"Ok, fellas.?Mom has to take this one.?Scoot.?We?ll finish later."

On cue, they both roll their eyes and leave the spare bedroom that functions as my office, shutting the door behind them.?They have learned to always shut the door.?It will be another two hours before I can hear the rest of their day?s events. I feel a wave a guilt wash over me followed by another wave of responsibility as the phone rings for a third time.?I pick it up and get back to work, answering a series of questions from a reporter on deadline.?It?s a balance I have come to embrace over the last decade.?Since 2000, I have worked full time from home.

I manage the communications for a multi million dollar trade association in Washington D.C. from Philadelphia where I average a 50-60 hour work week. More and more I am coming into contact with professional parents like myself who make working from home work for them, their employers, and their families.?Gone are the days when you can?t have a serious career if it doesn?t all go down in an office building. Over the past decade, thanks largely to the Internet, you can hold a high powered job from your extra bedroom or basement while spending more time with the kids.?But it isn?t easy.?

Sure, it sounds heavenly but it?s not the cake walk many assume it is.?When I tell people about this arrangement, they often give me a look which I interpret as politely dismissive.?I imagine them thinking to themselves that "work" must not be the operative term in "work from home" and that my job must be mindless enough to perform while watching my children and soap operas all at the same time.?Judging by the unsolicited email offers I get for "home-based employment opportunities", these lighter jobs must exist, but mine is not one of them.?

Table Stakes

Sharing time between work and family is difficult enough; now imagine sharing time AND space. All the stars must be in alignment to effectively work out of your house but the two most important factors for a successful home office is 1) having the right job and 2) solid buy-in from your employer. Without those elements, you are doomed to fail.?The good news is that there are an increasing number of jobs that can be performed well almost exclusively via the web and telephone.?One good way to test if your job might be suitable is to ask yourself whether your work output can be produced and delivered to your customer (client, boss, or colleague) electronically.?Public relations, marketing, writing, consulting, computer programming, law and even accounting are conducive to work at home arrangements.?However, if your job requires you to manage large groups of people or meet face-to-face with colleagues, clients, or other stakeholders every day, you may be out of luck unless they can come to your house.?Conference calls work very well for occasional pow-wows, but using them in place of daily meetings can become disengaging.?

Speaking of disengaging, the second major criterion for a happy work from home arrangement is concurrence from all company stakeholders.?It goes without saying that your boss has to be on board with the deal but more importantly, so do your peers.?Jealously can be a huge factor, especially when one colleague has to brave rush hour and bad office coffee while the other gets an extra hour at home with the family and can wear sweatpants everyday.?Your arrangement must be justifiable to your team.?No one can complain that you are getting favored treatment if you live several hours away from the office.?If you live close to the office but are working from home, it?s a good idea for everyone with a similar job description to be offered the same arrangement.

Don?t Try This at Home

Once you have found the right job and the right employer to work from home, success is up to you.?Some of the best pieces for advice I have come from my experience of doing it completely wrong in the beginning.?After almost ten years of the daily grind within my own four walls I?ve learned what not to do.

Don?t go solo.? If you think you can get your work done and care for any of your children under the age of nine on a regular basis, you are fooling yourself. Assuming that you can bang out what you need to do when the kiddos are napping or watching Caillou seems like a good strategy until the first time they won?t go to sleep or the cable goes out.?Get real childcare.?Having a responsible babysitter who can take care of your children?s needs while you are working takes the stress out of your day.?This doesn?t mean they can?t pop into your office to say hello.?That benefit is probably the nicest perk of all.?But the earlier that your kids understand that Mom or Dad are working and need to be left alone, the more natural it becomes around the house for everyone.

Don?t be a sloth. ?Living the stereotypical dream of working in your pajamas is a bad idea.?Get up, take a shower, and put on day time clothes every morning. There is certainly no need to dress up, but changing into something suitable to be seen in public changes your energy level.?I wear jeans and hoodies most days at my office — but they are clean and fresh feeling each day and, therefore, so am I.

Don?t share space or devices.? Working at the kitchen table will be an exercise in complete frustration.?Try to find a place in your house that will be known to all as your office.?Ideally this space has a door you can close to shut out the joyous ruckus that occurs on a daily basis but if not, perhaps a screen or divider which creates a barrier between work and home.?This area should be as far away from the kitchen, playroom or other high traffic areas as possible.?You should also have a dedicated phone line and computer if your company will fit the bill or you can afford it.?Everything should be off limits to the kiddos and spouse.

Don?t watch TV.?? Unless watching TV is part of your job, don?t do it during the workday.?You wouldn?t watch television if you were in an office.?Even though no one will ever know, you need to imagine that your boss is there.?Besides, you will be distracted enough with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all day long; don?t handicap yourself any further.

Don?t dive in. ??Every morning, I take my boys to school at 8:30 a.m. and return home to start my workday.?It seems inconsequential but leaving the house and returning to the office gets me psychologically ready to transition from Mom to Vice President.?I heard of one woman who worked from home who literally walked out her door each morning, around the house once, and back inside again for the same effect.?Brilliant! ?It may sound goofy but it works.

Don?t be a recluse.? After working from home for a long period of time, you do start to get a little stir crazy.?I know that I need to get out of the house when I start asking my dog for her opinion on strategic work decisions.?I am lucky that my job requires travel every few weeks when I can be among the living and have real human contact.?If you don?t have these opportunities, be sure to make lunch dates locally every now and then so that you don?t feel like a total shut-in.?Weather permitting, get outside and breathe fresh air once each day.?Walk the dog, get the mail, or go once around the block.?Otherwise, you may never stand up from your chair.

Don?t miss phone calls.? I am a fanatic for answering my phone when it rings, sometimes to my detriment.?Yet, I feel that working from home is a privilege that I will not abuse; and to prove that to all with whom I work, I pick up my phone a great deal after hours.?This commitment served me extremely well, especially in the early days of my arrangement when I proved to everyone that they could count on me even if I wasn?t in the office next to them.?

Don?t be in the closet.? Trying to maintain the illusion that you are in the company?s office when you?re not is untruthful and unnecessary.?When I am talking to a reporter on the phone, I don?t offer that I am working from home but I don?t hide it either.?Sometimes I will warn them that I may be briefly interrupted by my "lunatic nine-year-old" who is home that day with a fake illness.?Most react in a good natured way.?Not only does this relieve the pressure to keep things quiet but it makes you human and most other humans have an appreciation for the universal challenges faced by working parents provided it doesn?t get in the way of doing a good job.

Becoming a Permanent Homebody

Even if you follow these tips, working from home may not jive for you.?It is the ultimate balancing act and crossing the streams of work and play do not always turn out well. Sometimes the challenges outweigh the benefits. (see pros and cons) And situations change as you move through your work and home life cycle. When my boys were toddlers, it was wonderful being nearby all day long. I could have lunch with them and give out multiple hugs and kisses throughout the day, which easily trumped any office professional relationship I could ever imagine.?Now, that they are older and in school all day, I sometimes feel lonely.?Admittedly, working from home may have served its purpose as far as my children are concerned but other benefits endure, especially higher productivity.?It takes a certain personality to manage this delicate balance.?Those who can?t are truly better off in an office; but those who can, will find themselves in the enviable position of being able to bring home the bacon without ever leaving the house.????

Working from home is not a walk in the park but it has certain inalienable perks provided you can deal with the challenges.

The Pros

Energy Saver.? Not only do you save on automobile gas when you don?t drive to work, you also save a ton of personal energy.?You don?t realize how much effort you exert getting to and from the office until your commute involves a few short steps.?You can use this found time with your family, relaxing, or getting ahead of the game when needed.

Home Economics.? Gas, parking and lunch money add up.?I estimated that I saved more than $500 each month when I didn?t have these embedded costs in my workday.?I also save money on work clothes, because I basically don?t wear them unless I am traveling and have to clean myself up.

Extreme Productivity.? It is amazing how much you can accomplish when no one is popping into your office to share the latest gossip or there is no water cooler around which to talk about the movie you saw last weekend. Without interruptions, I can work at an exponentially higher speed without sacrificing quality. Since meeting and exceeding deadlines is critical to working from home, productivity is one of the most important benefits.

Maximum Flexibility.? Once you have proven yourself to be able to handle the arrangement, you are indeed able to get household chores completed during the day.?I fold laundry on conference calls and take my lunches at the kid?s school.?As long as you don?t abuse the flexibility, it is something you can, and should, enjoy.

The Cons

Guilt.? When you work at home it becomes very difficult to leave your problems at the office.?Be prepared to be drawn to work when you should be drawing a bath for your kids.?Inevitably there will be moments when you are being pulled in two different directions.?For those of us parents who feel as if they are never doing either job — parenting or working — very well, the work from home arrangement exacerbates that guilt because they are sharing the same time and space.

Isolation.? Working by yourself out of your home can be extremely lonely.?If you are the only one on a team that is not physically together regularly you need to be at peace with not being part of the daily party.?Even if everyone is working remotely the probability that you will feel like an island is high.?It is an acquired taste to which some folks never adjust.

Glass Ceiling. If you aspire to be the CEO, President, or Grand Pooh-bah of any kind in a large company that you did not start yourself, chances are that you will have to be in the office eventually to reach that final rung.?

Stigma.? There are enough work from home scams and bad experiences that many people write you off before they give you a chance.?You need to prove yourself and earn respect from those around you, more so than you would if you showed up in the office every day.?Working from home does not mean you are any less committed, but it could be wrongly interpreted that way.

1.? You are working on a project when you hear your child crying in another room where you know they are being supervised by a responsible adult.? You:

  A. Drop what you are doing to check in and make sure the situation is addressed before it gets worse.
  B. Wait to see if the cries turn into wails before taking a peek.
  C. Let the adult who is supervising handle it.? You will only get involved if there is blood.

2. The office holiday party is scheduled for the same day as your child?s school show.? You:

  A. Go to the party and makes sure someone who loves your child is in the audience, armed with a video camera so that you can watch it later with your child.
  B. Happily go to your child?s show because you hate those office parties anyway.? Now you have a good excuse.
  C. Try to make it to both events, missing substantial portions of each but successfully showing your face for a period of time.

3.? It is 4:30 p.m. and you have an important deadline in the morning.? You have at least four more hours of work to complete the project.? You:

  A. Stop working at 5:00 p.m., spend time with the family and then, once the kids are in bed, work until 1:00 a.m.
  B. Call and ask for an extension until tomorrow afternoon.
  C. Work past 5:00 and through dinner because you can?t relax with the project hanging over your head.

4.? Which of the following work projects is most appealing to you?

  A. A longer term project for which you are solely responsible.
  B. A group effort that requires consensus and the bringing together of work and ideas.
  C. A combination of both individual and team efforts.

5.? How do you like to communicate best with others?

  A. In person
  B. Telephone
  C. Email

6. A large but important project is coming down the pike and has yet to be assigned.? You:

  A. Raise your hand to lead it; you always like a challenge.
  B. Offer to help if needed.
  C. Make yourself invisible.

7. You get an email from a colleague that is written in all capital letters.? You:

  A.Wonder why he is "yelling" at you and spend the rest of the day thinking about what you could have possibly done wrong.
  B. Reply back to him in caps asking, "WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?"
  C. Pick up the phone and call him to straighten it out person to person.

8.? It has been a few days since you have heard from your boss.? You view this as:

  A. A welcome rest; you take it when you can get it.
  B. A sign you are about to get canned; you begin to update your resume.
  C. An uncomfortable pause; you call your boss to check in and see what?s happening.

9. During work hours, the phone rings and you see it is your closest friend from college.? You:

  A. Anxiously pick up the phone and talk for the next thirty minutes.
  B. Pick it up and ask if you can call him or her back when you are done work.
  C. Let the call go to voicemail and make a note to call back later in the evening.

10.? Which is more important to you during the day?

  A. A change of scenery.
  B. A change of pace.
  C. I don?t like change.

11.? Which area do you question yourself the most?

  A. My abilities as a professional.
  B. My abilities as a parent.
  C. Both parent and professional equally.
 

For each of the following statements, select how often each applies to you:? (always, sometimes, never)

12.? I have a hard time focusing on projects until the deadline is upon me.

  A. Always
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

13. I work best under pressure.

  A. Always
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

14.? Praise for a job well done is important to me.

  A. Always ?
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

15. I like to multi-task.

  A. Always ?
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

16. I have a hard time ignoring housework that is piling up.

  A. Always ?
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

17.? When working on a project, I value the input of others.

  A. Always
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

18.? I enjoy working in my profession.

  A. Always ?
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

19.? I enjoy socializing with colleagues from work.

  A. Always ?
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

20.? I feel guilty that I don?t spend enough time with my family.

  A. Always ?
  B. Sometimes
  C. Never

Scoring Guide

Question

A

B

C

Your Score

1

5

3

1

2

1

5

3

3

3

5

1

4

1

5

3

5

1

3

5

6

1

3

5

7

5

3

1

8

3

5

1

9

5

3

1

10

5

3

1

11

1

5

3

12

5

3

1

13

1

3

5

14

5

3

1

15

1

3

5

16

5

3

1

17

5

3

1

18

1

3

5

19

5

3

1

20

5

3

1

Results:

Score between 75-100? — Working from home is a possibility for everyone but you may need to make some significant adjustments to make it work.?The most difficult aspects of working from home for you will likely be to stay focused on the task at hand, especially when no one is watching you.?Carving out private physical space away from the noise of your family and establishing your own practices to stay in touch and on time with work will be tremendously helpful.?Set deadlines and keep them.?Arrange for the kids to be out of earshot while you are working, if at all possible.?And make it a habit to connect with someone from work everyday to discuss what you are doing.?These practices may not come naturally but if you stick to them, you can establish the right environment to thrive.

Score between 46-74 — You seem to have an equal balance of commitment to your family and your profession which bodes extremely well for working from home.?You realize that there is tremendous give and take between the two competing priorities.?Chances are you will be very successful in your home office but that doesn?t mean you won?t ever feel guilty about coming up short on either end of the spectrum.?Guilt is a given, no matter how smooth you are.?Communication with both parties (family and work) is critical to avoid major conflicts.?Don?t beat yourself up for playing hooky from work for an hour or two to run an errand, as long as you make it up somewhere along the way and don?t miss deadlines.?And when your child complains that you are in your office too much, tell yourself that the alternative of NOT being there is much worse.

Score between 20-45? — You have a great deal of professional drive which can be a very positive thing when working from home.?However, your biggest challenge will be that you can never "leave the office" and you might find yourself working too hard to at the expense of your family.?This work ethic is indeed important, particularly at the beginning of a work from home arrangement, so that your colleagues know you are serious about your job.?But once you prove yourself, you can relax a bit.?When the phone is ringing after hours, you don?t always have to pick it up.?And during work hours, try not to be chained to your desk. Give yourself a break, stand up, stretch your legs and go hang out with your kids for ten minutes in the middle of the day. Homework does have benefits which you are permitted to reap and still do a great job.

You will need:

• A small, serrated knife
• An ice cream scooper or kitchen spoon
• Vaseline
• Felt-tip marker or stencil
• Newspaper

Optional:

• Thumb tacks or push pins
• Stencil
• Fork
• Candle

Five easy steps to carving a pumpkin:

• Cut a circular opening that's bigger than your fist into the bottom of the pumpkin. Carving from the bottom up gives the pumpkin a cleaner look, plus it's safer. You won't burn your hand when you try to light a candle and place the pumpkin over it.

• Use an ice cream scooper or a kitchen spoon to clean and scrape the inside. The pumpkin wall should be no more than one inch thick.

• Draw your design on your pumpkin using a felt tip pen, or download a stencil from the Internet. Attach the stencil to your pumpkin using push pins or thumbtacks. Poke along the cut lines with a fork.

• Carve along your cut lines. If you plan to use a votive, carve a vent hole at the top of the pumpkin. (Never leave a lit jack-o-lantern unattended for any length of time.) If a piece breaks you can use toothpicks to hold it together.

• Seal your cuts by dabbing on some petroleum jelly. That will prevent browning.

Now that you've carved your pumpkin, store it in a cool dark place, not room temperature, where it will rot quickly and attract fruit flies. Happy luring!

Many parents continue to worry about other safety aspects of the current H1N1 vaccine, in part because of the fast-tracked safety trials the vaccine underwent. A vocal minority of doctors against the vaccine have increased those fears. Dr. Mercola, publisher of a popular natural-health website, is the author of the article, "Do Not Let Your Child Get Flu Vaccine: 9 Reasons Why," which is now circulating as an email. Yet much of the information contained in that piece is misleading. For instance, Dr. Mercola claims that the vaccines used in trials differ from the final version. But the FDA says this is emphatically untrue. They state, "The vaccines used in studies to determine dose and regimen are the same vaccines that were licensed." He also argues that American children are over-vaccinated, suggests that the vaccine contains squalene (though it's not used in the U.S. at all, and has a good safety record in Europe), and cites climbing autism rates as a reason not to vaccinate (though recent studies all disprove any connection).

Dr. Kent Holtorf, in an interview with Fox News back in September, disseminated similar mis-information when he called the vaccine "too big of a risk." In his segment, he said the vaccine was "rushed to market" and also mistakenly said that it contains "high levels of adjuncts, including squalene" and that vaccines are "highly implicated in autism."

Opponents like Dr. Larry Palevsky, a New York-based pediatrician and President and Co-Founder of the Pediatric Holistic Foundation, insist that the vaccine's safety cannot be proven. He's advising his patients to pass. "Having the authorities tell us it's completely safe is in contradiction to how safety studies need to be done, and how data needs to be collected in order for us to conclude they are safe enough to administer," says Dr. Palevsky.

Is the vaccine really safe?

The CDC disagrees with Dr. Palevsky. Abbigail Tumpey, a spokesperson for the Immunization Safety Office, indicates that vaccines are actually one of the most regulated kinds of medicine for safety. What's more, the vaccine is made using the same tested and approved methods as the seasonal flu vaccine. Dr. Grace Lee, Assistant Professor of Population Medicine & Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, is currently involved in the active surveillance of H1N1 and seasonal influenza vaccine safety. She explains, "Each year, the seasonal flu vaccines change to accommodate [different] strains of flu — meaning that the flu strains that circulate each season differ from the previous year. H1N1 is just like the seasonal flu vaccine, it's just that the H1N1 vaccine will protect against the circulating H1N1 strain in the community." While Dr. Lee acknowledges that, although rare, adverse reactions can occur with any vaccine, she says the benefits far outweigh the risks.

Concerns that dominate all vaccine programs have also made their way into the swine flu conversation. Anti-vaccine groups have postulated that flu vaccines aren't very effective — another reason parents might skip the swine flu vaccine. While the CDC admits no vaccine is 100% effective, they also state that they've "seen a very good immunoresponse in adults and older children that was evident within eight to ten days after the vaccination was given." The seasonal flu vaccine is considered two-thirds effective in young children, and the swine flu vaccine may yield better results since the vaccine is matched to the virus strain. (Note: children under ten will need two doses for the vaccine to be adequately effective).

What about thimerosal?

Some parents are also concerned about the inclusion of thimerosal in the H1N1 vaccine. Despite repeated studies that disprove any link between autism and the mercury preservative thimerosal, small groups of doctors, celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy, and organizations like the The National Vaccine Information Center may help perpetuate this idea. Though the CDC says that, yes, thimerosal is used (as with the seasonal flu vaccine) and is not related to autism, parents can still request single-dose thimerosal-free vaccines from their pediatricians.

Nevertheless, the unknown will still stop some parents from vaccinating their children. Many parents maintain the position that because the H1N1 flu appears to be mostly mild in the general population, it's not worth taking any chance with the vaccine.

Yet there is some legitimate cause for concern. Since September 28, 2008, there have been 147 reported influenza-associated pediatric deaths during the 2008-2009 season and seventy-six were attributed to the swine flu virus. And, as twenty-nine deaths have occurred since August 30, 2009, the swine flu might be becoming more deadly as the 2009-2010 flu season gets underway. Though not necessarily more virulent than the seasonal flu, it is more widespread and more contagious, and the more people it reaches, the more people it could kill.

Who is most at risk?

Pregnant women and children with underlying health conditions also seem to have a disproportionately increased risk of complications and death from the swine flu. Approximately two thirds of the children who have died had underlying health conditions. For these children, it's especially important to get the vaccine.

What?s the verdict?

Fear of vaccines cannot be completely eliminated, but the majority of research and evidence points to their safety. What's more, the CDC has devised a careful monitoring system to track and respond to any kind of adverse reactions that might develop. Aside from a vocal minority, the majority of the medical profession seems to wholeheartedly support swine flu vaccination. When all is said and done, it's hard to find any real evidence that suggests that the risk of side effects from the vaccine outweigh the tremendous benefit to children, pregnant women and adults alike.

What to Do if Your Child Gets the Flu

As the flu season gets underway, many parents anxiously await the arrival of the H1N1 vaccine. Until the vaccine is widely available, parents should continue practicing common sense precautions. Frequent hand-washing is the best defense. A healthy diet, proper exercise, and plenty of rest can also help boost a child's immune system. Parents should also ensure their child has received the pneumococcal vaccine since many swine flu deaths have resulted from pneumonia infections. Healthy adults and children with the swine flu don't necessarily need to seek medical attention if they contract the flu and their symptoms remain mild, but children with underlying health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, cancer, neurological disorders, kidney and liver disorders and those with weakened immune systems should be watched carefully. If you suspect the flu in these cases, call your doctor. Studies have shown that for children with underlying health conditions, antiviral treatment should be started as soon as possible after the illness begins. The CDC also recommends that pregnant women receive antiviral treatment if they exhibit flu symptoms. If your child experiences any of the following, seek medical attention immediately:

For additional information about treatment and prevention of the swine flu please visit the CDC website.

H1N1 by the Numbers

Yet, last year, Lucy began showing signs of anxiety: she began wetting her bed at night and sucking her finger. She had trouble staying asleep at night and cried when her parents dropped her off at preschool. When her parents asked a psychologist for help, he offered a surprising diagnosis: Lucy is one of a growing number of American children stressed out by the recession.

"Kids are very intuitive, they see what's going on," says J. David Carr, a psychologist at a wealthy public school in New York's West Village. "When the economy is bad, a lot of things go wrong, and one of them is that children become more emotional."

Of course, it's not that kids are worried about the future of Wall Street; they're just soaking up the tension around them. They see grim-faced anchors on television and overhear conversations about foreclosures. Their parents, worried about jobs and money, have less patience for them and many are fighting more with each other. And if one parent loses a job and the nanny is laid off, kids find themselves stuck at home with a new routine and a reluctant caretaker.

In Lucy's case, conditions at home hadn't changed that much. Unlike some of her peers, Lucy didn't have to move due to foreclosure and her father was still employed. But his company was financially squeezed and he worried about his job. When he spent more time at work, Lucy's mother found herself worn out by childcare duties. The stress weighed on everyone, and Lucy's parents fought more with each other and became more irritable with their children.

"Parents are very fearful that their security is gone. They don't always think about the kid being in the next room and talk openly," says David Swanson, Psy.D., a children's therapist and author of Help, My Kid Is Driving Me Crazy. "The kids hear their parents and freak out."

There haven't been many studies done yet to measure the impact of the current recession on children's mental health, but one national poll released in July by the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan shows clear results: 40% of parents with kids aged 5-17 said their children were stressed by the recession. The likelihood of stress was highest among poor families, but even among those making more than $100,000, a hefty 25% reported that their children were stressed. Carr says referrals to him by teachers have jumped 10%-15% in the past year — and these are only the very egregious cases teachers weren't able to deal with alone.

Without a doubt, the main way children soak up financial stress is through their parents. Deterioration in parental behaviour spans a wide range, from more irritability over spilled juice to outright beatings. Hospitals around the country say the number of children brought in with signs of physical abuse has soared over the past year, sometimes by as much as 30%.

Older children also absorb a lot of stress away from home. Hearing about lay-offs on the news might make them wonder if their parents are going to be fired. If a school mate loses his home or has to move to another school, children worry if the same is about to happen to them.

"A lot of times kids come to me with stuff they've heard on the news and in school, which was not thought through for an anxious child," says Tamar Chansky, Ph.D., who runs the Children's Center for OCD and Anxiety outside of Philadelphia. "They're terrified. They don't have the perspective to take news in context."

Of course, anxiety becomes a much more serious problem if the child is directly affected by the recession.

Luke, a seven-year-old boy from Chicago's wealthy North Shore area, had to change schools earlier this year when his parents lost their home in a foreclosure. The change in living standard wasn't dramatic. "They went from living in a very impressive house to a nice house," says his therapist. Still, Luke had trouble making friends at the new school, began having nightmares and crying more than usual. When his parents took him to see a therapist, it became clear that he felt scared and unsafe. "He didn't know how permanent his new life was going to be."

It's tempting to dismiss the suffering of children who are pretty wealthy compared to those whose parents were barely surviving on minimum wage and then get laid off. But when wealthy children, even middle class children, have been shielded their whole lives from trauma and sacrifice, as much of this generation has, the recession can cause serious angst.

"Parental fighting is parental fighting," says Swanson. "It's very upsetting to kids."

During the school years, children are also more affected by changes in the family's spending habits, especially if that means no more music classes on Saturdays or no movies at the mall. Tweens and teenagers, meanwhile, are often devastated by drops in income because their social standing is so closely tied up with the price of their jeans and the gadgets they own.

Not surprisingly, wealthy children often respond to their family's money problems with anger. Some even steal money from their parents in a desperate attempt to regain some of their financial standing.

"Kids are feeling more slighted, they say it's not fair." says Joanna Ball, Ph.D., a children's psychologist who sees well-off kids at a private practice in a wealthy New York suburb and poor inner city kids at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. "Poorer kids are more used to having to sacrifice. The recession is a different type of an adjustment for wealthier children."

The way children express their anxiety varies wildly depending on age and temperament, but nightmares and refusal to go to school — out of fear that something bad might happen at home while they are gone — are often part of the mix. In children under five, regression — thumb-sucking, toilet accidents, separation anxiety — is common, and children are likely to become clingy.

Older kids are likelier to suffer from depression, which manifests itself in different ways. Introverted children who are depressed sleep a lot and withdraw from others, in an attempt to hide or even suppress their feelings. Extroverted children are more likely to act out, by fighting with peers, defying their caretakers or simply behaving erratically — destroying favorite toys, for example. Stress symptoms in extroverted children are often brushed off as attempts to win attention, or worse, misdiagonesd as ADHD, says Carr.

"Children know that adults generally help them feel better, so they might seek out those interactions with adults, even if they're negative interactions," says Carr.

The good news in all of this is at the recession isn't going to last forever, and that these years offer parents a good chance to teach their children important values: that self-worth doesn't come from material possessions and that it's important to empathize with those with less money. The bad news is that the stress children experience now might haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Bruce Rabin, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on stress, says repeated bouts of stress before the age of seven can permanently damage cells in the brain's hippocampi, causing children to become more prone to depression and anxiety as adults. In addition, frequent stress during childhood makes them more susceptible to it later in life.

That's why it's so important for parents and caregivers to offer comfort and stability amid the turmoil. That doesn't mean hiding the truth from kids, but it does mean dispensing information thoughtfully and finding a way to release stress before walking through the door at the end of a rough day.

"Imagine being on a plane and experiencing violent turbulence — not knowing if this is normal or not, you look to the flight attendant," says Swanson. "This is what it is like for our children during times of financial stress. They may not understand the cause for the financial turbulence. But they need to feel secure that the plane isn't going down."

It must be said that Cookie had become a publication out of step with its times. The idylls of Cookie?s pages, featuring toddlers in patent leather and cribs lined with flokati, altered not a whit with the collapse of Wall Street and our entire economy with it. Though Cookie's media kit indicated that their readers' median household incom was $80,616, it would have taken five or ten times that amount to live the life depicted in its pages. And even if readers might once have aspired to that kind of lifestyle, when our gilded age came to an abrupt close, Cookie seemed suddenly – and glaringly – irrelevant. Changing with the times may or may not have spared its life, but Cookie had a vision of modern motherhood, and until the end, it stuck with it.

From its first issue, Cookie magazine made it clear that it would hold its mother-readers to a higher standard than the other parenting titles out there. "All the Best For Your Family," each issue proclaimed, and indeed Cookie called itself "The Stylish Parenting Magazine for the New Mom." By "New Mom," they did not mean a first-time mother of a newborn. They meant an entirely new sort of mother, one interested in parenting fashionably, who was also an up-and-coming celebrity, or at the very least looked like one.

This New Mom, as represented in Cookie?s drool-inducing photo spreads, did not need to dwell exclusively on the undeniable preciousness of her offspring. Sure, her toddler was right next to her, pouting with disarranged mane, standing knock-kneed in her $3,400 leather miniskirt with sheer organza overlay. But in the Cookie world, that child was willing to just hang out while the New Mom gave her attention to the glamorous adult life she was leading with someone just off-camera.

The Cookie home had artfully scattered through the living area no more than three or four toys, all Danish, fashioned of blonde wood. There was no television in the Cookie household. Who had time for such passivity? After school, these children were too busy tending to their rooftop herb garden, nibbling arugula as they picked, before their New Mom cooked dinner with them, hand-cutting egg noodles and whipping up some salmon with minty pea sauce (the two-year old?s favorite).

The families in Cookie spent their weekends browsing art galleries. They vacationed not at Club Med, but in a beachfront hut in the Galapagos Islands, or in a Shaker village in rural Kentucky. They had elegant parties for the entire neighborhood on the spur of the moment. The New Mom was at the center of all of this, in her "everyday chic" $980 trench coat, always with a certain carelessness, a laid-back, insouciant ease. In Cookie, motherhood was never hard, just fun and glamorous. Cookie suggested that it was possible to have a body, a home, and a life after children that was even better than what you had before.

At first this idea seemed refreshing, even noble, to my mother friends and me. We all subscribed immediately, hailing this new paradigm: not all cuddles and Care Bears, but not put-Little-Mermaid-on-auto-repeat-while-Mommy-takes-a-nap, either. Our children could be at the center of our lives without our having to renounce the lives we once lived. As the years went by, most mothers I talked to still enjoyed Cookie, drawing sustenance from its monthly fantasies that their former, smoother lives could be reattained. However, when my issue of Cookie came each month, and I sat down to read it on my sofa covered with Sharpie scribbles, it mostly just made me feel bad that that life was not already mine, that I was never that fluently glamorous in the first place, and that I couldn?t see ever getting there.

Not that Cookie was solely responsible for this message. The standard for New Motherhood is alive and well and promulgated all around us: as a mother, you must look fabulous — as good, in fact, as if you have not in fact had children — and most of all, it must be easy for you to do so. When my mother?s friends were all wearing their one-piece bathing suits shirred through the mid-section at Lake Hideaway circa 1983, I don?t think they felt bad that they didn?t look like movie stars. No mother of three (or more) was expected to rock a two-piece, and so I don?t think my mother spent too much time feeling bad about her abdomen spilling over her waistband. The "muffin top" didn?t have a name back then. I, on the other hand, am aware every day of how Tori Spelling has Hip-Hop Abs and I don?t, even if I don?t have time to do anything about it except feel bad.

The Cookie mother never got a muffin top in the first place, since she "carried small" and started working with a personal trainer as soon as she got home from the hospital. But Cookie did its best to reassure mothers that any imperfections they did have could be easily corrected. "Maximum Beauty, Minimum Effort!" one cover blurb teased, and I eagerly flipped to that story first. If it was easy to look like a New Mom, then surely I could at least approximate it. The story inside the magazine told of one mother?s new and streamlined beauty routine since her triplets had come along: these days, she was getting her hair blown out just once a week, and instead of time-consuming manicures, she was opting for the quick pick-me-up of a polish change.

Are you kidding me? I thought. I never did those things in the first place! But this mother did, because she valued herself that much, and made it her priority (well, that, her new cookbook, and the nonprofit foundation she was launching). Besides, it wasn?t hard for her to look good; for weekend brunch, she could just gather her hair into a loose chignon, slick on some lip gloss, and be out the door! Cookie never really acknowledged that while the mothers it profiled had speedy beauty regimens, they were not typical mothers. Another issue outlined the "three minute beauty tricks" of Helena Christensen, mother of Mingus, while failing to admit that they may not work as well for anyone who is not, you know, a supermodel. When I was in the maelstrom of two under two, I didn?t even have time to brush my teeth on a daily basis. But that was before Cookie came along, and so back then, I could view my bedraggled aspect as a personal badge of pride. If I was going to be freaking exhausted, I figured, I might as well look it. My physical appearance was a manifestation of the rather extreme effort it was taking, at that time, to be Me.

The ladies? magazines our mothers read were all about making the Effort visible. My mother never subscribed to any of them, but she would often toss one in the grocery cart while waiting in the checkout line. Those magazines made quick work of Fashion (two pages on the eighteen ways you might not yet have considered to wear that print neckerchief you bought on a whim. How it brightens up that old T-shirt dress!) and Fitness (repeating, monthly, the dubious axiom that, really, walking was the very best exercise). Having gotten those tired topics out of the way, the bulk of these magazines? pages, as well as their covers, were devoted to elaborate cakes a mother could make for any and all occasions, like a Tom Turkey cake for Thanksgiving with jellybean eyes and a wattle fashioned of Red Hot Dollars.

I do not recall too many of these themed desserts on the dinner tables of my childhood, other than one very memorable Easter Bunny cake with Twizzler whiskers. Now, at least, I hold my mother in the higher regard for it. The thing about those cakes, though, is that even though they would be summarily eaten almost as soon as you had finished, the point of them would be to say, look how hard Mom worked! You might get a few oohs and aahs, at least out of the little kids, especially if you stuck a sparkler in it. At least someone might notice you made an effort.

Cookie recommended themed entertaining for the New Mom as well, but the birthday boy?s cake was in soft focus compared to the no-fuss hand-squeezed passionfruit caipirinhas served to the adult guests. How easy it was for the New Mom to entertain! Forget the Easter Bunny cake: she could whip up an al fresco Brazilian churrasco for sixteen in no time flat, and everyone, including the four-year-old guests of the birthday boy, devoured the pork skewers and coconut rice balls she threw together just that afternoon while the New Mom sat back and ENJOYED HERSELF — and while I, reading it, wanted to scream.

I think that some women were able to feast their eyes on the utopias of Cookie while understanding that they were utterly unsustainable. Each photo takes dozens of people many hours of effort to create. The fantasy is the point. But not me. Every time I read Cookie I would feel less relaxed, and then I felt even worse about myself because if I ever wanted to be a New Mom, nonchalance had to come first. All I really wanted was someone to say either, hey, let?s all slack off, or, God, isn?t it hard to have your act together? Cookie refused to let me off the hook, either way.

And now Cookie has crumbled, a victim of both the failing economy and its utter disconnect from it. But despite everything that happened between us, I will miss Cookie. Like the naughty snack after which it was named, Cookie was as delicious as it was unhealthy. You can know cookies are bad for you, but still you love them. Every time a new issue arrived, I would sit down after the kids were asleep and gorge. I would always feel a little sick afterwards, but God, was it good.

My daughter's first pediatrician had co-authored a well-known book with a famous, beloved pediatrician. What's more, he took my insurance and was accepting new patients. Doctors have been picked for far worse reasons. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen the most reliable path to a happy doctor-patient relationship and asked for recommendations from people I knew, but as I was the first in my group to have a baby and lived far from family, I had nobody to ask.

The first hint at a bad fit was that he never remembered my daughter's nickname (he always called her by her longer formal name, which nobody uses), but this was a small irritation. Worse was his warning, at every visit, about her size — totally average at birth, she had become plump and round on a diet of breastmilk, only breastmilk, for her first six months. Her father and I come from slim people, and I knew that exclusively breastfed babies are often chubby but rarely obese — still, the doctor's constant cautions made me doubt myself, and his tone brooked no questions. Fat cells laid down now, he said, would never, ever go away. Twenty pounds at six months? She was sure to face weight problems as she grew, he promised. I would love to introduce him to her now, a slender athletic teenager with a still-healthy appetite and, thankfully, no insecurities about her body's shape. (Overly aggressive admonitions against infant obesity, it turns out, are a common theme among mothers who ditch their first pediatricians.)

In the end, quitting was shockingly easy. A year of sing-alongs and park visits had introduced me to a crew of moms and kids, so I asked around and got names of the doctors other mothers cherished. I think the new doctor's receptionist even handled the file request from the old office. If I had had to face my daughter's first pediatrician to deliver the news in person, I might have said, "it's not you, it's me." But that would have been the same lie it always is.

It's been years now, but I remember fantasizing for weeks about sending the first doctor a Dear John letter, letting him know why he lost our business. I never did. As much as I had hated him, for years afterward I felt vaguely guilty — for quitting, for waiting so long to quit, for having chosen him in the first place. The whole mess seemed a rookie mistake, and something I was certain other, wiser mothers would never do. After all, my brothers and I had gone to the same doctor until we were grown. Surely, I thought, it's a rare and shameful thing, to quit your pediatrician.

I was wrong. The next time you're with a group of parents, ask around — you're certain to find other quitters. Perhaps you're one yourself. We are everywhere, it seems. And though there are surely a few parents who see themselves as medical consumers, just shopping for the best product, and more who have to change doctors due to relocation or changes in insurance plans, many are just like me: parents who've suffered a pediabreakup. As with all breakups, the details vary, but most seem to boil down to breakdown in three big areas: communication, respect, and trust.

Amy, a mother of two in St. Louis, chose a pediatrician recommended by her midwife, a woman who routinely appeared on her city's top doctor lists, a local star who donates her free time to overseas medical service. Other mothers on the playground would express their envy at Amy's having snagged such a prestigious doctor. But prestige doesn't translate into bedside manner, and in the office the woman was difficult — when Amy could get an appointment in her jam-packed schedule. "I found her brusque and told myself she was 'no-nonsense,'" Amy said. "She was sometimes rude and I told myself she was 'direct'."

"At first I liked it that she asked intrusive questions, because they were aimed at my husband: did he help with the baby? Did he do the dishes?" said Amy. "But when she quizzed me about my child-rearing, her manner left me feeling guilty and ashamed. I lied about co-sleeping; I could just tell from the way she asked that she frowned upon it."

Sometimes the communication problems between doctor and parent go beyond ego-bruising. "Our first pediatrician was short with us," said Valerie, a Boston mother of two, "just her manner, I think now." The doctor made negative comments about breastfeeding and accused her newborn daughter of "testing" her by crying at the breast, but the worst, Valerie said, was when she prescribed Zantac for a fussy infant, even though she told the parents that the baby "didn't need it." There's nothing a nervous first-time parent likes less than confusing medical advice: who wants to give their baby a medicine she doesn't need? Valerie found a new pediatrician soon afterward.

Madeline, a California mother of three, ditched her kids' first doc for a couple of good reasons: the aforementioned fat baby warnings (which veered into uncomfortable territory when her older daughter, naturally slim, was relentlessly praised for her body shape in front of both kids) and another common complaint: sneak attacks with the immunization needle.

"My older one hates shots, screams and screams, even now," said Madeline. "She turns pale, you can feel her heart beating, it's awful." Despite multiple pleading that the doctor keep both mother and daughter posted on the need for any shots at the girl's six-year-old checkup, this pediatrician and her nurse bum-rushed the pair and gave the shot without warning. "Of course, she's crying and screaming and it all happened so fast I was stunned! That's NOT how we do things at home," said Madeline, who says the family is happy with their new doctor.

Worst, perhaps, are those doctors whose own prejudices get in the way of providing good care. Thato, originally from Botswana but now living in New England, said her sons' first pediatrician wasn't her choice. "He was the only one accepting patients," she said — a common reason we end up with the doctors we do — "and he was young, geekish and awkward. I don't think he had ever been around people of color. He was just weird and always uncomfortable around us and he never made my son feel comfortable." The doctor's lack of cultural intelligence went even further, according to Thato. "He once said that some kids have more mental capabilities than others and some have more physical capabilities . . . and he explained that my older son just happens to be more physical than mental." To assign any child one particular trait — he's just athletic, she's just verbal — is bad enough, but to blithely judge a young black boy as 'more physical than mental' can do as much damage as a botched prescription.

Pediatricians have a delicate role to play, of course, and there are surely as many difficult parents as there are awful doctors. Among medical specialties, pediatrics confronts doctors with uniquely complicated demands — there are the tiny, often nonverbal, irrational patients to be examined and treated, and with each one comes these large, terribly verbal, also irrational parents. Parents of small children call too often, worry too much, and are quick to blame the doctor for anything that goes wrong. And because of the way the profession has developed over the past century, pediatricians find themselves called on for not only physiological expertise, but also information and advice on developmental and behavioral issues — some of which are so controversial they divide families. Navigating these waters has got to be hard.

So how do you know when it's time to quit? A doctor-patient-parent relationship only works when all three feel comfortable. A lack of trust, unfixable failures of communication, and any hint of medical error should be enough to send a parent off in search of a new doctor. Yet many stay years longer when their initial instincts tell them to flee. "I kept going to her for years because I was afraid of her," said Amy, the St. Louis mom, "and telling her that I was leaving seemed harder than staying."

Breaking up is hard to do. But once it's over, these mothers report, they wonder why it took so long to make the move. Happily cared for by doctors they trust and like, they feel they've crossed an important parenting milestone. Are these families' second pediatricians objectively better than the first? In most cases they are, but the parents have changed, too, have grown into themselves as veterans, no longer the scared rookies they were in those early days and weeks.

Amy, the St. Louis mom, provides a clue about the different relationship one has with the second pediatrician. Her kids' new doctor doesn't ask many probing questions, she said, "but then, the kids are five and ten. Evidence suggests that I'm able to keep them alive and well."