Out of all of the totally ridiculous reasons to get pregnant (such as to force your man to commit or be able to pig out anytime you want), conceiving for the sole purpose of being able to miss work for an entire year has got to be at the top of the list.

But surprisingly, more and more women in Britain are starting to do just that. After being really sick and tired of the daily grind, they are choosing to have babies simply to take advantage of the standard 52-week maternity leave offered in the U.K. Huh. At first glance, I guess it doesn't seem like an entirely bad idea. Who wouldn't love to take time off from work -- and still have a guaranteed job to come back to an entire year later? Sounds kinda cush -- right?

It took me years to leave my girls with a babysitter. But now there are days when I really just need the down time; a couple hours to be in quiet and hear my own thoughts, remember a grocery list, or finish a sentence without interruption. On the rare occasions I need a sitter, it sometimes seems like I'd do just about anything to get those few precious moments of freedom. Even lie.

After all, I want to make sure the sitter won't be scared off by what really happens in my house. You know what I mean, right?

Here are a few white lies to try to ensure you can get a sitter who will care for your kids.

Thanks to the Rosen/Romney showdown of 2012, working moms are all over the news right now. What better time to stop and reflect over your own working outside of the home, in the home, not working at all but letting the nannies and chefs take care of everything in the home, situations? Over at CNN the hottest article today features a mom who declares, "I can't afford to work," and sadly, this is oftentimes true in the world of insanely expensive child care and low paying jobs. (Although the woman in this article said she decided clearing $18,000 a year wasn't enough to have someone else take care of her kids, for some of us that would be PLENTY. That's after child care and commuting costs, you guys.)

After my first child was born, I also found myself in the position of working only to pay the babysitter, and sometimes (most of the time), going in the hole. But I worked, even though I totally couldn't afford to do it.

It's possible that none of our kids will take much heed to the childhood diddy that goes, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Charlie pushing a baby carriage!" Especially since two-thirds of babies are now being born to women under the age of 30 and unmarried. This traditional set-up is going the way of the dodo, and even I -- a married mother to two -- can totally understand why.

While the conventional wisdom says this is not a great thing, and it's true many of these children wind up living in poverty, marriage just doesn't seem necessary anymore. Parents? Absolutely necessary. Marriage? Eh.

Will he? Won’t he? Do he? Don’t he? E’rybody is talking about whether Jay-Z is or isn’t going to stop wielding the dreaded (and frankly, quite overused) B-word now that he’s proud papa to a brand spankin’ new baby girl. You know, that’s how we all start out, mere infants before we grow into… B-words.

Earlier this week, the web was buzzing with reports that little bitty Blue Ivy had inspired her daddy to stop using that most infamous slander against all womanhood. Everybody covered it and we gals (including me) cheerleaded Jay for his monumental epiphany. But then — womp womp — turns out Mr. Carter never actually said he was taking that word out of his vocabulary. That makes the story untrue. A fib, as my grandmother would say. His publicist set the record straight because heaven forbid we get that misconstrued.

My brother-in-law and his wife had a baby several months ago, and now that their maternity/paternity leaves are up, they're facing that dubious milestone most working parents are all too familiar with: the First Day of Daycare Drop-Off. And thus will begin a new chapter in their lives, one I hope goes smoothly for them.

I had, by and large, a completely positive experience with the daycare we used for our boys. The people there were amazing and wonderful and kind, and both my kids absolutely thrived in that environment.

Still, I didn't want to have to use a daycare. I never did. Jesus, if I could have figured out a different solution back then, I would have.

Good news for breastfeeding moms back in the workplace. The government is cracking down on employers who don't accommodate women who need to take time during the day to express milk. So far, 23 companies have received citations at certain locations, including McDonald's and Starbucks.

These new requirements are part of the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in March 2010. The rules haven't been finalized yet, but the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour division has shed some insight, stating: "[Employers are required to provide] reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for 1 year after the child's birth ... [as well as] a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public."

A) Pretty sad that this doesn't already exist, and B) not gonna lie -- kinda nervous to pump once I return from maternity leave.

I followed a link over to a post in the CafeMom forums a couple weeks ago, and I confess that I did so entirely because of the title. I kind of hate when I click things that I KNOW are going to make me crazy, but it's like when someone says, "Oh my god, this smells awful," and I'm all, OH LET ME SMELL IT TOO. Why, self?

Anyway, the post is titled "I think the death of the SAHM ruined this country" and the author posted the opinion that if "more women would/were able to stay home and raise their children this world would be a better place."

That's not actually the part that made me crazy, though. It was the follow-up comments, which featured the argument that anyone can be a SAHM—if they know how to manage a budget.