Informed Mom: Working Moms vs. Childless Women Pay Gap. More Penalties for Being a Working Mom.

I saw a post about this topic on the BusinessWeek Working Parents Blog last week and it made my blood BOIL, my head spin and steam blow out of my nose and ears a la Three Stooges. As if we aren't punished enough already, here we are, the working moms, getting screwed in the workplace (figuratively, of course) again.

A study published in the American Journal of Sociology entitled Getting a Job: Is Their a Motherhood Penalty reports the following:

• The pay gap between mothers and childless women is actually LARGER than the pay gap between women and men
  
• When the people conducting the study submitted faux resumes of equally qualified women - one of a working mom and one of a childless woman - they found that the mother was 100% LESS likely to be hired
• Working Moms were offered $11,000 less annually, on average, than their childless female counterpart
• But, men who are fathers are viewed more favorably by employers than men who are not fathers (oh, yeah, because they have a wife - working or not - who takes care of the child-related things. Bastards!)
  

I don't think any of this really surprises me. It's just when it's laid out with data behind it, it makes it 'fact'. I don't like the facts here. No, not one little bit.

So, what do we do? Completely secede from corporate life? Create our own professional, parallel universe with new rules? Any suggestions?

Fab Finds Friday: Moggit Link Love

Hello and welcome to another non-substantive post by your favorite half-assed blogger, Andrea.

My Fab Finds today is not a product but a totally entertaining design blog I am just loving right now and you need to know about it: Moggit - So witty. So funny. These gals are such a hoot so I'm giving 'em a WOOT! (damn, I'm poetic)

And, if you like them as much as I do, vote for them for the BlogLuxe awards. They're listed under Funniest Blog and Guilty Pleasure Blog.

And, leave me a frickin' comment (pretty please). I need some motivation and inspiration today. Bring your mad commenting skillz and show me what you got.

Fab Find: Baby Gift Idea - Cutsom Birthdate Print

Baby gifts fall in three distinct categories:

1. Practical (e.g., comfy layette clothes, bottles, diaper bag)
2. Keepsake (e.g., anything monogrammed or personalized or really, really nice)
3. What the hell were they thinking? (e.g., bedazzled binky, baby high heels, baby toupee, onesie that says "Does this diaper make my butt look big?")

Luckily, this one falls in category #2 - Keepsake (but I think I will need to do a separate post on awful baby gifts cuz that would just be fun-E). I love this Custom Birth Date print. A cute, modern, unique gift. So, if you're considering buying your friend's newborn the baby high heels, do everyone a favor and just say no. Opt for the Custom Birthdate Print instead.

Custom Birthdate Print. $23 for 8x10 from Almost Sunday.
And check out the adorable mobiles and stationery there too.

Fab Find: I Heart Marker Smell. Deluxe Office Stickers.

Office humor just slays me. Saw these and they gave me a solid chuckle.

I could think of a few to add: I heart hierarchy. I heart cubicles. I heart people taking credit for my work. Oh, I could list another 50 that would totally work.



I Heart Office Stickers. $4.99 at Perpetual Kid.

Perpetual Kid is one of my favorite e-commerce sites out there. Fun to follow on Twitter too @pertpetualkid.

Hey Perverts, This Blog is Not For You!

I'm kinda obsessed with checking my blog stats - # visitors, where they're coming from, which search terms are used to get to my site, etc.

I find the search terms especially insightful. Lots of visitors make it to the site because of some key posts of mine, like the designer laptop bags or the post about making your own eco-friendly cleaning products. The search term "Octo-Mom" sent my visits skyrocketing.

But, recently I'm getting a lot of pervs coming to the site looking for "hot moms with hips" or "hot granny moms" (what is a hot granny mom? Isn't that redundant? You can't be a granny without being a mom first. Duh.). Lots of people search "cougar moms" and end up on my lil ol' blog (because of the Cougar Barbie video). But, I got one yesterday that just kinda sent me over the edge and I had to share it. It was "completely naked moms with there daughter together". Um, okay. First, I wanna know how I even come up as a search result for that. Second, this moron needs a serious grammar lesson ("...with there daughter together"). And, third, eeeeEEEEEWWWW! I feel like my blog needs a shower. The only part about this that makes me grin is how disappointed those pervies must be when they get here and they see nasty Octo-Mom and Octo-Granny or a video of a muffin-topped, middle-aged Barbie doll.

Tee-hee-hee.

Fab Finds Friday- Pink Drink Recipe: The Electric Sea Breeze

Yeah, well I'm still working on the infamous, coming soon 'post with substance'. My problem is I have too many priorities that involve either my family or my ability to earn a living, so my blogging hobby takes a back seat. I really wish I had more time to dedicate to this and the 5 other blogs that I think daily about launching. Oh well...I think a nice cocktail may help me see things more clearly.

My friend, Miquela, posted a status update on Facebook yesterday and she said she was making a poor woman's sangria - red wine and Fresca. I think that sounds good in a twisted sort of way. But, it made me recall a drink I concocted and drank quite often post-college. I call it: THE ELECTRIC SEA BREEZE. I will share the recipe with you, my dear readers, because it is simply impossible to have too many tasty recipes for vodka drinks.

1. Fill tall glass with ice
2. Pour in as much vodka as you can handle
3. Add Fresca (original citrus flavor) until the glass is about 2/3 full
4. Add cranberry juice to fill the rest of the glass
5. Squeeze a wedge of lime into the drink, toss it in
   
6. Chug it! No, just kidding. Just drink it and enjoy it's effervescent, mind-altering goodness.

BTW, Fresca is a diet soda so on top of this drink being yummy and the most adorable shade of pink, it's lo-cal...and a Fab Find for this Friday.

Start the Work Week With a Chortle - 32 Ways to Tick People Off

I know that my last post promised that this post would be more substantive than what I've been posting, but it's just not. I don't like to think of my last post as a I lie...I just thought you wouldn't want something heavy and serious on your first day back to work after a long weekend. So, I'm posting this awesomely funny list of ways to tick people off. This came from artlung.com, which is a weird site I found using StumbleUpon. I laughed out loud when I read this. Hope you enjoy. We'll return to substance tomorrow.

How to Tick People Off

1. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
2. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
3. Specify that your drive-through order is "TO-GO."
4. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
5. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
6. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."
7. Reply to everything someone says with "that's what you think."
8. Practice making fax and modem noises.
9. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
10. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
11. Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."
12. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears and grimacing.
13. Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.
14. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
15. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
16. Staple pages in the middle of the page.
17. Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
18. Honk and wave to strangers.
19. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints at the cash register.
20. TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
21. type only in lowercase.
22. dont use any punctuation either
23. Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
24. Repeat the following conversation a dozen times.
    "DO YOU HEAR THAT?"
    "What?"
    "Never mind, it's gone now."
25. As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
26. Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "No, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
27. Ask people what gender they are.
28. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
29. Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
30. Sing along at the opera.
31. Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
32. Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles."