At some point, many of us will face the onerous task of emptying out our parents’ or other elderly relatives’ homes–either because they’ve died or they’ve moved into assisted living.

It’s a huge job, and it often falls to women: often the daughters, sometimes the daughters-in-law or, as was recently the case of our family, to the sisters.

Trying to deal with a house packed with stuff is a struggle when your life is already a busy one, with a career, children and a spouse to juggle. At best, it’s a big time drain and a distraction. Add in the emotional trauma, the exhaustion of caring for the elderly relative and perhaps some sibling tension, and you’ve got the recipe for a traumatic experience.

Appraiser Julie Hall says it doesn’t have to be a nightmare, though, and I agree after reading her excellent book, “The Boomer Burden: Dealing with Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff.” I interviewed her recently and captured some of her best advice for my recent MSN column, “How to get rid of your folks’ stuff.”

She has practical ideas for managing the actual clear-out, but some of her best tips have to do with prevention. If it’s too late to help your folks, help your kids by:

• Decluttering now. If you haven’t used it in a year, get rid of it. Sites like Unclutterer.com can help provide tips and motivation.
• Give away heirlooms while you’re alive to enjoy the reaction.
• Make a master list of who gets what. You need a will, of course, but you won’t necessarily list every item of sentimental or financial value there. Create a master list and get your kids’ input of who wants what, then you make any hard decisions, so they won’t have to.

TAGS: parents, women, Women and Money

“Sex and the City” made its debut last week (no doubt you heard about it!) but “what’s your point, honey? ” also opened.  Yes, the crowd admittedly was smaller but no less enthusiastic.

The independent film, written, directed and produced byAmy Sewell and Susan Toffler is insightful, powerful and funny.  It tells the stories of seven young women who were selected by CosmoGirl magazine as possible candidates for the White House in 2024 - the contest was designed to create more interest in politics among young women.  These young women are diverse and engaging; they are candid about their personal lives and professional aspirations and I don’t think you can watch the movie without liking each and every one of them. 

Adding to the movie’s charm are the hard hitting “documentary” style questions posed by three younger girls, for example, “Why don’t we have a woman in the White House?” and, “Would you vote for a qualified woman?”

Not surprisingly, Sewell and Toffler weren’t able to secure big studio money to back the film - F-word movies (”feminist” that is) don’t do well, Sewell was told.. So their plan is to distribute the film via DVD (available via their website) and encourage people to invite guests to watch with them. 

As far as I’m concerned, either before or after your girls’ field trip to see “Sex and the City”, stay home with your friends to watch the feel good movie of the year.  The shoes won’t be as fashionista but the ideas will definitely get you talking!

TAGS: Cultural diversity, dealing with family expectations, look and sound of leadership, Political debates, Politics, Raising Girls, Self-trust, women, women role models

But you’ve got to say “no” sometimes and accept that the other person isn’t going to be happy.  I had to do it twice last week — and I did not enjoy it.  Nonetheless, I realized that my interests would not be met if I said yes.

One of the ways women can get in our own way is to try to make others happy at our own expense. Way too often we are so focused on building relationships with others that we forget that we too should expect — and get — consideration. (more…)

TAGS: Building workplace relationships, communication, Communication Skills, negotiation skills, Political skills, Risk-taking, ways to work healthy, women, women and power, Women at Work, Women In the Professions, women leaders

Today I was reading about women being the bigger losers in home foreclosures. The New York Times reported (Jan. 15) that in the Belair-Edison neighborhood of Baltimore more than half of the foreclosures in each of the last four years have been homes owned primarily by women. In 2006, women accounted for 40 percent of home purchases in Baltimore and nearly half of their mortgages were subprime.

“Subprime mortgages are high-cost loans, at least three points above the prime rate, made to borrowers with low income or credit scores. The loans make up just 13 percent of existing home loans but account for 55 percent of foreclosure starts, the Mortgage Bankers Association says.

Though women and men have roughly the same credit scores, the Consumer Federation of America found that women were 32 percent more likely to receive subprime loans than men. The disparity existed within every income and ethnic group. Blacks and Latinos are also more likely to get subprime loans than comparable white borrowers.”

One of the reasons given for this was a disinclination among women to negotiate. Also, the subprime lenders targeted this population.

Now before we assume, however, that this happened because the women weren’t well educated or didn’t have good jobs, consider the following:

“Increased homeownership has been the principal means for women to close this wealth gap. But the disproportion of subprime loans, advocates said, makes it harder for women at all income levels to build wealth by paying off their mortgages.”

“’The striking thing is that the disparity between men and women actually goes up as income rises,’ said Allen J. Fishbein, director of credit and housing policy for the Consumer Federation of America. Among high earners — defined as people earning twice the median income — black women are as much as five times more likely to receive subprime mortgages than white men.”

We women need to ask ourselves what happened here? Liz knows about the financial side and I hope will give us some insights to avoid a repeat of this debacle. Maybe they were being “nice girls” to borrow from Lois — too trusting — or not negotiating at the level required as Carol might tell us. But it wasn’t all them. No doubt the answer is a complex interplay of conditions about which women need to know more.

Shouldn’t we also ask ourselves, too, whether the programs proposed by presidential candidates and the Bush Administration are going to harm these women twice? In other words, are these women, many now struggling to keep their homes, going to get help or is the government simply going to throw money at everyone to get the economy going without extra consideration to those who need help most? Are they going to get the help they need negotiating to keep their mortgages? Some help is already being provided, but for many it’s too little too late.

If you’re in an upcoming primary state and you see a presidential candidate, you might want to ask what they plan to do.

Kathleen

TAGS: government help, subprime loans, wealth, women