10 Things Working Parents Should Have on Their Happy Lists

by Katrina on October 15, 2013

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post.

I write a lot about unhappiness. Specifically, the unhappiness that affects millions of overworked, under-appreciated moms and dads who live in the country that has the most hostile conditions for working parents in the developed world. (Can you guess which country that is? Rhymes with “God Bless.”)

But today, I want to turn your attention to a more uplifting topic: Happiness!

Photo of Christine CarterI recently had tea with Christine Carter, a widely-recognized expert in the science of happiness, and the author of my favorite parenting book, Raising Happiness, to ask her this:

While we’re waiting around for workplace and economic reform, what can do we for ourselves, to keep from burning out?

Carter immediately launched into the concept of “flourishing.” Before I get to her advice, you first have to understand a little about the research on flourishing. Flourishing is basically a scientific term for people who are regularly happy, but it’s actually more than that.

When you flourish, you don’t just feel different, you are different.

“Seventeen percent of adults are ‘flourishing,’ meaning, they live in a different state of consciousness than the rest of us,” Carter says. “For every negative emotion they experience, they experience at least three positive emotions. Most of us experience the opposite—one positive emotion for every three negative ones.”

If we can reverse that ratio and enter a state of “flourishing,” studies show our actual physiology changes. We become more fluid verbally, and more creative; we become better at solving problems; we have more energy . . . the list goes on.

“It’s not just that you’re doing different things when you enter this state,” Carter says. “You have a different engine.” In other words, when you’re flourishing, your brain is actually working better. You have more resources. Which, of course, makes you feel good. It’s a positive spiral.

How does one “flourish”?

The short answer: We have to get our ratio of positive to negative emotions at 3:1.

This may sound like a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing. To feel better, we must enter a state of flourishing. To flourish, we must . . . feel more positive emotions. But stay with me; it’s all based on sound science.

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We have three winners!

by Katrina on October 2, 2013

Thanks everyone who participated in the audiobook giveaway. I learned from your comments that most of you would listen to the audiobook while commuting or doing chores (good use of multitasking!), and that you have many creative alternatives for the word “pajamas” which include “PJs,” “jammies,” “jimmie jams,” “pa-joo-mies,” and the less common but delightfully subversive “undie-wears.”

Using Random.org three winners were chosen and they are…

  1. Kristine (listens to audiobooks on her commute)
  2. Lindsey (preferred term: “pjs”)
  3. Jessica Jenkins (has crafty plans for how to use the audiobook in household negotiations)

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Here Come the Trolls!

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by Katrina on September 30, 2013

While I was writing my book, Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink, I had three nagging fears.

  1. It wouldn’t get published.
  2. It would get published but no one would read it.
  3. People would read it…and say really mean things about me.

I’ve crossed #1 off the list. The book was published at the beginning of this month with a fabulous publisher (Seal Press, a member of The Perseus Books Group).

I think it’s safe to say I can stop worrying about #2. The book has been a category bestseller (in motherhood) on Amazon pretty consistently over the last three weeks. Reviews and interview requests are steadily rolling in from The Washington Post, Parade, NBC’s TODAY.com, TIME, and others. People are definitely reading the book.

Which brings me to #3…

In the last three weeks I’ve been called “lazy,” “entitled,” and “childish.” I’ve been called a “whiner” and a “socialist.” It’s been said that I write about first world problems and for that reason they don’t count. (If you’re curious to know what the self-styled “Christian anti-feminist wives” think of me, Google my name plus ‘sunshine’ plus ‘Mary.’) Here’s a sampler platter of comments that made my hair stand on end:

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Guest Post: 9 Reasons Why Working Mothers Have It Easier in Canada

by Katrina on September 24, 2013

Lea SinghIt’s one thing to know that the most developed countries do a better job of supporting working families than the U.S. does. It’s a whole other thing to hear what it’s really like to live in one of these countries.

Today’s guest post is from Lea Singh, a former attorney and mother of three living in Canada.

9 Reasons Why Working Mothers Have It Easier in Canada

By Lea Singh

The United States is our country’s big sister, and we Canadians spend a lot of time and effort trying to be like you. We’ve succeeded pretty well — in terms of culture and language we are pretty much like another American state (except Quebec, which is its own country culture). And our celebrities are just like yours — who can tell that stars like Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Michael Buble, Sandra Oh and Russell Peters were born and raised in Canada? (Please tell me you can’t tell.)

But the truth is that we are also different, and we like to keep it that way. It’s not just that we drink Tim Horton’s rather than Starbucks (although we do), or that curling is our favorite Olympic sport. It goes deeper than that. Life for mothers and families really is easier in Canada in a number of ways. As a Canadian mother of three young children, I’d like to share my top nine:

1. New mothers can take up to one year off, scot-free.

Some years ago our government clued in to the fact that working women have babies, and babies still need their mothers, and working women need time to be mothers. So now the law says that employers have to allow new mothers to take up to one year of leave (you can start up to 8 weeks before you are scheduled to give birth). Some conditions apply (you need to have worked a minimum amount before taking the leave, etc.) but in general most mothers will have the option of taking this leave, and their jobs will still be waiting for them when they return. Employers have not been cheerful about this legal requirement but they’ve had no other choice but to grin and bear it, hire and train temporary replacements, and continue on.

2. The government gives us a decent paycheck for taking time off with baby.

How many moms could afford to take off a year without any paycheck? Here in Canada your time off will be compensated by the government at 55% of your regular income up to a total of $47,400 (for low-income brackets the percentage is higher). Note that Quebec has its own plan and will generally give you higher dollar amounts.

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Free Audiobook Giveaway!

by Katrina on September 16, 2013

—Comments closed as of 10/1/13; Winner to be announced 10/2/13 —

People tried to talk me out of narrating my own audiobook. They said it would be really hard, it would take forever, and I would be better off hiring professional “voice talent” to read it for me.

They had a point, but I couldn’t imagine having someone else to do it. Hiring someone to read my memoir out loud would be like, I don’t know, asking a stranger to wear my socks or something. Too intimate. So I did it myself.

Here’s a sample:

Katrina Alcorn recording the audiobook for Maxed Out.It took five intense, half-day sessions to read all 88,000 words. They were right about it being hard. By the end, I lost my voice. But what they didn’t tell me is that it was also really fun, and strangely meditative. The time flew by.

Writing this book was a non-linear process. On a typical day, I might work on a first draft for chapter 22, then edit chapter 7, and then do some research for chapter 10. Reading the whole book, out loud, from beginning to end, (knowing I couldn’t change a word!) forced me to experience the story in a different way. I experienced it much like a reader would. I traveled through the whole emotional journey—it made me sad and angry and then happy and in the end, hopeful. It was cathartic.

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Guest Post: 5 Tips for Ditching the Corporate Job and Going Solo

by Katrina on September 10, 2013

Many of us find a traditional career path to be stifling, especially after we have kids, and the number of hours we can toil away at the office becomes more limited. The happiest women I know are the ones who either work part-time or are self-employed.Laura Scholes, self-employed mom.

My friend Laura Scholes is no exception. Laura is a wife, mom of a six-year-old, and founder of the copywriting and branding firm, Story House Creative. I’ve known Laura long enough to know she works hard, and because her work is deadline-driven, it can sometimes be stressful. But because she’s her own boss, she can work in those random weekday errands or pick up her daughter early one or two days a week, and there have been many times that the two of us started our work day with a hike up the fire trail in Tilden Park.

I asked Laura what advice she would give women who want to start their own businesses, and she whipped up the following guest post:

Guest Post by Laura Scholes

I was raised by a worker. A get-up-at-4am-to-get-a-jump-on-the-day dad who believed that having a job was a prerequisite to, well, anything. In my house, all the clichés held: work before play, work like a dog, idle hands are the devil’s workshop, etc.

My first job was selling greeting cards door-to-door. Age? 6. Then starting at 14, I worked all the jobs I could legally do: Cashier at a grocery store. Stocking the salad bar at a local roast beef sandwich place. And one particularly grueling summer spent in a basement walking around a conference table collating sales catalogs. read full story

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What About Dads?

by Katrina on September 4, 2013

Book launch event for Maxed Out.

Tuesday’s book launch event was a smashing success. We ran out of chairs so people stood in the back or sat on the floor. People laughed in all the right places when I read, which made me feel like all was right in the world. There were piles of Maxed Out at 7 pm; by 8:15, Books Inc. had sold every last copy. As my six-year-old would say, it was a shutout.

After I read, Joan Blades talked about the great and important work MomsRising is doing, and then we opened it up for questions. One of the first questions was What about dads? Reporters have been asking me that a lot, too. Why did you write this book for moms? Here’s my answer:

It’s true that dads are dealing with a lot of the same pressures as moms, the push-me-pull-you between work and life. As Stephen Marche put it in this great Atlantic story, “The central conflict of domestic life right now isn’t men versus women or mothers versus fathers; it’s the family against money.”

Although I hope that a lot of dads will read my book (and talk about it with their wives!), I wrote it primarily for moms, partly because I am one, and it’s a memoir. Also, we still experience this “maxed out” problem very differently. Here’s what the research says:

Studies show dads feel slightly more work-family conflict than moms, and yet…

Given all this, it should come as no surprise that women are far more likely to be anxious and depressed than men, and for the first time in decades, studies show women today are less happy than men.

The real problem is not that men are insensitive or lazy or incompetent, or that women are control freaks at home, the real problem is that we live in a system that does not reward kindness, and penalizes anyone with family obligations. One of the ways to change this is to get more men much more involved at home. This would do a number of things. It would

  • Make wives happier.
  • Make husbands happier. (Some studies show guys who do more chores get more sex.)
  • Make kids happier (children yearn for time with their fathers more than their mothers).
  • Force employers to see that work-family balance is not merely a “women’s issue.”
  • Provide more incentives for companies to make room for all employees to have lives.
  • Ease the pressure on the men who are already doing more at home, but feel enormous pressure to work a gazillion hours at the office.

Don’t believe me? Look what’s happening in Sweden.

* * *

The first month after a book comes out is a critical time for generating readership. I deeply appreciate all your help getting the word out. What you can do:

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East Bay Event and Other Book Buzz

by Katrina on August 28, 2013

MO_booksincBook Launch Event in Berkeley!

I will be giving my first-ever bookstore reading at Books Inc, the West’s Oldest Independent Bookseller. After the reading, Joan Blades, co-founder of MomsRising.org, will be joining me to answer questions. Please come!

WHEN: Tues. 9/3 at 7pm
WHERE: Books Inc on 4th St. in Berkeley, CA

Future author-related events will be posted on my new Events page. Check back!

Early Book Buzz

Below are some of the early stories and blog posts people are sharing about Maxed Out:

More book buzz on my Press page.

Upcoming

I’ll be on KPFA radio at 2pm on September 11. You can catch the interview live at kpfa.org, and I believe there will be opportunities to call in and join the discussion.

We have a lot of other potential stuff in the works. Stay tuned!

* * *

Update from 8/29/13

The KPFA interview is getting rescheduled for later this fall due to travel schedules.

I’ll be doing a radio interview tomorrow (Friday). “Breaking Through with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner” airs at 10 am Pacific. We’ll be talking about Maxed Out  and focusing on the issue of women in leadership. The show airs in the DC-metropolitan area on 1480AM, as well as on other stations in Michigan and Oklahoma.

Newsflash: Parade Magazine selected Maxed Out as one of their four August book picks for parents. Woo hoo!

Want a flyer? Someone asked me for a flyer about my 9/3/13 book launch event to post around her office. Would you like one, too? Here it is!

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Let’s Make a “Book Bomb”!

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by Katrina on August 20, 2013

I’m pleased to announce that my first book, Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink, is now available for purchase!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Books-a-Million | Powells

The audiobook is now available as well on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

Please buy Maxed Out today. Then tell all your friends about it. Here’s why:

If a whole lot of people buy the book at once, the book’s sales rank will go up, and sites like Amazon will be more likely to feature it, which means more people will hear about the book. They call this a “book bomb,” and it’s one way that first-time authors like me get their book to a wider audience.

Watch the book trailer (2 min.)

Buy a copy for yourself, or buy 2 copies and give one to your best friend, or buy 10 copies and I will come speak at your book club! (Arrange for a book club event here.)

About the book

A brave, entertaining, dark, often funny, unbelievably timely, conversation-sparking tale about women and work.

Mothers are breadwinners in two-thirds of American families, yet as Alcorn explains, the American workplace is uniquely hostile to the needs of parents. Weaving in surprising research about the dysfunction between work and home, as well as the consequences to women’s health, Alcorn tells a deeply personal story about “having it all,” failing miserably, and what comes after. Ultimately, she offers readers a vision for a healthier, happier, and more productive way to work and live.

Praise for Maxed Out

“Alcorn’s moving account is pertinent for American women and men who are trying to chase their own version of the American dream, and she offers helpful suggestions and techniques to combat the inevitable stress encountered along the way. An eye-opening, expressive narrative on an often hidden but common problem in American society.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“…the book is a brave admission that we are not all successfully managing our overbooked lives, and should not feel alone. On the whole, the book provides a powerful reminder that even well-to-do mothers do not thrive in our current system, that having a positive attitude, leaning in, or opting out aren’t viable choices for many women, and that other countries (such as Denmark and Sweden) serve working mothers more effectively.”
—Publishers Weekly

“This is important, even essential, food for thought. We have to stop and take stock of our lives. We have to make sure that if it all ended tomorrow, we would feel right about the way we spent our time. That’s the conversation this book wants to start.” —Kelly Corrigan—New York Times bestselling author of The Middle Place and LIFT

“Alcorn tells a gripping story of how the demands of work and parenting sent her over the edge. She brilliantly connects her experience with key changes we must make to end the insanity and make work fit our lives.” —Joan Blades—Co-founder of MoveOn.org and MomsRising.org

“This is a deeply important story told by a highly gifted writer. So many working mothers are living in “emotional debt” these days that this book is bound to strike a chord.”—Arlie Hochschild—prize-winning author of The Second Shift and The Time Bind

“Katrina Alcorn wrote the book that desperately needed to be written. In Maxed Out, Alcorn goes where most memoirs don’t, recounting the terror-inducing triple play of work, marriage and motherhood which give rise to extreme depression and anxiety. From her darkest days to her recovery, Alcorn tells an awfully compelling story, giving us insight into a world where most fear to tread, and inspiring us to rethink how we spend one of our most precious resources: our time.”—Robert Wilder—author of Daddy Needs a Drink

* * *

Quick update (8/21)

The book bomb is working! Amazon posts its best sellers every hour. At this moment, Maxed Out has shot up to

  • #2 best seller in Motherhood
  • #6 best seller in Women’s Studies
  • #26 best seller in Personal Transformation (I’m catching up to you, Dale Carnegie!)

But the best part: Amazon is promoting it as the #1 “Hot New Release” in the first two categories.

THANK YOU for continuing to get the word out!

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Maxed Out: The Book Trailer!

by Katrina on July 31, 2013

I am very excited to share with you the official book trailer for “Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink.” It’s 2 minutes long.

Please share it far and wide (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, your living room, or wherever you hang out).

Extra special thanks to two incredibly talented people: Molly McIntyre (animation) and Gunnar Madsen (music). Written and narrated by Yours Truly.

The book will be published September 3, 2013. Now available for pre-order at  Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Books-a-Million | Powells

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