Clearing the browser tabs before a weekend with the grandparents:
Chick-Fil-A manages to bum out yet another family with their freebie toys. I didn't call a company spokesman, but I expect they'd point out that, for us sinners, no meal could ever be happier than The Last Supper. [thinkdaddy]
Sorry Mom, The Scientists Have Spoken! Toddler TV industry nemesis [and blockmaker's friend!] Dr. Dimitri Christakis and his colleagues have published the data: early watching of Itchy and Scratchy will turn your kid into Bart or Lisa. I may have paraphrased a bit. Check out the Seattle Children's Hospital press release or Working Dad's coverage at the Seattle P-I for details.
Whoa. Bring Your Baby To Work Day every day?? So apparently some companies are cautiously exploring ways to help valued employees manage work/family by letting them bring their kids to work. So far, there's Zutano and a non-profit, so that's two... At McKinsey, they just put up giant, tasteful black & white photos of partners' kids so the parents wouldn't forget what they look like. That seems much quieter and less smelly. [boston.com via dt reader sara]
Mothering magazine did an article not long ago about their office and all the babies that come to work there, with lots of photos of pack-n-plays and slings and breastfeeding. I'm not having luck finding it but here are 3 other articles on the topic, even if it doesn't profile their own child-welcoming workplace. Please excuse their references mostly to moms, with a name like "mothering" I don't think their target reader is a man. But as far as I can tell, in many egalitarian families, these issues aren't gender specific anymore.
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Wait. I go to the office to get away from my kids...
[no kidding, there was a big NYT Magazine article about that a few years ago, how people love the grind and stress of work because at least there's some feedback/accountability/reward that you don't have to wait 18-30 years for -ed.]
Well, on the one hand I live in Vermont so Zutano isn't out of the question, although I'm guessing some of those benefits are in lieu of pay.
On the other, the 6 weeks of leave I took last winter encouraged my publisher to make an example of my lack of esprit-de-corps when raises came around, so perhaps it'd be a wash.