We're continuing a tradition at Working Parents started last year. Asking you to take a moment this weekend to discuss your desires for how you want to live the end of your life. If you are seeing this issue come up a lot in the blogosphere this weekend, that's because more than 100 bloggers are putting up the same post, in an effort to help start "the conversation"--one of the most important you'll ever have. If you want to reproduce this post on your blog (or anywhere) you can download a ready-made html version here.
Last Thanksgiving weekend, many of us bloggers participated in the first documented blog rally to promote Engage With Grace a movement aimed at having all of us understand and communicate our end-of-life wishes.
It was a great success, with over 100 bloggers in the healthcare space and beyond participating and spreading the word. Plus, it was timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we should be having these tough conversations--our closest friends and family.
Our original mission to get more and more people talking about their end of life wishes hasn't changed. But it's been quite a year so we thought this holiday, we'd try something different.
A bit of levity.
At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation started. We've included them at the end of this post. They're not easy questions, but they are important.
To help ease us into these tough questions, and in the spirit of the season, we thought we'd start with five parallel questions that ARE pretty easy to answer:
Silly? Maybe. But it underscores how having a template like just five questions in plain, simple language can deflate some of the complexity, formality and even misnomers that have sometimes surrounded the end-of-life discussion. Over the past year there's been a lot of discussion around end of life. And we've been fortunate to hear a lot of the more uplifting stories, as folks have used these five questions to initiate the conversation. One man shared how surprised he was to learn that his wife's preferences were not what he expected. Befitting this holiday, The One Slide now stands sentry on their fridge.
So with that, we've included the five questions from Engage With Grace below. Think about them, document them, share them. Wishing you and yours a holiday that's fulfilling in all the right ways.
(To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org. This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team. )
If you or someone you know would like to prepare an advance directive, this site contains downloadable forms for every state and Medline Plus has a section containing lots of background information on directives here.
After six years at BusinessWeek and four years as a lead writer on this blog, I will be leaving BusinessWeek on Dec. 1.
Working Parents was started by my colleagues Amy Dunkin, Anne Tergesen and Toddi Gutner, based on the conversations we had about our families-usually on Monday mornings. Since the blog's launch in January 2006, we've been successful in our mission to "lead a broad discussion of the issues and day-to-day concerns of working parents, offering up interviews with work/life experts, examinations of relevant research, and personal accounts of bouncing between separate, sometimes conflicting worlds."
I feel especially appreciative that I was able to ride the BusinessWeek train for as long as I did. I'm also thankful to McGraw-Hill, which owned BusinessWeek for the past 80 years. The corporation has a commitment to work-life issues, incredible benefits, and an impressive women's network. A flexible work schedule kept me sane during the past five years. In addition, my BusinessWeek managers and peers were especially supportive during a rough period when my son had seven surgeries. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Although my time at BusinessWeek has come to a close, I'll be blogging about parenting issues and work-life topics in the future on MommyTracked. You can also find me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
BusinessWeek is running its annual list of the best city or town for raising kids in each state in the nation. The rankings are based on a calculation using a number of criteria, such as schools, housing costs and crime rate. The overall winner? Tinley Park, Illinois:
Tinley Park, with its top-rated schools, low crime, beautiful parks, relatively affordable houses, and easy access to jobs, is the winner of BusinessWeek's Best Places in America to Raise Kids. Working with OnBoard Informatics, we chose a winner for each state, but the Chicago suburb—only an hour south of last year's winner, Mount Prospect, Ill.—scored the highest. Named after the village's first railroad master in the 1800s, Tinley Park has two train stations, which carry commuters to Chicago in 45 minutes. Single-family homes for sale in Tinley Park start at $166,000 for a two-bedroom, two-bath house spread over 1,200 square feet to brand-new four-bedroom house for $630,000. All three of the main high schools serving Tinley Park are ranked in the top 100 in the state. And the students are closely tied to the community and often stay there after graduating.
I know nothing of Tinley Park, but New York's winner certainly gave me pause--Tonawanda, right next to Buffalo. My mother grew up in Tonawanda and my grandmother lived there until the day she died at age 96, which I guess makes it a good place to grow old. But when I think of all of New York State, it probably wouldn't be my first choice for raising kids. Then again, as a western New York native, I do like to see that part of the state get it place in the sun, in part because it doesn't get a lot of sun.
The list always stirs up a lot of controversy. Check it out and let us know where you would prefer to raise your kids.
At South High School in Denver, during a Q&A session on Nov. 16, First Lady Michelle Obama made these insightful remarks on juggling her public job as first lady with her private job as mother to Sasha and Malia.
Question: What is one of the most difficult things of being First Lady?
MRS. OBAMA: The most difficult things of being the First Lady? Wow. There are a lot of advantages. I mean, let me begin by saying that. I came into this position having absolutely no idea what to expect. But I can say that it has been an honor and a privilege to serve in this role, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. From the moment we started campaigning, the ability to travel around the country and to meet people -- whether they were voting for my husband or not -- who were open and engaged and thoughtful and caring and patriotic and loyal, you're just reminded that this is a really solid country, doing really good things.
So over the course of the campaign I got really pumped out about wanting to do my very best in whatever way for this country -- for kids, for military families, for mothers struggling. It's just, I get pumped up to try to make sure that I'm working my hardest and that I'm not taking anything for granted.
But with that, you know, comes the challenge of having a role that's very public and raising kids and making sure that my girls don't get lost in all of this -- because they're young and they didn't make this choice.
So the President and I are always balancing the role that we play in public with making sure that home is home and that we're present and accounted for, for our kids -- not as Michelle and Barack Obama, but as mom and dad. And that means that on a day like this, I leave in the morning, I come back before they go to bed. That means when they have an event it takes precedent over everything -- whether it's a school play or a soccer game -- they know if I can be there, one of us, we will be there, and we will be there not signing autographs or taking pictures, but being mom and dad. I do it by making sure that I know what my kids' homework is and that I'm asking them questions, and I know who their teachers are, and I know who their friends are, and they still feel like they have a life.
So striking that balance sometimes is tough. And because I care so much about my kids, I want to make sure that they come out of this as whole as possible. So you're always struggling with making sure that you're doing right by the country, but you're also doing right by your kids.
We know you’re busy, and we know you want to save money. With holiday shopping around the corner, here's a list of tips from Michelle Madhok, founder of SheFinds.com and MomFinds.com, to help you get your gifts quickly and at a savings. Because much as the kids may love them, Madhok's ideas about holiday cheer don’t always include big-box toy stores around December.
Shop Online. Only.
Avoid the holiday mayhem entirely. Schedule time with each child to cybershop – most stores will save the contents of your shopping cart for a few days, so you can revise according to your budget when all the kids are done. Kids will love the special time and the fact that they get to control the clicks, but you’ll have control over what ends up in the cart.
Pare Down Your Search
If you have some idea of what you want to buy but aren’t totally sure, Pronto is a great place to start. The shopping search engine is accurate and user-friendly, and with photos and price ranges for all the results. Start in their toys and games or baby sections, and keep refining till you have a few choices in your preferred criteria.
Subscribe, Don’t Buy
If your little ones tend to have fickle toy tastes, try giving a toy rental subscription to RentAToy or BabyPlays. They’re like Netflix for toys, and the same logic applies: They reduce the clutter that comes with an enormous toy collection, and keep things interesting with new toys when your tot tires of the current one.
Get Cash Back
A no-brainer for saving during a big shopping season: shop through a cash-back service like Bank of America’s Add It Up program, which gives Bank of America customers up to 20% cash back on purchases from participating retailers. The Bank of America program has over 300 retailers, like Land of Nod, so it might make sense to check the list before deciding where you’ll buy a given toy. You can even take advantage of double cash back offers from retailers like Apple Online Store and BestBuy.com.
Set Yourself Up For Deals
Know where you’ll do some of your shopping already? Sign up for that retailer’s e-mail newsletter list, and you’ll be the first to know about sales, spend-and-save offers, and free shipping – sometimes they’ll even throw in a coupon code. Toys R Us, Babies R Us and Target are particularly good for big brands like Fisher Price and Mattel; Giggle and FAO Schwarz have great selections of European and Eco toys.
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Shop Online. Only.
