To Shower Or Not To Shower, That Is The Question

I was recently flipping through my daughter’s First-Year scrapbook – a truly sentimental gift handmade by my mother-in-law. The book opens with a few pages devoted to baby showers friends and relatives held for me during my pregnancy. Scenes of smiling faces, adorable onesies, mounds of diapers, smiling grandmothers-to-be, and me – grinning from ear to ear in every picture, with just a hint of uncertainty and mild trepidation thrown in for good measure.

I look forward to the day when I can share these pictures with my daughter – the little person no one had yet met that was nonetheless being celebrated and eagerly awaited by so many.

As I flipped through the rest of the book, the thought occurred to me – “What will my second daughter think? Surely she will come across this book and then wonder why her albums have no party pictures.”

Which brings us to the delicate matter of second and subsequent baby showers. In terms of etiquette, what’s the proper way to handle? Is it appropriate to have one? How do you respond to people who ask if you are having one? It’s not as if you can host one for yourself! Because that’s just tacky!

At the start of my third trimester, my sister offered to host one for me. I gave it some thought, and of course scoured the web for moms who had similar insecurities about it. I found many responses that echoed the feelings I had. For example:

“I firmly believe in a shower for every child. A shower is more about celebrating the new life coming than it is about gifts. It doesn't seem right that the first child is the only one that has pictures of their loved ones gathered together to celebrate them before they are born. Have a get together for her. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate.”
– B, from http://www.mamasource.com/article/second-baby-shower-6958#response_1.

And, as luck would have it, Emily Post seems to think the same, to a degree:
“It is all right to have a baby shower for a second or third baby, as long as the guest list is comprised of guests who did not attend a shower for the first (and/or second) baby, with the exception of close friends and family members who would be upset not to be there.”

So, I’m letting my sister do her thing, and have invited a new group of friends that weren’t around the first time, as well as close family. I am going to enjoy every minute of it. I also hope that it will make the situation a bit more real for my first-born, who seems excited about becoming a big sister.

I’ll keep you posted!

It's Time To Rethink Business Ethics

This blog originally appeared on AtlantaWomanMag.com.

For anyone who has been following the financial tales of woe lately, one word seems to be at the heart of our nation's economic collapse. From subprime mortgages to unqualified borrowers, the collapse of huge banks and financial institutions, the Madoff Ponzi scheme that ruined many, and even reaching back to Enron, Tyco and Worldcom, "ethics" are now being called into question.

In response to the most recent monetary outrage - that of ailing, bailout-recipient AIG paying $165 million in bonuses to executives - CNN.com in a recent report cited President Obama as stating that "...the impropriety of the bonuses goes beyond economics. "It's about our fundamental values," he said.

"All across the country, there are people who are working hard and meeting their responsibilities every single day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multimillion-dollar bonuses. You've got a bunch of small-business people here who are struggling just to keep their credit line open. And all they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules. That is an ethic that we have to demand.""

It would seem that "ethics" has lost much of its meaning in much of the workplace.

Atlanta Woman chose to highlight this issue at its recent Ethics 101 event, inviting Dr. Elizabeth Kiss, president of Agnes Scott College, Debbie Sessions, partner and COO of Porter Keadle Moore, Accounting, and Lyn Turknett, principal of The Turknett Leadership Group, to engage attendees in candid discussions on workplace ethics, leadership and trust.

Dr. Kiss told the audience that the most effective way to establish a transparent code of ethics in the workplace is to first establish a core value set, and to then establish a culture of conversation about those values. She added that you must always be open to criticism, and show transparency when engaged in the decision-making process.

Turknett echoed her comments, adding that business ethics don't have to be an oxymoron. She iterated that the behavior of superiors most reflects employees' ethics in their respective organizations. In other words, you have to walk the walk if you expect people to follow your lead, which, as the media has led us to believe, is happening all too often in today's business world - but in the wrong way.

Sessions added that, in today's media savvy world, perhaps you should ask yourself when faced with an ethical dilemma, 'How would this decision come across if it were broadcast on the 6 o'clock news?' Or better yet, how would this decision come across if Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert pitched in their two cents?

Seems like a no-brainer, but the gray areas of ethical decision making seem to be far outweighing the black and white ones. As one AW audience member commented, perhaps it's time Atlanta Woman takes this conversation to Capitol Hill.

Whether You're A 10 Or A 2, Size Is A Weighty Issue

This blog originally appeared on AtlantaWomanMag.com.

There have been a lot of comments in the past few weeks regarding " A Perfect 10," an article AW ran about Whitney Thompson, the first plus-sized model to win America's Next Top Model.

It is obvious that AW readers are in disbelief that a woman with Whitney's physique - tall, healthy and fit at an industry size 10 - should be labeled plus-size, especially when she is probably smaller than a large chunk of women today.

After reading the article, our reader Caroline King wrote: "I just about fell out of my chair when I read that a size 10 is a plus size! I am just under 6 feet tall and am very healthy, relatively fit (as much as a full-time working mother of 3 children can be). I wear a size 10 and am proud of it. It is absolutely WARPED that a size 10 is anything but NORMAL. I am thrilled that there is a model out there who is projecting a healthy attitude and body image to my daughters."

And it's not just women in Atlanta who feel this way. In the March issue of Vogue, Jeann Rybinski wrote to the editor: "Your magazine's glossy photographs of glitzy fashions fill me with both delight and despair. The delight is obvious; the despair is too, because, frankly, I couldn't get into the majority of those clothes with a set of burglar tools - and I am in good company. If you look around America, there are a lot of women who are older and shorter and weigh a bit more than your average model."

I have a feeling this issue won't ever truly go away, even if the CFDA tries to issue "guidelines" regarding designers employing models who attain healthy weights.

And as someone who has worn a size 12 down to a size 2, gone through the weighty ups and downs of two pregnancies, and been gently chastised for being too thin, I wonder how I'll explain all this to my daughters.

How do I make them feel comfortable enough in their own bodies to not strive for unrealistic body images? And on the flip side, how do I let them know that being naturally thin is nothing to be ashamed of? They will surely go through the same tall, stick-thin phase I went through as an adolescent (that was actually a nickname of mine - stick.) - a phase that, at the time, had just as much of a negative impact on my self-esteem as I'm sure being overweight would have.

So what's the answer? If you've got them, let me know by leaving a comment below.