Rock and a Hard Place
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Rock and a Hard Place
| Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am |
There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.
| Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am |
There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.
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"I think a lot of people don't budget enough to know whether they are making sound financial decisions enough to be able to afford the standard of living they are LIVING."
Well then, there's no hope for them if they don't even have a budget.
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dj
Dj
"Now when I need help, I look in the mirror" ~Kanye West~
BTW I did check out the picture of you that you mentioned. Any idea why it looks like a 'painting' on my screen and if there's anything I can do about that? I'm a gumby with online photos - I can see it well enough to tell you're lookin' great, and just about what I had pictured. (Except for the dress!) ;-)
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It is an accepted social more of cicilized society that one allows other people to help raise one's children. The child-obsessed culture we live in today has created too much guilt for those of us who have to work, or worse, choose to work, and much too much smugness from those who choose to stay at home. I have done both as a mother of a 13 year old and 11 year old. I believe it is my right as a woman to decide how to raise my children. As long as I am comfortable with my choices and as long as I am an involved parent I am happy with things as they are. I know myself---I am not a good parent when I am cooped up in the house all day, or when I am fully dedicated to the house and kids. I need a lot of intellectual interests and adult interaction --a job helps me get that, plus money, too. But if you are a different breed of cat, more power to you!
I think that the 7 or 8 hours claimed by these folks is exaggerated. If it's not interaction time, it doesn't count. If the kids are plopped in front of a video while they wash dishes, it doesn't count. I am pleased that they have chosen a 12-18 hour day that includes childcare, domestic servitude, and what I consider boring, repetitive tasks as your career. I respect that choice and admire anyone who can do it. I have about 8 hours a day of something else that I like to do (unfortunately I have issues with domestic tasks, can you guess?) and then 4- 10 hours of the same thing you do all day. There are some of us who choose to or have to work. Justifying one's choices by making ridiculous claims for interaction time with your kids is divisive. We're all women, we need each other to support each other's chocies. Life is hard enough without having to listen to other women crow about their imagined victory over a social order that requires most women to work outside the home during childbearing years. These women should be using their energy to change the system so that the institutions that promulgate the poor daycare choices and other un-family-friendly policies have to change. We are powerful enough to do this. 52 percent of the people int he workforce are women. If we all mobilized we could effect some real change. What about a nationwide women's strike to protest the U.S.'s backward social policies for working moms? We could shut down the entire country! Now that would be 8 hours to brag about.
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