Yoganomics — now there’s something New York Times parenting columnist Lisa Belkin could have really sunk her teeth into. Alas, all we got were bitemarks by Emily Bazelon in The New York Times Magazine this week. Writing about the perilous fate of urban freelancers during the downturn, Bazelon focuses on a single mom named Lisa Feuer who became a yoga instructor after divorcing her husband and losing her job doing publicity for his record label. While Bazelon glosses over Feuer’s childcare issues and how they prevent her from supplementing her meager income by, say, bartending, one can just imagine how, in the hands of Lisa Belkin, this would have been a heartbreaking story about the perilous fate of middle-class single moms who equally desire an honest living and time with their children, and how being an employee usually prevents that kind of best-of-both-worlds, nice-life scenario. What’s more, women require safer working conditions than men, limiting their choices as well as their compensation — because even the rich people on whom these female independent contractors typically depend are savvy enough to cut private yoga instruction immediately in a recession. As everybody knows, though, there is no safety net for trust-fund-free single moms. But the services they provide — yoga, massage, family photography — are often the things that, however trivial and indulgent they may appear to be, promote health and happiness. Don’t these women deserve the same?