Like many offices around the U.S., ours is pretty quiet today, with lots of co-workers out and others likely to leave early ahead of the long weekend. I enjoy these quiet moments at work before the holiday rush, as it provides a pleasant bit of downtime before this weekend’s flurry of activity, which kicks off this evening when we pack the kids into the car and keep our fingers crossed for light traffic during the two-hour drive to the beach, which could easily turn into three hours, or four…

Last year we discussed whether the weekend getaway is worthwhile for working parents, since it means we won’t be able to use the weekend to take care of the errands and household chores that don’t get done during the week. Also, traveling with small children often requires lots of baggage, even if you’re just going away for three days. But despite all that, my husband and I find that the time with family is usually well worth the effort.

Still, I can see the allure of spending the weekend at home. Perhaps you want to take advantage of a pool membership that you usually can’t use during the week, or maybe the high price of gas, along with the inevitable traffic, has you opting for home instead of the road this weekend. But even a weekend at home can be hectic during a holiday, especially if you’re the one holding the backyard barbecue and busy buying hamburger and hot dog supplies for a crowd of guests.

Readers, are you enjoying a quiet moment before the holiday rush? Hoping to leave early? What are your plans this weekend?

See you all Monday!

(Photo: Getty Images)

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Are some women on maternity leave getting cheated out of part of their pay?

There’s evidence some are, based on my email and complaints to the advocacy and research organization Catalyst Inc., New York. One saleswoman, a new mother, wrote me recently to express amazement that her Fortune 100 employer threatened to deprive her during maternity leave of commissions on sales she’d made before she left. “I was told I could have my deals taken over” by her maternity-leave substitute if she took a long leave, with commissions paid to the fill-in, the saleswoman writes. The specter of such a financial loss had her racing back to work a mere 5-1/2 weeks after childbirth.

In other cases, new mothers lose out on annual bonuses, despite the fact that their performance during the part of the year they were at work would have warranted one. This happens when performance targets aren’t pro-rated for employees on leave — as compensation consultants typically say they should be — to avoid discouraging people from continuing to work hard while they aren’t on leave.

In a complaint received by Catalyst, an attorney who had been billing hours at a brisk clip while she was still at work lost out on her annual bonus because her maternity leave cut short her work year, a Catalyst spokeswoman says; such complaints suggest the fairness of incentive pay is “an issue that needs attention.”

Although these slights can happen to any employees on disability or other leave, new mothers are hit disproportionately hard because of their need for time off after childbirth. Michael Carter, a compensation consultant for Hay Group, says he’s seeing “increasing interest” in the issue among employers.

At many companies, these moves aren’t so much a deliberate swipe against women as a sign of neglect. At the saleswoman’s Fortune 100 company, “each time a woman gets pregnant she’s told something different, based on her individual manager’s preference” –- a clear sign that nobody’s paying attention.

As one who was lucky enough to have the opposite experience — I actually got a raise from my boss while out on maternity leave years ago — I’m dismayed by these stories. Financing maternity leave is tough enough without what amounts to an additional pay cut. How are bonuses and commissions handled for parental leave-takers at your company? Have you seen examples of unfairness, or perhaps been slighted yourself? Or should new parents just accept the loss of bonuses or commissions as part of the cost of taking a leave? Just how far should employers be expected to go to give new parents an incentive to return to work?

If a little absence makes the heart grow fonder in marriage, can a whole lot of time apart ignite even more passion? Married couples are testing the limits on that question, based on a sweeping long-term study of marriage that I wrote about today in my Work & Family column.

The research, a comparison of more than 2,000 married people in separate studies 20 years apart, shows a steep drop in marital togetherness. Couples aren’t dining or socializing together as much as they did 20 years ago. They’re not doing projects together around the house. They don’t like the same friends. In fact, couples who do very little together at all have increased in number by 28%, to nearly three-fifths of all couples surveyed.

One factor is that more women are working outside the home, providing them independent roles at work and paychecks of their own to finance personal pursuits. And in general, “the individualism that is sweeping our society also is permeating marriage,” says Paul Amato, a Penn State sociology professor and lead author of the study. Put this data together with previous reports in my column showing husbands and wives are keeping separate checking accounts, vacationing separately and not having sex much, either, and a picture emerges of spouses “going it alone” on just about everything.

You might think the quality of U.S. marriages would be falling across the board. But it’s not so. The Penn State study also shows domestic violence and spousal conflict have declined. Husbands and wives are sharing decision-making more evenly. And both sexes are far more likely today than 20 years ago to say they cherish the idea of lifelong marriage. Thus spouses’ independence may, in some ways, be contributing to greater peace and commitment in marriage.

I suspect many couples are struggling to find the right balance for themselves between autonomy and dependence. The best among my 20 years of marriage were self-reliant times when my ex-husband and I each had absorbing careers, separate checking accounts and solo hobbies and social groups. We loved reuniting for long vacations and family gatherings. The beginning of the end came when vacationing as a couple no longer was appealing, and family was no longer available after a cross-continental move.

Others scoff at the idea that living “alone together,” the title of the Penn State study, constitutes a real marriage. If couples were married in the true sense of the word, these critics say, they would naturally want to share such emblems of togetherness as checking accounts, social outings and recreational pursuits.

What are the markers of a true marital bond for you? Is it a joint checking account? Shared vacations? Dinner together every evening? Or is time apart just what you and your spouse need, to make your hearts grow fonder?

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My sister-in-law is hoping to find a babysitter to work a split shift to care for her three school-age kids.

She leaves for work around 7:30 a.m. to catch a train to the city, and returns home around 7:30 p.m. Ideally, she’d like the babysitter to work a couple of hours in the morning, give the kids breakfast and see them off to school, then resume her duties around 3 p.m., picking the children up from school and caring for them until she or her husband arrives home in the evening. The sitter would not be paid for the hours the kids are in school.

Obviously this wouldn’t be the perfect schedule for everyone, but my sister-in-law is hoping to find someone who lives nearby (so they wouldn’t lose time in travel) and who would appreciate being free from 9-3.

My sister-in-law’s needs seem pretty typical for parents with school-age kids, but she says she’s having trouble finding a sitter who wants to work those hours. Most of the working families she knows pay their caregiver for the whole 12 hours, which seems extravagant to her since there wouldn’t be anything for the nanny to do while the kids are at school. She doesn’t think someone hired as a childcare professional would appreciate being asked to do tasks like laundry or dishwashing during that time. And she wouldn’t need the nanny for kids’ sick days or school holidays, since she can cover those through a combination of back-up daycare (both her and her husband’s employers each provide 20 days), and help from family.

They’ve considered an au pair, but aren’t really comfortable with the idea of someone living in their house. Also, as we’ve discussed, many families feel obliged to enhance an au pair’s experience with trips and cultural outings, something she’s not sure her family would have time to do.

Readers, have you managed to find “split shift” childcare, or do you pay the nanny for the hours the kids are in school? To the professional caregivers out there: Would you consider the type of schedule my sister-in-law seeks? Or if you work a full day, do your employers expect you to take on light housework and other tasks while the kids are at school?

One of many photos of our son that we posted on flickr.

My husband and I keep photos of our son on a public Flickr.com site. We started the day he was born. It functions as a blog of sorts, as we update the photos and commentary a couple of times a week. It’s a sweet way for far-away family members to share in the experience of our son’s life, and I enjoy browsing the latest batch of pictures at the office when I’m missing my baby.

Sometimes, though, the site also serves as an unfortunate reminder of the Internet’s not-so-innocent side. A few days ago, for instance, I noticed that some of the recent photos we’d posted had an extraordinary number of views, the result of people searching for keywords such as “bedtime, “nursing,” and “pj’s.” Presumably some of these folks were disappointed to find a photo of me, fully clothed, holding my pajama-clad infant son.

When we’ve mentioned this phenomenon to friends, some have asked, why not make the pictures private? We have the option to put them behind a friends-only firewall (and we do block photos that we think might create a genuine prurient interest). But we’ve kept the rest of the site public.

Though we occasionally get a bit creeped out, my husband or I don’t believe there’s a grave danger involved. After all, there are thousands of family blogs on the Web, and many of them reveal a great deal more personal information than ours, like Dooce.com, written by Heather Armstrong, profiled in the WSJ last month.

Why should we, in particular, need to hide? The offline world presents dangers, too — there are no doubt plenty of creeps walking around my Manhattan neighborhood — but my family certainly doesn’t cower inside our apartment every day, and neither do any other parents I know.

I do wonder, however, whether my son will someday feel that his privacy is being violated, or more likely, be embarrassed about the site. Readers, what do you think? Do you keep a blog or photos of your children on a public Web site? Do you think parents who do are risking anything greater than the fury of an embarrassed adolescent?

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With school out and the mercury rising, a neighborhood swimming pool seems like the perfect place to while away the hot summer days.

But according to a recent article in the Washington Post, memberships at DC-area swim clubs are plummeting. Among the many reasons cited is that two-career families “have no time,” the article says.

We’ve discussed how the trend toward organized activities for children leaves less time for play, as well as the pile-up of kids’ activities that accompanies the end of the school year. It seems summertime doesn’t offer much respite, as working parents often book kids for camps and other activities to keep them supervised when school is out.

As one pool director in the article says: “Now, kids have so many things to choose from. You also have many more parents who both have to work, so it’s not quite as easy to have the ‘Leave It to Beaver’ stay-at-home mom who takes the kids to the pool for the day.”

When we moved to the suburbs last summer I was pleased to discover our town has a large community pool. I have fond memories of splashing around and playing Marco Polo at the town pool when I was a kid, and hope my kids can enjoy the same summer rite. But realistically, I think our visits will be limited to weekends only for the foreseeable future.

Readers, do you belong to a community pool? How do you find the time to go? Have you seen a similar decline in membership at the pool in your neighborhood?

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Yesterday’s New York Times magazine ran a fascinating and disturbing cover story about the deep decline in Europe’s birthrates, which threatens to leave its countries economically stagnant and socially moribund in coming decades. As the article lays out, the entire continent is below the “replacement” birthrate of 2.1 on average per woman, in some places far below. Among the many possible reasons for the baby bust, particularly interesting is a combination of differences in government support for working mothers and social mores about motherhood.

In short, the more juggle-friendly the country, the higher the birthrate tends to be. The article, by Russell Shorto, notes that Scandinavian countries have a relatively high birthrate of 1.8, while southern European countries have some of the world’s lowest rates — 1.33 in Italy, for example. In Norway, the government guarantees 54 weeks of maternity leave and six weeks of paternity leave, plus a payment of €4,000 (about $6,300) upon the birth of a child. In Italy, there’s less state child-care support, and only 50% of women work outside the home, compared with 75% to 80% in Scandinavia, the article says.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has a healthy birthrate of 2.1, despite offering relatively little government child-care assistance. The key here seems to be the flexibility of our labor market and workplaces, coupled with social mores that increasingly encourage fathers to take an active role in child rearing, says the article. Motherhood is thus more attractive to women in the U.S. than in the more economically rigid and socially traditionalist Europe.

Arnstein Aassve, a Norwegian sociologist quoted in the article, sums up the situation this way: “You might say that in order to promote fertility, your society needs to be generous or flexible. The U.S. isn’t very generous, but it is flexible. Italy is not generous in terms of social services and it’s not flexible. There is also a social stigma in countries like Italy, where it is seen as less socially accepted for women with children to work. In the U.S., that is very accepted.”

Readers, what’s your take on this theory and how you’ve seen it play out in your lives and communities? I’m especially curious to hear from readers who’ve lived and worked in Europe, or are there now.

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Always looking for ways to be healthier, my wife suggested just before Father’s Day that we try a 21-day “cleanse.” Unlike other sorts of diets she’d considered before that required buying special concoctions, this one, devised by Kathy Freston and popularized by Oprah Winfrey, was just a matter of forgoing a few things: sugar, caffeine, alcohol, gluten and all animal products. OK, a lot of things. But I said I was game, and thus we’ve both had a very different juggle for the past two weeks.

The biggest change has been the added complexity and shopping time required to pull off such a big lifestyle overhaul. Eating more fresh vegetables and fruits, we’ve had to head to the store more often — and by “we” I mean mainly my wife, who works from home a couple of days a week, gets home earlier than me on the other days and has deftly weaved in additional stock-up trips amid it all. We’ve also both had to plan meals ahead more. Rather than stumbling home at the end of the day and popping any old thing into the microwave or the toaster oven, we’ve had to actually cook a fresh meal each night. We made a big bowl of polenta one night and have been topping the leftovers from that with sautéed vegetables, or grilling up portabella mushrooms to have over mesclun.

It’s been an adjustment at the office as well, where I’ve had to pass up the copious snacks, celebratory cakes and lunch-meeting platters that are such a big part of modern cubicle culture. I passed on going to lunch with some colleagues the other day because I just couldn’t face dealing with the temptations of a restaurant, and I’m postponing a networking drinks meeting until after the cleanse for the same reason. All in all, we’ve felt a little healthier and have lost some weight, but it’s been something of an annoying intrusion.

Readers, have you done a cleanse or made any other major lifestyle change, and how did it fit into your juggle? Is it something you’re considering, or is it not for you?

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My recent post about summer driving plans sparked an interesting, and heated, side conversation: Many posters took exception to the idea that I would consider having our son attend his final, championship Little League game over a family event. (We had briefly discussed having him trade off a Friday cookout the night before a family wedding, but ultimately decided that he could miss the game.)

Many readers felt strongly that a baseball game should never take precedence over a family gathering. “Kids’ routine events, even last games, are rarely (if not never) worth tossing the entire family plans to attend,” wrote one reader.

The debate, I think, struck at the heart of the juggle we all make as we balance the sometimes competing calls of work, family and friends. The choices are often difficult, and one person’s well-considered decision may be anathema to another.

For many families, team sports offer more than just recreation. They’re an opportunity to teach valuable life lessons about teamwork and responsibility — and the decision to skip a game or practice is by no means an easy one. When you join a team, you are making a commitment to your fellow players to work together and support one another. Kids who don’t show up may be seen as letting their teammates down.

I regularly speak with parents of young athletes at all levels of competition, and there is broad agreement that important family occasions have to come first. But everyone has their line in the sand — beyond which a skipped game would send the wrong message about finishing what you’ve started.

So readers, where do you draw that line? Is a grandparent’s visit enough to skip a game, or should the grandparent just come to the game? Does the level of competition make a difference? Is it easier to skip a game where your child would sit on the bench, than, say, a state championship game where your child is a starting player whom the team relies on?

Does it pay to have friends in high places? As the Journal has been reporting this month, certain prominent customers of lender Countrywide Financial Corp. got special deals on mortgages due to the intervention of Countrywide Chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo (pictured left). The mortgages were known internally at the company as “friends of Angelo” — or FoA — loans. Among the borrowers who have surfaced as receiving FoA loans are the former CEO of Fannie Mae, and two U.S. senators. (Some of the borrowers deny actively seeking special favors from Mr. Mozilo.) (See “Countrywide CEO Helped Many Get Loans“)

There’s nothing illegal about a mortgage firm giving favorable treatment to some clients. But the revelations have turned into a major embarrassment – both for Countrywide and Bank of America, which plans to buy the lender, and for the recipients of “FoA” loans. In part that’s because the issue goes beyond legal and regulatory considerations; at the heart of it, it just seems unfair.

Favors are asked for and given in all sorts of industries. A decorator may help a friend buy furniture normally available only “to the trade,” or a physician may write a prescription for a family member who isn’t really a patient. I myself am sometimes asked for investment advice because I work at a major business newspaper.

The response for me is clear: Even if I wanted to pass on juicy information (which I don’t), the Journal has a very specific code of ethics that prohibits disclosure of any nonpublic information that could be used for personal gain. But the rules aren’t always clear for other industries, and the politics of asking for and giving favors related to your job are tricky.

Some may feel that it’s no big deal to, say, ask a cousin at an appliance chain to get them that plasma-screen TV wholesale. After all, it’s family. But the friend or relation being asked may feel very uncomfortable about such favors. After all, it would be an abuse of power.

Readers, do you get asked for special favors related to your job, and do you have a hard time saying no, even if you’d really rather not? And if you yourself sometimes seek preferential treatment from family or friends, what guidelines to you use to determine what’s fair?