Rock and a Hard Place

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Rock and a Hard Place
1524
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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Avatar for outside_the_box_mom
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 6:06am
But that is just it. It's a personality thing. I would no more expect a person like CLW to want to write than I would expect someone like myself to see the world in terms of numbers, the way CLW does.

What is bothersome about CLW's outlook is that because she was utterly bored and miserable at home, she therefore feels there is no value in it. I'm sure if she had had a PT job where she could have done her engineering AND SAH, she would have been much happier.

We all need our outlets -- call them creative or whatever. For some it is scrapbooking (something that would drive me insane), for others it's dickering with an autocad drawing. My colleague is a WAHM and she is an engineer like CLW. She has an MBA and an MS and is quite happy working 15 hours a week for one client and SAH the rest of the time until her children are a little older. She is like CLW, too. Sees everything in terms of numbers. Drives me nuts. But I drive her nuts because I see everything in terms of marketing. :-)

outside_the_box_mom

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 7:09am
I think that is a little different then the scene you have set for us with SAH's watching soaps while drinking spiked coffee when the little one's wander off.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 7:43am
It isn't so much a matter of what you do in your own family as what schools are doing. With all of the hoopla around computers in schools, parents are led to believe that it is important for elementary aged kids to have access to computers in schools. It isn't. An elementary school would do much better to spend the $ on playground equipment or teachers or basic classroom supplies than computers.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 8:29am
Lottery for oversubscribed schools, I think it was. And of course some people aren't willing to send their kids miles away on a bus when one is right down the street so not everyone would be switching. The more rural a district is, the more unlikely it is that more than a handful would be changing, I would think.

My parents in essence did this for my brother and me. My father owned a family business in, and thus we grew up in, a district with a terrible school system - he had gone through it when it was ok but it had deteriorated badly. My mother got on the phone and found that one of the next districts over was underpopulated for the size of their school and was willing to take my brother and myself tuition-free if we provided our own transportation. For the next 5 years my mother (in a pinch, my father) drove us the 11 miles to school, drove back, drove 6 miles the other direction to work, drove the 17 miles back to our school to pick us up, then drove us the 11 back home. And much of the time we had school activities that were far enough into the evening that she drove us BACK over and sat in the car for the hour and a half or so that we practiced, then back again. (THAT's my definition of an extremely dedicated parent! With a very high-mileage car, LOL!)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 8:32am
You're right, I overstated it - she doesn't advocate needing to rely on more than one income for fixed expenses. She also advocates insurance coverage.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 8:46am

That is why everyone is debating with her.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 8:53am

I really don't think so.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 9:23am
So,you won't ever complain about sahms who "let their kids play the computer"?Most reputable dc and preschools around here do not allow computers or any other "passive learning'.Most ece experts agree that hands on learning is better for small kids,which is why even

"educational" TV is frowned upon.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 9:28am
But I'm agreeing with you.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 11-25-2003 - 9:32am
But if children were emotionally taken care of, and mom was just as happy working as being home, and the family wasn't suffering time or other undue stress, why wouldn't having more household income be better than having less?

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