Poverty is bad--but we have options

Found some stats about unequal women's pay at this student labor website. Fortunately, many single working women are now very successful financially, but when you think about the implications of these facts for a lot of other single women, you can see how far we have yet to go.

Significant: "If married women were paid the same as men in comparable jobs, their family incomes would rise by nearly 6 percent, and their families' poverty rates would fall from 2.1 percent to 0.8 percent."

Even more significant: "If single women earned as much as men in comparable jobs, their incomes would rise by 13.4 percent and their poverty rates would be reduced from 6.3 percent to 1 percent. And if single working mothers earned as much as men in comparable jobs, their family incomes would increase by nearly 17 percent and their poverty rates would be cut in half, from 25.3 percent to 12.6 percent."

I don't love statistics. They can be jimmied around to "prove" pretty much anything you want. But they can still give us some guidance on what we should be shooting for. The fact is that more and more people are remaining single--doesn't look like that trend is changing any time soon--and that 40% of births in the U.S. today are to single mainly-adult women (not teenagers).

So it appears that the simple move of paying men and women equally for the same work could quickly and dramatically change the landscape for hundreds of thousands of our children...both today and in the future...without having to think up or do anything else. And how would businesses adjust? The same way they have always done to "impossible" increases in the minimum wage.

Be inspired by how the Grameen Foundation is empowering people--and attacking poverty at its roots. These are the folks that SWWAN will be contributing a portion of its revenues to.

Now if we want to talk about saving businesses money, let's talk about health care costs.

High court rulings and truth

How many of us ever wonder--what standing does the Supreme Court have in regard to truth? If a right-wing president is appointing the justices, we have one view of "absolute" law. If a moderate, another. If a liberal, yet another. How then can we citizens say with any deep confidence that its decisions are the final word--on anything?

Just reading someone's blog post about the Supreme Court's recent decision on partial-birth abortion. The very outspoken writer's rant generated quite a few comments--as expected, some were reasoned responses, some were rants, full of accusations, half-truths, and inflammatory terminology. But I had to pass this one along:

If men could get pregnant, we wouldn't even be having this discussion--we'd probably have drive-through abortion clinics on every corner.

A flippant response with a whole lot of history behind it.

Single mothers the losers in pay race

So it's Equal Pay Day in the U.S. Sad that we still have to have a holiday for this, but it's a part of why we still also have to have a holiday called Single Working Women's Week!

A New York Democrat on Congress's Joint Economic Committee writes about the realities that women in the workplace face today. Perhaps one of the most telling statistics is the one that says women with children get paid an average of 2.5% less than women without children--and men with children get an average of 2.1% more than men without. While those percentages may seem small, the truth is every dollar counts when you're a single mom, no matter how much you make.

It's likely to take generations and perhaps a few small miracles to truly break down the unfair practices in pay. The "Paycheck Fairness Act" before Congress sounds like at least one more brick we can throw at the situation.

Roseanne - a real mom, both single and married

Not perfect. Not remotely. But she was a mom full of love and wisdom hard-won through years of struggle and change. And Roseanne did the world a huge favor by creating a television family that over the years tackled every one of the really tough issues in life with real heart and soul--and made you split your sides laughing about them. Here's what Roseanne, now 54, says about shared parenting: "It's great if you have a father or husband who takes on 50 percent of the load -- but then you're way ahead of most women on earth." Don't single working moms know.

Thanks, Roseanne, for your razor wit and your giant heart and all the hard work you put into giving the world one of the most real television comedies ever created.

Moms (mostly single) on campus band together

Sororities are the traditional place for young women in college to develop strong, long-last bonds with other women. The appeal is being young and working on your college degree together. But nowadays, an increasing number of women attending college have already given birth to one or more children. Their lives are not exactly conducive to the partying normally associated with college sororities. Especially if they are single moms without a partner to give extra help and support.

So on a few campuses some enterprising single women have founded sororities specifically for campus-going moms. A great idea, ladies. Now maybe we can borrow this model to create other bonding groups for single moms--surely one of the most blessed and challenged groups of people in the world!

Male baby caretakers?

More men are signing up for jobs as male nannies, or "mannies," according to this story in Australia. It says "Mannies are huge in the U.S...." Well, a little checking--namely a Google search on "male nannies"--yields a bunch of entries, mainly from the UK and Australia, that more debate than confirm that statement. The exception may be that a few high-profile movie stars have hired males to help care for their kids.

Concern is natural in this area, just as it has always been with the idea of male babysitters. As long as the preponderance of sexual abuse continues to be found among males (yes, females are known to do so, but at a generally much lower rate), most single moms (and married moms for that matter) will choose not to put their children in the charge of an outside male, possible exceptions being for time-limited, specific activities.

Got the "6-months-pregnant-new-house-no sleep" single woman blues

This from a witty SWWAN member named Perri who's six months along in her single-mother, poor-sleep pregnancy and who found that her new condo was previously (and still) occupied by an extensive family of mice:

"Ok, I was so desperately tired yesterday again I thought I would die. I struggled till 10, took some Tylenol and went to bed. Fell asleep immediately. By 2 am I was awake, 2:30 I got up, took a TYLENOL PM even, drank some water and laid down again. I didn't really sleep again. Then I got up this morning to find that my resident mouse had staggered into the middle of my kitchen floor in his death throes and died, thus giving me the equivalent of a little mouse middle finger.

Apparently they are smart enough to avoid every trap made but not smart enough not to eat the poison I put out. BUT, by everyone's account--including the poison maker's--they're supposed to go home to die, not make political statements by dying in the middle of one's kitchen floor.

I hope he was the ballsy one, because now I am scared to death that his mouse friends are going to follow his example. And if they die in the open when I'm not there and my children [her two big dogs] get to them, they'll be poisoned! Oy. But, I have made a lot of progress on my registry, I did a lot yesterday afternoon because I was too tired to work.

I guess the secret is that I needs lots of three hour naps instead of trying to sleep in one big block of time."

Now that's telling it like it is.