I read Liza’s summary of Mimi Swarz’s take on mature women in the most powerful workplace in the world with some interest. After all, I’d previously written on the preponderance of single women in the Obama White House, lamenting the fact that a bold-face name like Melody Barnes put off marriage for years, in order to run policy in an administration poised to overhaul health care, energy action, and the economy. And it is perhaps telling that I thought of these women—Susan Sher, Valerie Jarrett, and Desiree Rogers included—as single women rather than empty-nesters. Of course, not all the women with grown kids are unmarried (see Hillary Clinton), but the empty nesting bit means that, “like their male counterparts of all ages, they don’t even have to think about the babysitter.” When you put it that way, it sounds kind of great.

Rachel Swarns parsed some of this for a recent story in the Times about how family life remains difficult for those members of Obama’s staff who have children still at home. The 60-70 hour weeks sound even rougher when the job is to save the planet, or the economy—and the pain seemed to know no gender:

Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget chief who is a divorced father of two, works so many weekends that he often imports his parents to help care for his 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. “We’re still sort of groping here,” Mr. Orszag said.

As for Mr. Emanuel, he recently squeezed in a swim with his two daughters, 9 and 11, at 5 a.m. “No matter how much the president tries—and he and Michelle try, they do—the White House is brutal on family life,” said Mr. Emanuel, who has struggled to make time for his wife and three children since they moved here from Chicago.

After being tipped off by a XX-sympathetic friend at 1600 Pennsylvania, I found that the White House is even less pro-family than you’d think. For all Michelle Obama's paeans to work-life balance, maternity and paternity leave has never been guaranteed to federal employees—including those working for Obama. It wasn't until June of this year that the House of Representatives passed a bill correcting this marked divergence with the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act—a vote still likely to be torpedoed in the Senate, thanks to its $938 million pricetag. According to one critic:

"These are tough times, regardless of what industry you're in," said Rep. Christopher Lee, R-N.Y. "Think about the retail workers who are being forced to do more with less. Think about that, when Washington turns around and offers more generous fringe benefits to public sector employees."

Ouch. I hadn't thought of caring for a newborn as a "fringe benefit"—but apparently only 53 percent of private companies offer similar time off. And their duties do not, presumably, include running the free world.

As Liza writes, this doesn't affect the women on top. To get to the level of expertise needed in the White House War Room, you’re most likely at least 40. But if you’re somewhere just under there, it seems you’re no longer allowed to procreate—because when the baby comes, you’d be Compromising National Security by Leaving to Raise Your Child. The horror!

It would be nice to see the "pro-family" president lean on Congress to get this bill to his desk.

Photograph of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and his son Ethan by Aude Guerrucci/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: maternity leave, politics, white house, women in power, work life balance, working families

Am I losing it, or does Sarah Palin have a point? I mean, when she says that if she'd remained in office, she wouldn't have accomplished anything because state business would have been tied up in the many ethical charges against her? That strikes me as a hard kernel truth in the middle of the sea of bullshit Palin is wading in (today, literally, by giving TV interviews while out catching fish). Palin is right that she became a different kind of politician when McCain has picked her as vice president. Maybe that's because she's run headlong into the embrace of celebrity, and she could soberly renounce national fame and fortune and return to just being Governor Palin if she tried. But could she, really, at this point? When Palin made her suprise announcement, ardent defender Bill Kristol asked, "What is she going to accomplish in the next year as governor?" That seemed to me snobbish scoffing at the day-to-day work of running a state. Now I'm starting to see the unvarnished point. Given what a target of controversy she's become, what legislative agenda could she push through? (Other than forcing out the state public health official who wanted to present evidence about how laws that require teenagers to get parental consent before an abortion are linked not to fewer abortions, but to later and riskier ones. More on that from Clara Jeffrey at Mother Jones.)

It's a funny sort of toppling: I resign because of the damage my detractors are doing to me, even though I did nothing wrong and I am still tough as nails. And the bit of honesty here gives the lie to what Palin keeps repeating about how resigning "isn't about retreating, it's about progressing." It's also entirely possible that the real reason she can't be an effective governor is that she did do something wrong. But whatever the cause, Palin is right that her term of office has turned into a circus. And that Alaska may well be better off without her.

Tags: clara james, fishing, mother jones, Sarah Palin, sarah palin resigns as governor of alaska

Has J. Crew pushed the boundaries of their symbiotic Obama relationship a little too far? Politico posted an item disclosing a press release the retailer sent to reporters yesterday, advertising the fact that Sasha and Malia Obama have been spotted out and about in J. Crew wares. Specifically, if you must know—and they really, really want you to know!—the Silk Taffeta Trench ($298), black satin ballet flats with contrast trim ($98), girls’ crushed twill trench ($169.99), and girls’ minna printed ballet flats in classic navy ($108). Michelle’s gotten much traction from her public predilection for affordable clothes, but $298 for a growing child’s coat ain’t cheap. This might be great P.R. for J. Crew, but not so much for the Obamas. The larger issue, though, is the Obama girls’ privacy. Earlier this year, Michelle’s office delivered a strong statement against planned Beanie Babies dolls modeled after her daughters, forcing the manufacturers to pull the line ("We believe it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes” was the exact spokesperson-ese). And a J. Crew rep confirmed to Politico that they hadn’t run this release by the White House. Is this a lesser offense than Beanie Baby-gate, to which Michelle can turn a love-blind eye? Or does this gauche crowing mean that she should start seeing what Banana Republic has to offer?

Photograph of Sasha and Malia Obama in J. Crew coats at their father's inauguration by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Tags: Beanie Babies, fashion, J.Crew, Michelle Obama, Politico, retail, Sasha and Malia

Perfect kids are more likely to murder you in your sleep. At least, that's according to horror flicks that fall into the "evil kid genre," inaugurated by 1956's The Bad Seed. Other warning signs: Being adopted, being an "oops" baby, being a deconstructionist before you can cross the street by yourself. Read more about it in Jonah Weiner's highly entertaining essay in Slate.

Tags: evil children, horror movies, jonah weiner, Slate, the bad seed

I agree with you, Jess, that the poor job and internship prospects for today’s college students are more about the underperforming economy than an over-supply of participation trophies, or any other Gen-Y generalizations on which people like to pin such trends. But I disagree that Gen-Yers’ (that is to say, “our”) entitlement is purely economy-driven. Following your theory, that sense of privilege should diminish with the foundering economy. That would mean that our peers, many of whom are getting laid off or fear they soon will be, should right about now be tossing aside dreams of jobs that let us save the world and stay intellectually stimulated all day every day—all while wearing jeans and working from home when we feel like it!—and settling for whatever jobs we can get. Instead, we’re going to grad school.

The idea that young people choose to weather tough economic times in the safety of university libraries is nothing new. What’s different this time around is the opportunity costs that we Gen-Yers are all but ignoring when we choose the post-bac path. Education is expensive—much more so that it was for our parents, having gone up at more than twice the rate of inflation over the past two decades. The federal income-based repayment plan that kicked in this month underscores how bad the student loan trap has gotten. People are rejoicing over a plan that calculates what you owe each month based on what you make (a proposal so reasonable, it’s shocking it took this long) and lets you off the hook after 25 years (right when you’re gearing up to put your own kids through school).

That’s better, sure, but still pretty bad. Even with the new repayment plan, which only applies to federal loans, a two-year master’s degree could mean an entire adulthood of paying off loans. You’ll still probably have private loans on top of the federal ones, and ever-growing interest on both. The IBR plan reduces your monthly payments, but sticks you with up to 25 years of hacking away at your debt (which Smart Money estimates as $50,000 for the average grad school grad) before the government steps in and clears you of the rest. Oh, but you’ll still have to pay taxes on what was forgiven. To make matters worse, all that debt can hurt your employment chances. And in careers where a master’s degree doesn’t even do you much good, income-wise (like, say, mine), the salary you didn’t get while you were a student combined with the salary increase you won’t get for having been one are two more reasons not to take the higher-higher ed road.

Still, 20-somethings are turning to grad school as some great liberating option. Workplace got you down? Get another degree! You deserve it! In some cases, it will pay off. But often, it seems like one more reflection of that sense of invincibility and entitlement that our generation is often accused of having: indulge in education now; hope those pesky responsibilities that come with it don’t find us later.

Photograph by Getty Images.

Tags: generation y, grad school, jobs, millenials

We learned today that Rita Wilson is prepping an HBO series based on Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides' Pulitzer-winner about a girl named Callie who grows up to become a man named Cal. In a bit of fortuitous timing, Salon has posted an interview with professor Gerald N. Callahan, author of Between XX and XY, a new book about intersex people.

Intersex people are born neither male nor female; the descriptor is "an umbrella term that includes people with a tremendous number of genetic conditions, from those born with an extra X chromosome to those with overdeveloped adrenal glands."

There are lots of interesting nuggets here—for example, Callahan's description of biological sex as a spectrum, not a binary system. (Hence the piece's title, "We're all intersex.") That's a concept that many of us are comfortable with vis-a-vis gender identity, but applying that framework to the biological realm was a new notion to me. (Meanwhile, I'm not totally sure I buy Callahan's assertion that gays and lesbians "can fairly easily identify with the classic binary of male and female"—though I suppose that may be true when you compare them to intersex people.)

One thread particularly struck me, given our recent conversation here on Double X about Pop, the "gender-free" Swedish tot. Callahan argues that, if people focused more on the idea that, hey, genitals are lots of fun! (and not just baby-making tools), parents and physicians might be less focused on gender-assignment surgery—which, as he notes, can have disastrous consequences if performed too early and too arbitrarily. The interviewer, Thomas Rogers, asks a perfectly logical follow-up question:

So how do you think these decisions about surgery should be made?

This idea was introduced to me by Joel Frader [professor at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine], but I think the best situation now is for the parents to be involved, for there to be a team of physicians—a surgeon, an endocrinologist, a psychiatrist—to be involved and for them to try to explain to the parents the most they can do in the most realistic way. In this world it may not be possible to raise a child without a gender, but that doesn't mean that surgery has to be performed. The ideal situation would be that, at a later date, the child could participate directly in the decision that might involve irreversible surgery.

That sounds eminently reasonable, but I would have loved to hear more about how, practically speaking, this "ideal situation" might be accomplished. As Hanna described in her Atlantic piece about transgender children, these decisions often take place under circumstances that are far from ideal.

Tags: gerald n. callahan, intersex, middlesex, salon, transgender

I just caught up with the essay in the New York Times Magazine by writer Anne Bernays about her dismay at her grandson, David, becoming a Marine. His decision was an incomprehensible turn of events for Bernays. After all, she writes, she is a liberal Jew who raised her family in Cambridge, Mass. Her children went to the "best schools." They had "no money worries." In other words, people like this simply do not produce Marines. At David's graduation, she has a conflicted sense of pride in his accomplishments. But nowhere does she question her assumption that serving one's country is for other people, those without the education, the money, the privileges of her blessed family. You learn quite a bit in this short piece about Bernays' perfectly predictable reactions—she says she kept silently referring to Quantico, where Marine Basic School is located, as Guantanamo. But you learn almost nothing about the really interesting subject: why her grandson felt this call of patriotism and upended all expectations of him. And she never even considers that it is a bad thing about our country that so few of our elites hear such a call; that many look on it with bafflement, some even with contempt. As Bernays writes about herself: "She couldn't conceive of anyone wanting to do this."

My nephew is a Lieutenant in the Navy who graduated from Annapolis. He, too, grew up in Cambridge, is Jewish, and could have chosen a much easier path. Of course his parents, and the rest of us, have the kind of worries that go along with have a loved one in the military. But I can tell Bernays that our family has looked on Zac's choice with unmitigated pride, with awe at his sense of duty, and with a humility about what he and his comrades do for the rest of us.

Photograph of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Tags: elite, elitism, Marines, patriotism

Police arrested a North Dakota woman yesterday for breast-feeding while drunk, and now she is facing charges of child neglect. This case brings to the surface all of our weird notions about breast-feeding. The cops were called in for domestic disturbance and said the whole scene suggested child neglect. But hey, the mom must have told herself, at least I’m breast-feeding!

The advocates are incensed that the police invaded the privacy of a breast-feeding goddess and don’t worry too much about the potentially scary abusive household. And then the cops themselves seem uncomfortable with the idea that she was breast-feeding “as we are conducting an investigation, whether she was intoxicated or not.” Of course, the correct non-neglectful thing to do would have been to ask the baby to wait three hours, and then arrest the mother.

Photograph by Getty Images.

Tags: breastfeeding while drunk, drunk mom breastfeeds

Amelie Gillette, the brilliantly crabby woman behind the Onion A.V. Club column The Hater, has pointed out one of the scourges of the Bravo network: the repeated use of the completely insulting term, "gay boyfriend." Gillette has started a Hater podcast, and on her first cast she calls the Real Housewives franchise out on their mostly demeaning treatment of their close gay friends. (The Housewives are a pet peeve of Gillette's—she talks about them in her third podcast, too.) Referring to your gay friends as "my gays" makes them sound like trinkets, or as Gillette puts it, "They're just like those little chihuahuas that are carried around in a bag." This is not merely a Housewifely affectation—I've heard many a non-botoxed pedestrian refer to their gay boyfriends, and the Housewives' fellow Bravo star Kathy Griffin can't get enough of the term. Though for most people, it's not meant to be cruel or discriminatory, at this point it's not just insulting ... it's also uninspired. Do you really want to be unironically sharing terminology with a group of women who spend 50 percent of their time talking about their bubbies?

Photograph by Getty Images.

Tags: amelie gillette, Bravo, gay boyfriend, the real housewives