Fun Mothering Facts

KEY MOM STATS:

Number of Moms: 2 billion in the World (82.5 million in the U.S.)

 

First-time Moms: Average age of new moms is 25, vs. 21 in 1970

 

Number of Kids: Modern moms average 2 kids (1950s: 3.5 kids; 1700s: 7-10 kids)

 

4.3 babies are born each second

WORKING MOMS:

  72% of moms with children over 1 year old work (about the same as childless women) , vs. 39% in 1976

 

55% of moms with a child under 1 year old work, vs. 31% in 1976

 

Moms with a full-time job spend 13 hours working at the office or at home on family chores

HOUSEHOLD CHORES:

 

 

Chores: Women average 2.2 hrs / day, vs. 1.3 hrs / day for men

 

Laundry: 88% is done by moms, totaling 330 loads of laundry & 5,300 articles of clothing each year

 

Least Favorite Chore: Vacuuming the stairs

 

Bathroom Multi-Tasking for Moms: Reading is the most common activity, followed by talking on the phone, meditating, watching TV, drinking coffee, eating and balancing the checkbook

 

MOMMY RECORDS:

 

 

Most Kids: Mrs. Vassilyev of Russia gave birth to 69 children between 1725 and 1765

 

Oldest Mom: Rosanna Dalla Corte gave birth to a baby boy when she was 63 years old in Italy in 1994

 

Heaviest Newborn: Signora Carmelina Fedele gave birth to a 22 lb 8 oz boy in Italy in 1955

 

MISC. MOMMY & BABY FACTS:

 

 

Cost of Raising a Child: Middle-income families spend $242,070 to raise a kid to 18 (not incl. college!)

 

First Year Baby Costs: $7,000 of baby items before 1st birthday

 

30 Pounds: Average weight gain during pregnancy

 

Baby Gender Gap: 105 boys born for every 100 girls

 

Most popular birth month: July

 

Most popular birth day: Tuesday

 

Most Popular Names of 21st Century: Baby Girls: Emily, Madison, Hannah. Baby Boys: Jacob, Michael, Joshua

 

Research suggests that moms who give birth later in life, live longer

 

Having kids may make you smarter

 

BABY CHORES:

 

 

Diaper Changes: 7,300 by baby's 2nd birthday

 

Diaper Changing Speed: Moms take 2 minutes, 5 seconds (adds up to 3 40-hour work weeks each year!) , vs. 1 minute, 36 seconds for dads

 

Giving Attention: Preschooler requires mom's attention once every 4 minutes or 210 times / day

 

Taking Care: Preschooler moms spend 2.7 hrs / day on primary childcare, vs. 1.2 hours for dads

 

MOTHER'S DAY:

 

 

1st Mother's Day: May 10, 1908; Founded by Anna Jarvis; made a national holiday in 1914 by President Wilson

 

Busiest Phone Day: 68% of people plan to call Mom on Mother's Day, totaling 122.5 million phone calls

 

Card Giving: 50% of households give Mother's Day cards, totaling some 152 million cards

Super Mom

I found a funny toy online.  Here it is:

Super Mom Action Figure

Up at the crack of dawn and working long into the night, this heroine magically creates extra hours each day juggling kids, schedules, chores and career. Navigating jungles of toys and mountains of kiddie stuff she prepares tasty-yet-healthy snacks, tames dust bunnies and banishes stubborn stains. With an invisible third arm and a never ending pursuit of work / life balance she can help with a school project and answer an all-important business call while wrist deep in dirty diapers. Part teacher, part doctor, part chauffeur, part boss… she's all SuperMom.

CODE NAME:

SuperMom

 

 

AKA:

Soccer Mom, Chief Everything Officer, 'The Boss', Working Mom

 

 

SUPER POWERS:

 

mother's love; mega-multitasking; "the look"; cure-all kisses; temper tantrum tactics; mind reading; cheerleading

 

 

VULNERABILITIES:

sleep deprivation; child's cries;work/life balance; cute kiddie clothes; mothering co-workers; parental pampering

 

 

CATCHPHRASES:

"Go to your room and think about what you did.""A mother's work is never done." "Can't talk now, gotta go get the kids!""Because I said so, that's why."

 

WEAPONRY:
SuperMom is equipped with 8 accessories of mommy might:

 

 

CALM & FRAZZLED HEADS
Switch between mommy alter egos: calm / relaxed and frazzled / crazy

 

BABY (little angel or mini monster)
Grows bigger with food and milk, gives off gas. Comes with an anti-boo-boo bonnet

 

MOMMY BAG
Magical handbag holds work homework & diversions to calm mischievous mini people

 

CELL PHONE
Lifeline between school / daycare, home and the office. Also handy for gabbing and gossiping

 

SUPER LONG TO-DO LIST
Mother of All Lists, brings relative order to chaos

 

GROCERIES (aka Pre-Cuisine)
Nutritious items used in tasty meals that mysteriously appear on the table each evening

 

WORK & CASUAL SHOES
Puts foot down with authority, with work heels or comfortable mothering shoes

 

Cheers to all the moms out there who work so hard everyday (especially to my mom - love you).

Mom Knows Best

In honor of Mother's Day, here are some quotes about motherhood. Enjoy!

 “If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?”- Milton Berle

 

“I know how to do anything - I'm a Mom.”- Roseanne Barr

 

“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.”- Maya Angelou

 

“My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.”- Erma Bo

 

“It's not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it.”- The Golden Girls

 

“God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.”- Jewish Proverb

 

“The phrase ‘working mother’ is redundant.- Jane Sellman

 

“That best academy, a mother's knee.”- James Russell Lowell

 

“With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood.”- Isadora Duncan

 

“The woman is weak, but the mother is strong.”- Korean proverb

 

“To a child's ear, 'mother' is magic in any language.”- Arlene Benedict

 

“If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers.”- Edgar Watson How

 

“The mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she'd have children if she had it to do over again. ‘Yes’, she replied ‘but not the same ones.’”- David Finkelstein

 

“Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease.”- Lisa Alther

 

“Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs in my field, since the payment is pure love.”- Mildred B. Vermont

 

“A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.”- Emily Dickinson

 

“She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along.”- Margaret Culkin Banning

 

“A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”- Sophia Loren

 

"The hand that rocks the cradle usually is attached to someone who isn't getting enough sleep."- John Fiebig

 

"I'd like to be the ideal mother, but I'm too busy raising my kids."- Unknown

 

"Child rearing myth #1: Labour ends when the baby is born."- Unknown

 

"Children are a great comfort in your old age. And they help you reach it faster, too."- Lionel Kaufman

 

"Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going."- Phyllis Diller

 

"It is amazing how quickly the kids learn the operation of the DVD, yet are unable to understand the vacuum cleaner."- Etienne Marchal

 

"Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble."- Dennis Fakes

 

"Raising a kid is part joy and part guerilla warfare."- Ed Asner

 

"Poverty is hereditary - you get it from your children."- Phyllis Diller

 

"Children are gleeful barbarians."- Joseph Morgenstern

 

"An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest."- Spanish proverb

 

"By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class."- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

"Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother."- African proverb

 

"We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up."- Phyllis Diller

 

“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”- Rajneesh

 

“Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.”- T. DeWitt Talmage

 

“A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, "where mother is."- Keith L. Brooks

 

“A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.”- Irish Proverb

 

“A mother understands what a child does not say.”- Proverb

 

“Making the decision to have a child - It's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”- Elizabeth Stone

 

“A mother never realizes that her children are no longer children.”- James Agee

 

“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take.”- Cardinal Mermillod

 

“All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.”- Abraham Lincoln

 

“Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.”     - Lin Yutang

Temporary Relocation

This entry is just to let you know that I will be living in California for the rest of May and coming back sometime in early early June. I'll be taking Emma with me of course. Eric will be staying here working hard as usual. The reason for the trip is to help some family there. She is having a difficult pregnancy, and is on bed rest. She needs someone to help out for awhile, especially since she has a daughter Emma's age. It's so unfair (especially with how sick you can already get) that anything can make pregnancy harder. It'll be hard being away from Eric for so long, especially right after moving, but I'm really happy that I can help out. Emma will be able to play with her little cousin every day and not just get sick of me. The girls should really have fun together. I will still try to do the blog from there, it may not be quite as frequent though. We'll see. I'll be checking my email while I'm gone, so don't hesitate to write. For those of you who have my cell phone number, I'll be taking that with me too. Hopefully this will finally get me away from the snow we've been having on and off here. Sunshine here I come!