I thought this was an interesting visual depiction of today’s modern day Problem That Has No Name. What do you think? I found the bit at the bottom especially interesting, about how half of working moms want to stay home, and half of stay-at-home moms want to work. Obama’s early learning initiative, which would provide […]
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I have a lot going on right now. Interesting but intense freelance work. Finishing a book and trying to figure out how to promote it. More than the usual amount of business travel. Coordinating major house repairs. Trying to ensure my children are clothed, loved, fed and not too overdue for their dentist appointments… And […]
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Ze Frank wrote this song for a fan who was swamped with anxiety and needed a song to help her calm down. It’s the perfect thing to listen to if you’re feeling overwhelmed. I found it through Monkey Mind Chronicles, but you can read the full story behind the song on Ze Frank’s site. Any […]
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A story in the New York Times caught my eye recently. The author questions whether we really live in “the age of anxiety” as it is often said. Earlier eras might have been even more jittery than ours. Fourteenth-century Europe, for example, experienced devastating famines, waves of pillaging mercenaries, peasant revolts, religious turmoil and a […]
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Working parents have a lot to juggle, and this can create stress. But what we often overlook is that stress has real health consequences. Several weeks ago, I put together a survey* asking working parents about stress and its effects on their health. More than 600 people responded. I filtered out respondents who lived in […]
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I just stumbled across an interesting story about the term ‘nervous breakdown‘ that came out in The New York Times last year. It explains why the term fell out of favor decades ago with psychiatrists, who now prefer labels like ‘anxiety disorder,’ ‘depression,’ or ‘schizophrenia’ when diagnosing patients. But the term ‘nervous breakdown’ is still […]
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I recently got an email from a blog reader who said she had been obsessively reading and re-reading my first post, and all the comments that followed it. I wanted to include an excerpt of her email here, but wasn’t able to get in touch with her to get permission. (If you’re out there, my […]
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“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” –Mark Twain Most of the stuff on this blog explores the problem of work-life conflict. But I got a lot of compliments about an advice-oriented post I wrote in June, which had some tips for managing extreme stress. Thus encouraged, I’ve put together a sequel. Here are […]
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I started working again this spring (the subject of a future blog post) and almost immediately found myself in a perfect storm of sick kids, tight deadlines, and lack of sleep. It was shockingly familiar. I did what I usually do when it feels like the world is ending. I called my baby sister, Holly. […]
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I have heard from dozens of women over the last year who had some version of a nervous breakdown while working and raising kids, or came very close to one. Some were already friends. Others I met through the blog. There are a lot of us out there. But so far, no one has written […]
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