Setting Out Productions

I saw a woman reading this book on the T (what Bostonians call their subway system) today and thought it might be relevant to this project.  The title lead me to predict the book would somehow argue that stay-at-home moms are economically advantageous.  I was totally wrong.  The book advocates social and legal [...]

Yes, seems like the obvious answer.  I’m one of an increasingly small number of people whose parents are still together so I have no idea what it would be like to grow up in a single parent household.  But I do see some clear advantages to sharing child-rearing responsibilities.  Growing up I regularly tested [...]

I foresee using a lot of archival material in this documentary.  I am fascinated by old newsreels, clique footage of robotically happy 50’s housewives, and other imagery that has crept into America’s collective conscious and come to fully represent some time period or idea.  Lucky for me a lot of old media [...]

The weekend before last I returned to VT to celebrate mother’s day and hike Mt Washington for my father’s birthday (a yearly family tradition.)  Over dinner my parents asked the typical questions about what I’m doing with my life.  They were a little confused about the point of this project.  How does breast-feeding relate [...]

I completed my project proposal and am now ready to move forward with production.  I’ll continue to write informational ‘research’ posts but will also share footage and discuss the production process.  I would love for people to give feedback, suggests alternate ways of viewing a topic or point me to resources I have yet [...]

Newly-hip ‘involved’ dads are cooed at for playing with their children but how far has household equality really come?  Research published in the New York Times shows gross inequality in the division of housework and childcare in heterosexual couples.  Across the socio-economic strata women perform twice as much housework and five times as much childcare.  [...]

The percentage of women age 40-44 who were childless doubled from 10% in 1976 to 20% in 2006. While more women are seeing not having children as an option, the overwhelming majority of women still have kids -  80% in 2006.  The U.S. Census Bureau press release where I found these statistics did not [...]

I came across a U.S. Census Bureau press release today (from Feb. 25th, 2009) that had some really interesting statistics about partnering and parenting.

The percentage of women age 40-44 who were childless doubled from 10% in 1976 to 20% in 2006 In 2008 the median age for men at first marriage was 27.4 [...]

I don’t want to be a stay-at-home mom.  I also don’t want to become a super-stressed out career driven super-mom who has to balance working full-time with being the primary caregiver and household manager.  Marc and Amy Vachon of equallysharedparenting.com advocate equal distribution of breadwinning, childraising, housework and recreation.     

[gigya width="400" height="345" src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/yt-9ia3mh1M-Ks/nytimes_com_adventures_in_equal_parenting.swf" [...]

Imprinting happens most obviously with birds but also occurs with mammals, insects, and fish.  How important is our initial and continued contact with our children?