Husbands and Dads » Family

9/11 - Are We too Quick to Forget?

Jeremy — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:20:07 +0000

I went to a 9/11 Remembrance Service this evening. The event was hosted by the city government in the town that I live. As a member of the City Council, I like to attend as many city sponsored events as I can. I live in a patriotic town, known for having the oldest Veteran’s Day parade in the state. A group of citizens is currently working on erecting a new memorial to honor those who have served in the U.S. armed forces.

As I drove up to where the ceremony was to be held, I saw several flashing lights and a plume of smoke. No, this was not a reenactment of the events that happened on September 11, 2001. This was an actual house fire two blocks away from city center. All of the fire and rescue service volunteers who were planning to attend the Remembrance Ceremony were instead fighting to save the lives and property of one of our neighbors.

Two of the volunteers ushered me and the other cars through, and while I was greatly concerned for the family and their home I had a sense of pride to live in a community where an all-volunteer fire company still exists. These brave men and women, along with the volunteer ambulance company and paid police officers, risk their lives to protect and serve our community, and they deserve our gratitude.

It was a prescient and vivid reminder of one of the reasons why I was attending the event this evening - to honor those who have, and would, willingly put their own lives on the line to save another. More than 400 emergency workers died while serving others in the line of duty on September 11, 2001.

I pulled into the parking lot of City Hall and walked across the street to the park where the service was being held. The sound of bagpipes filled the air, and members of the local American Legion were in attendance to perform colors. A large tent was set-up with dozens of metal folding chairs lined in perfect rows. There were enough seats to accommodate at least a hundred people.

Sadly, only about 40 people attended, including the guest speakers and members of local government. During the opening prayer, I couldn’t help but wonder if we are too quick to forget the tragedies and bravery of 9/11.

What should we remember about September 11, 2001?

2975 people died (excluding the 19 hijackers)

Approximately 13,500 people escaped the World Trade Center buildings alive

Citizens of 115 nations died from the attacks

24 people are still listed as missing

Approximately 1600 spouses lost their husband/wife

The ratio of men to women who died is 3:1

The number of children who lost a parent is 3051

About 200 people jumped from the World Trade Center towers to their deaths

The center of American military leadership and might was attacked

A group of heroic passengers thwarted the efforts of hijackers and lost their lives in a field near Shanksville, PA

There were no survivors on any of the four planes hijacked and crashed

The world stock markets experienced an accumulated loss of more than $1.5 trillion

or,

The price of freedom in America has gone up billions of dollars and cost thousands of lives

9/11 Memorial at Arlington Cemetery

As I sat and listened to the guest speakers address the small audience of people in attendance, I wondered if the other 6000+ people in my town had forgotten what day it was, or had they simply moved on from the events of September 11, 2001?

Is it time for us as Americans, or those from any nation that experienced a loss on that fateful day, to stop the ceremonies, make peace with our past and forgive? I thought about the wives, husbands, daughters and sons of all the victims - how did they spend this day? What would they say or think about all the empty chairs under the tent at the ceremony this evening? Would they understand? Should they understand?

Time marches on, and it has now been seven years since the Towers fell, the Pentagon burned and the ashes of heroes scattered across the field in rural Pennsylvania. The world has changed greatly in the last seven years, but a few things remain the same - there are thousands of families who will never forget the tragic losses of 9/11, and thankfully, there are thousands of volunteer fire/rescue members and police officers who would give their lives like their fallen brethren to save and protect us and our liberties.

The Remembrance Ceremony ended to the sound of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes followed by Taps on the bugle. I said a prayer for the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11; I said a prayer for those men and women fighting the fire two blocks away from us; and, I said a prayer for our nation to remember that our freedoms are not free.

Have we all really forgotten what happened on September 11, 2001? I remember. Do you?

Crash Site Memorial near Shanksville, PA

Twin Towers burning in front of Lady Liberty

Reference Articles:

9/11 by the Numbers

September 11 Attacks

The 9-11 Commission Final Report

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Create a Fun Family eBook at MyBabyOurBaby

Jeremy — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:13:59 +0000

Ray Hernandez, Co-Founder MyBabyOurBaby

MyBabyOurBaby.com allows parents to create a fun family eBook that friends and relatives can all help to build and write. I created an eBook for my son Ty shortly after the site launched, and I’ve enjoyed sharing photos and “firsts” with family members since then. I had a chance to talk with co-founder Ray Hernandez last week about the background and progress of the site since it’s launch earlier this year.

What is My Baby Our Baby? MyBabyOurBaby is a couple of different things. The most important thing that MyBabyOurBaby provides is a way for parents to archive and share their photos, memories, growth charts, and “firsts” with friends and family in a completely private environment. We also provide a social scrapbooking feature. Meaning that the friends and family you invite, can also have permission (you set your own permissions for people) to add photos or stories they may have collecting dust on their cameras or hard drives. So not only are you archiving memories, but your discovering new memories of your children that your friends and family have had with them and, possibly, not shared with you.

How did the concept for the site originate? When did the site launch? Me and Beau (Lebens - the other co-founder) are both in our late 20’s. All of our friends are getting married and having kids. Well, one-by-one we were being asked to design and build a website for our friend’s kids. We just realized that more people out there would probably be interested in a service like this. So we decided to take the initiative and just launch a full blown site for everyone. The site officially launched on February 14, 2008. It was a nice little Valentine’s present.

Does it cost users anything to sign-up or use the site? MyBabyOurBaby is completely free. We started off as a subscription-based service, but we just felt bad. We wanted people to be able to use our site with no obligations. So we switched our service to a free model. Under the free model you are allowed to upload 20 photos a month. And every month you get a fresh new 20. If you want to upload more than that, then we do have a premium service ($39.95 a year) that gives every person connected to your child the ability to upload an unlimited amount of photos. Other than unlimited uploads every other feature is completely free.

What are some of the cool things parents can do with the site? Can they take “books” they create and turn them into hard copies? You know how grandma is always yelling “Send me photos!” Well, if you invite grandma to MyBabyOurBaby, then she will instantly receive updates the second you post anything on the site. Friends and family can also comment on any story written about the child, if they are signed up. This is great when family members live in another city, state or country.

Hardcover books, prints, dvd archives…all of these things are in the works, and they will definitely be features in the near future. If you work for a company that handles any of these features please come talk to me.

I know that the site started out as a subscription service, then changed to offer the majority of features for free. How else has the site evolved over time? Actually, all of our features are FREE. We don’t hold back any of our features and never will. The only thing we charge for is to cover our costs of large amount of uploads and archiving of everything. Other than changing to a free model, we really haven’t changed anything since the launch. We’ve just been trying to listen to our members and give them what they want. Members can give us feedback in a forums section of the site or via e-mail.

Are you planning on adding any additional features or services in the future? What are you currently working on? I’m non-stop designing new themes/designs for you to choose from for your baby book. New features are an ever growing list that we have running. A few things we will have in the future: full hd video, importing from other photo/video sites, custom photo galleries, Facebook/MySpace apps, as well as cleaning up the design of the overall site.

You also have a blog attached to the site. How does this add value to the site/community? The blog is ever evolving. Before we launched, it was a way for people to see where were in development, but since the launch it’s become a place to share cool things I see that I hope parents might find interesting. I’m not sure where it’ll go in the future - I’m definitely open to ideas.

Any other cool things happening that you’d like to share? Well I just got married a few days ago. That’s pretty cool. So I’m a new husband and working on becoming a new dad. Hopefully soon I’ll have my own kid on MyBabyOurBaby.com.

—————————

Ray Hernandez is Co-Founder and Creative Genius of MyBabyOurBaby.com. He is a web designer by day, and a new yet amazing husband by night. He just recently left Hawaii for Austin, Texas. He encourages people who sign-up and create an eBook for their child or family to provide him with feedback via e-mail at ray@mybabyourbaby.com or on Twitter: @raydawg88.

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How Paternity Leave in America Compares

Jeremy — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:26:29 +0000

Paternity leave is the time a father takes off from work to spend at home with his family upon the birth of a new child. Prior to 15 years ago, when the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was passed, fathers in America rarely took time off from work to take care of a new child. Today, fathers have a legislated right to take this type of leave, and more fathers are taking advantage of this right to be there when the baby comes home.

A 2001 study at Columbia University found that 89% of families surveyed had fathers who took some time off from work after the birth of a child. The majority of fathers took less than one week off, while a third took two weeks or more. It’s no surprise that fathers with more skilled jobs and higher levels of education took more leave, as they could more easily afford to take unpaid leave. Still, the numbers are an encouraging indicator that dads want to be more involved in child rearing.

How does Paternity Leave in America compare to the rest of the world?

Here’s some comparison information by region (full chart here):

Country	Paid Paternity Leave	Unpaid Paternity Leave	Restrictions
United States	0	12 weeks	To be covered under FMLA must work for a covered employer for at least 12 months prior and 1250 hours during that time. Other restrictions apply
Cameroon	up to 10 days
Tanzania	5 days full pay
Bahamas	1 week
Brazil	5 days		Article 10, Paragraph 1, Temporary Constitutional Provisions Act
Canada	Up to 35 weeks		Leave shared with mother; 55% of pay up to $413/week
Columbia	4-8 days		Law 755
Cambodia	10 days
New Zealand		up to 38 weeks	Fathers share unpaid leave with mother
Philippines	7 days
Belgium	10 days		3 days are compulsory
Finland	18 days, then 158 day shared w/ mom
France	15 days	Share of 104 wks w/ mom
Germany	2 mnths	Share 156 wks w/ mom	Must have private health insurance for part of paid leave, rest paid by employer
Ireland	0	16 wks shared w/ mom
Italy	13 wks @ 80%	26 wks max; combined max w/ mom 44wks	For paid leave, job contract must include social contributions (INPS)
United Kingdom	2 wks @ £112.75	13 wks	Must have worked for employer for more than 1 year and child must be under 6 yrs
Norway	45 wks @ 80% or 35 wks @ 100% shared with mom, but dad must take 6 wks else paid leave for these 6 lost	2 wks after birth, plus have right to take 1 full year off	To gain the right of paid leave, the parent must have worked for 6 of the last 10 months before birth, or the leave is unpaid (except for a lump sum benefit from the government)
Sweden	480 days (16 months) (80% up to a ceiling the first 390 days, 90 days at flat rate) - shared with mother (minimum 60 days) + 10 working days in connection with the child’s birth

As you can see from the chart above, the Paternity Leave policy in America is better than some countries and worse than others. A few, like Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden, have extremely progressive options available that seem to encourage dads to take time off to care for their children. The Columbia University study suggests that fathers who take more than 2 weeks paternity leave are much more likely remain engaged and involved in child-care responsibilities after they return to work.

Most countries around the world do not have legislation that specifies a father’s rights in this regard, so having the FMLA in America is certainly a benefit at least in terms of providing dads with a protected option to take leave.

In 2004, California was the first state in America to offer both moms and dads paid family leave with 55% pay for up to 6 weeks off. Oregon, Vermont and Washington D.C. are also considered to have ‘dad friendly’ leave policies. According to the Proggressive States Network, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Washington are also working on paid family leave legislation as well.

In most cases, the opportunity is there for American fathers to take some kind of Paternity Leave - paid or unpaid - after the birth of a child. Studies show that taking time to bond with a new child is beneficial for dad, the baby and the family, and while it’s encouraging to hear that 89% of dads take some time off, I can’t help but wonder what the benefits would be to American society if that same number of dads could take two weeks or more off of work to be engaged and involved in taking care of their kids.

Here’s an interview Dana Glazer from Evolution of Dad did with Dr. Kyle Pruett about the benefits of involved fatherhood (if you can’t see video below, click here for to view):

As fathers, we play an important role in the growth and development of our children, starting from the day they are born. Not every dad has the opportunity to take leave to spend with his family, usually due to financial reasons or working for a company that doesn’t meet FMLA requirements.

Regardless of circumstance, every dad should fight to protect and expand the right of dads to take Paternity Leave without penalty, and perhaps one day in the near future America will be in that small group of progressive countries that understands the value of dads being involved in their kids lives from birth.

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Upromise - Earn Cash for College 529 Fund

Jeremy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:51:28 +0000

Upromise is an outstanding program that helps you save money for your kids’ education. Essentially, it is a company that partners with businesses that have frequent shopper programs, or those that sell goods and services online. The company allows these businesses to market themselves to members by promoting a certain amount of each purchase to be invested in a qualifying 529 College Savings Plan.

In addition to retail partnerships, Upromise has arrangements with credit card companies and other service providers, such as hotels, online travel companies, rental cars, cruise lines and more. There are many ways for you to earn and save money.

Real life example: My family and I were able to earn around $600 last year through Upromise to help with contributions to my children’s 529 College Savings Plans.

The hardest part about earning money through Upromise is remembering to use your bonus cards, or to visit their site when making certain online purchases. As you can see from the example above though, your diligence can pay off.

You must have a qualifying 529 College Savings Plan linked to your account.

Joining Upromise is free, but setting up a 529 will cost you, at least, an initial deposit amount usually in the $250 - $500 range. With the future costs of a college education though, I hope that you are planning on putting aside at least that much on a quarterly basis for each of your children, if not more. The good thing about a 529 for parents with more than one child is that the money is usually transferable from one to the next in line.

Upromise also offers a very good resource center to help you identify the best ways to save for college expenses, and there is a Community section with lots of tips and tales from fellow members.

If you don’t want to save for college, the Upromise Schools Program allows you to raise money for your local K-12 school.

Saving for college is a daunting task for most parents, so take advantage of the FREE MONEY available to you through Upromise.

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