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It’s sweater weather!
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Sales of note for 4.18.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 50% off full-price dresses, jackets & shoes; $30 off pants & skirts; extra 50% off sale styles
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything; extra 20% off purchase
- Eloquii – 50% off select styles; 60% off swim; up to 40% off everything else
- J.Crew – Mid-Season Sale: Extra 60% off sale styles; up to 50% off spring-to-summer styles
- Lands’ End – 30% off full-price styles
- Loft – Spring Mid-Season Sale: Up to 50% off 100s of styles
- Nordstrom: Free 2-day shipping for a limited time (eligible items)
- Talbots – Spring Sale: 40% off + extra 15% off all markdowns; 30% off new T by Talbots
- Zappos – 29,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Up to 70% off baby items; 50% off toddler & kid deals & 40% off everything else
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off spring faves; 25% off new arrivals; up to 30% off spring
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Up to 60% off sale styles; up to 50% off kids’ spring-to-summer styles
- Old Navy – 30% off your purchase; up to 75% off clearance
- Target – Car Seat Trade-In Event (ends 4/27); BOGO 25% off select skincare products; up to 40% off indoor furniture; up to 20% off laptops & printers
Cb says
I was out of town with more senior colleagues (early 50s, parents of tweens and teens) last week and was really shocked how much home management they were doing whilst away. 3am calls (we were 5 hours behind) regarding missing gym kits, mediating dad/daughter arguments. These are all very senior folks with big jobs/decently frequent travel. I hope things have changed with millennials, but I’m not sure they have? What are you seeing where you are?
Locally, our whatsapp group is mostly moms (my husband who set up the group rolls his eyes at the “hi ladies”) and he was one of three dads at the PTA meeting yesterday. Pickup at school is mostly moms, although the aftercare pick up is a bit more evenly split. Meanwhile, my son was sceptical that I knew how to give him a bath…
GCA says
This is decidedly not the case in my house — when each of us travels for work, we might do stuff the week before to make it easier for the on-site solo parent (make and freeze chili, deep clean house, etc), but during the trip, it’s all up to the on-site parent. Especially for things like gym kit or soccer gear! My social circle of elder millennial parents is mostly two-working-parents who appear to split the load roughly equally, but of my two BFFs, one is partnered with no kids and the other is a SAHM by choice so the divisions of labour look a little different there.
Related – I just checked out Kate Mangino’s ‘Equal Partners’ from the library and will report back when I get a chance to read it…
Spirograph says
+1 I’ve had two work trips recently and did no home management when I was away. I caught up on laundry, meal planned, grocery shopped, and updated the weekly calendar on the fridge before I left, but then I didn’t really engage again until I got home. When my husband travels it’s similar — do as much as you can before you leave to make life easier on the solo parent, but then focus on the trip with a clear conscience. I did facetime my kids while walking to the office one morning because my youngest was just having a tough time and missed me a lot, but that’s it. If my coworkers who are parents of teens and tweens were doing any home wrangling, it was invisible to me.
In my DC suburb, there seems to be a very even division of labor in dual career families. If one parent is stay-at-home, that parent typically ends up with the lions share of daytime kid logistics, but I have no friends that I look at and think “why doesn’t your partner help more?!” (of course, there’s some selection bias at play, there)
Cb says
My elder Millenial academic friends seem to have a more equal distribution of labor than our Gen X colleagues – although there are some exceptions (academic dude with academic wife and 3 kids, who continued to go into the office 9-5 everyday throughout the pandemic). But once I leave those circles/in our village, it’s much more mixed. My son’s best friends’ dads are really involved but I think there is an element of “birds of a feather” there, they met at hippy nursery + through a mutual friend.
Anon says
My husband is an academic too and the distribution of labor is generally pretty good but we know some pretty horrifying counter examples, like the guy who went into the office daily starting in May 2020 but wouldn’t let his wife get any takeout/delivery food “because Covid” and of course he wasn’t doing the cooking. I would have filed for divorce!
GCA says
ah yes, I was going to add that my elder Gen X boss and women colleagues, even those with big jobs or who came from big finance/ consulting, were or are very much primary household managers. Even if they didn’t perform the labour themselves, they still managed the nannies and housekeepers when kids were small.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Yeah, I’d say it’s still true that moms of tweens/teens are still very involved in their kids’ schedules/dramas, and probably more than dads. I do have one coworker who is very involved in his kids’ schedules, but he is divorced from their mom, so that might make a difference. At my company specifically, I don’t interact too closely with super high level execs on a personal level, but I imagine the dads leave it mostly to their wives, and the moms mostly have nannies and other help.
Our PTO board is mostly moms, and I’m not sure about the meeting attendance. A lot of dads are involved in coaching sports and birthday parties generally consist of both parents or a mix of each.
Anonymous says
I think that’s good! Traveling parent should still be connected and involved. A big job shouldn’t mean opting out of parenting.
Anonymous says
As the traveling spouse, I kind of disagree. The parent who’s home needs to be fully in charge, and the one on the road needs to be able to focus on work. Business travel is extremely demanding. I am usually working 7:30 – 5:30 and then at a team or client dinner until 8:30 or so. I can’t be mediating squabbles via text message or reminding my spouse what to serve for dinner. I do a lot of prep before I leave to make sure that everything is as easy as possible, but I don’t think a man would even be expected to do that much. On the other side, on the less frequent occasions when my husband travels I don’t want him interfering with things on the home front. He can call once a day just before bedtime and that’s about all I can handle.
Anonymous says
Ok? I’d never tolerate my spouse peacing out entirely to travel but fortunately we aren’t married!
anonM says
I disagree too. I think there is a big difference between “peacing out entirely” or “opting out of parenting” and not expecting the parent who is out-of-town to be able to manage things remotely. My partner travels for work, and the frequency varies a lot. But at least now, it works best for me and the kids if we have a call or two a day. I agree with Anonymous at 9:55 — more than that, it just makes the kids more upset. Maybe that changes as the kids get older, but that’s what is best for us. It doesn’t mean my partner is “peacing out.” I also wouldn’t want my husband to take a 3am call that I could handle at a reasonable time from home, because I want his trip to be successful and as quick as possible. If he can’t focus fully, he ends up having to travel more often. A true emergency is different, but 3am calls about missing gym bags when one parent is still home seems….inefficient at the least. Have you had your spouse/coparent travel for work? Because if you haven’t, it is hard to speak to what you’d “tolerate” and what would actually end up working best for your family.
Cb says
I travel weekly, so I try to help a bit more whilst I’m away, given the regularity of it. I don’t prep food but try and make sure all the school uniforms are clean and put away before I get on the plane and I’ll keep an eye on school emails etc. I also am generous with favours on my Friday afternoons off, I’ll take other peoples’ kids so they’ll happily repay the favour when my husband needs a hand when I’m away.
Anonymous says
With two working parents, whether or not anyone is traveling we have to get all the laundry done, groceries bought, meals planned, random stuff purchased for school and sports, etc. over the weekend anyway. No matter who’s home, the weekdays have to run pretty much on autopilot.
Spirograph says
@anon 9:55 – Yes, I agree all of this. My trips recently have involved “optional” breakfast, full work day and mandatory happy hour or dinner each day. It’s an 8am-9pm workday, minimum. I can’t take care of things on the home front at the same time. These are 3-4 day trips… if I were gone for longer I could see needing to try to meaningfully connect with my husband and kids while I’m away, but I believe everyone’s entitled to focus on on other things for short intense bursts. My husband was away for a week recently taking care of a family emergency and he did a lot of scaffolding before he left, but once he was gone, we didn’t communicate much more than some quick texts because… he wouldn’t have left to begin with if the problem at hand hadn’t needed all his attention.
Obviously if something crazy came up at home we’d make time to help handle it, but we’re both fully functioning adults and expect each other to keep the wheels on normal routines and solve run-of-the-mill problems when the other is away.
Anne-on says
This. My work trips also tend to be 3-4 days (though international ones are usually M-F) and they often start with 8am breakfasts and end at 9:30pm after the dinners. I can duck out to take urgent calls/texts but the expectation is that short of a true emergency or major healthy update my spouse is in charge. I’ll try to email throughout the day to check in (and we’re more email people than text peopl) but I wil sometimes not speak to my child for the duration of the trip as the timing doesn’t work. These are at most, monthly trips, and are (in both my and my spouses opinion) balanced out by the fact that I’m the primary parent when I’m at home as my schedule is pretty flexible then. My spouse also has the sitter to rely on for coverage when I’m gone. With an AM/PM sitter it’s 2 working parents plus help, which ensures the spouse at home has backup and another set of hands.
No way says
Uh DH travels weekly. And he has that kind of schedule but that does not mean he gets to opt out of parenting. He may not have to mediate disputes but he doesn’t get to just focus on work. I don’t get to focus on work at home. I think it sounds like neither of you travels much?
Spirograph says
I think people are coming at this from different places. There’s a big difference between regular work travel and occasional work travel. If one spouse travels every week with predictable responsibilities, that is part of the routine, and it makes total sense to figure out how that person can be involved and support from afar. But for work travel that is event-specific like an offsite/workshop, with others who have also traveled to be there, it’s a 12+hour/day bandaid to be ripped off, to me.
Anonymous says
I am anon at 9:55 and prior to the pandemic I traveled as often as every other week, so I do know what I’m talking about. Not spending hours a day on the phone with the family while traveling is not opting out of parenting. I used to put a huge amount of effort into prepping meals, coordinating schedules, arranging child care, etc. so my husband didn’t have to think about anything while I was gone. I also managed all of the planning and communication for school, child care, and activities no matter where I was.
No Way again says
We also have four kids. I think maybe number of kids matters here, which someone posted below. There’s always plenty that can be done by traveling spouse as well as spouse at home. I think you can only really “opt out” if you have one or two kids.
Anonymous says
Eh, I think you can opt out irrespective of number of kids as long as you and your spouse are on the same page.
Anon says
I don’t disagree in theory but dads don’t do things like this, and it’s a problem for women to be managing the home front when traveling if men aren’t doing the same.
Anonymous says
Well my husband does and Cb didn’t include genders in her post
Anon says
I think we could all tell the sex of each of the players in the original post.
Anon says
She said her colleagues were “mediating dad/daughter arguments” so they’re women or gay men. I assumed women which is admittedly heteronormative of me, but statistically most people married to men are women.
Anonymous says
I too was confused by the original post. From the first paragraph I thought we were talking about generational differences, not gender differences.
Anon says
I also disagree. My husband is an academic so his work travel tends to be not as intense as what many people here describe. The official work hours are 9-5 or less and often there is a lot of fun in the mix, which can be hard for me to hear about (for example, there are organized sightseeing tours at most conferences he goes to and it’s pretty common for him to meet up with a group of friend-colleagues and skip a day or two of the conference to play sports). But I’m not sure what he can or should be doing from abroad as far as parenting. If there is a crisis at home, would I expect him to leave a routine conference and come home? Yes. But for normal day to day life, what exactly is he supposed to be doing when he’s not here? I don’t really get it. We’ve never interacted with him while he’s traveling beyond a daily phone call and it’s not because he’s “peacing out” it’s because he’s in not physically present and there’s nothing he can do that I can’t do much more efficiently at home. Fwiw, the situation was the same when we left our child with my parents one time. We had a daily phone call but that was it, my parents handled everything else.
Anonymous says
Right, this. As someone said above, the thinking and errands get done on the weekend, anyway. The things that need to happen during a typical school/work week for my elementary school kids all require physical presence. Meals, making sure the kids are clean, dressed, and getting where they need to go with the right stuff. Even supervising homework is mostly about making sure the kid to sits down and do it. If I had a teenager who might have a Very Big Social Crisis and need a hug and a good cry, I would duck out of a work dinner to talk to him or her, but my kids’ emotional needs are still more simple than that. I do a good morning/good night phone call if the timing works out, but no one sweats it if it doesn’t.
anon says
My DH travels occasionally for work, and this. What the heck is he supposed to do from the road? At our kids’ ages, there might be an occasional teacher email to intercept, but most of it is very hands-on. Homework, driving to activities, emotional coaching. I don’t love when he’s traveling, because it all falls on me, but I am truly puzzled about what I’d have him even DO from the road. One of the most helpful things he can do is make sure he goes grocery shopping before leaving so at least I can take one errand off my plate. But again, that’s best done while he’s still physically present.
Anonymous says
I’m in a wealthy Boston suburb where it’s common to have 1.5 working parents or 2 working parents + nanny (into elem school).
Dads are everywhere now and I’m here for it. The added flexibility from COVID has made a lasting impact on our town.
Most people used to commute to Boston. Now that they don’t- or can flex- parents are stepping up like never before.
– to coach sports after school. somewhere in the 4-6 slot that would have been impossible with a commute. My co coach took a call and when it ended at 5pm, he hopped out of his car, grabbed the gear back and was on the pitch to help run practice 5-6:30 last night.
– to volunteer at school. Our elem PTO asks for volunteers to spend an hour watching recess/lunch to give the teachers more prep time and last time I did it it was half men. 4 years ago they couldn’t get the program to run and only got 3 moms to volunteer.
– our PTO president is still a mom, but we have 3 VERY involved dads.
– my youngest has 10 kids in her preschool class. On any given day, easily 75% of the parents dropping off are men. PK starts at 9. Pickup is at 1 and it’s still dads & nannies.
Another thing I’ve noticed is a lot of SAHPs have spun up work during COVID and kept at it. A friend of mine got back into landscape architecture and her business took off. Another started personal training again. This is largely because their spouses work from home now and can “hold down the fort”- eg be a responsible adult during 8-5 for semi capable kids. My husband does this- he doesn’t work less but is available for emergencies and the kids (6,9) can get off the bus alone and get themselves a snack.
Anonymous says
I obviously did not read your comment correctly before posting. Kids are off today and I have not had enough coffee :)
Cb says
That’s fantastic! I bet everyone benefits from that flexibility. My big travel job definitely wouldn’t have been possible pre-pandemic when my husband was in the office everyday.
anon says
This is fantastic. Flexibility can make such a difference in the ability to be meaningfully involved.
avocado says
My husband can handle everything on his own except homework. I have been getting text messages with pictures of math problems for years now.
Cb says
Haha, I suspect that’s my future. My husband weirdly can’t do simple arithmetic. He reads and writes well, is otherwise smart, but couldn’t calculate 10% until I taught him how? Kiddo will surpass him on the math skills by 7 at the latest.
anonM says
Oh gosh, this will be me. Math problems and tech problem shooting. IDC how important this work meeting is, please fix my phone DH. I’m only half kidding, maybe ;)
Anon says
My solution to this was to marry a math professor. He has to do all the math homework, lol. (But for real I think we will hire a tutor before either of us try to do it ourselves. I don’t think we or our kid have the right personalities for parent help.)
Aunt Jamesina says
Hah, my dad is a math whiz and an engineer and also TERRIBLE at helping with math. He couldn’t break things down to a young kid level. I remember him going on about trigonometry when I was seven.
Anon says
My best friend is the sole breadwinner and her husband is a SAHD to their two-year-old. She also does all the laundry, finances, 95% of the cooking, ALL the planning/mental labor tasks, all pediatrician appointments and most of the cleaning. I so wish she would DTMFA, but she won’t despite getting steadily worn down and frustrated. We’re both millennials.
Anon says
I’ve posted before, but my best friend has a HUGE job and does 95% of the housework and childcare. Her husband also has a big job, so less egregious than a SAHD refusing to pull his weight, but I still hate the guy. His job is not any less flexible or important than hers.
Anon says
A third friend and I one admitted to each other that we both hate my best friend’s husband. Not only is he a total deadbeat in terms of work/life, he seem to feel “emasculated” by not being the breadwinner (while also not making the slightest effort to find a job or enhance his contributions in other ways). I can’t stand watching what this is doing to my friend and I wish she could get out.
anon says
This was my sister. She did, in fact, separate from the MFA. Now my BIL is finally, truly understanding that she was overperforming to compensate for him under-doing things. Time will tell if they get back together. I kind of hope they don’t because I don’t have much hope that he’ll actually change for real.
Anonymous says
I see a lot of very involved Dads now compared to when I was a kid. But in my experience, the moms are still generally the coordinators and organizers.
Two things matter a lot:
1) Number of kids – 1 kid vs 3 kids is a huge difference when you have only one parent in the house. Sometimes your tween needs to talk through an issue at the same time as their younger brother needs a bath or whatever. Yes their Dad can handle it if he ‘has’ to but if I can take a call and help a kid, then it helps the kid, it helps him balance things and it helps me feel connected even when far away.
2) Age of kids – My kids are older elementary and while the physical care needs are less, the emotional needs can be more specific and more complex. This is not DH’s forte. He makes them breakfast and lunch every day regardless of whether I’m travelling or not but he does not deal well with talking through solutions to social drama in my oldest’s class. I’ve been a 12 year old girl so I get why she’s stressed about having the right equipment for the right activity when she’s struggling to fit in. Preschool years are tiring, older years are exhausting in a different way.
Anonymous says
What I see is that when both parents have equally demanding jobs, the mom tends to default to the organizer role. When mom’s job is more demanding or more rigid in terms of scheduling, the dad tends to take on primary responsibility for day-to-day organizing and logistics but generally the mom is still behind the very big-picture decisions like what school the kids attend. The SAHDs I see are usually not SAHDs because they actively wanted to become primary parents and homemakers; it’s just that they didn’t want to work and their wives made more money than they did, and they exhibit a lot of ne’er-do-well tendencies. The most equal partnerships appear to be those where the mom has a demanding or inflexible job and the dad has a regular job and steps up to the plate on the home front.
AwayEmily says
In all the families we socialize with where both parents work (mostly in their mid to late 30s/early 40s), as far as I can tell things are split evenly. Of course, it’s so hard to tell from the outside — I suspect people who look at us might think that my husband does most of the work since he does most of the drop-offs/pick-ups and arranges play dates, but think we’re actually 50/50, though of course it varies based on our work schedules, etc. We have two friends with a SAHP (one mom, one dad) and in those families it’s clear the SAHP does the bulk of things. So yes, I think things are changing!
anon says
My situation is a bit out of the ordinary, because I have two children with my husband, plus two tween stepchildren from his first marriage. I handle most domestic stuff for our younger kids and us jointly (getting up, breakfast, school stuff, dinner, bedtime, kid activities, I manage the housekeeper and the nanny, grocery shopping, etc.) but he handles essentially 100% of the older kid stuff during our parenting time (including most of the family cooking). That said, when I’m traveling (and I travel more than he does, although he has a higher-paid and more time-consuming job), I don’t do much except receive morning and evening phone calls from my husband and kiddo.
Pogo says
I’ve been pleasantly surprised how many dads are attending birthday parties solo and socializing. It seems to be the case that if both parents work, dads are more involved by virtue of necessity.
When I travel, I do still monitor email and text messages, because sometimes we forget to let everyone know who is out of town and I’ll get a “baby doesn’t have enough milk” and relay that to the appropriate boots on the ground to handle it. Also once I clarify that I’m out of town, everyone knows to go to my husband for info/support – it’s not like they’d keep pinging me and assume he’s helpless!
But remembering which day is library day to return books or wear taekwondo uniform… that’s on dad.
Anon says
I live in a Midwest college town. Most people we know are highly educated, politically liberal elder millennials with kids under 8. I would say most families divide visible labor pretty equally, but moms do nearly 100% of the invisible labor. Like I see tons of dads at daycare dropoff, but it’s always the moms who reach out to me about having a play date or bring their kid to our house when we request a play date. Fwiw, this is our roughly our situation too, although my husband does more visible labor than most dads (> 50%). Until recently he did 100% of the cooking.
Lizard says
INFO: how do you know they were on calls at 3 a.m., did they specifically mention it the next day? Were you all working through the night?
My family’s policy is definitely that the traveling parent sends a good morning text, and does a bedtime FaceTime, and that’s pretty much it. The focus is on work, and the on-site parent figures it out or goes without.
CCLA says
We both work full time. To outsiders, it probably looks like DH is the more involved parent since he does more solo park outings and the like and I occasionally travel for work while he never does. I do mornings almost always solo while he works early, so I often work later and he takes the kids out after school for play time. I love that he’s started seeing more dads at the parks too, though admittedly the distribution is still heavily skewed toward more women (a mix of moms and nannies). Some of the family friends we hang out with most now connected because he and the other dad started seeing each other at the park so set up play dates – the mom and I are friendly too but the dads do most of the coordinating. I was bummed recently in our class list for kinder that the organized suggested a moms night out without mention of the dads. I mean, I’m there for that and look forward to it for the moms, but DH will probably initiate a dads night out too. He’s definitely been frustrated with the dearth of dads groups relative to moms groups. And we’re in SoCal in a very progressive area with lots of dual working couples.
anon says
I have tweens/teens. My husband could handle everything, but not in an easily accessible to him way. So often it is easier to check with me, since I do all the scheduling (he does all the cooking). He’s very involved, but he just doesn’t track things very well. On the flip side, when he travels nothing gets cleaned and we eat take out all week.
Anon says
My company announced it is expanding its paid parental leave by an additional 4 weeks starting on 1/1/2023. The parental must be taken in the 12 months after the child was born. My child was born in March 2022. I haven’t seen the official policy but it seems like I would be able to squeeze in the additional 4 weeks between 1/1/2023 and my child’s birthday — right? Like I should do this if possible?
NYCer says
I wouldn’t be surprised if the new policy applies only for children born after 1/1/2023, but it is definitely worth checking.
Anon says
+1 definitely investigate but I would not expect this to be retroactive. But yes if you’re eligible, take it!
Anonymous says
I would at least ask! A friend of mine negotiated this but they announced the additional leave while she was out on mat leave already.
Anon2 says
I would do this if possible but my guess is that it applies for children born 1/1/2023 and forward.
Anonymous says
You’ll have to find out if they’re making it retroactive or if it only applies to children born after 1/1/2023.
Anonymous says
You never know. My husband’s company added two weeks of paternity leave. When they did they made it available to anyone that had had a baby in the past year. So even though my kid was 10 months when the policy rolled out, he got the extra time!
He was a VP / dept head/ senior leader at the time so not only did he get it but he was strongly encouraged to use it and be vocal about using it to let the rest of the firm know it was okay to do ;).
CCLA says
Love this.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Also check if the leave has to be taken in one chunk, or can be spread out in that first year. If the former, then you probably can’t, but if the latter, then you might be able to.
OP says
Follow-up: I really wanted to find out if there was the retroactive application so I dug around in our benefits site after we got notice it was updated for 2023. Applies only to births on or after 1/1/2023.
A HUGE employer near me did this and two friends were able to extend their leaves as their children were born less than 12 months before 1/1. I get it and I’ll get over it, and it was a nice 45 minutes thinking I’d have a month off early next year. But would really stink if you were due, say, 1/5/2023 and your kid came early on 12/31/2022. Seems short-sighted on HR’s part.
Anonymous says
At least ask though – if they say no to the full amount then ask if you can have the half amount.
Anon says
I think in that case they might make an exception? It’s very different than your situation where you essentially just want a long vacation (no judgment, I would want one too, but it’s not like being on maternity leave with a newborn).
OP says
Hard disagree your assumption of my situation.
The policy has always been for both moms and dads to have X weeks of leave within the first 12 months after the child is born. Now it’s just X+4 weeks within 12 months. If this policy was in place when my child was born, I would be eligible for the X+4 weeks to use through end of February 2023.
If the company wanted to say it was only for the newborn phase, they’d restrict it to the first 3 or 6 months or whatever. The spirit is you get to bond with your child in the first year, and I don’t see how someone having a baby at 12/15/2022 is different from a baby born on 3/1/2022 based on my company’s stated objectives.
Anon says
Sorry I offended you. But my point, which you missed, is that it would be reasonable and common for HR to make an exception for someone who misses the cutoff by a few days (particularly with a baby that was due after the cutoff – that is an even more extreme situation than someone due in December), but not someone who misses it by 10 months. Even though they allow the leave to be used any time within 12 months, your situation is just very different than the situation of a mom who is due 1/5 and delivers early.
Boston Legal Eagle says
I’m pretty sure that when my company did something like this, they allowed the woman whose baby was due in November of the previous year to use the extended policy, as she was going to be out on leave in the new year anyway, and it was more of an extension of that, but did not extend it to the woman whose baby was born in June of the previous year because she was already back from leave when the policy was implemented.
Anon says
I agree with the anon above, but I still think you should at least ask. Something similar happened to me (leave policy changed while I was ON leave, but the application date was like 2 months after my kid was born). The firm just said – get approval from your supervisors, and we’re fine with it. I ended up getting the extra 4 weeks, and it was fine.
OP says
I’m not offended, but I do think that your reasoning is faulty regardless of my missing out on leave due to the day on which my child was born. The company’s stated objective is bonding time in the child’s first year of life. That is the goal.
The 1/1/2023 date at which the additional 4 weeks kicks in is 100% justifiable and understandable, but if someone is within the first 12 months of their child’s life, and the company says that they want you to have bonding time within 12 months of your child being born, the birthdate cutoff seems arbitrary or at the very least like a bad look.
If someone’s child was born on 1/15/2022, the most equitable thing to do would be to allow them to take leave 1/1/2023 through 1/15/2023. They’d miss out on the full 4 weeks but they would be eligible to take additional leave allowed through the 12 months after birth, which is the whole point of parental leave in the first place.
Anon says
This just happened to me. I’m so bitter. Applied to babies born as of a specific date. I missed by about a week. HR let me point to three other direct competitors who had recently done the same thing with a grandfathered policy, and then bluntly said they would not be grandfathering me.
OP says
Ugh! So sorry.
anon says
This happened to us with paternity leave. They announced in January that they would be offering paternity leave starting in June. Our baby was born at the end of May. My husband had been at the company for 10+ years and got zero days of paternity leave.
He argued that he should at least get the days that would have fallen after June 1 (e.g., Baby was born May 25 with 30 days of leave offered starting June 1, so he suggested that he not get the leave in May, but should get 25 days in June). They said no. It sucked.
Anonamama says
Does anyone have a recommendation for a kid-friendly topical acne medication? My 8 year old is occasionally getting pimples on her cheeks. They are small, usually with white heads. I let her use my Effaclar Duo and she had a bad reaction to it. She also tried my CosRx patches but she said it hurts to take them off. Is there anything else gentle we can try to heal them up a little faster?
Anonymous says
Our pediatrician recommended Differin, but that’s more of a preventative that needs to be used regularly. For zits that have already emerged I like the Mario Badescu drying lotion.
Anne-on says
I’d dab small dots of the de la cruz sulfur ointment on them and leave on for 10 minutes or so before washing. I also have my son use the same CosRx good morning cleanser (with tea tree oil) and oil cleanser (innisfree cleanising oil) that I use – it’s probably a good time to start a thorough face washing routine ahead of the teen years.
Anonymous says
Can they use benzoyl peroxide? This is the only thing that works on my pimples.
Anonymous says
Do you know if it’s a hygiene thing or hormonal? 8 is fairly young for hormonal (but I had it starting at 9 so it’s possible!). My 9 year old had a few peoples and they stopped showing up when she actively washed her face in the shower and before bed. With soap. you would be surprised what a revaluation this was to her ;).
FWIW she uses Cetaphil or the same dove body wash she uses everywhere else.
Anonymous says
Cortisone works fast if you are OK with a steroid. I’d work on the cause more than the cleanup at this age. They’ll be gone in a few days.
Hmmm says
If her skin is at all sensitive, I’d consider leaving them alone at that age unless they’re pretty bad. You risk making the problem worse by drying out her skin and then getting stuck in a vicious cycle of irritated skin, breakouts, etc. (ask me how I know).
Ifiknew says
My 3.5 year old hits his 5.5 year old a lot. It’s 99% not when he’s angry, but he just wants to play or rough house. It’s anything from hitting, pushing, pulling her hair, pinching. It’s so so so trying and we constantly remind him to use his words and ask sister to play etc. This has been happening since he was 9 months old. He used to do this at age 2 in sxhool too but now he seems to be very good at school but still does it at home with her only. Any tips or suggestions?
Anon says
I had a very hitty 3 year old, and this is really hard, but we get better results when we pay attention to the injured kid – not the aggressor. So – lots of “oh my gosh, are you okay? do you need a hug? Here let me give you a kiss.” And then — this is key — we do not punish/engage the hitter. The only time we will acknowledge the hitter is to say, “did you give [other kid] a hug or check if he’s okay? That looks like it hurt.” We had gotten into a weird dynamic where both kids were playing aggressively, but only the last action (the action of hitting was being punished). If neither kid got in trouble, they stopped playing so aggressively, and moved away from an immediate “But s/he started it!”
Language development also helped.
Anon says
Sorry – adding, at 3.5 we always added a line “Hands are not for hitting.” Usually, once they saw they weren’t in trouble, they would calm down and immediately stop hitting/start checking on the other kid. If they didn’t, I would move the hittee to another place and say something to the effect of “We do not want to get hit, so we are going over here. If you want to check on [other kid] with me, you are welcome to come with us.”
Anonymous says
Hitting/pushing etc is an immediate time out in our house. Every single time. 1 min per year of age. Keep it simple – no hitting, you have a time out, walk them to their room, I will be back to talk with you in 3 mins when your time out is over. Then return and discuss that no hitting and no hurting is a big important rule in your family. You don’t hit him, DH does not hit you, he is not allowed to hit his sister etc.
Also, empower her to stand up for herself. We are very big on no hitting but we also remind kids that they can protect themselves and encourage them to do that if needed.
Anonymous says
Same. “No hitting” + timeout every time.
anonM says
Can you try to get this rough housing energy out in other ways? Dancing, balance bike, more appropriate roughhousing (consentual, with an adult?). Also, Siblings Without Rivalry has some good advice. One thing it talks about it distinguishing roughhousing from hurting, and how to swoop in asap and stop it when it is non-consensual/one kid doesn’t like it/you as the parent are worried about safety. It has some good scripts like (and I”m doing this from memory so don’t quote me) but “I’m worried someone is going to get hurt” *physically separate kids* “looks like we all need some separate time. My job is to keep you safe. You can try again to play safely in a few minutes”. You can trust kids to learn to work things out on their own, but you don’t want to go too far and let one kid get picked on all the time. I also tell my DD (who is the younger sibling) that she doesn’t have to play with DS and she can step away. She will tell him now “I don’t like that I not play with you” at 2.5 yo so 5.5 yo can be encouraged to stand up to the sibling.
Carseat chess says
I’m pregnant with my third child and trying to figure out how to fit car seats three-across without buying a new vehicle. I’ve been reading a lot online about how you just have to try it and see what fits together but … how? I don’t think I can return an opened carseat can I? Any ideas?
Anon says
I’ve heard of people going to Buy Buy Baby and being allowed to try out the floor models in their car to see what fits.
Anon says
You can google by type of car. You didn’t say what type, but this is the sort of thing there’s a lot of info on. carseatlady is one.
Anon says
If you post your vehicle model maybe someone can help. In small-medium cars and SUVs it’s difficult/impossible….that is why we bought a minivan when our third was a week old (Honda Odyssey – it’s love!) Or you can take your chances by buying super slim seats; the new Graco SlimFit3 LX is one of the slimmest on the market.
anon says
A couple thoughts:
-Infant seats: Baseless installs of any seat are going to be the narrowest option. If you’re trying to fit in a base, I think the KeyFits are the narrowest.
-Convertable seats: The Graco SlimFit3 LX (not the original SlimFit) is probably your best option. The Cosco Scenera Next is also narrow, but doesn’t last as long as lots of people have strong opinions about it. (Personally I loved it for our 3-across, but I know I’m in a minority.)
-For combination carseats, look at Cosco Finales, Graco Tranzitions, or Chicco MyFit.
-The FB group Car Seats for the Littles is rather intense, but has a lot of admins who can give advice on which seats are likely to fit in specific cars and which seats puzzle together nicely.
-You can usually return open carseats, but they will generally get trashed by the store because they can’t resell them.
-Call your local Buy Buy Baby and ask if they’ll let you try the floor models. Pre-covid that was generally allowed, you just give your license as collatoral.
Anon says
I recommend looking at The Car Mom on Insta and You Tube.
Anon says
+1 for The Car Mom!
AwayEmily says
Agreed on posting model here and asking. We have been on the waiting list for a minivan for six months but in the meantime have gotten by in our 2014 Honda CR-V with a Britax baby seat, a diono radian (front facing) and whatever the car seat lady recommended as the narrowest high back booster (we ended up moving my 6yo to the HBB earlier than I would have without the baby arrival, but she does meet all the requirements and it is so much easier).
Anonymous says
How old will your kids be when #3 is born?
House hunters says
House-hunting celebratory post! I was bemoaning the state of the market last spring/summer, but we are about to sign the contract for a new house, finally! NYC Metro area and a great house/neighborhood at a much better price than we expected (still over asking, but barely.) We are still a little in shock. Things definitely seem to be changing in even the hottest markets – fewer bids, closer to asking, etc. Sending good thoughts to all of you still in the trenches!
Anon says
Congrats!!!
Boston Legal Eagle says
Congrats!! Things do seem to finally be changing on the housing front (yay high interest rates!)
Anon says
Well done and cheers to you! We are still in a tough market in my in-demand area in the Midwest but I’ve seen signs of things calming down.
Anonymous says
Congrats! Things in the DC metro market seem to be slowing down, too, we won a bid with a slightly-under-asking offer.
In my house-hunting news, which is also a celebratory post even though it might not look like it: I let myself be pressured into making an offer while I was on a business trip last week. Our realtor pushed us to just go for it because state law gives us 5 days to back out. It’s a great house, but for a lot of reasons, once DH and I actually had a chance to talk and work through all the numbers and the practical realities of buying right this minute, we had a lot of misgivings (not least of which stemmed from the realtor making an offhand comment about realizing he’d been too “pro-deal” and needed to take a step back and remember to work for us!!). So, we backed out, and we are both very at-peace with this decision. Our realtor subsequently forwarded us an email chain with the docusign for the voided contract but forgot to delete his back-and-forth with the selling realtor where he said “ugggggggggh… the wife” ruined the deal because she “couldn’t wrap her head around a transition this fall” and “I’m so annoyed.” Ffs, bro. Obviously we’re not working with him anymore, and I hope losing the commissions on a $1M purchase and $700k sale teaches him a lesson.
startup lawyer says
WOW
Momofthree says
I’m thinking of doing a long weekend in Philly (from DC) over Veterans Day w/ a 7,5 and 2 year old.
A few questions:
1) could we get around to the major kid sites w/o a car? (The oldest want to take a train)
2) we were thinking of the pleas touch museum, the Franklin institute & the aquarium/zoo. Anything we shouldn’t miss?
3) any recommended hotels to stay at? We could also do Airbnb
Anon says
I’m not from Philly but you can definitely hit the highlights without a car. Franklin Institute is amazing for kids.
Anonymous says
Please don’t do Airbnb. Actual people need to live here.
Lizard says
https://www.phila3-0.org/call_council
Anonymous says
Thanks? As if I haven’t done a lot more about this?
Pogo says
huh? This is a problem in every city, and municipalities can choose to outlaw short term rentals or levy high taxes on them.
Also, I couldn’t afford to live in the city (Boston) back in the day before AirBnb, not because of rich out of towners, but because of rich people that lived there full time and drove prices up. It’s not a new phenomenon…
Anonymous says
Huh? Heaven forbid we try and encourage each other not to make problems worse for the sake of a mini break.
Anon says
Just because a problem existed before Airbnb doesn’t mean Airbnb isn’t making the problem worse. It’s pretty well-documented how Airbnb is driving up housing costs and pricing out locals.
Anonymous says
FYI, I am also trying to go to Philly that weekend and hotels appear to be very, very full. I am not sure why but there is very limited availability.
Anon says
It’s a fairly popular travel weekend due to the holiday and travel is just crazy right now in general.
Zennia says
We did this. Didn’t need a car but were willing to do short ubers with the older one while the younger took a leisurely stroller walk. It was so fun! Magic Garden’s was a big highlight so I’d consider adding that to your list.
Spirograph says
Do it! We did this trip in Feb 2020 just before the world shut down, right down to the kids ages. We drove to and from Philly and stopped at the aquarium on our way out of town to head back home, but otherwise we walked everywhere: Franklin Institute, Reading Terminal Market, and Liberty Bell+general vicinity. It was COLD and my daughter did not believe us about clothing layers. Otherwise, we had a fantastic time.
I wish I could remember which hotel we stayed at, but it was some generic Hilton or Westin or Marriott fairly centrally located near a mall. We got two adjoining rooms, and it was unremarkable other than having a very average restaurant on a high floor that my kids got a huge kick out of and fondly remember as “the restaurant with the cheesecake.” It doesn’t take much to entertain kids those ages.
Anon says
+1 million to your last sentence. We took my then 4 year old to NYC last year and the highlight of the trip was the revolving door at my in-laws apartment complex. To this day when she sees a revolving door she says “Look! A New York door!”
New employees during mat leave says
Have any of you had new direct reports start shortly before or while you were on mat leave?
I’m due in the next few months and will have one new direct start about 10 days to 2 weeks prior to my due date (I was induced at 40+1 with my first, so although I could always go into labor early, I’m hoping to make it to 40 again). I’ll also have a large number of people join my team, with several direct reports, about 1/2 way through my leave (due to the closing of an acquisition).
Any tips, pitfalls to watch for, etc? Boss is very supportive so that’s a non-issue.