I pay my kids to get dressed, do homework and more. It’s the best decision I ever made.

From The Washington Post authored by Gia Miller:

“‘Please get dressed — we have to leave in five minutes,’ I pleaded for the 20th time, my patience waning. “You still need to brush your teeth. You haven’t packed your backpack! We’re going to be late for school, again.”

This was a typical weekday morning in my home last year. Unfortunately, my first- and third-graders couldn’t seem to grasp the morning routine. All three of us have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and we struggle with time management and executive functioning. As a result, my kids were late to school — a lot.

During the last month of school, when I was at my wit’s end, the principal called me in to discuss my kids’ excessive tardiness, and I knew something had to change. Fortunately, she was understanding, and I left the meeting with the beginning of an idea. By the first day of school this year, I had completely transformed our lives — the mornings and the evenings.

I accomplished this by paying my kids to perform basic life tasks. In behavioral psychology, this is called positive reinforcement. And it works.”

Share this:

TIME’s 25 Most Influential Teens of 2018

From TIME authored by TIME Staff:

“To determine TIME’s annual list, we consider accolades across numerous fields, global impact through social media and overall ability to drive news. In the past, we’ve recognized everyone from singer Lorde to Olympic champion Simone Biles to political activist Joshua Wong.”

Share this:

A court said the ‘wolf pack’ case in Spain was nonconsensual sex, not rape. People are demanding justice.

From The Lily adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Siohban O’Grady:

“The case involves a group of men in Pamplona, Spain, taking turns filming themselves sexually assaulting an 18-year-old girl in the lobby of a building. But two Spanish courts have thus far fallen short of determining they had raped her: Instead, the courts ruled that the group was guilty of “continuous sexual abuse” rather than rape, which resulted in a sentence of nine years in prison for each of the men.

The Guardian reported that the legal distinction between sexual abuse and rape in Spain comes down to whether the attack was violent or included intimidation. Now the case, which prompted protests and the formation of a committee to overhaul Spain’s penal code on sexual violence, heads to the country’s Supreme Court.

The event happened in July 2016, when the men offered to walk the 18-year-old woman to her car. Instead, they led her to the lobby. Police arrested five men the next day, but in April, a Spanish court did not determine they had raped her.”

Share this:

Does ‘Having It All’ Mean Doing It All?

From The New York Times authored by Maya Salam:

“Plenty of new research underscores the reality that women are still shouldering, and expected to shoulder, much of the work associated with the home.

“Marriage still ain’t equal, y’all. It ain’t equal. I tell women that whole ‘you can have it all’ — mmm, nope. Not at the same time. That’s a lie. It’s not always enough to lean in, because that [expletive] doesn’t work.” 
— Michelle Obama

When Mrs. Obama spoke these words this week at a Brooklyn stop of her “Becoming” book tour, the crowd (and in turn, the internet) went wild. But it wasn’t just her challenge to Sheryl Sandberg’s “lean in” that struck me — nor was it her rare, unfiltered language, though I liked that too — it was her comment about “having it all.”

As a girl, the prospect of balancing a thriving career, a happy marriage and a couple of well-adjusted kids — all while maintaining my friendships and hobbies — was sold to me as an ultra-glam aspiration that left me daydreaming of a well-oiled life with me at the controls.

Though I’ve checked enough of these boxes, I realize with every passing year of my 30s that if I have children, something — well, a lot of things — will have to give. (As Shonda Rhimes once put it: ‘Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life.’”

Share this:

Study finds male partners make an average of 53% more than female partners at top law firms

From ABA Journal authored by Debra Cassens Weiss:

“The difference in average compensation for male and female partners at top U.S. law firms amounts to a 53 percent pay gap, according to a survey released on Thursday.

Average compensation for male partners responding to the survey was $959,000, which is 53 percent more money than the average of $627,000 paid to female partners, according to the partner compensation survey from Major, Lindsey & Africa. Average compensation for all partners was $885,000. The National Law Journal and Bloomberg Law have coverage.

Only one female partner was among the group of highest-paid partners with compensation above $4.1 million.”

Share this:

Wanted: The ‘perfect babysitter.’ Must pass AI scan for respect and attitude.

From The Washington Post authored by Drew Harwell:

“When Jessie Battaglia started looking for a new babysitter for her 1-year-old son, she wanted more information than she could get from a criminal-background check, parent comments and a face-to-face interview.

So she turned to Predictim, an online service that uses “advanced artificial intelligence” to assess a babysitter’s personality, and aimed its scanners at one candidate’s thousands of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts.

The system offered an automated “risk rating” of the 24-year-old woman, saying she was at a “very low risk” of being a drug abuser. But it gave a slightly higher risk assessment — a 2 out of 5 — for bullying, harassment, being “disrespectful” and having a “bad attitude.”

The system didn’t explain why it had made that decision. But Battaglia, who had believed the sitter was trustworthy, suddenly felt pangs of doubt.”

Share this:

Commentary: #JustAsk: Stop treating unconscious female patients like cadavers

From Chicago Tribune authored by Robin Fretwell Wilson and Anthony Michael Kreis:

Share this:

Lawyers on balancing motherhood or choosing a child-free life

From ABA Journal authored by Jeena Cho:

“Motherhood is more demanding than ever. Parents spend more time and money on child care. They feel more pressure to breastfeed, to do enriching activities with their children, and to provide close supervision. And women underestimate the costs of motherhood. This was the recent finding reported in a New York Times article, “The Costs of Motherhood Are Rising, and Catching Women Off Guard.”

Whether and when to have a child is a complex issue for which there is not much guidance. I recall a mentor suggesting that having a child in my 20s would be career suicide, and I should put off having children as long as possible. I learned the hard way that the biological clock doesn’t wait for your career—that waiting could mean missing the opportunity to have your own biological child.

Female lawyers struggle and come up with various solutions for balancing motherhood with their careers. Some also make the very deliberate decision to be child-free. And it certainly affects one’s sense of well-being—no matter what one chooses.”

Share this:

These Five Women Were Bridesmaids in Each Other’s Weddings — Now They’re All State Senators

From People authored by Diane Herbst:

“They are longtime friends who have been bridesmaids in each other’s weddings, worked for and with each other for years, and supported one another with daily text chains and phone calls. And on Nov. 6, these five Democratic women candidates each won their state Senate races by double digits in Colorado, with their wins flipping the Senate from red to blue for the first time since 2013.

“We were all in it together,” Jessie Danielson, a state representative who brought her toddler daughter on the campaign trail, tells PEOPLE. The wins, she says, were ‘pretty amazing.’”

Share this:

Fighting the patriarchy one grandpa at a time

From Motherwell authored by Lisa Norgren:

“To the other adults in the room this is fine.

A grown man looms behind my three-year-old daughter. Occasionally he will poke or tickle her and she responds by shrinking. Smaller and smaller with each unwanted advance. I imagine her trying to become slight enough to slip out of her booster seat and slide under the table.

When my mother views this scene, she sees playful taunting. A grandfather engaging with his granddaughter.

“Mae.” My tone cuts through the din of a familiar family gathering together. She does not look at me.

“Mae.” I start again. “You can tell him no Mae. If this isn’t okay you could say something like, Papa, please back up—I would like some space for my body.”

As I say the words, my step-father, the bulldog, leans in a little closer, hovering just above her head. His tenebrous grin taunts me as my daughter accordions her 30-pound frame hoping to escape his tickles and hot breath.

I repeat myself with a little more force. She finally peeks up at me.”

Share this:

Are you a Girl Attorney?


Join the Directory!
SIGN UP