Source: WENN

Last week we told you that 46-year-old actress Halle Berry is pregnant with her second child. In case you were wondering what this means for her career, which appears to be moving full speed ahead, Halle says that she’s excited about adding to her family, but she won’t allow the little one slow her stride, according to E! News. She even joked that a new baby is all the more reason to keep working.

“Well, one thing is for sure: I better keep working. With another baby on the way, Mama cannot take time off!” said the mom-to-be.

She went on to discuss how much time she took off when she had her daughter Nahla and why that won’t be happening this time.

“I think that when I had my first child, my daughter, I took off a good four years because it was something new to me. It was my first time, it was something I tried really hard to do…This time, when I have the baby, I’ll keep walking!”

Halle also told BBC that filming for the upcoming X-Men movie will be centered “around the bump.”

“Storm probably won’t be as badass as she was going to be because we won’t be able to do any fighting or flying or things like that. She’ll be different than we originally planned her to be but I still think she’ll be an integral part of this new X-Men movie,” she expressed.

Did you work around your pregnancy or did you take some time off?

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While there is no argument that breast-feeding has some real health benefits for babies, a new study shows that it also has some harsh implications for mommy’s paycheck. MSNBC.com reports that while new moms thought they were saving money by choosing to breast feed, the choice can cost a woman a drastic dip in earnings for as long as five years after the baby is born.

The study was conducted by Phyllis L.F. Rippeyoung, an assistant sociology professor at Nova Scotia’s Acadia University. Rippeyoung was prompted by her own personal experience while breast-feeding.

“I was a grad student at the time driving back and forth between teaching and classes,” she said to MSNBC. “and my milk was drying up since I couldn’t drive and pump at the same time. It was a very difficult thing, but I had to stop breast-feeding. If I’d continued I couldn’t have worked at the same time.”

Rippeyoung’s study looked at over 1000 first-time moms in the US in their late 20s or 30s who chose to breast feed for six-months or longer. On average, it observed that these women were making around $5,000 less annually five years after the birth of the baby. But why? One explanation points to the lack of hours these women are able to take on at work and a lack of company offered on-site day care.

Although the evidence may certainly discourage new mothers and soon-to-be mothers, Rippeyoung also says she doesn’t want women who chose to breastfeed to get discouraged. “I don’t think it’s inevitable,” she said to MSNBC. “If there were more ways in which women could combine breast-feeding with working you’d see less of this earnings decline.”

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By Charlotte Young

It’s no secret that being a mom and a professional woman is a hard task and we give a round of applause to all those hardworking mamas. As the year wraps up, workingmother.com provides us with the most powerful moms of 2011. To make the list, women must have at least one child who is 18 year old or younger, live in the US and be changing the game in their field.

Where would the list be without Michelle Obama? Workingmother.com lists her as the most powerful mom in Washington. The first lady is mother to Malia, 13 and Sasha, 10. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard, Obama is a role model for moms around the nation. In her position she has committed herself to decrease childhood obesity and launched the “Let’s Move” campaign.

The most powerful mom in science, technology, engineering and math is none other than Ursula Burns. This hardworking sister is the chairman and CEO of Xerox. Burns has two children, Malcom, 21, and Melissa 17. Burns has worked at Xerox from the bottom up, starting as an intern in 1980. In 2009, she became the first African American woman CEO to lead a S&P 100 Company and the first woman to succeed another woman as a S&P company head. Burns groundbreaking work doesn’t stop with her color or gender. In 2010, she increased Xerox’s profits by 25 percent and closed the company’s biggest deal by leading its acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services for $6.4 billion. Raised by a single mother in a New York housing project, Burns went on to earn a Mechanical Engineering degree at New York University and a Masters of Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University.

Also on the list are Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis, co-founders of Gilt Groupe and the most powerful mom entrepreneurs. Both are new moms to one year old sons. The Harvard educated duo took the online shopping market by storm with the launch of Gilt Groupe in 2007. Gilt Groupe features “flash” sales, clothing and accessories for women, men and children at a limited time discounted rate.  With their innovative idea, Maybank and Wilkis have created a $1 billion company.

TV journalist Ann Curry is listed as the most powerful TV journalist mom. With two children, McKenzie, 18, and Walker, 16, Curry has maintained her position as co-anchor of The Today Show on NBC. Beginning in 1991, she is the show’s longest serving new anchor.

Tina Fey is listed as the most powerful mom in Pop Culture. The actress/comedian/writer/producer is mom to six-year-old Alice and four-month-old Penelope. Known for her roles on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, Fey has won seven Emmys, three Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.

By Charlotte Young

These days the kids aren’t waiting in anticipation for daddy to come home from work. They’ve been with him all day. According to Bloomberg, while mommy is working, it’s the husbands that take on the role of keeping house and children.

Stay-at-home fathers are no new trend. According to family demographer Lynda Laughlin with the Census Bureau, the number has been growing since about 1988. But now, data from the Census Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that 54 percent of unemployed fathers with a working wife and preschool-age children are the primary caregivers, or the adult that spends the most time with the child. The number of dads providing consistent child care to children under 15 jumped to 32 percent in 2010.

Part of the reason behind the rise is attributed to the recession. Men were hit harder than women financially when the economy took a downturn. A report from the Pew Research Center revealed that men lost more jobs between December 2007 and May 2011 than women.

The recession may have taken a toll on the financial strength and the traditional roles in the family, but it certainly brought untold happiness to kids glad to have their daddy around.

“You can’t put a price on a father-daughter relationship.” Jeff VanderHejiden told Bloomberg. The former counselor at a residential program for troubled teens was fired last year, two weeks after he’d received a raise and a promotion.

But the recession can’t be blamed completely for the rising number of fathers as primary caregivers. Despite the loss, the study also revealed that men have regained job more quickly than women. It seems some men want to stay at home with the kids.

Ellen Galinksy, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute in New York, tells Bloomberg that as women become a stronger economic force, more men are deciding to stay home with the kids.

Some couples make the decision for the husband to stay at home as a financial decision regardless of the recession. After budgeting the potential cost of outside child care and the income of a low-paying job, they realize the two cancel each other out.

Patrick Spillman, 42 made the decision to stay home with his daughter for that very reason.

“If I’m making X and my wife is making X plus 10, who do you want making the money?”  He said to Bloomberg. “It’s a matter of dollars and cents.”

You know we love Lady O over here at Madame Noire. And we’re not the only ones. Recently other media outlets had a chance to sit down with the first lady in the White House to discuss everything from her Let’s Move campaign to maintaining a sense of normalcy for Sasha and Malia.

Black Enterprise pulled out a few nuggets regarding parenting advice.

Check them out here.

For centuries American black women haven’t had the luxury of staying at home and raising their children. First there was slavery where black women were so preoccupied with raising other people’s children their own often went neglected. Then there was/is institutional racism that almost requires a two person income to support  a family. So we worked.

Then as things began to change and women gained equal footing in educational institutions and in the workplace, black women grinded to make a place for themselves in the corporate world. We worked.

Now that society and opportunities have changed can black women devote their go-get-em attitude to staying home and raising their children?

See how a former journalist-turned stay at home made this transition over at Black Voices.

Would you consider becoming a stay at home if you could afford it financially?

I had a boss who would bring her kids to work…every week. Friday’s were all about ordering pizza, kids running around the hallways screaming and interrupted/canceled meetings. Sounds like fun, right? I’m a mom who loves my child, but I never thought it was a good idea to bring my daughter to that office beyond maybe a five minute visit. My boss didn’t exactly have it figured out, but there’s a way to balance family and business. So, with the help of Katherine Reynolds Lewis, the founder of CurrentMom.com, here are some tips.

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