those who work outside the home spend on average one hour 21 minutes a day looking after their families - including meal times.

Stay-at-home mothers managed almost twice as much time directly caring for their children, with 2 hours 35 minutes dedicated to activities like meals, bathtime and playing games, according to the research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The report, which compared surveys in 21 leading industrialised nations found the time UK working mothers spent caring for their children was almost half that in some other countries.

According to recent studies British working mothers spend on average one hour 21 minutes a day looking after their families, including meal times

Those in Ireland spent 150 minutes a day caring for their children, while those in Australia managed 137 minutes, with working mothers in the United States, Canada, Italy, Sweden and Spain all spending more time looking after their children than those in Britain.

Family campaign groups said the emotional development of children was being damaged, because too many women felt under pressure to work long hours, while others prioritised careers over time at home.

But psychologists said it was more important how the time caring for children was used, and that less time than 81 minutes could be enough if it included fun activities which were sufficiently bonding.

The report examined how much time parents spent involved in childcare as a "primary activity" - covering things like meals, dressing, playing, and reading bedtime stories to children, and excluding time when the parent's main focus was on another task.

Of all parents, fathers with jobs spent the least time on such care - just 43 minutes a day.

Even when they did not work, fathers spent less time than mothers looking after their offspring - on average just 63 minutes a day - 18 minutes less than a mother who goes out to work.

The statistics for Britain included time spent with children at weekend - meaning that on working days, the average amount of time parents spent caring for their children was even less.

Dr Sandra Wheatley, a family and child psychologist said: "I don't think parenting is a numbers game - the important thing is that children get opportunities to have fun with their parents.

"If a mother gets home from work and spends 45 minutes haring around the living room dressed up as a belly dancer, or making drums out of yoghurt pots, before a quick dinner and bed, that could easily be good enough.

"The important thing is that some of the time is spent on activities that are child-led."

She said it was "curious" that stay-at-home mothers did not spend more of their time directly caring for their children, suggesting the figures might offer some comfort to working women who felt guilty about the time they spent out of the home.

"I think a lot of working mothers might think it's quite surprising - and maybe reassuring - that others who spend their time at home only spend just over an extra hour a day looking after their children."

But Margaret Morrissey, from lobby group Parents Outloud said too many children of working mothers were being short-changed.

She said: "A lot of children growing up in Britain today have no concept of a traditional family life.

"For some children, nurseries and childminders can work very well, but when so many children are spending so little time with their parents, the risk is that their emotional development is damaged."

Across all 21 countries, the research showed distinct differences in the type of childcare that women and men provide.

Mothers spent 60 per cent of their time on physical care, such as dressing, feeding, changing nappies, providing medical care and supervision.

But fathers were much more likely to spend time on educational and recreational childcare - helping children with their homework, reading and playing games.

They spent 40 per cent of their childcare time on this compared with 27 per cent of women.

Earlier this month, BBC newsreader and mother of three Sophie Raworth, provoked debate after disclosing that she is following a US parenting scheme called FAST, which teaches time-starved to give each child 15 minutes of "undivided attention" each day.

She investigated the eight week programme for a BBC Two documentary, Parents Under Pressure, and is now following its guidelines to bring up her children Ella, six, Georgia, five, and three-year-old Oliver.

The number of mothers who stay at home to look after their children has dropped dramatically in the past two decades.

Of women of working age, just two million are at home caring for family members full-time, a figure which includes those looking after elderly relatives, compared to more than 13 million in work.

Justine Roberts, co-founder of parenting website Mumsnet, said Britain's long hours culture made it hard for working mothers to get away from the office.

She said: "There is a culture in this country which means that despite the talk of family-friendly policies, women fear that rushing off early at the end of the day to see their kids will damage their career prospects."

Most parents could simply not afford to manage on one income, or take a pay cut to shorten their hours, she said.

When working mothers did get home, most tried to spend as much time with their offspring as possible, though they often felt stressed and tired, she said.

"Women aren't superhuman - we all end up feeling guilty but sometimes after a long day at work it can be hard to face starting a jigsaw puzzle," she added. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Working mothers spend 81 minutes a day looking after their children

Sharing Her Secrets

Sharing Her Secrets - Eevery family has its own inimitable way of communicating, and in my family you sometimes stumble across a secret or little piece of hidden family history in a bookstore. By my count my mother has written three memoirs, six autobiographical novels and four memoirish explorations, and so I think it’s safe to say that the shelves of Barnes and Noble know nearly as much about her life and times as I do.

Anne Roiphe and her daugher Katie in 1993.

Anne Roiphe with her daughter Katie as an infant.

But there were a few obscure and mysterious years in her 20’s that she had written nothing about, the years after she left her first husband, a gifted and nasty alcoholic playwright, and before she met my father. As it happened, those were the years that I was most interested in.

As a single mother who often finds herself careering through the city in a cab late at night in a party dress, I was naturally curious about this period of my mother’s life when she was a single mother careering through the city in a cab late at night in a party dress. But she wasn’t willing to talk about it. By the time I was born, she had reinvented herself as a doctor’s wife living in a brownstone off Park Avenue, and there were four children, two cats, two dogs, summers in Nantucket and no trace of the wildness and searching and unsettledness of her 20’s.

So a year and a half ago, when my mother handed me the manuscript of her new memoir, “Art and Madness,” she had never mentioned a single one of the racy or disturbing things in it. I was encountering these stories for the first time in Times New Roman.

I read about her affairs with married writers like Doc Humes, George Plimpton, William Styron and others; I read about her taking my older sister, who was then 3, to Doc Humes’s house in the middle of the night because he was having some sort of psychotic episode, and sitting up with him while my sister slept on his bed, and then dropping him at Bellevue in the morning, on her way to taking my sister to preschool; I read about her waking up next to the lanky George Plimpton one morning with my sister crawling onto the covers, asking, “Who’s this?”

My mother wanted to be a writer, but because being a writer seemed so implausible to a young woman graduating from college in the late ’50s, she wanted to sleep with a writer. The book captures the bewildering, incoherent melding of Eisenhower values with a late beatnik obsession with the artist. So there is my mother in jeans and sandals, a battered paperback of Camus on her night table, with thoughts like the following: “I hoped to meet a writer and fix him dinner eternally.”

In her saga of these strange, scrambled times, my mother is satiric about other people: “She seemed like the perfect Radcliffe girl caught in a Chinese dope den.” “He seemed to know everything, or maybe it was everyone.” And yet she writes about no one more sharply than she does about herself: “I had the morals of a 4 year old.”

She is primarily concerned with the loneliness, the excess, the blazing irresponsibility toward children of that early ’60s circle of artists and writers; she is not particularly interested in the exhilaration. “Art and Madness” is a conversion narrative, and she is writing as an ardently converted conventional person.

The point is that she turned against all this bohemian stuff; she is not now a huge believer in happiness, or perhaps I should say joy, outside of marriage or settled life. Terry Southern’s wife tells her that she doesn’t regret anything that happened, and would do it all again, and my mother writes: “I, on the other hand, would never do any of it again. Never.”

But because my mother is a transcendently good storyteller, the stories get away from her. They tell themselves, and the exhilaration, the excitement, the thrill of taboo breaking, the magnetism of some of the men, are there on the page, in spite of her better, more responsible intentions.

Is it strange to stumble across all of this intimate family history in a polished manuscript practically en route to a publishing house? I would be lying if I said it wasn’t. But I had learned about my mother walking in on her father and his mistress in her country house with a group of college friends, or her aunts stealing her mother’s fur coats and jewelry while her mother lay dying, from my mother’s books; my mother’s voice telling me stories as a child, and her novels and memoirs, blend together to the extent that to this day I couldn’t tell you which is my great-grandfather’s real name and which is the name she invented for him in her novels.

I’m comfortable in this ambiguity, and live there, too: is it a bedtime story or is it life? This perverse romantic commitment to the story, to the words on the page, to the pinning down of awkward truths other more well-adjusted people might be contented not to pin down: I grew up in it and I don’t know anything else.

My response to this particular manuscript with its particular unburied secrets, though, is to act as if I am a scholar, and someone has handed me a riveting historical account of early ’60s literary New York. My mind immediately runs toward a cultural analysis of the women of the period, or changing attitudes toward the artist, in a way that conveniently obscures the fact that the woman draped across the couch at the Paris Review party is my mother.

As a piece of social history, though, the memoir is fascinating because my mother is traversing the same social circles I do, only a half-century earlier. What her generation identified as charisma in their famous writers would now be labeled “alcoholism.” Where she and her friends were devoted to the idea of pure art and flouting convention, the novelist we admire sells his novel to the movies, lives in a town house in Brooklyn, or a loft in TriBeCa, and has a good car, his bohemianism and rebellion against conventional mores basically confined to shopping at Whole Foods, with a life, in short, that suspiciously resembles that of the banker next door. (My mother recalls a date she had with my father where she called something “bourgeois,” and he, the son of immigrants, a doctor, said, “What’s wrong with bourgeois?” And my mother, embarrassed, couldn’t quite answer. But maybe the intervening decades have answered for her, and maybe we could use a little more critical distance from material things, a slightly greater obsession with the sublime sentence, who knows?) And then, of course, the casual and flamboyant adultery my mother describes would be judged the next morning by our healthier, more staid, more quietly unhappy couples; the cheating would be rare and furtive, and certainly not part of the ambience and festivity of, say, a book party, which is now altogether a brisker, more businesslike affair. And I don’t think we ever quite achieve the boozy, dissolute fluidity of those parties and happenings she describes, an atmosphere John Berryman summarized as, “Somebody slapped/ Somebody’s second wife somewhere.”

To me what’s most striking reading my mother’s memoir is the stylish chasm between their world and ours, the pleasurable sensation that we have progressed. But is the literary scene completely different from our own? It is different, surely, and a 25-year-old like my mother would feel entirely comfortable harboring writerly ambitions of her own. However, if you go to a Paris Review party on White Street, or an N+1 party, you will still find the young male novelist, now ironic, self-deprecating, exquisitely confident, in his plaid shirt and glasses, just back from Buenos Aires, maybe, and the girls who eagerly orbit him. So there is still a certain amount of accommodating, affirming female energy circling the male editors and writers; a certain male radiance to be fed off of and deferred to and seduced. The dynamic is different, definitely more subtle and fashionably post-feminist, but it would be dishonest if I said that the Paris Review party circa 1964 was entirely unrecognizable to me. In fact, standing in their crowded offices the other day, next to the bar, the wilder scenes from the book still in my head, I almost expect to see my mother, in her daisy print minidress, cropped ’60s hair, kohl-circled eyes, with the cigarette she doesn’t actually know how to inhale, walk in the door. ( nytimes.com )

READ MORE - Sharing Her Secrets

How to guide girls - Raising daughters can be daunting

How to guide girls - Raising daughters can be daunting – but a new book of the collected wisdom of teachers from more than 200 leading girls’ schools will help parents negotiate the minefields

When it comes to raising offspring, do parents today need more help with their daughters? The Girls’ Schools Association certainly thinks so.

“Parents are particularly anxious about raising daughters as there are greater pressures on girls,” says Dr Helen Wright, headmistress of St Mary’s Calne, president of the GSA, and the mother of two daughters (and one son). “There are social pressures in terms of celebrity culture, for instance, or their appearance, or the conflict women have about their role in life.”

According to Dr Hunt, parents are increasingly turning to schools for advice and wisdom. “With the break-up of the extended family network, parents simply don’t know where to turn. We’ve seen a huge increase in the past 10 years of parents coming into school and asking about parenting issues. Schools and families need to work together to bring up children.”

Which is how the new book, Your Daughter: a Guide for Raising Girls, came about. The practical manual, written by the head teachers and staff from more than 200 leading girls’ schools, deals with everything from family and friends to tantrums and tattoos. Here, we select the GSA’s most pertinent advice when it comes to raising a thoroughly modern 21st‑century girl.

The new tearaway Trinians: Gemma Arterton and Sarah Harding in St Trinian's 2

ALCOHOL

Most parents are worried about their children coming into contact with drugs, but the real social evil is alcohol. With spirits retailing at less than £10 in supermarkets, most teenagers can afford to pick up a bottle with their pocket money. Fake IDs are routine, and there is usually an older teen around to effect the transaction.

The prevalence of alcopops has taken away one of the greatest bars on teenage drinking – the taste; most young teenagers don’t like beer, wine or cider. Alcopops, which vary in their alcoholic content, go down like fizzy drinks, and can act as an entry level to harder spirits. It is no surprise that teenage drinking is now a national problem.

For the majority of teenage carousers, however, alcohol isn’t anything serious; it’s just an ever-present favourite motivator for nearly all teenage behaviour: “having a laugh”, appearing “cool”, and being incapable of predicting consequences. If real shock tactics are called for, you could make them stay sober at a party where everyone else is drinking, or video them while under the influence. It’s not funny the next day.

Still, the world of teenage parties and alcohol is one of the most difficult situations that parents face. Children will always try to play parents off against each other, so it is important that you establish good lines of communication between each other, and are clear about – and agree upon – a number of keys issues, namely at what age alcohol will be made available to your child; the amount and type of alcohol that will be provided at a party; and what levels of supervision will be in place throughout.

Limit access to wines and beers (no spirits). Although alcopops, which are popular with girls, blur the spirit/non-spirit divide, at least they are a “measured” drink. A strong, active adult presence at all teenage parties is essential. “Policing” duties range from excluding gatecrashers to being alert to “smuggled in” supplies of alcohol. A minimum of three adults, at a ratio of one adult to 10 teenagers, should provide a good level of supervision and sufficient cover if anything goes wrong.

Alcohol is a normal part of adult society, and it is important that young people learn to drink responsibly. This skill is best taught in the home – it is often suggested that allowing children a small amount of alcohol at home (the French wine-and-water model) can help to deglamorise later drinking at clubs. Most importantly, parents should not underestimate the part that we play as role models to our children. Young people will pay more attention to what we do than to what we say.

Talking to your daughter about alcohol is really important and – like talking about sex – is best introduced from an early age as part of an ongoing conversation about what is right and what is wrong in life.

SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

While every parent would like to shelter their daughter from too much knowledge and experience too soon, it is not possible to protect her forever. Sex and relationship education is recognised as one of the trickiest subjects for parents to broach. Nevertheless, most of us will recognise that nothing is as dangerous as ignorance, and failing to address the subject, or leaving it too late, could be a high-risk strategy.

We need our daughters to have the skills and knowledge to enable them to cope with reality, rather than attempting to keep it at bay. There is no evidence that giving information early leads to early experimentation; in fact, the reverse is more likely to be true – shrouding sex and relationships in mystery can do more harm than being open and honest with our children.

Sex is so flaunted, it can’t be a surprise to anyone that many bright youngsters are keen to try it as quickly as is reasonably possible. It’s all out there, from the casual acceptance of frequent one‑night stands in Friends to the full-frontal nudity of Sex and the City (the film version, actually rated 15, was the film treat of choice for many 12- to 14-year-olds’ birthday parties on its release).

A striking feature of even the most intelligent teenagers is their inability to foresee consequences. So what can the concerned parent do to help them handle the immense pressure to want too much too young?

It can be helpful to watch soap operas with them and give your opinion, then listen honestly to theirs. Alternatively, tell them about some of your anonymous friends’ experiences: how did your colleague cope with the news that she had chlamydia? Was X’s abortion really painless and hassle-free? Newspapers are full of stories about “love cheats”, but how did that feel when it happened to you?

Don’t sit down for a two-hour “birds and bees” session, but chat about these things as they arise, laugh about them when you can, and your daughter will be grateful of the chance to discuss issues that might well be worrying her too, with someone who knows a bit more and whom she doesn’t have to impress. You will never stop her having sex, but if she can keep you in the loop, it is much more likely to be safer and more at a time when she’s ready than otherwise.

Girls are very much interested in relationships of all kinds – they care far more about friendships than boys generally do (which is why fluctuations in friendship patterns can cause girls such pain). Moving into the world of boyfriends is important to them. But, as is the case in later life, being with the wrong partner is not preferable to being alone. Girls need to be helped to see that you start going out with someone because you are strongly attracted to each other (and it has to be mutual) and you want to spend time together.

Still, don’t give them too much time alone together — parents have real responsibilities here.

PIERCINGS AND TATTOOS

Whether it is done at a high-end boutique or with a needle and a box of matches in the school loos, girls are eager to engage in rites of passage such as ear-piercing or tattooing. As we encourage our daughters to become independent thinkers, objecting on the grounds of our own personal preference is unlikely to hold much sway.

A recent consultation with a group of sixth-form girls showed common sense and a considerable consensus on basic issues. Asked about her piercings, one teenager said: “Parents shouldn’t forbid it. I was forbidden from getting certain bits of my ears pierced, so obviously I went and got them done as soon as I could at a festival – a really bad idea.”

As a parent, you could set a reasonable period of time, perhaps six months, to test your daughter’s resolve before she gets it done, but ultimately helping to ensure hygienic and safe treatment is essential. If things do go wrong, it is better that you know and are involved.

Concentrate on open discussion of facts – for example, that tattoos (especially facial piercings) might deter potential employers; the way in which tattoos blur and spread with age; the scarring that can result from tattoo removal; and the problems that lower back tattoos may cause for pregnant women who need epidurals.

Girls are usually aware that some forms of piercing have a high incidence of infection and can scar, but does your daughter know that a tongue stud may damage the enamel on her teeth, or that infected ear-cartilage piercings usually result in surgery as antibiotics will not work? There are plenty of offputting and gruesome images on the internet.

SOCIAL NETWORKING AND THE INTERNET

The media is full of horror stories of children being harmed. But these events hit the headlines because they are so unusual. Many more children are killed in traffic accidents every hour of every day than as a result of communicating with others on social network websites. However, such stories can give valuable examples of what you and your daughter should be aware of.

Consider whether it is wise to let her have a computer in her bedroom. If she is too young to be left alone at home, she is probably too young to be using the internet without supervision.

Keep your home computer in a public place, preferably with the screen facing into the room, so that it can be seen when passing. Laptops with Wi‑Fi connection make it almost impossible for parents to have any handle on what their daughter is doing on the internet; many parents consider such hardware best suited to the older teenager. Be aware that the majority of mobile phones today are also likely to provide unfiltered access to the internet.

Insist that your children do not share personal information, such as their full name, address, phone numbers, full date of birth or passwords, with people they meet online.

Stay involved: look at her and her friends’ Facebook page, and check the computer’s history (the log of websites visited). You could remind her that the police say anything on the internet is public, that malicious gossip is a serious offence, and that teachers and employers check these sites.

Above all, keep talking to her, about your concerns as well as possible threats to her safety. Once she is in her mid‑teens, peer pressure will be the greatest influence in her life, so any lecturing from you could be counter‑productive.

She needs strategies for managing the risks that are an inevitable part of life so that she can become a confident, competent and successful adult, and use the “wings” you have given her to fly. (.telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - How to guide girls - Raising daughters can be daunting

Is Dora the Explorer an illegal immigrant?

Is Dora the Explorer an illegal immigrant?. In her police mug shot, the doe-eyed cartoon heroine with the bowl haircut has a black eye, battered lip and bloody nose.

Dora the Explorer's alleged crime? "Illegal Border Crossing Resisting Arrest."

The doctored picture, one of several circulating widely in the aftermath of Arizona's controversial new immigration law, may seem harmless, ridiculous or even tasteless.

But experts say the pictures and the rhetoric surrounding them online, in newspapers and at public rallies, reveal some Americans' attitudes about race, immigrants and where some of immigration reform debate may be headed.

"Dora is kind of like a blank screen onto which people can project their thoughts and feelings about Latinos," said Erynn Masi de Casanova, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. "They feel like they can say negative things because she's only a cartoon character."

The depictions, whether through irony or protest, are being used by those who oppose and support Arizona's law. On one hand she's a likable symbol who many can relate to, and at the same time, perceived as an outsider who doesn't belong anywhere.

In this composite image provided May 20, 2010 courtesy of Debbie Groben and FreakingNews.com, is an image of Nickelodeon cartoon Dora the Explorer created late last year by Debbie Groben of Sarasota, Fla., for a contest for the fake news site FreakingNews.com. The image, and others like it that question or make fun of the Latina cartoon character's immigration status and country of origin, have been in wide circulation since Arizona passed a controversial immigration law. Groben, who is against the immigration law, said she just created it out of good fun and didn't know it would enter the immigration debate. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Debbie Broben and FreakingNews.com)

It's not the first time a children's character has been dragged into a serious debate.

In the late 1990s, Tinky Winky the Teletubby, a purple children's TV character with a triangle antenna — was called out by Christian leaders for being gay. Sesame Street roommates Bert and Ernie are often involved in statements on same-sex marriage.

Both shows' producers say the characters aren't gay.

In Dora's case, especially because her image is so widely available, she's an easy target as discussion ramps up on how lawmakers should address the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

For about a decade, the pint-sized Latina character has taught millions of children the English alphabet, colors and Spanish phrases on a Nickelodeon TV show and through a global empire. Her smiling cherub face is plastered on everything from backpacks to T-shirts to fruit snacks.

But since the passage of the Arizona law — which requires authorities to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally — Dora's life and immigration status have been scrutinized and mocked.

Several websites, including The Huffington Post, have narrated Dora's mock capture by immigration authorities. One picture circulating on Facebook shows an ad for a TV show called "Dora the Illegal Immigrant." On the Facebook page "Dora the Explorer is soo an Illegal Immigrant," there are several images showing her sailing through the air over the U.S.-Mexican border.

Many of the Dora images assume the Latina character is an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

But that's where it gets complicated.

Representatives from Nickelodeon declined to comment on Dora's background, and her place of birth or citizenship have never been clear." She has brown skin, dark hair and some experts who have studied the show say she speaks Spanish with an American accent.

"She's always been ambiguously constructed," said Angharad Valdivia, who teaches media studies at the University of Illinois and has explored the issue. "In the U.S. the way we understand race is about putting people in categories and we're uncomfortable with people we can't put into categories."

Dora lives in an unidentified location with pyramids that suggest Mexico, but also tropical elements such as palm trees and her friends, Isa the iguana and Boots the monkey. Does that mean she's from South America or Florida?

Then there's oak trees and her fox nemesis Swiper, which are more common to the American Midwest.

The show often plays Salsa-like music, which has some roots in Cuba and is popular across Latin America.

Even the voice actresses behind Dora don't provide insight.

The original Dora voice belonged to Kathleen Herles, whose parents are from Peru. Dora is currently voiced by actress Caitlin Sanchez, a New Jersey-born teen who calls herself Cuban American; her grandparents are Cuban.

The images have been used on all sides of the immigration reform debate.

Many immigrant families, particularly Latinos, see Dora as a symbol of freedom, someone to relate to. She's a young girl with brown skin who lives in a borderless world and can travel anywhere she wants without consequence.

"It's symbolic of the way many Latinos live ambiguously in the United States," said Nicole Guidotti-Hernandez who teaches gender studies at the University of Arizona. "It's a shorthand for claiming our lives in the United States, especially for children."

At the same time, Guidotti-Hernandez says the ambiguity and negative imagery makes Dora susceptible to being used by those who support the Arizona law.

As for the mug shot, it's been around since late last year, when Debbie Groben of Sarasota, Fla. created it and entered it in a contest for the fake news site FreakingNews.com.

Since debate over the Arizona law heated up the nation's immigration debate, it's been e-mailed and texted widely and used on signs at rallies.

"My intentions were to do something funny, something and irreverent," said Groben, who said she opposes Arizona's law. "I actually like the little kid."

The issue appears to have resonated little with Dora's biggest fans, the millions of parents and their children who seem mostly unaware of the discussion encircling their beloved cartoon.

Altamise Leach, who has three children, said Dora's ethnicity and citizenship are irrelevant.

The stay-at-home mom credits the cartoon with helping teach her children team work. She even threw her 3-year-old daughter a Dora birthday party, complete with a Dora-like adventure, Dora cake and a woman who dressed up as Dora.

"We have so many diverse cultures, let's try to embrace everybody," Leach said. "She puts a smile on my daughter's face, that's all I want."

Erick Wyatt said he never thought about Dora's origins and his three children never asked.

"I just thought she was a cartoon character that spoke Spanish," the Flint, Mich., man said. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Is Dora the Explorer an illegal immigrant?

Out of Work? It's Time to Get Connected

Out of Work? It's Time to Get Connected. Many flocking to sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to find a new job. With layoff numbers skyrocketing nationwide, that sucking sound you hear is a torrent of unemployed workers heading to online networking sites.

LinkedIn and Facebook, the two biggest, are seeing membership rise as those out of work stampede to the Internet to find jobs. (Unique visits to both LinkedIn and Facebook are up more than 100 percent this past year, according to Nielsen.)

"The rush online to these sites started in the spring, when the economy started to look bad, but after the financial collapse we saw a huge rush," says Matthew Fraser, a senior research fellow at the international business school INSEAD and co-author of forthcoming book "Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World." "People are trying to build social capital online as a hedge towards uncertainty."

Social networking sites can connect you with hundreds of people you probably wouldn't be able to hook up with in traditional job-seeking ways, but they are by no means a silver bullet for the unemployed.

"There is some sort of social prestige you get out of these tools but does that translate directly into employment or financial well being? I don't see that happening," says Michael Stefano, assistant professor of communications at University of Buffalo.

Stefano recently conducted an experiment where he had 50 college students select 12 of their Facebook friends and ask them to help with a school project by taking a 10-minute survey. Of the 600 total asked, only one out of seven responded on average, he says. The majority did not even click on the URL to look at the survey.

Helping someone find a job will take a lot more time and energy than that, Stefano points out. While he admits there are anecdotal stories about people finding jobs via these sites, he's "doubtful" they are statistically significant.

Building your network

Indeed, there are no hard numbers that show networking portals are any more effective than picking up a phone and asking friends if they know of any work. And these sites are not far-reaching, having long been focused on professional office dwellers, not blue-collar or service-sector workers.

But, that said, they do offer most job seekers potential for more exposure, a wider reach of contacts, moral support and a connection to the outside work world. So, if you're out of work, it's a good idea to have a social networking membership in your gig-hunting tool belt.

"Being part of a social network isn't required but it is a differentiator," says branding guru Dan Schawbel, author of "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success."

"People who lose their jobs now have a list they can send out messages to," he says. "And, if they have strengthened those relationships over time, chances are they can get a job much more quickly."

That's how it worked for David Stevens, who was laid off from his job as sales rep for two radio stations in San Jose on Oct. 1.

After the initial disappointment of losing his job, he got right on LinkedIn and reached out to his network of about 150 people.

He also updated his status on LinkedIn, which basically is a section on his page that allows all his contacts, and the membership at large, to see what he's up to. He wrote: "I'm up for grabs. Who wants me?"

Within hours, he got a call from the CEO of the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce, whom he had met at a face-to-face networking event, who was now one of his LinkedIn connections. The CEO gave him the contact information for the head of the chamber in Mountain View.

"I called her that day, she called me back that afternoon, we scheduled an interview for the next week, I went through the interview process and negotiations," he recalls.

He is now the program and events manager for the chamber.

Ask for introductions

What worked in Stevens' favor was the fact that he already had an established network before he lost his job. But that doesn't mean you can't ramp up your list of possible job contacts fairly quickly.

The trick is making sure you first reach out to friends and colleagues who you know well, who can then connect you with their friends and friends of friends that may work at companies or in industries you want to find a job in. Cold connecting with people on social network sites will probably get you as much success as cold calling a hiring manager on the phone.

"Don't be shy to ask for an introduction," says Martha Finney, human resource consultant and author of forthcoming book, "Rebound: A Proven Plan for Starting Over After Job Loss."

You can also make connections by attending speaking events of individuals you respect in your industry and talking to them there or following up later with an e-mail, says Schawbel. You also can respond to a blog post or paper an individual has written, he says, to start up an online dialogue that could lead to them ending up on your contacts list.

While many experts say LinkedIn should be your top choice when deciding which network to join, some also point to Facebook's growing influence as a great job tool.

There is also Xing.com, for professionals who want a more global reach, adds Finney.

Also, blue collar and service sector workers shouldn't just disregard these sites. Even though they have a long way to go before becoming established in these segments, the growing number of members signing up will only expand their reach in the months ahead. (LinkedIn has about 32 million and Facebook has over 120 million.)

LinkedIn's members represent 150 different industries globally, and there are nearly 500 groups on on the site that pertain to manufacturing like the Furniture Manufacturers Group, for instance, as well as the Medical Device Manufacturers Association Group. "Clearly folks in this sector are starting to see the value in networking online," says LinkedIn spokeswoman Krista Canfield.

Establish your online presence

So how do you get the most job-hunting bang for your buck? (Well, actually, most of these sites are free, unless you subscribe to a premium service.)

I suggest you focus on only one site at first so you can establish a strong presence online and build up your network quickly.

You should spend a lot of time crafting your resume/profile on the site, making sure you include a lot of information on what you've accomplished in your job or jobs, not just listing titles and dates, says Craig Millard, manager director of search firm MRINetwork office, The Millard Group, who says almost every headhunter has LinkedIn on their computer screen at all times.

In this economy, he says, "hiring managers are looking for people that have proven results."

He also advises that your background information include specific words and phrases you think a manager in your industry would be looking for if he or she were to do a keyword search.

If you currently have no Web presence, signing up for a networking site will give you that because such sites are often at the top of Google's search results pages, says Susan Barnes, professor of communication and associate director of the Lab for Social Computing at Rochester Institute of Technology.

She suggests you do a Google search on your name. If someone else with the same name as you shows up at the top of the list, she suggests you try to use a different version of your name. For example, she uses "Susan B. Barnes" because there are so many people named Susan Barnes.

It's all about finding ways to differentiate yourself or your brand online and offline, says Schawbel. "Make everything you add to your social network profile best represent your brand, and understand that everything is public on the Net." ( msn.com )

READ MORE - Out of Work? It's Time to Get Connected

Minority Kids Less Apt To Take Asthma Meds

Minority Kids Less Apt To Take Asthma Meds. Black and Hispanic children with asthma are less likely than their white counterparts to be taking daily medication meant to prevent asthma attacks, a U.S. study shows.

The findings, published in the medical journal Chest, suggest one reason for the generally poorer asthma control among minority children.

The study found that among 1,485 asthmatic children from four U.S. states, black children were twice as likely as white children to have gone to the emergency room for an asthma attack in the past year. Overall, 39 percent of black children had visited the ER, compared with 18 percent of white children.

Hispanic children fell in between, with 24 percent of parents reporting an ER visit in the past year.

Some clues to the disparity emerged when the researchers looked at the children's medication use. Both black and Hispanic children were less likely to be taking inhaled corticosteroids -- daily medication that is recommended for preventing attacks of breathlessness and wheezing in people with persistent asthma.

Among white children, one-third had used inhaled corticosteroids in the past 3 months. Those figures were 21 percent and 22 percent among black and Hispanic children, respectively.

Minority children were also more likely to be overusing quick-acting drugs designed to treat an asthma attack in progress: 26 percent of black children used such "rescue" inhalers on a daily basis, as did 19 percent of Hispanic children. That compared with 12 percent of white children.

The findings suggest that underuse of preventive medication may be a "significant factor" in the racial and ethnic disparities in children's rates of ER visits and hospitalization for asthma, write the researchers, led by Dr. Deidre Crocker of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

It is not entirely clear why the racial disparities exist, according to Crocker's team.

Even after the researchers weighed factors like family income and insurance coverage, household smoking and children's weight, race itself was still a factor in asthma control and medication use.

One potential reason, Crocker and her colleagues write, is the fact that black and Hispanic children are more likely than white children to get their medical care in an emergency room -- where prescriptions for preventive asthma medication are less likely, compared with a doctor's office.

However, they add, research also suggests that doctors may be less likely to prescribe inhaled corticosteroids to minority patients, and that minority parents tend to be more skeptical about the drugs' safety than white parents are.

Whatever the reasons for the findings, Crocker's team concludes, they show that more needs to be done to increase the use of preventive asthma medication among minority children and decrease their reliance on rescue inhalers. [ Reuters.com ]

READ MORE - Minority Kids Less Apt To Take Asthma Meds

Helping Your Child Buy Their First Home

Helping Your Child Buy Their First Home. With real estate prices bottoming out in many areas and a juicy tax credit still on the table, now may be a great time for your child or grandchild to buy a first home.

But these days, mortgage lenders may demand substantial down payments and they often charge high fees and unattractive interest rates to those with less-than-stellar credit. Wouldn’t it be great if you could loan your child or grandchild enough money to make the purchase?

Obviously, this idea isn’t for everyone. But if you can afford to lend a hand, the Feds will help, too, with a tax credit worth up to $8,000 for deals done by Nov. 30, 2009. With that deadline in mind, here’s what you need to know.

The Soon-to-Expire Home Buyer Credit

The Stimulus Act extended the first-time home buyer credit to cover qualified purchases that close by Nov. 30, 2009. The credit equals the lesser of:

* 10% of the purchase price,

* $8,000, or

* $4,000 for a buyer who uses married filing separate status.

Your child can use the credit to offset his or her federal income tax bill, including any alternative minimum tax (AMT). Since the credit is refundable, they can collect in cash any remaining credit after their federal income tax bill has been reduced to zero.

Of course, there are some ground rules:

• The credit is only available if your child has not owned a principal residence in the U.S. during the three-year period that ends on the purchase date. The home must be your child’s new principal residence. If your child is married, both spouses must pass the three-year test.
• The credit is phased out if your child’s 2009 modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is too high. (MAGI is the number at the bottom of the first page of your child’s 2009 Form 1040, increased by certain tax-free income from outside the U.S.)

The phase-out range for unmarried individuals and married individuals who file separately is between MAGI of $75,000 and $95,000. The phase-out range for married joint filers is between $150,000 and $170,000.

Giving Your Child a Loan

The current low-interest-rate environment makes the idea of loaning money to your child or grandchild to help with a first-time home purchase look good.

But be careful: With a loan to a family member, I recommend charging an interest rate equal to the IRS-approved applicable federal rate (AFRs). Why? Because the AFR is the lowest interest rate you can charge without causing any unwanted tax complications for yourself under the dreaded below-market loan rules. I won’t go into the details of how these rules work. The important thing to understand is they should be avoided.

For a term loan (one with specified installment repayment dates or a balloon repayment date), the relevant AFR is the one for a loan of that duration for the month the loan is made. Right now, AFRs are at historically low levels, so making a loan that charges the AFR is a great way to give your child a very favorable interest rate with no tax worries.

For example, say you make a $50,000 term loan in September to help your daughter buy her first home, which will also qualify for the lucrative $8,000 tax credit. You wisely follow my advice and charge an annual interest rate equal to the AFR. For a loan with a term of 3 years or less, the current AFR is 0.84% (assuming monthly compounding of interest). The AFR for a loan term of more than three years but not over nine years is 2.83%. The AFR for a loan term of more than nine years is 4.29%. You can continue to charge an interest rate equal to the AFR (whichever one applies to your loan) over the entire loan term, regardless of how interest rates fluctuate during that time.

Remember: AFRs can change every month, and they will go up if general interest rates go up. You can find the AFRs for the month you make a loan at IRS.gov. Use the search engine, and enter applicable federal rates.

Bottom line: As long you make the loan while interest rates are still low and charge the AFR, your child will get a good deal, and you won’t have any tax issues beyond having to report the interest income on your Form 1040. But don’t wait too long! [ smartmoney.com ]

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More Work, More Guilt.

More Work, More Guilt. Women have entered the workplace in droves in recent years and now make up nearly 50 percent of the workforce. Many of them leave young children at home. The result: more kids spending less time with mom, and in many cases a lot of adult guilt.

That's the picture emerging from several surveys by the Pew Research Center and others of working moms today. In 2008, women made up 47 percent of the U.S. labor force, up from 38 percent in 1970, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (more than 70 percent of women with children under age 18 were in the workforce). The latest stats suggest the 50 percent mark has been crossed or will be soon - in part because the recession has caused more layoffs among men than women.

While the surveys indicate plenty of discontent among working mothers, the true ramifications of the shift remain unclear.

Mom by the numbers

A peek into modern mom's life comes from surveys by the Pew Research Center as well as the General Social Survey, which has tracked societal trends since 1972 with a sample of at least 1,500 Americans.

Here are some of the results:

• More than 60 percent of working mothers said they would rather work part-time than full-time, while just 19 percent of fathers indicated the same. The sample of 135 mothers and 165 fathers came from a larger, nationally representative survey conducted in the summer of 2009.
• In 2002, nearly 30 percent of surveyed Americans strongly agreed that both spouses should contribute to the household income, with another 28 percent agreeing, but not strongly, with that statement, according to the General Social Survey. That's compared with 1988, when only 15 percent agreed.
• In a 2005 Pew survey, four-in-ten working mothers with children under age 18 reported they always feel rushed, and another 52 percent said they sometimes feel rushed.
• Only 19 percent of Americans agree that women should return to their traditional roles in society, while 75 percent disagreed with this statement, according to Pew telephone surveys of more than 2,000 adults between December 2006 and January 2007. That's compared with 1987 numbers showing 30 percent agreed while 66 percent disagreed.

"The data have been around for maybe 30 years, showing trend lines that [for] men and women there is increasing agreement that women should be occupying non-traditional roles," said Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

But the data may not tell the whole story.
Some of the Pew surveys are "so bad you can't draw any conclusions," Barnett told LiveScience, citing small sample sizes and ambiguous questions. For instance, she notes the surveys don't specify what is meant by "part-time" and "full-time" work and the specific trade-offs involved.

Still, the survey results are consistent with "the idea of intensive motherhood, which is essentially 'you've got to do everything. You've got to be a great parent,'" said Joseph Grzywacz of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina. "At the same time women have their own needs, making it in the world and having a career that's personally satisfying."

What's it mean for families?
In spite of these long-term changes in behaviors and attitudes, many women remain conflicted about the competing roles they play at work and at home. Men, too. "As far back as people have started looking at work-family conflict, about 20 or 30 years, men have always expressed at least as much, if not more, work-family conflict than women," Barnett said.

For some women, the best decision remains simply not to work outside the home.

About 34 percent of mothers with kids under age 18 opt out of the workforce all together, according to the Pew Research Center.

For those who do head to work and need to keep a clear head, Grzywacz said women often use so-called psychological reappraisal in which they tell themselves, "What's good for my child and for me is to be a working mother."

How do moms juggle family, work and a personal life? Grzywacz has found the number-one strategy involves scheduling one's life.

"So they're up early; they fit in every opportune time they have to try to get something accomplished; everything is scheduled out," Grzywacz said.

Next, women adjust their standards. "So whereas maybe before kids were born, there was one set of expectations about what a clean house means, for example, or what a healthy meal means," Grzywacz said during a telephone interview. "Once kids come along, they report, 'Maybe my standards were too high, maybe this is good enough.'"

And home-cooked meals can become a thing of the past. "Next there seems to be a relatively frequent reliance on fast food or commercial foods," Grzywacz said.

One strategy missing from mom's toolbox: Asking for help from a spouse or partner was way down on the list, he said.

That's too bad, as past research has shown working moms had lower stress levels, as measured by cortisol, if they were happily married compared with the less happily married participants. [ livescience.com ]

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