40% of Moms are the Primary Breadwinner in Their Household

Big Mama’s Household Income

(Scheduling Note: NextDraft will not be published tomorrow in observance of my son’s seventh birthday when the day’s top story will be my delivery of a seemingly healthy snack to him and his classmates. Back on Friday).

According to the latest numbers from Pew, “a record 40% 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.” In homes where the mother is the primary breadwinner, total family income is higher. And among married couples with children, the wife’s income tops the husband’s 23% of the time. That’s up from 4% in 1960.

+ And yet, the income gap still exists. Among Harvard grads entering the same industry, males are still likely to make more money.

The Bacon Bubble

Speaking of bringing home the bacon, China‘s Shuanghui International Holdings just acquired Smithfield Foods (America’s largest pork seller) for $4.72 billion in cash. I guess pork is no longer the “other” white meat.

Scrubs

A Long Island employee enters a room. A motion detector goes off. That triggers a video camera that enables someone in India to do some realtime monitoring. The employee works at a hospital. The goal of the system is to make sure doctors and nurses are washing their hands. Why is this a such a big deal? “Studies have shown that without encouragement, hospital workers wash their hands as little as 30 percent of the time that they interact with patients.” Nearly 100,000 patients a year die from hospital-acquired infections.

Meek Out on These Numbers

We upload more than 500 million photos a day. And that’s just counting the photos shared on four top sites. Fifteen percent of Americans say they share “everything” or “most things” online. And that’s way below the international average. If you want to geek out on these and other very interesting stats, check out the slides from Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report.

+ “More human beings can write and type their every thought than ever before in history. Something to celebrate or deplore?” From Tom Chatfield in Aeon: I Type, Therefore I Am. If I had any idea typing would be this integral to modern life, I would have at least brought a third finger into the mix.

Don’t Bogart the Weeds

In a very interesting NYT piece, Jo Robinson argues that we’ve systematically bred the nutrition out of our food over the past 10,000 years.

+ Tom Philpott in MoJo: How I got hooked on weeds — and why you should too.

+ Once you’ve ingested your daily supply of wild weed super-foods, you might want to take a ride in the truck with a Mister Softee veteran who’s been melting hearts in Queens for 27 years.

Deep Inside the Actors Studio

James Lipton is celebrating the 250th episode of Inside the Actors Studio. In this interview with Parade, Lipton discusses the show, his favorite interview, and his prior career as a pimp in Paris (I suppose we can guess his favorite curse word).

+ Spoiler alert. His favorite interview was with one of the graduates of his program: Bradley Cooper. Here’s about a minute and a half to give you the gist. And here’s Cooper, as a second year acting student, asking Sean Penn a question on the show. In retrospect, I should have used Bradley Cooper’s head for my logo.

Whom the Well Tolls

A New Mexico county has become the first in the nation to ban fracking. According to one resident of the farming community, “I don’t want to destroy our water. You can’t drink oil.”

+ In Oregon, a natural gas export plan has united some opponents.

+ Even with opposition and health concerns, it will be difficult to slow America’s new energy boom. And no one is watching that development more closely than Saudi Arabia. From FP, To Drill or Not to Drill.

Run This Way

The NYT’s Gretchen Reynolds looks for some answers to an increasingly contentious question: Is it better to walk or run?

+ And a related question. Is it better to walk or run or run 100 mile races? From Slate: What are extreme runners thinking?

The Tourism Picture

Do you know which city is the number one tourist destination in the world? It’s Bangkok. That won’t come as much of a surprise to those who track photo popularity on Instagram. Bangkok’s Siam Paragon shopping mall is Instagram’s second most photographed location. The first is Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport.

The Bottom of the News

In Esquire, a Toronto native makes the case for why you may want a crack-smoking mayor.

+ The decline of eye contact.

+ Buzzfeed: 33 things you never knew about the women of Game of Thrones.