Recent family-related news brought us a wide variety of topics including a ground-breaking law in New Zealand that allows couples paid time off after suffering a miscarriage or stillbirth, ways to fortify your child against the risk of addiction and research confirming that pay for single mothers in the United States is grossly deficient. In other news a recent book helps us understand how even the most deeply entrenched combatants can sometimes find their way to resolution and a clarion call to Courts and practitioners to focus on making it less difficult to present allegations of abuse by those who have been abused.
Sharon Epperson & Michelle Fox, CNBC, March 24, 2021
While full-time working women lag behind men in pay, making 82 cents for every $1 a man makes, mothers are even further behind. Moms earn 75 cents for every dollar paid to fathers and single mothers bring in 54 cents for every dollar earned by married men, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
Natasha Frost, The New York Times, March 25, 2021
New Zealand’s Parliament on Wednesday unanimously approved legislation that would give couples who suffer a miscarriage or stillbirth three days of paid leave, putting the country in the vanguard of those providing such benefits…The United States does not require employers to provide leave for anyone who suffers a miscarriage.
Patricia Fersch, Forbes, March 29, 2021
The author writes…“Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is a child’s experience of being manipulated or coached by one parent to turn against the other (targeted) parent and resist contact with him or her…Is it an Accepted Psychological Phenomena by the Psychological Community? NO.”
Jessica Lahey, The New York Times, March 31, 2021
A strong sense of self-efficacy is one of the most powerful protective factors parents can give their children. Self-efficacy, as defined by the psychologist Albert Bandura, is one’s belief in one’s ability to succeed; to regulate one’s thoughts, emotions and life; and to cope with challenges in a positive way even when the world around them feels out of control.
Yascha Mounk, The New York Times, April 9, 2021
“In the book High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, Amanda Ripley tells the harrowing tales of people who got drawn into fights that consume their lives and make them capable of committing terrible injustices…But with a scrupulous eye for scientific evidence that is rare in a book this entertaining, Ripley also explains how it is possible for hardened combatants to leave behind the conflicts that once defined the core of their identity.”