Brotherhood
Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream
by Deepak Chopra and Sanjiv Chopra
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"A record 40 percent of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family," the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday as it released data that certainly won't surprise many Americans but will underscore some dramatic shifts over recent decades.
Citing data from the Census Bureau as its source, Pew notes how much has changed in just a few generations: In 1960, so-called breadwinner moms were the sole or primary sources of income in just 11 percent of U.S. families with children.
According to Pew:
— "Breadwinner moms are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37 percent) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63 percent) are single mothers."
— "The growth of both groups of mothers is tied to women's increasing presence in the workplace. Women make up almost of half (47 percent) of the U.S. labor force today, and the employment rate of married mothers with children has increased from 37 percent in 1968 to 65 percent in 2011."
The research center also released results of a related survey of public opinion. Among the highlights:
— "About three-quarters of adults (74 percent) say the increasing number of women working for pay has made it harder for parents to raise children, and half say that it has made marriages harder to succeed. At the same time, two-thirds say it has made it easier for families to live comfortably."
— "About half (51 percent) of survey respondents say that children are better off if a mother is home and doesn't hold a job, while just 8% say the same about a father."
— "On the topic of single mothers, most Americans (64 percent) say that this growing trend is a 'big problem;' however, the share who feel this way is down from 71 percent in 2007."
The April 25-28 national telephone survey of 1,003 adults has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points on each result.
Related:
— Stay-At-Home Dads, Breadwinner Moms And Making It All Work.
— NPR's "Changing Lives Of Women" special series.
One year after Facebook's troubled initial public offering, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Wednesday that it has "charged Nasdaq with securities laws violations resulting from its poor systems and decision-making ... [and that] Nasdaq has agreed to settle the SEC's charges by paying a $10 million penalty."
According to the SEC, that is the largest such penalty ever paid by one of the stock exchanges.
The agency says that:
Police in France say that a 21-year-old Muslim convert who confessed to stabbing a French soldier was apparently motivated by his religious beliefs, in an eerie echo of an attack last week in London, in which a British serviceman was killed.
Pvt. Cedric Cordiez, 25, was approached from the back and stabbed in the neck at a shopping mall in a suburb of Paris on Saturday. He was treated at a military hospital and released on Monday, officials said.
The New York Times reports that Paris public prosecutor Francois Molins on Wednesday announced the arrest of Alexandre Dhaussy, 21, who authorities say confessed to the crime. Molins said investigators believe that Dhaussy had "acted in the name of his religious ideology."
Molins said authorities were treating the attack as a terrorist act, and that Dhaussy had been caught on surveillance video apparently saying a prayer minutes before stabbing Cordiez.
"The nature of the incident, the fact it took place three days after [the London attack], and the prayer just before the act lead us to believe he acted on the basis of religious ideology and that his desire was to attack a representative of the state," Molins said at a news conference. "It seems clear the intent was to kill."
The Times says that Dhaussy had been known to authorities since 2009, "when he was submitted to an identity check for praying in the street."