Category archive: work

May 28, 2013

Hedge Fund Manager Mansplains Breastfeeding

Have you heard the one about the hedge fund manager who mansplained how those trader gals are totally useless after they have a kid? As soon as that baby's lips touch that girl's bosom, forget it. Every single investment idea,...
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May 15, 2013

'Head In Mini-Bar'

Come for the photo that accompanies this caption: "Pictured, clockwise: Whit Honea (head in mini-bar), Andy Hinds, Charlie Capen and Doug French." Stay for Betadad's very mature takedown of the Wall Street Journal's nonsensically sexist story about "Mommy Business Trips"...
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April 17, 2013

America's Day Care Hellscape Is A Political Choice

From The New RepublicFirst, Mire tried KinderCare again, but they wouldn't take Kendyll until Mire paid her debt; when she did, there were no openings. She called about a dozen centers, all of which were either too expensive or had...
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February 27, 2013

Hey FB Dads, What Did You Do With Your 'Baby Cash'?

In the most cursory of roundups of parental leave policies at various [three large] technology firms, the NY Times mentions that Facebook not only provides 16 weeks paid leave for all full-time employees who become parents. The company also gives...
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January 15, 2013

The First Production Baby

It's been a tradition at Pixar since Toy Story to list the "production babies" born to crew, in each film's credits. Other animation houses do it, too, and lately video game designers picked up on the trend. [They're called "development...
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January 6, 2013

The Ford Treasury Of New Jersey Station Wagon Living

The NY Times has discovered a New Jersey dad whose kids helped him discover the joys of Ford Station Wagon Living. Reading lines like this:"Until the kids, I wasn't into wagons," he said. "Now, it's an adventure every time...
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September 10, 2012

How Can Paul Ryan Be Vice President AND A Dad?

So a couple of ball-bustin' reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times cornered a local politician at the Democratic National Convention and started firin' off the tough questions:[Illinois Attorney General Lisa] Madigan and her husband, Pat Byrnes, have two young children, ages...
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August 16, 2012

The Gamification Of Hugs

"Choremonster says rewards can be anything from 'hugs to money to a camping trip.'" "Parents around the web have reviewed the app, and most say it's a fun way to force kids to help out around the house." You know,...
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July 16, 2012

Yahoo!

Another piece of good news today - @zackbogue and I are expecting a new baby boy!postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/16/may...— marissamayer (@marissamayer) July 17, 2012 When I heard on NPR this afternoon that Marissa Meyer was the next CEO of Yahoo, I was like,...
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July 13, 2012

It's My Desk In A Box, Or CBS-Era Creative Playthings' Most Depressing Toy

At what point in the development of the Creative Playthings L'il Boss Desk In A Case do you think it occurred to folks that this would be the toy most likely to destroy the sweet, little dreams of their...
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July 10, 2012

RT If You Like Sponsors!

My youngest daughter, Vittoria! Beautiful!//Minha filha mais nova, Vittoria! Linda! @evokeeyewear @fosgoodwood twitter.com/emmofittipaldi...— Emerson Fittipaldi (@emmofittipaldi) July 10, 2012 When your dad's job is to drive in circles all day in a logo-covered car, you learn the spokesmodel value...
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July 6, 2012

WWMD?

Greg McKeown has a nice piece on the Harvard Business Review blog about how, contra the example and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he totally went to some random Very Important Client Meeting the day after his kid was born.To my...
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June 27, 2012

'It Was The Life Of The Times'

Because it's blowing my dadmind right now, here is an expanded quote from William Duckworth's interview with pioneering minimalist composer Terry Riley, who traded the VW Bus his young family was living in for a loft in SoHo:RILEY: [My] wife...
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April 23, 2012

An Important Life Lesson From The Parents Of Baby Cha-Cha

Tara Ariano reports for The Awl, from a bar in Orange County somewhere, where the kid who was Dancing Baby is paying his way through UC Irvine by doing public appearances. His dad Steven got him the Ally McBeal...
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April 14, 2012

DT Is Long BNNY

The Wall Street Journal has a nice profile of Molly Ashby, the private equity rock star whose firm took a controlling interest in Annie's, Inc., the organic food products company, in 2002, and which just took it public. With the...
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April 10, 2012

Kids Play The Darnedest Things

So K2's got the Playmobil house and garden set out on the floor next to me, and I suddenly hear, "Let's go play!" "Great, how can I get out of my meeting?" Playmobil The Home Office, $13.99 [amazon]...
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April 2, 2012

The Invisible Cost Of Free Shipping

It's Monday before lunchtime, and Mac McClelland's account of being a warehouse wage slave is already the most depressing thing I'll read all week:The gal conducting our training reminds us again that we cannot miss any days our first week....
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February 24, 2012

The Children's Literary Group

Wow, This glimpse at ur-Yuppie parenting is only one of the many gems in Maria Bustillos' piece on 1970s child publishing prodigy Alexandra SheedyIn June of 1977, when Sheedy was fifteen, a piece on "A Young Writers Salon" appeared in...
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February 3, 2012

Blue Ivy's Got 99 Problems, But A Drawn Out Trademark Application Process Ain't One

From TESS, the US Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Electronic Search System: Word Mark BLUE IVY CARTER Goods and Services IC 003. US 001 004 006 050 051 052. G & S: Fragrances, cosmetics, skin care products, namely, non-medicated skin...
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January 12, 2012

Nanna Bespoke Kid Management App By Jackie Ki

This is like seven kinds of awesome. Designer Jackie Ki created this custom kid management app for an extended family in Los Angeles, so that five parents could keep track of seven kids and four nannies. It syncs and reports...
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January 6, 2012

DT Friday Freakout: Boing Boing Edition

It's the weekend! Which will now be ruined by freaking out over these news stories from the worlds of parenting, health, science, and whatever: Fetal cells basically stay floating in the mother's bloodstream forever. It's called microchimerism. [boingboing, which, hmm,...
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December 6, 2011

Where In The World Is The Carmen Sandiego Generation?

Is it too early to see what happened to the overeager, overachieving yuppie children of the 90s, who were raised on Carmen Sandiego? They dorked out, cheated a little, really showed that private school jerk from Manhattan, and went on...
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November 22, 2011

The Boomer Over-Parenting Paradigm Is Failing Before Our Eyes

I was really not too motivated to read the NY Times' report on analysts being demoralized after getting laid off from investment banks--haven't these people ever heard of going to business school? But then Choire Sicha reminded me why I...
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November 20, 2011

DT Friday Freakout: Selfish Edition

Oh there is so much to freak out over already, I'm not sure ruining one weekend will be enough: Day care in the US runs from awful-to-deadly, those are your only choices. [tnr] Which is too bad, because there's no...
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November 9, 2011

It's Take Your Daughters To Jobsite Day

Walking K2 to preschool the other day, I noticed something unusual in front of one of our neighbor's renovation projects: two contractors' vehicles--a pickup and a cargo van--with booster seats in the front [and only seats]. For the record,...
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September 21, 2011

Mad Typing Skillz Roundup

Read these important things: Are people just paranoid about using family-friendly programs at work, or are their companies really after them? I can't tell. [wsj, probably via @workingdad] Figures that Dadwagon was into Park Slope Rock School PARIS before it...
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September 2, 2011

Maternity Of One, Paternity Of The Other

Kudos to John Gruber for catching this last night: On this week's The Talk Show, Gruber and Merlin Mann talk about grocery shopping and the sugared cereals of their youth. You know, typical tech guy podcast stuff. [daringfireball.net]...
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August 23, 2011

Help, Mom! There Are Communist Environmentalists Under My Bed!

Leftist subversives are using their "stranglehold" on the Liberal Children's Media to unleash their ungodly "political indoctrination" of sharing, cooperation, and environmentalism on your vulnerable children! If only the Liberals didn't control the rest of the media, too, maybe someone...
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July 27, 2011

Jason Rohrer And The Game Of Life

There was a moment on the plane yesterday where the kids had all the iPads, and I was left to read Hemispheres Inflight Magazine. Which had a nice but kind of bewildering profile of awesome independent video game developer Jason...
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July 5, 2011

Velo Papà da Milano

Mister Mort interrupted his coverage of PItti in Firenze to post some coverage of the Spring/Summer 2012 mens shows in Milano. And then he interrupted his coverage of the fashion minstrels to post this awesome photo of a Milanese...
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May 24, 2011

Sometimes It's OK Not To Share

The flair can't hide the pain inside. After a third report of a toddler at a national chain restaurant getting a sippy cupful of alcohol, a few anonymous waiters are coming forward to explain what's going on. Basically the living...
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May 15, 2011

Putting The Dwarf- And Stripper-Filled Yachts Behind You

Never let it be said that the SEC is anti-family. With the yacht, the fleet of jets to the Delano, the strippers and the dwarf at his weekend-long 2003 bachelor party all paid for by his sell-side clients, Fidelity trader...
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April 24, 2011

You've Come A Little Way, Baby Daddy

Some interesting work-life links from the professional world this week. First up, an invigorating discussion from the VC/startup world, which used to be a total boys' club. Founder Jessica Jackley took to Business Insider to reply to one of her...
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March 29, 2011

Don't Touch The Screen

In the most recent episode of Don't Touch The Screen, his awesome new podcast for webnerds with kids, Charlie Park talks with Matt Haughey about the challenges of working at home with kids. The fact that it took me two+...
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February 19, 2011

She's Like Family, Comrade

I just love this story about whether nannies can/should work a family's shifts at the Food Coop in Park Slope. Of course, if your nanny does qualify as a member of your household, wouldn't it follow that that household is...
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February 15, 2011

Bitch All Up In My Dadblogging Business

Glad to see dads' blogging efforts aren't going unnoticed in the savvier corners of the feminist media. Rachel Fudge has a long, insightful look at the dadblog world in the new issue of Bitch ["not your mother's Ms."] Magazine. A...
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February 4, 2011

The Washington Post Takes Work-Life Balance Issues Very Seriously

"Where are men in the work/life conversation?" Asks the headline in Selena Rezvani's book-plugging guest post in the Washington Post's On Leadership blog. Yes, where are they? Ah, here they are: on Twitter, continuing the work-life balance conversation they've been...
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January 25, 2011

Afghan Enters The Opium-for-Kids Phase Of Industrialization

Oh, CNN, I kept reading and reading about how parents in Afghanistan dope up their kids with opium so they can get more work done in their carpet factories or what have you, and you only saw this practice...
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December 4, 2010

I Even Made A Film About Ironing Once, And This Is Depressing

Hi, I just got back from schmoozing with the NetJetset in Miami Beach at the world's most money-soaked art fair, so now let me post the world's most depressing children's Christmas present! Forget the gender stereotypes of the JC...
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December 2, 2010

Who Gets The Original Big Wheel?

Have you tried looking for an old-school Big Wheel for your kid? What a e-commerce shitshow. There are, of course, Big Wheel-like products in whatever bigbox store you visit, but the pull of nostalgia is strong, and the dream...
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October 25, 2010

Mommy Steps: Lisa Belkin's Slowly Coming Around

Whether it's a couple of years of intensive parentblogging, or the shifting economy, finding the right research, or whatever, the NY Times' Lisa Belkin is finally seeing work-family balance issues as a parents' problem, not just a moms' problem. From...
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October 21, 2010

Really, What Can I, There's Just, I Mean, Holy S-, I, Wow.

Oh, hi, crazy/awesome Chihuly VC mom who finagled a long-term lease on the caretaker's apartment in the pyramid of the Smith Tower in Seattle and installed acres of salvaged marble slabs and a tire swing zipline! Making a Home...
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October 11, 2010

Coal, Minders, Daughter

Just when I was beginning to wonder whether anyone actually ever bought one of Brockhage and Andra's Schaukelwagen, DT reader and schaukelwagenmeister Andrew spotted this 1970 photo in the Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz:The GDR built up a network of day...
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September 9, 2010

The Stig Abides

Leave it to the English to put a helmet on the only guy with remotely normal-looking hair. The Stig is a guy named Ben Collins, who wrote a tell-all book because he and his wife have had three kids...
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September 2, 2010

Sounds Pretty Crowded Under The Table

UMass Amherst economist Catherine Haskins did a study of off-the-books household work, which includes nannies and housekeepers, and part of me really IS shocked, shocked to hear there are so many nannies under the table:Her analysis, which includes consideration of...
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July 21, 2010

When The Mocha Moms Are Away The Token Dads Come Out To Play

High five to the dads--dadbloggers all, in fact--who appeared yesterday in place of the regular Tuesday panel of "Mocha Moms" on NPR's Tell Me More: Jason Sperber of Rice Daddies, Keith Morton of FatherDad, and Paul Fidalgo of Bloc Raissoneur....
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June 2, 2010

NY Nannies May Get Basic Benefits

Never underestimate the New York State government's ability to completely screw up even the most obvious things, but it looks like the hapless Senate, Assembly, and governor are going to get it together and pass a law giving nannies the...
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May 19, 2010

How Can It Only Be 8:15?

Holy crap, it's like the Strepocalypse around here. We've all been sick in turns and stuck in the house together since Saturday, and we are now officially driving each other crazy. And amidst the chaos, there are the conference calls...
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May 11, 2010

Parental Leave Around The World

What does an American computer nerd living in Sweden do when the birth of his first daughter thrusts the reality of the world's most generous paternal leave system upon him? He crunches data to make interactive parental leave policy maps...
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April 29, 2010

The App Cubby Jr Sale

David Barnard's stories of life as an iPhone developer on his blog App Cubby put a nice human face on the hard work and economic realities behind the supposed app gold rush. And also the hopes, such as the sharing...
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