Helaine Olen

Daily Blogging for Babble

Helaine Olen — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:27:23 +0000

I’m blogging once a day for Babble’s Strollerderby blog. Come visit me!

It’s Off to Work We Go

Helaine Olen — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:18:50 +0000

As we end the work week, I’d like to revisit an interview The New York Times interview ran recently with children’s writer Rebecca Stead.

Stead, the author of the wonderful Newbery Medal winning children’s novel “When You Reach Me,” chatted with the Times about for a feature about what her typical Sunday with her husband and two boys is like. It’s meant to be a look at family togetherness (We buy bagels together! We watch The Simpsons together!) but what struck me was the feeling of overwhelming loneliness that pervaded the piece. In less than 600 words, Stead either mentions or alludes to her husband’s more normal non-presence in her children’s lives twice. “My husband generally works a lot during the week, so Sunday is also our day when he’s around,” she says early in the chat, later adding that “Sunday is probably the only day when we always, always eat together.”

Stead’s not alone. Survey data demonstrates that Americans who still have jobs in 2010 are working much harder, often for less money than in the past, with productivity output per worker surging. But that comes with a painful human cost. Many of my friends who are employed in full-time jobs have, in the past year, vanished from both my life and the lives of their families. I miss them, but their families miss them more. Just yesterday, two separate mom pals told me that their husbands were never home before 8:30 at the earliest. “The children are not handling it well,” confided one (who works full-time and then some herself), while the other admitted that her husband rarely got off work before their kids were asleep. Neither felt they could complain or do much to alter the situation. They were, they both admitted, simply grateful their spouses had a steady paycheck.

So what about you? Are you or your spouse seeing less of your family, kids and friends than you did prior to the recession? If yes, how are you and your loved ones handling it?

This One’s for George

Helaine Olen — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:53:29 +0000

As many of my friends know, I have a definite thing for the Armageddon types. I suspect I am one of those people who needs to know how much worse things can be before I appreciate what I have in the here and now (Yeah, my health insurance bites! But hey, in five years, things will be so bad we will all be living in tent cities and the plague will come and we will be weeping with nostalgia for the days when we argued over the phone for hours with Betty Jean in Bangalore about our benefits…).

So credit where credit it due. The wonderful George Ure makes predictions based on wave theory and a method in which he tracks word usage on the Internet. I’m not sure I really understand this, but it makes for entertaining, if depressing, reading. Well, a few weeks ago George predicted about 50 bodies would be recovered from the Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. Guess how many bodies have been recovered?

As for his predictions for the rest of the year … Mercifully, his track record is not so great, at least according to this list helpfully provided by the folks at Coast to Coast AM. On the other hand, timing one’s predictions can be a tricky thing, so if we experience hyper-inflation, inner city unrest or hear from a NASA whistleblower before the end of 2009, you can credit George for letting you know the news first.

The World, C’est Moi

Helaine Olen — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:22:40 +0000

First, let me say I am terribly sorry to read about Sandra Tsing-Loh’s divorce which, according to her essay in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, apparently occurred after she could not meet a deadline imposed by her therapist for re-committing to her (still) husband after she enjoyed a brief affair. But I think in her desire to draw a greater social lesson from her experience (namely, that a long-term monogamous commitment to one partner is both unnatural and unnecessary), Tsing-Loh misses many important facts about how and why marriage works.

Marriage developed as a social and economic institution, designed to protect the family. This might explain why Americans remain more committed to the institution than Western Europeans, a fact Tsing-Loh spends a lot of time pondering. It’s not that we are more religious or more romantic or more credulous, as she finally concludes. It’s that our social support structures are, to put it kindly, a bit lacking. Marriage is, for better or worse, a social safety net in this country. A Western European single mom can count on such basics as government provided child care and health insurance. We can’t. The economic consequences are profound. To take one example, single mothers in the U.S. file for bankruptcy at significantly higher rates than their married counterparts.

Yes, long-term monogamous marriage comes with some serious downsides, like curtailment of freedom and a squelched individuality. Few would deny that it can, at times, feel quite boring and oppressive. (I wrote about this in my rather well known essay, The New Nanny Diaries are Online). Yet marriage survives, likely because it has much in common with Winston Churchill’s observation on democracy: It might well be one of the worst forms of male/female/family relations ever, except for all the other ones we’ve tried out.

There has always been a strand of self-righteousness in Tsing-Loh’s essays. In her view, what is true for her is true for all of us. The world, c’est moi. Take her otherwise excellent writing on the benefits of public education. She’s right in many ways and yet in her self-congratulation for resisting the lure of a $25,000 a year school she couldn’t afford she goes over the top. Anyone who has ever sent a child to a public school knows that even the best are far from trouble-free. The vast majority cannot compete educationally with the private sector. I always feel guilty when I first read Tsing-Loh’s evangelic education bromides since, after all, the vast majority of mothers of children at my sons school commit the Tsing-Loh sin of speaking English as a first language. But then I remember – my children do go to a public school! Yes, it commits the sin of being in the suburbs but it is economically diverse! We fight over budgets! And our mothers — many of them volunteer too. (Not me, by the way, but I’m willing to acknowledge that Tsing-Loh has me beat as a person on this issue.)

That streak of self-righteousness and self regard is present in this essay too. Take Tsing-Loh’s depictions of her friends’ marriages all of whom, it turns out, are as miserable as hers. They simply lack her moxie, her willingness to call it quits. This, frankly, defies belief. More likely, her unhappy friends confided in her and the others – well, they probably exercised tact and common sense. After all, if a friend came to you and said their marriage was over, would you respond by saying, “My husband is the greatest ever?” I don’t think so.

All this isn’t to attack Tsing-Loh for her decision. It’s possible –in fact quite likely – her marriage was a dysfunctional mess that needed to end. No one flippantly ends a two decades long marriage. I am just not convinced its demise holds any lessons for the rest of us except, perhaps, to avoid family therapists who impose arbitrary cut-off dates on you and yours.

The Hooker Index

Helaine Olen — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:34:15 +0000

“Latvian Hookers Signal No Recovery for the Economy,” blared a recent headline on the front page of Bloomberg. The piece is about a blog post by John Hempton, who runs the popular finance blog Bronte Capital, analyzing the sex trade in the former Soviet Republic of Latvia. Hempton concludes that Europe is in for a bout of deflation. Here’s why. Sex work is a uniquely flexible market. The barriers to entry are low, to say the least. There are no contracts, leaving workers to set prices based on simple supply and demand. Latvia, where the populace is of Scandinavian descent, has apparently (how could I not know!) become the destination of choice for men from England and Ireland looking for, er, a quick pick-me-up. And, prices for recreational sex in the former Soviet republic are falling – and falling fast, as much as 2/3 in the past year. Case closed.

The analysis sadly makes sense. It’s no secret that desperate women have turned to prostitution as a way of making money for the pretty much the entirety of human history. But the way the situation facing Latvian prostitutes is presented by both writers is offensive beyond belief. Neither Bloomberg columnist Matthew Lynn or Hempton make reference to the fact that prostitution is also a uniquely abusive industry, that a large number of women in it are doing it unwillingly, many are abused by amoral pimps and that trafficking in unwilling sex slaves from Eastern Europe has exploded since the collapse of the Soviet Union almost two decades ago. Not a word. In fact, Lynn helpfully intimates that if prostitution were legalized, we might well have a very good economic indicator for central banks to track to get a snapshot of the broader economy.

Just spread your legs, ladies! The IMF and the World Bank need you!

Can we get a re-write?

Quote of the Year

Helaine Olen — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:39:18 +0000

The winning entry comes from Jacob Frenkel, top economist for money pit insurer AIG. Speaking at Davos earlier this year about the economy, he proclaimed economic prospects for the second half of 2008 quite good, adding: “When you’re in a stormy sea, the critical question is to ask how strong is my vessel .”

Pity Frenkel didn’t think to run that same analysis on AIG.

Let’s Party Like It’s 1988

Helaine Olen — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:43:45 +0000

There are many things I can add to my never-ending “Are We in a Recession” tally. There’s the sudden cornucopia of free samples at the Grand Central Market, the five empty taxis that whizzed by me as I waited for the light to change at the intersection of Broadway/Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street at 6:15 this past Tuesday evening and the recent five day weekend where none of the frequent vacationers on my block felt impelled to leave town, but perhaps nothing beats the trouble ahead sign I experienced last week.

I was on a standing-room-only Lexington Avenue express train when, suddenly, I felt a touch on my right shoulder. That, needless to say, is the shoulder I swing my handbag over. I was absolutely stunned. Crime? In the subways? In 2008? The trade-off for New York City’s absurd unaffordability is that at least we the citizens are supposed to feel safe. Subway crime is so 1988.

I’m happy to report that my shock did not, however, override the instincts and startle reflex I developed growing up in the New York City of the dark and dirty 1970s and 1980s. I jumped even as I pulled my handbag even further forward onto my chest. I then looked up to see a 20something man walking as quickly as he possibly could through the train and away from me. As my mouth opened — to do or say what I don’t know since I was stunned by my sudden and unwanted journey back in time– he yelled across the car, “Lady, I’m not stealing your bag. I was just trying to get though the train.”

Of course he was trying to steal my carry-all. If he wasn’t, he never would have looked back and most certainly wouldn’t have drawn attention to himself by saying anything. I’m guessing he was testing to see how touch sensitive I was, and was then going to do the old slice-the-strap-with-a-razor trick.

So, if I have to live like it’s 1988 again, can I have my city back? Please ….

I Don’t Know Whether to Laugh or Cry

Helaine Olen — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:51:38 +0000

I suppose only a parent of two boys would laugh when she read that the first two children abandoned at Nebraska hospitals after the enactment of a law aimed at protecting infants of overwhelmed moms were not babies but instead two boys ages 11 and 15.

I Heart Mary Ann Mason

Helaine Olen — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:03:21 +0000

I must confess I tossed aside the galley of Mothers on the Fast Track by Mary Ann Mason and her daughter Eve Mason Ekman a year ago, barely bothering to read more than the ill chosen title. I was absolutely sure it was yet another book about how those darn moms didn’t know how to negotiate with their employers and if they just presented their case in a recommended way for telecommuting, flextime and whatever else they needed, those corporations would see the light.

Well, my bad.

The terrific book is all about how professional women find themselves, often through no fault of their own, falling off the fast track at work after becoming parents. For this reader, the chapter that most resonated was “The Second Tier” about how organizations ranging from HMO’s to academic powerhouses have taken advantage of the fact that many of these women are so desperate to keep some link to the work world that they will work for pennies on the dollar.

Thank you, thank you, Mary Ann Mason for validating me. As my friends know, I’ve been ranting for years about how the ever growing number of absolutely first rate semi-employed female reporters and writers has become entwined into the economic structure of journalism itself.

Beach Baby

Helaine Olen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:57:44 +0000

I’m not one to underestimate all the things that have changed in our society since I was a child due to the influx of mothers into the paid workforce, but I can’t quite bring myself to blame them for the demise of local pool clubs, a la The Washington Post, especially when it seems the culprit really lies elsewhere:

At pools built 40, 50 or 60 years ago, bath houses are moldering. Pumps do not work. A sinkhole threatens the entire parking lot of one club in Fairfax County. And at the same time that many of these clubs need new people and their money, pool memberships are plummeting.

In many neighborhoods, older families no longer have young children. Two-career families have no time. And some immigrant families are less inclined to join because they are new to the area or because the pool does not hold the same cultural value for them as it does for generations of suburban Americans.

However a few paragraphs down the reporter points out that pool clubs in the more affluent towns surrounding Washington D.C. are somehow not facing this problem:

Many pools continue to thrive in such affluent inner enclaves as North Arlington, McLean and Bethesda, where initiation fees exceed $1,000 and waiting lists stretch four years or more.

Let’s get real here. Are there really that many more stay-at-home moms in Bethesda than Rockville? Do immigrant children really not enjoy swimming on a hot summer day? Why, whenever this intrepid blogger shows up at a pool club, does she see numerous elderly folks playing tennis, golf, and otherwise enjoying life?

Missing in this feature is a town-to-town income comparison that would, no doubt, explain the reasons for Washington D.C.’s dying pool clubs much more accurately and honestly than an article pointing the finger at working moms and immigrants. The lack of honesty in our national discourse when it comes to the politics of rich and poor should never be underestimated.