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Big surprise.   Who doesn’t know this? But a new study has found that when a new baby comes into a dual-income, highly educated family, the mom does the majority of the extra work. Although research discovered that neither parent did as much, on average, as they thought – four hours – moms still did two hours while dads, 40 minutes, a day. This is not to disparage dads.   My husband got up with the baby at night and rocked him and fed him (diapers, not so much). “The birth of the child dramatically changed the division of labor in these couples,” says Jill Yavorsky, co-author of the study and doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State, at newswise.com.   “What was once a relatively even division of household work no longer looked that way.” I think that’s because we start feeling a whole different way once we have a baby.   It’s like that child is still inside you and attached to your organs.   Sounds kind of silly, I know.   But h...

I know that twelve is no longer a child.  But I haven’t felt it in my gut until two things happened in Stamford in recent weeks. One, a sixth grader, violently beat a Hispanic man so badly he almost lost his eye. Then, sadly, a sixth grader drowned at Cove Island . I guess that, more than anything, shows the betwixt and between of this strange age.  How a child, yes, a child, could so assault a man – could want to assault a man – that the victim could almost be blinded, made me I realize how far I have to go, to truly understand this age. Allegedly, this child was in a gang but he was still in sixth grade, my son’s grade.  I’ll admit I hurriedly tried to find out what middle school he went to. But, as a friend said, he probably didn’t go to school. Then I thought about the young man who thought he could beat the current at Holly Pond where it flows down over the rocks into Long Island Sound.  I could see him, laughing and happy with his friends,...

I remember dreading when my son had play dates with parents I couldn't relate to. Now that he's in middle school, I wish I just knew who his friends were .  I hear the names -- Michael and Nazir, Sofianne and Alex -- but who they are and what goes on in school with them and my son is a dark hole I can't seem to fall into. Maybe that's the point.  I've been reading this Mother's Day about women who worry their babies will grow up to share their neuroses, or like licorice, or the one mom who particularly got to me who worried who she was, now that her three sons were grown. (Of course, I have a ways to go.  Mine is only 12.) But I came to motherhood so late I was convinced I'd never be a typical mom, or a real one. Raising a child did not come easily to me.  I felt like people were laughing at me when I bought diapers or scrolled through the six months rack for onesies at Carter's.  What does she know about being a mother?  I even had to ask if the...