Single Working Womens Week – SWWAN

I have a Google news alert set for “single working mother,” and I’ve noticed there seem to be a higher number of stories/article from the UK than from the U.S. This one, about the cost of living vis-a-vis women/mothers working, is interesting–but the comments from the many readers are fascinating. They represent a comprehensive overview of all the possible opinions (and justifications for them) that anyone could have.

Housing costs–outrageous in the U.K. Wages. Taxes. Legal issues. State-provided benefits. If you’re curious about how things are different for working women/mothers in the UK than they are in the U.S. and you’ve got half an hour, sit down and read.

Wise words from an English mum whose teenager can’t stand her dancing and singing. What teenager isn’t embarrassed by signs of young-spiritedness in a parent? It just doesn’t fit with the internalized image they’re trying to build of you as “foreign” to everything they want to be. If you break out in song while driving the car, then they’re worried that they can’t do that because then they might be like you. This is one of those things that’s part of the nature of human development.

Can single moms get too close with their daughters? Sure. So can married moms. It’s a disease that many mothers can succumb to. When a woman’s life is unfulfilled for any reason–absence of a love interest, poor marital relationships, lack of interesting work, not enough to do, etc.–it can contribute to a tendency to reach out to the closest female in her life.

This UK writer Rachel Johnson makes some great observations (using abundant references to British royals). She wonders why guys don’t talk about being best friends with their sons–well, I see plenty of that these days, too. I think it’s a tendency of a lot of boomers to want to befriend their kids. And it may have its roots in the fact that so many boomers were raised by Depression-era parents, many or most of whom had little or no emotional connection with their children of any kind. One of those backlash things.

Let’s face it. Humankind is never going to produce an entire generation of perfect parents. We just have to be smart enough to listen to wisdom when we hear it and apply to ourselves as best we can with our resources at the time. I think it was Andre Gide who said, “The appalling thing is, we’re all doing the best we can.”

Amen.

Even if you can’t get to the gym–and lots of single women/single moms literally don’t have a spare hour–cheer up. All that work you’re doing to keep your life organized is probably enough to improve your health and longevity as much as a gym workout.

According to an article in the Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource, research on an older population indicates that any activity where you spend energy may help prolong life. That means when you’re vacuuming, mopping the floor (they mention washing windows, but hey, if a single woman doesn’t have time for the gym, I’m gonna guess she wouldn’t dream of investing time in washing windows!), doing lawn work, or caring for other people will do the trick. That also includes walking and volunteering.

The study showed there was a direct and major correlation of lower risk of death among those with the highest energy expenditures. High expenders reported climbing stairs or working for pay as a daily part of their lives.

Don’t you love to hear good news for a change!? ” ))

Yes, restaurants are having to get used to the idea that not everybody comes in a couple. The MSN City Guide writes “Dining Solo? Join the Crowd” to point out that restaurants who respect these diners should consider offering the following:

• a variety of communal reading material
• lots of wines by the glass or splits (hey, restaurant owners, this is a great idea)
• preset tables for one that aren’t in obnoxious locations like in the front window or behind the kitchen doorway

They mention the desirability of a “dining counter” (as opposed to a dumpy lunch counter) where singles can talk to each other if desired, or chat with the cook/waitstaff about the food, the weather, da Bulls or whatever.

Many women wouldn’t think of dining alone. Hey, the world is beginning to pay attention to your needs–and your money. Consider the alternatives and have a new and possibly deligtful epxerience!

Nice to see our neighbors hard at work trying to understand and reframe some of the bias against women in the Phillipine workplace. The story reports that many local employers will hire single women–often because they feel perfectly okay paying them less than a man–but then when female employees get married, they’re seen as a liability because they can get pregnant. Interesting view–probably not so different from that of many U.S. employers.

The Internet is the communal mind of the world; it is the tool by which the unheard are beginning to be heard, the unseen, coming into the light. The downtrodden are being spoken up for more than ever, as the web makes it possible for many more of us to know the truth and understand what is needed. The Internet is bringing women together in unprecedented ways, giving a voice to those who have hitherto had no forum.

At SWWAN we welcome this marvelous intricate network of human thought as the path by which the world will come to understand the special passion and creativity that single women bring to making the world a better place.

Come on, guys. This really goes in the “Well, duh” category in my book. Sorry, Toronto Star, but Co-operative marriage helps female heart health seems like a pretty lame excuse for a news story. Okay, okay. We are not surprised that researchers are THIS FAR BEHIND in conducting their studies, but that doesn’t mean it qualifies as news.

Isn’t it amazing how something almost every woman alive knows is just now being discovered by science? Stay tuned. More surprises are sure to emerge…

Almost unbelievable–that a young woman just out of college could rent a room for $55 a week in New York (even back in 1993 that was an incredibly low price). Okay, so that dream ended in 1996 when the landlord, a nonprofit, evicted all its single women tenants–presumably so it could start charging more and get more turnover. A sound business decision, of course. But I wonder what happened to the mission they were fulfilling when they first created Leo House…

Today more single women can afford to buy their own place to live–22% of all homes in the U.S. are bought by single working women. Thirty-five years ago a single woman couldn’t even get a mortgage; so we’re making progress.

Now if we could get busy on fixing the tax laws…

Two great stories of hard-working single women who decided, that despite not finding Mr. Right, they wanted to become mothers. I love the part about how one of them was required to visit a psychotherapist “to see if she was doing it for the wrong reasons.” Oh, brother. If anything, maybe we ought to be requiring that sort of thing of ALL prospective parents, including married couples. In any case, the therapist pronounced her “much more prepared than many married couples” to have a child. After having her first child through artificial insemination, this young woman went on to adopt a second child who came from Kazakhstan. When that child, Emily, asks again how she got here, her mom tells her, “Chris (her brother) grew in my belly; you grew in my heart.”

In the second case, the mom who was an inner city teacher was already nurturing in her classrooms many children of the foster care system. When she knew it was time to become a mom, she decided to adopt mixed-race kids–having the advantage of understanding and having dealt with the kinds of issues kids can have when they’ve been in that system. I love this: she takes the kids to visit their siblings who were adopted into other families!

Beautiful stories. Courage. Compassion. Caring. Bless the single working women who find it in their hearts to face the challenges and the obstacles involved in giving their love and commitment to children.

Heard an amazing thing yesterday. Gini Dietrich, owner of Arment Dietrich PR, a Chicago-based agency, says over the years she got so many questions about where her husband was that she decided to make one up! And yes, she honestly reports that she’s gotten business she wouldn’t otherwise have won.

Sad but true that most women business owners still experience varying degrees of bias when it comes to getting business. So, hey, why not invent a fictitious male partner if it means the difference between winning an account and not? I know one company in another state that has the husband of one of the women as titular head–president of the company–though it’s clear that she and her female partner and the other employees do the bulk of the work. And of course there might be lots of firms in which the president is a figurehead; what’s unique is that this one meets the NAWBO definition of women-owned (women must own at least 51% of the business).

How do you argue with success? But we can dream about a day when women don’t have to resort to tricks to win all the business they deserve.

Well, fat is good in at least some small way. Scientists have recently discovered that a protein called adiponectin that’s produced by fat cells plays a heretofore unrecognized role in helping us stay healthy: it helps clear out the billion-cells-a-day that die off as part of your body’s natural cleansing routine.

Imagine: our own body processes can cause inflammation if they don’t operate efficiently–it’s what happens when your immune system goes haywire in an allergic reaction. This discovery may help scientists understand a lot more about autoimmune diseases as well as conditions like diabetes and heart disease, which they think are also connected with poor clearance of dead cells.

It’s good to know that fat isn’t all bad. Of course, now they’ll start giving us even more precise prescriptions of how much is too much. I’m sure we all can’t wait.