how do i convince my husband

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2004
how do i convince my husband
1841
Mon, 07-18-2005 - 4:09pm
how do i convince my husband to let me at least job-share so i can take care of our 3 month old dd? he grew up with his mom working & all his friend's moms working. we can afford it if we cut back on some things, but he doesn't want to cut back & just doesn't understand someone wanting to be a stay at home mom...it doesn't help mycause that the grandmothers will babysit. i'm so unhappy about having to go back to work...he wants me to work full time 1 more year & just doesn't get it! i feel like my heart is being ripped from my chest every time i hink about it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 5:44pm

You see, I had a *natural* mom.

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-25-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 5:52pm

No, necessity isn't convenience but the wealthy did use wet nurses for convenience. I noted two cases.

Given infant mortality rates, there were probably plenty of mothers who had milk but no babies as well who might have been more than willing to help another child survive.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-1998
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 6:03pm

<>


Seems that way?

PumpkinAngel

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 6:08pm

No, I think most folks do what is best in their particular situation.

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 6:34pm
Where's her post with the link about 30 percent of women dying in childbirth? Unless that statistic is very limited to time and place (like in urban areas in the north of Europe in the early 19th century) it sounds VERY high to me. I'd like to see the evidence.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 10:25pm
Sometimes it's fun.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 10:29pm
___

<<16 She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.***


This shows that she has her own money, not that she WOH. >>


Right and with a dh who doesn't earn a living...where do you think she is getting that money?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Sun, 08-07-2005 - 10:41pm

You need to read The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. I think that's where the guy from Freakonomics gets his stuff on the influence of peers.

The topic is highly contested. The people who have been telling us for years that we (as parents) have the most influence (most of the academy) are VERY threatened by the concept that maybe we don't make as big of a difference as we think, at least not through our nurturing. (We make plenty of difference in giving our children our genetic information.)

(Just for kicks I wanted to share one of Judith Harris's observations about peer influence. She talks about how immigrant children who know no English can grow up in a home where only the "old" language is spoken and as long as they start school here soon enough (say, about 7 or 8,) the children will grow up with accent-less English. What exactly does that say about parental influence?)

BTW, this is one of my favorite topics!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2004
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 12:19am

I was thinking about it while we were at the beach

Mondo

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2002
Mon, 08-08-2005 - 5:59am

"Just for kicks I wanted to share one of Judith Harris's observations about peer influence. She talks about how immigrant children who know no English can grow up in a home where only the "old" language is spoken and as long as they start school here soon enough (say, about 7 or 8,) the children will grow up with accent-less English. What exactly does that say about parental influence?"

I'm not sure that language acquisition is such a good example of what she is trying to argue. Multilingualism is a very complex issue and there are many ways and reasons for children to acquire multiple languages that have little to do with more or less parental influence or more or less peer influence.

In the particular case she cites above, is she claiming that learning "accent-less" English is an example of peer influence dominating over parental influence? If so, why? What if the parents are actively supporting their children's acquisition of accentless English? What would happen of the parents were very negative about their children learning English? In my experience, the reason why young children pick up the school language in an accentless fashion is because they still have a certain level of flexibility in their ability to hear subtle differences in intonation that most adults no longer have. Learning a language without an accent is not indicative of peer influence being more important than parental influence, it is indicative of a child's ability to distinguish between correctly and incorrectly pronounced words.

Here's a concrete example of this: when ds starts English class next year, he will be surrounded by his peers and his teacher pronouncing English to some extent incorrectly. I fully expect him to continue to speak English correctly in spite of this (I know from the experiences of friends that this is the most likely scenario). However, Ds and dd both speak Swedish fluently and without an accent. Does this mean that peer influence has been more important than parental influence? If so, why? They also speak English and German fluently and without accent (I am currently their only source of English, they have more variety of exposure to German through dh, school and some friends). Ds strongly prefers to read in English (so much so that it has begun to be an issue at school, though he does the required minimum for school work without complaining). Dd and ds strongly prefer to speak English with each other (actually, they refuse to speak anything else with each other regardless of whether there are other friends present who don't speak English). But on the other hand, they still prefer to speak German with some friends who are fluent in Swedish as well. Why..parental or peer pressure (we are happy that they continue to speak German with each other)? (actually I'm still not sure of the answer to that question).

Can one really then say that peer influence has been more important than parental influence in the case of my children's pattern of language acquisition? Are the two influences even in competition with each other (e.g. if one goes up the other automatically goes down)? If the author is making this kind of assumption in terms of language acquisition, I have to wonder how she is determining peer vs. parental influence in other areas.

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